E-mailing your professor

As I opened The New York Times on Feb. 21, I was greeted by a front page article about college professors and, in particular, the students who e-mail them. As I read the article, which was intensely critical of the informality and candor of communications between students and faculty, a knot began to form in my stomach. I have e-mailed faculty regularly over the past few years, so could some of e-mails have landed in professors' "most ridiculous e-mails" folder? Having seen some of the examples that professors from around the country sent in, my guess is that I'm fine, but the more I think about it, the more I think that reporter Jonathan Glater got it wrong.

The piece fit nicely into the category of complaints about my generation — we're too informal, lackadaisical and lack the work ethic of our parents and grandparents. Let's ignore the fact that many (David Brooks among them) would disagree and see reality — e-mail and the bigger concept of increased communication with professors outside of class have made my Princeton education better and more comprehensive.

Today, that's changing. The advent of e-mail is simply representative of how relationships between faculty and students are moving beyond the lectern-audience dynamic into something less formal and a bit more familiar.

The academic transition between high school and college is tough. Sitting in large lectures freshman year inspires feelings of both respect and fear of faculty. The people with the Powerpoint slides are obviously incredibly bright, but they also appear inaccessible to those young eyes. As a freshman, I was deathly afraid of office hours. I was afraid of both looking like a complete idiot while wasting the time of someone who was far busier than I could ever imagine being. I had an issue with my preceptor in ECO 101 (the whole lack of English was a problem), and after several upperclassmen literally pushed me into place, I tepidly knocked on Professor Alan Blinder's door. Here's a man internationally respected for his research and experiences, who looked about as accessible from the balcony of McCosh 50 as he did in TV interviews. I was just a bit nervous. As he ushered me into his office and laid every one of my fears to rest over the course of the next 20 minutes, something inside me began to change. It became clear that he, like most other faculty members on this campus, was a real person, interested not only in their particular field but also in getting to know their students, receiving feedback on the class and generally wanting to make sure that my transition to college was going as smoothly as possible.

Needless to say, that was the first of many visits to Professor Blinder's office (sorry to have bothered you so much, Professor), and that process repeated itself many times with many different professors, each time with a bit less trepidation. E-mail is great because it lowers the threshold for communication between reluctant students and busy faculty. Isn't that what we want? Because it can be answered at any time, it is less intrusive, and because it can be edited, it ensures that we don't make fools of ourselves on the first try. E-mail allows questions to be asked right as you're working (not forcing you to wait six days until the next office hours) and clearly helps the entire class by showing lecturers what needs to be clarified at the beginning of next class.

For better or worse, students are often reluctant to drag themselves to office hours. Some are downright lazy, while others are apprehensive or convinced that their question isn't worth their professor's time. We want to encourage students to view their professors as accessible, and e-mails start conversations. The back and forth dialogue of e-mail stimulates thinking and learning beyond the textbook, where professors can encourage obviously curious students to devote energy to understanding the nuances that aren't always so clear during lecture.

Clearly, with privilege comes responsibility, and students need to respect boundaries. Obviously, being polite is key (isn't it always?). So is being respectful of time and position. But I get the feeling that violations are the exception and not the norm and that most faculty that I talk to like communicating with students who otherwise wouldn't step up. On reflection, isn't that a good thing? Matthew Gold is a politics major from New York, New York. He can be reached at mggold@princeton.edu. Recent commentary can be found at Matthew's Blog: http://mattggold.blogspot.com.