Professors lament empty office hours

Today's so-called "organization kid" would feel markedly out of place in the bygone Princeton era of F. Scott Fitzgerald '17's "This Side of Paradise," when intellectual exploration seemed to be at a peak, and when it was more common for professors to interact with students outside of the classroom.

Politics professor Patrick Deneen alluded to Fitzgerald's novel in discussing the workhorse workload and schedules of today's Princeton students, who much too often leave him staring at an empty seat during office hours.

English professor John Fleming GS '63 quipped about the problem, "I separate the men from the boys with an 8 a.m. office hours . . . Quite often no one comes at all."

But even during his later office hours, many of the students who do show up — mostly around exams and due dates — are ultimately interested in discussing grades, Fleming said.

Why the empty-office hours phenomenon?

"My theory is that to a certain extent email has killed office hours," Deneen said.

But it might be that the "organization professor" plays a role too.

"Some of my professors didn't even tell me their office hours," said Eric Lulu '07.

Deneen described the intellectual life here as "immense" and based on the cross-fertilization of ideas through the ever-expanding forum of lectures, conferences and colloquies.

"The model of scholarship is one of colloquy," he said.

Does involvement in academic pursuits, conferences and seminars distract faculty and graduate students from undergraduate teaching?

Pressure on graduate students and junior and nontenured faculty to perform meaningful academic research and generate publications, to succeed in an increasingly competitive academic market, is another factor in the strained relationship between undergraduates and their elders, professors agreed.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"Any professor worth his salt is a multi-tasker and a lot of this is quite manageable, but some of it draws attention away from undergrads," said Professor Stanley Katz of the Wilson School.

Katz is hot on the trail of worrisome trends in universities across the nation, having written articles on "The Cheated Undergraduate" in Newsday in May and questioning "In its expansion, is Princeton losing its way?" in Princeton alumni's Perspective magazine in February.

Katz, like Deneen, also mentioned the convenience of email. But he pointed to what he said were some common characteristics of Princeton students in explaining the empty-office hours epidemic.

"I feel that Princeton students on the whole are self-starters. They don't require remedial attention," he said. As a result, he said, "They don't come by as often as they should."

Fleming said part of the problem is the student-teacher relation.

"There aren't enough structures in the University to encourage spontaneous, informal interaction," Fleming said, who also cited an "intimidation factor" in explaining why students fail to show up.

In many small schools, students expect professors to invite them over dinner, and close interaction is considered the norm, Deneen said, noting the absence of such expectations here.

While Princeton students reflect the behavior of many students at large universities, as Fleming remarked, where students are forced to be proactive and aggressive in pursuing faculty because graduate students do more of the teaching and professors are less available, there are new initiatives aiming to change that.

Most notably, the freshman writing program and freshman seminars create an intimate learning environment and often foster closer student-professor relationships, creating a "very expansive form of undergraduate education," Katz said.

The unique Princeton tradition of junior papers and senior theses also provides a chance for students to work one-on-one with professors. But when students only start interacting with professors during their last year at Princeton, Deneen said, the value of the JP and thesis experience is diminished.

"It's best to consider the senior thesis as a culmination of a series of fruitful relationships with faculty," Deneen said, the "cultivation of learning how to talk to professors . . . [leading to] a more robust set of relationships over a four-year period."

Relationships don't just develop with professors, though.

It pays to be a good mentor to students, especially for graduate students, who often request recommendations from professors about their monitored, controlled teaching experiences, Math professor Robert Gunning GS '55 said.

"You can't get tenure without being a fine researcher, and you can't get tenure without being a fine teacher. They look for both," Katz said.

Gunning said the McGraw Center provides a useful support system for graduate student instructors. The greater emphasis on graduate student teaching skills pays off out of the classroom as well, where Gunning notes the their prominent role in supervising and assisting undergraduates in math problem-set study groups.

In the math department, student-faculty interaction often revolves around a study-sessions model in addition to the one-on-one model normally associated with office hours, Gunning said.

Perhaps it is impossible to change the economy, the academic market or the evolution of professors and students trying to succeed in the "Pathbreaking, Fractionalized, Uncertain World of Knowledge," as Katz wrote about in the Chronicle of Higher Education in September 2002.

And it is doubtful that today's University students will never exhibit the same tendencies that some Princeton professors had as students here, like Fleming.

"I belonged to a self-defined group of intellectuals that hung out with professors," Fleming said.

But there are further changes underway in the structure of Princeton University that might lead to greater student-faculty interaction, in particular the new four-year, six-college system, said Katz, who is overall weary of the expansion. Faculty-fellows residing in the colleges will be all the more accessible to students throughout their four years at Princeton.

"I like to be able to have the one-on-one interaction with professors," said Jamie Loxton '06, who said she shared a vegetarian meal with Professor Peter Singer at Kalluri Korner last week.

And the reverse is also true. Professors yearn to see students more readily available.

"Students ask you questions that people in your profession don't ask, and it's very exciting to be asked these questions and think about them again," Deneen said.