I prefer to get students’ complaints via email rather than in person and definitely before they vent on course evaluations. I do not do well with conflict, and it is easier for me to sort out my emotions, get advice from colleagues, and decide on a rational course of action before I respond to the student.

Most of the students who have been frustrated with my classes (usually with their grades) have been male. I am a woman, short, and young, and I feel physically intimidated by these men. The last thing I want to do is have a private meeting in my office with these angry students. Not that I think they would actually physically harm me, but I do not have much confidence in my ability to be firm and professional in such situations. This semester I referred a particularly insistent student to the department ombudsman so that he could mediate.

When I’m teaching, though, or when I’m using email to negotiate academic issues of various kinds, I have to admit that checking email morphs from an entertaining distraction to something I dread. And though I often enjoy using email to stay in touch with friends, sometimes I get overwhelmed by it, especially when I find myself with a backlog of unanswered emails and a nagging feeling of guilt for avoiding them. And the longer I wait, the worse it gets, because then I have to explain why I’ve failed to answer for six months or whatever.

As far as email lowering social inhibitions, I think that can be a positive or a negative. I suspect we’ve all seen examples of the negative. But there have been times in my life that email has been a real lifesaver for me, because it’s enabled me to have some important conversations about difficult subjects that I might never have managed to bring up in person.

Great post, Eve! A much needed one for all teachers at the end of the school year

queuno, I’m especially fascinated by your accounts of professors who just delete complaints. Ray similarly mentioned that some people are just venting. I’ve certainly been tempted to ignore student emails, but I’ve always felt somehow that a complaint, however unfounded or obnoxious, deserved some kind of response, even if only a one-liner. I do like Addere Coram’s suggestion of requiring complainers to see me in person, and especially during the semester I’ve generally done that. On the other hand, Ray’s right that some situations are easier to defuse via email. In this case the student claimed to be complaining on behalf of four others, so I just ignored the four others, addressed only his concerns, and told him that the university handles grade complaints on a case-by-case basis. So far it’s been effective at making the complainants who lacked the nerve to contact me themselves disappear, as I’d hoped it would. I suspect they were just hoping to ride an easy bandwagon to a better grade.

Ann, I too struggle to find the right tone. Sometimes I’ve read emails I’m drafting aloud to my husband, and he’s told me I’m being too conciliatory. Of course we all sometimes we have to communicate unpleasant things people don’t want to hear. Sometimes there’s simply no way to avoid upsetting people, no matter how we communicate.

Ziff, me too. It’s such a Zelophehad family affliction. Then after I send an email over which I’ve agonized I agonize waiting for a response. Argggh. I periodically conclude that I just shouldn’t interact with other people at all. It’s too hard on my neuroses.

William, I totally understand getting out of teaching comp. Good reminder too about the eternity of email (and blog posts and comments, more’s the horror).

I really like RT’s suggestion about imagining the person’s face. Some people whose ideas have driven me to frothing rage have taken me completely aback when I met them in person and they were so…nice, so human. I suddenly couldn’t froth at them anymore. Although I wouldn’t be dying to post my own picture, I’ve sometimes wondered if just having the sender’s face come in with the email wouldn’t make me more humane.

ESO, I taught online for awhile too and that was exactly my experience. The online students were, as a group, significantly ruder than my face-to-face students.

Jacob J, heh heh.

queuno, is it possible that email is spreading the virus of passive-aggressive namby-pambiness?

Mark IV, oh yeah, chain emails from church members! I didn’t even think about that when I wrote this post, but I recently blocked the address of an old friend who was sending me several chain emails a week, sob stories about dying children turning into angels and glurge and random inflammatory petitions.

Ethesis, ECS, Sam B, Kaimi, FoxyJ–so glad to hear I’m not alone in my teacherly frustrations! As ECS said, I hate to fall into the finger-wagging this-younger-generation cliche, but I have to admit that nothing pushes my buttons as a teacher more than an overblown sense of entitlement. I’m sure that’s partly because I’ve never protested a grade in my life; if I got a grade I didn’t like, I always assumed it was my own fault (and frankly I’ve gotten a number of As and thought that I’d somehow hoodwinked the professor because I clearly deserved less!)

Good luck with your decision on grad school, FoxyJ. (You’re in comp lit, right? I’d love to hear more about your particular interests and all–drop me a line if you’d like.)

Ann and Bored in Vernal, I’m so glad to hear that sometimes email works well. I do sometimes get pleasant, kind emails that make my day. Sometimes just a friendly name in my inbox makes all the difference in my mood.

Susan M, yep, that just about sums it up!

And as far as the e-mail goes, I think if they have to teach a university 101 (intro to college life) about how not to get drunk and date-raped, the least they could do is include a section on how to write a civil e-mail to an instructor. Granted I do not hold my PhD yet, but when a student sends the old “hey bro…” greeting at the beginning of the e-mail, I want to just flag it as junk mail. Anything that follows just can’t be taken seriously, and is usually a complaint about how late they stayed out last night and if they can get an extension on the homework since I’m such a nice guy. Some people really have the audacity to be completely unethical.

On more than one occasion have I found myself writing a page long e-mail to a student in a fit of rage wondering how they made it to college, only to erase it after calming down, and then sending a one line e-mail stating that we should discuss the issue during my office hours, knowing full well that most of the time they will never get around to coming to my office.

I guess more than anything its just aggravating for the amount of time we put into planning, preparing and teaching a class, the least the student could do is show some respect, maybe even pay a little attention and if we are lucky, do the homework. Is that too much to ask? Maybe.

I’ve found that if anyone ever gets angry and goes off on me online, responding really nicely and being kind about it makes them calm down and apologize pretty quickly.

I try to re-read what I have typed prior to sending it (e-mail or blog comment) and try to understand how I would react if it were being sent to me. That usually works to soften the tone. There still are misunderstandings that arise occasionally, but they happen more rarely than before I began this focus.

Btw, if I were dealing again with multiple angry students, I would far rather deal with them initially via e-mail. That gives me the chance to pick and choose with whom I deal first – and those I simply avoid unless they press the issue. Sometimes, venting is all some students do, and if you ignore them they stop.