Favorite student emails

[research_prof]

Student emailed me at 6:30 tonight to request a zoom meeting to go over the lab from last Monday, before it is due this Monday.

Um, no.  Not meeting with you on the weekend.  Especially this weekend, where I am doing family stuff and NOT working.
Perhaps you should have done this sooner?

I am curious: how exactly would you tell this student that you are not meeting with them over the weekend? The student will write in their evaluation that "Dr. FishProf refused to meet with me when I needed help with the lab assignment".

[Langue_doc]

Last semester, I made the mistake of scheduling a Zoom meeting with a student on a Saturday. The following Friday, the student insisted on another meeting during the weekend. I referred Stu to the course policies (email responses M-F) and that the Saturday meeting was a privilege because professors typically do not schedule Zoom meetings during weekends just as they wouldn't make a trip to campus to meet with students who were taking classes on campus (pardon the convoluted sentence--it's been a long day).

ETA: I would meet (Zoom) with students during office hours as well as at other times. I also scheduled 30-minute sessions with each student just to "meet" them.This was an entitled student who complained about everything--assignments, grading policies, and everything Stu could think of.

[research_prof]

Last semester, I made the mistake of scheduling a Zoom meeting with a student on a Saturday. The following Friday, the student insisted on another meeting during the weekend. I referred Stu to the course policies (email responses M-F) and that the Saturday meeting was a privilege because professors typically do not schedule Zoom meetings during weekends just as they wouldn't make a trip to campus to meet with students who were taking classes on campus (pardon the convoluted sentence--it's been a long day).

I totally get your point, but I do not think students would care much. They have a problem, they request help, and they want it right away. And if they complain to the admins, who care about their customers, I do not think the admins will care much about the fact that it was a weekend either. At least, this is what I believe would happen at my institution.

[downer]

I had a student email me wanting to meet with me on video during office hours.

I wrote back saying I don't have office hours and answered their questions in 3 lines anyway.

[mahagonny]

I had a student email me wanting to meet with me on video during office hours.

I wrote back saying I don't have office hours and answered their questions in 3 lines anyway.

That's generous of you. Email takes time and it's neither prep time nor grading time. It's an extra thing that the school squeezes out of you illicitly. But I don't blame you for doing it. Well preforming students are easier to deal with than weaker ones.

[Langue_doc]

Many years ago, early evening on Friday before the Labor Day weekend, I got an email from a student who wanted to change sections. Stu demanded that I come to campus during the weekend because the add/drop deadline was either on Saturday or the following Tuesday. Email, timestamped after business hours on Friday, asked me to come to campus to sign Stu's add slip, and contained the sentence "Please work with me ASAP to make this possible". In addition to a long drive, the trip also included a $6 toll each way. Needless to say, I responded to Stu's email on Tuesday morning and agreed to meet with Stu. No response from Stu.

[AvidReader]

I am curious: how exactly would you tell this student that you are not meeting with them over the weekend? The student will write in their evaluation that "Dr. FishProf refused to meet with me when I needed help with the lab assignment".

I don't know how Dr. FishProf would do this, and I imagine it would depend on the school culture and the expectations.

At my current job, I would reply sometime Saturday, along the lines of "Dear Stu, I would be happy to discuss the lab with you during office hours on Monday. However, since the lab is due before class time, I would recommend XYZ [reading the text, going over notes, visiting the tutoring service, etc.]. In future, I recommend looking over assignments by Thursday so that you will have time to attend my office hours on Friday mornings if you have a questions."

At other jobs, one could just reply on the Monday morning, as Langue_doc illustrates.

AR.

[mahagonny]

Downer is an adjunct though, so he/she is vulnerable to being faulted on student evaluations for not doing something that the student has not been told is not legitimately part of his job in the first place. That's different.

[FishProf]

Student emailed me at 6:30 tonight to request a zoom meeting to go over the lab from last Monday, before it is due this Monday.

Um, no.  Not meeting with you on the weekend.  Especially this weekend, where I am doing family stuff and NOT working.
Perhaps you should have done this sooner?

I am curious: how exactly would you tell this student that you are not meeting with them over the weekend? The student will write in their evaluation that "Dr. FishProf refused to meet with me when I needed help with the lab assignment".

"Dear student,
I am not available to meet this weekend. Please use the link in the syllabus to schedule a meeting time
Fishprof"

As to the 2nd part - Don't care.  Our student evals don't have a place to write comments like that.

[Charlotte]

I don't know how Dr. FishProf would do this, and I imagine it would depend on the school culture and the expectations.

At my current job, I would reply sometime Saturday, along the lines of "Dear Stu, I would be happy to discuss the lab with you during office hours on Monday. However, since the lab is due before class time, I would recommend XYZ [reading the text, going over notes, visiting the tutoring service, etc.]. In future, I recommend looking over assignments by Thursday so that you will have time to attend my office hours on Friday mornings if you have a questions."

At other jobs, one could just reply on the Monday morning, as Langue_doc illustrates.

AR.

If I'm not mistaken, you have posted other examples before and I like the precise, polite way that you write these things. Maybe we should start a pool (thread) in which we collect good responses to common student emails.

[Charlotte]

Student has been emailing almost daily since the semester began. I'm wondering if they were advised that it is a good idea to ask the professor a lot of questions to show that they are engaged because this student asks the most basic questions! Last night, they copied the instructions for an assignment ("compare this with that") and asked if it meant they are to compare this with that.

I'm getting frustrated. To be fair, the questions are easy to answer so it doesn't take much time. But they are POINTLESS. Instructions state to read chapter seven. Student will email, "am I suppose to read all of chapter seven?"

No, it's a trick assignment. You are actually suppose to read chapter eight. Good job on emailing me and catching that.

[research_prof]

Student emailed me at 6:30 tonight to request a zoom meeting to go over the lab from last Monday, before it is due this Monday.

Um, no.  Not meeting with you on the weekend.  Especially this weekend, where I am doing family stuff and NOT working.
Perhaps you should have done this sooner?

I am curious: how exactly would you tell this student that you are not meeting with them over the weekend? The student will write in their evaluation that "Dr. FishProf refused to meet with me when I needed help with the lab assignment".

"Dear student,
I am not available to meet this weekend. Please use the link in the syllabus to schedule a meeting time
Fishprof"

As to the 2nd part - Don't care.  Our student evals don't have a place to write comments like that.

FishProf, I would like to become like you one day. :-) Unfortunately, our evaluations have a "comments" section, where students can and do fire away against faculty pretty frequently. Students believe they are customers because they (at least some of them) pay $$$ to the university, that's why they got to be always right.

[mahagonny]

FishProf, I would like to become like you one day. :-) Unfortunately, our evaluations have a "comments" section, where students can and do fire away against faculty pretty frequently. Students believe they are customers because they (at least some of them) pay $$$ to the university, that's why they got to be always right.

Same with ours. So (if it's permissible to discuss experiences peculiar to the non-tenure track in response to a post by downer, the adjunct, about his experience - perhaps eigen won't mind) it's quite a leap of faith to suppose that the chair has your back when reading criticisms of the sort mentioned herein. Especially if they've already outed themselves for being pissed that have newly recognized bargaining unit. Better be available on weekends, paid or not, if you want to keep you job.
Something I suspect rarely occurs to the tenure track. When the provost is pissed at you for having a faculty union, the chair takes the side of the faculty and the union. But when the provost is pissed at the adjunct faculty as a group, the chair can take either side.

[RatGuy]

Student has been emailing almost daily since the semester began. I'm wondering if they were advised that it is a good idea to ask the professor a lot of questions to show that they are engaged because this student asks the most basic questions! Last night, they copied the instructions for an assignment ("compare this with that") and asked if it meant they are to compare this with that.

I'm getting frustrated. To be fair, the questions are easy to answer so it doesn't take much time. But they are POINTLESS. Instructions state to read chapter seven. Student will email, "am I suppose to read all of chapter seven?"

No, it's a trick assignment. You are actually suppose to read chapter eight. Good job on emailing me and catching that.

Some of my students approach emails as if they were texting, right down to the "I'm sorry that I'm emailing you at 2am." As others have pointed out in other threads, some of the constant stream of questions is part of their texting culture -- one question at a time, in order, until everything is understood.

When I feel like a student is winding up for a whole slew of messages, I try to cut them off at the pass: "It seems that you might have a lot of questions about this assignment. I suggest that you carefully read the assignment sheet and complete the assignment to the best of your ability. If you still have questions, I will answer them when I return to the office on Monday morning."

[AvidReader]

If I'm not mistaken, you have posted other examples before and I like the precise, polite way that you write these things. Maybe we should start a pool (thread) in which we collect good responses to common student emails.

Thank you, Charlotte! Most of my "precise, polite" responses have been developed from having read the old and new Fora for (I think?) more than a decade now. I've learned a lot about tone from the wise people here and of yore.

AR.