Of the myriad results of The Herald's recent student poll, I was most pleased to find that students at Brown frequently interact with professors outside the classroom ("Herald poll: interactions with profs vary beyond the classroom," Nov. 22). Indeed, such a high level of interaction between the vast majority of the student body and its faculty is almost unheard of on many other campuses. I share the sentiments of many in the article that this interaction is an achievement, and something to be pursued even more in the future.
Yet while I'm glad that the University encourages extra-classroom relationships between students and professors, the article only begins to address the power imbalance of such relationships. Out of that imbalance emerges various issues of etiquette, expectations and undefined territory.
Often, once students figure out that getting to know a few professors well is one of the best goals they can pursue at Brown, the process can easily turn into an awkward courtship. First base: Go to office hours a few times. The thrill of an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award proposal accepted. Second base: Discuss your joint research over lunch on Thayer. You've gone public! Third base: Babysit the kids. Home run: Get drunk together?
Given, the whole experience doesn't have to seem quite so exploitative and, let's admit, creepy. Clearly some of us are mature enough to see our professors as fellow humans and peers … right?
Sure, most of the time. But in the host of other Brown resources of which we're expected to take advantage, professorial relationships rank high on the list and necessarily hold a pressure for students that I can't believe is mutual from the perspective of the faculty. I absolutely believe that they appreciate our youthful energy, fresh ideas and investment in their academic specialties. I also recognize that undergraduates can add to a research team with their time and resources. I am continually thankful for the real commitment that Brown professors have made to not only teach, but also mentor their undergraduate students.
Nevertheless, as much as professors value their relationships with us, they are unencumbered by the need for a good recommendation. Professors are our intellectual allies and can become friends, as Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron stated in the Nov. 22 article, but there's a line drawn necessarily because of their higher influence and individual importance to our undergraduate careers. There's a reason why every time my adviser asks me to feed his cat when he's gone, he stresses to me that I should feel no obligation to do so.
The odd character of students' relationships with professors is perhaps best illustrated concretely by the odd practice of nomenclature around Brown's campus. In my own department, history, professors are called "Professor" almost without fail. Whether this is a student tendency or an expectation by the faculty is unclear to me — my guess is it's a combination of both.
If there are exceptions to that rule, it seems to occur on an individual basis. Especially by senior year, many students have worked extensively with at least one professor, whether on the professor's own research, a joint project or the student's capstone or senior thesis. These working relationships might lead to a professor asking a student to use her or his first name, emphasizing the collaborative work in which they are engaged.
In a department like history, this practice inevitably brings up complications. Imagine one student telling another that he ran into "Professor Johnson" on the street. "Oh yeah, I saw Mark yesterday!" exclaims the other. Imagine a student writing an email to two professors, beginning with the greeting, "Dear Professor Watson and Julie." Disparities in naming practices among different students automatically communicate differing levels of familiarity. Frankly, it can be quite awkward.
The Department of Computer Science circumvents this issue completely. CS professors are almost exclusively called by their first names. Even Professor Andries van Dam, celebrated in his field, is universally called "Andy." Simplicity.
This is not to say that we need to do away with the practice of using the title "professor." Our faculty members deserve recognition of their work and status, and besides, every time I say it I can't help but think that my life is a little more like Hogwarts than it was in high school. Rather, the issue of nomenclature is a representative example of the unique, and often quite complicated, character of student-faculty relationships.
Without question, these relationships are empowering for the student, rewarding for the professor and enriching to academic life at Brown as a whole. Yet if we are to encourage the expansion of such relationships, we should make sure to recognize their nuances, from the differences in faculty and student motivations to the changing standards of personal interaction as the relationship grows.
Chelsea Waite '11 is a history concentrator from Los Gatos, Calif. She can be reached at chelsea_waite@brown.edu.
