As an administrator, I hear lots of complaints from faculty about students and from students about faculty. It is part of my job to adjudicate these complaints. But the longer I do this the more I am struck by a seemingly simple observation–but one that is not acknowledged frequently enough–that is at the core of many of these conflicts. The uncomfortable truth is that the professor-student relationship is predicated on us having power over them. We can seek to mediate that to make it less intimidating. We can seek to be more collaborative and to become their partners in learning. But at the end of the day we occupy a position of authority and we do powerful things like evaluating their work and assigning grades. I say this not to suggest that we should lord our power over them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, I think we need to remedy our (occasional) failure to fully appreciate how our students experience the power that we have over them. We need to try a little empathy.
Too often, our reactions to students assume a disrespect or malice that I don’t think is there. I think instead that students are worried and anxious. I am not saying we should be pushovers. Or that students should be coddled. But I am saying that a little empathy could be constructive. And in my experience, coupling that empathetic disposition with listening can really keep the situation from escalating.
So, like you, I get emails and have interactions with students where they make requests that rankle me: they want extra time to turn in an assignment, they want a detailed study guide for the exam, etc. There was a time when I would have gotten my hackles up: “how DARE they make these unreasonable requests?” But I have found that doing so was a failure on my part to consider the anxiety that might reside behind such petitions. Unreasonable requests are often the last-ditch effort of students who are panicking about a grade. Is it likely that they got themselves into this pickle to begin with? Absolutely. Do I accomplish anything by responding with outrage? Probably not.
Instead, I have found that if I make my default setting empathy and I take just a few moments to ponder the concerns and fears of my students I am usually able to work towards a more constructive response. Better still, if I have the opportunity to engage students and talk to them, and even more importantly, listen to them, they are more likely to eventually acknowledge their responsibility. So whenever possible, find a way to engage with the student–easier to do if they approach you in person, but if they email, invite them to come to office hours or talk to you before or after class. Email is notoriously bad at communicating tone and intent. My point is this: oftentimes, students just need to be heard and give voice to their anxieties. As a chair and now as a dean I continue to be surprised at how often a situation can be defused by just listening. At least half the time, once a student has finished giving voice to the complaint/concern/frustration, the unreasonable request has evaporated, the student feels heard, and all of this without an escalation of the situation.
But if the unreasonable request hasn’t disappeared after a conversation, your response to that unreasonable request might still be “no.” That said, I am still persuaded that a momentary flirtation with empathy costs us very little and may keep a situation from worsening.
Empathy has other roles to play in our interactions with students. Your empathy should include, for example, never assuming that students know how higher education works. This is especially true, of course, for first-generation college students. Even a super-rigorous college prep high school cannot prepare them for the bureaucracy and interactions that define higher education. And this means that they may not know how to interact with you at first. They may call you by your first name. They may express frustration when you don’t respond to their emails right away. Rather than take these things as a personal affront, take the opportunity to explain the rules of engagement.
As you interact with them, your empathy should also extend to realizing that you might be scary–or at least perceived as such. I like to think that I am nice, approachable, and reasonable in my interactions with students. And I suspect that eventually they are persuaded that I am. But for a student who has never taken a class with me or never come to my office hours, I may be scary and intimidating, no matter how relaxed or jokey or unpretentious I am. I’m the one who graded that exam they want to discuss. I’m the one who will be hearing, and presumably evaluating, that comment they make in class. An appreciation of these potential tensions and apprehensions that sometimes result from the power dynamic in the professor-student relationship might go a long way to easing interactions with our students.
Some will say that this amounts to coddling students. I couldn’t disagree more and am inspired by Prof. Sara Rose Cavanagh‘s wise work on the science of student emotions and learning. She contends that we need to reject the false dichotomy of assuming “that we have to choose between rigor and care.” Are students sometimes irresponsible and immature and even disrespectful? Absolutely. My admonition to empathy is in no way meant to deny this. And there may be situations where a more stern response is required. My proposal, however, is modest: we should err first on the side of empathy. Acknowledging the anxieties that adhere to the power we have over our students is a relatively small gesture that may have a large impact on their experiences and our interactions with them.
Tales Told Out of School 