What do college professors expect? Anyone can easily go to college now and many kids receive absolutely no education during their former years.
I remember being in AP English in 11th grade. We had to grade papers for the regular English class. I distinctly remember grading a paper that was using "red" to mean "read". This was common and not unusual.
But, you know what? These kids went to public universities because apparently we don't need garbage men anymore so if you have a 2.5 GPA and a 16 on the ACT, you can get into college.
The ability to use formal writing isn't really limited by intelligence.
And "many kids receive absolutely no education during their former years" is objectively false. You may disagree with its value but "absolutely no education" certainly isn't true.
The issue goes much deeper than "anyone" can go to college. Their is a huge education disparity between wealthy zip codes and poor zip codes. So, yes you were in an AP English class. How many of your fellow classmates do you think were on free and/or reduced lunch? How many students in the regular English classes were on free/reduced lunch?
The educational disparity is the real root of this problem. You add in that the average salary of a teacher after 5 years of experience is less than nearly any job after 5 years of experience.
This feeds into educational disparity even further as the good teachers want to teach in a wealthier school district as it is a much easier position to be in. More support from teachers, "smarter" kids, ability to get paid more as the taxes from that area can afford better teachers.
Contrast that with poor school districts and you get the exact opposite. You have a variety of kids from troubled homes, you don't know if they had or can afford breakfast, you don't know if they have even a remotely okay home environment to do homework in.
So sure, "anyone" with a pulse can get into college but the real issue is not that. It starts much, much earlier in the education system.
It took me a long time to figure out how fortunate I was to grow up in a wealthier school district, and the fact that I worked my ass off to get where I am now but I'd be lying if because of white privilege + a wealthier zip code I wasn't exposed to more opportunities that made busting my ass pay off more.
There is a disparity. It's linked to parental effort, not wealth. Sure wealth makes it easier to get tutors and such, but primarily kids who excel have parents who read to them and worked with them on homework.
And teachers benefits outstrip almost any other job. Far more time off, pensions, good healthcare, etc. It's not a problem of what teachers are paid (there is no teacher shortage), it's a problem of how they are managed. Limited competition, degree and seniority driven promotion, tenure, etc.
But again, the best teacher in the world is going to struggle if their kid's parents don't give a crap about working with them at night.
You're ignoring that:
-having parents at home, or not working two jobs to make ends meet is linked to wealth
-having parents with good education has a significant impact on how much they can help children
-having parents with wealth means children get a better environment and are more susceptible to focus on work
-...
(Also you're denying the overwhelming evidence of stats and science on this matter)
I'd be willing to bet that if a survey was done showing the % of those in AP classes who are on free/reduced lunch would be significantly less than those of a general education class.
Exactly my point. I'm speaking from experience and you're going on about what you'd "bet". If you're so sure you have it all figured out, why don't you go do your survey and stop talking about it.
Do you usually get this defense on an open Internet forum?
I was on reduced lunch as well for many years at my school, and out of the 70ish kids in our AP "block" format(2 hours, same room, co-teachers) only 3 other kids were on reduced lunch. Again, wealthy zip code(s) make up the school boundaries and small % of kids on reduced lunch that I was aware of.
If I managed to offend you, that wasn't my intent. There's plenty of research out there showing the importance of parents in the home, and many other factors that have a correlation with income and income drives free/reduced lunch.
Additionally, several of my friends did/are doing Teach for America in extremely poor school districts. Add on top of that, that while I lived in LA I volunteered at after school programs for children.
So please, don't judge someone when you don't have the background of what someone has been through or seen first hand.
One day I'd love to be able to fund a study of things like this, but until that day I'll have to rely on my "bets".
This reads like you think everyone has equal basic intellectual potential.
The scientific consensus is that there is a Gaussian distribution of intelligence, and most intelligence variation is heritable [1]. Aside from the most extreme criminal abuse, people reach their genetic IQ potential regardless of what zip code they're in or whether their parents pay attention to them [2].
So you are correct that you're privileged, but your privilege isn't your social position at birth; it is your genes. That's what made busting your ass pay off more. You could've been born in the same house with 100 IQ and had no chance at joking about being a "brogrammer".
Fascinating articles. Thanks for the share. I need to look into this further.
I do openly admit that I do believe that grit is one of the most fundamental elements of individual success but I do think also that the distribution of intellectual potential is much smaller than the studies suggest. Albeit, this is a gut/personal opinion and the research out that you've shared has me challenging the belief I hold.
Correct language usage is not a previous -> current generational issue. We are witnessing the dumbing down of culture or in other words: Idiocracy is becoming a documentary.
"Correct" is context-specific. You can - and should - use language differently when you're hanging out with working-class friends than when you're trying to advance your white-collar professional career.
Like, rap albums have some incredibly clever use of a vernacular dialect of English. It's not "dumbed down" by any stretch of the imagination. It just doesn't conform to the expectations of certain groups of prestigious white-collar professionals and executives.
Slang is supposed to exclude those not in your group this seems similar in action.
In a way it's bullying since an agreed upon style is now considered old by some but if everyone is not aware of the change how does everyone communicate respectfully?
It's fundamental communication that both sides understand each other's meaning.
The pedagogy point didn't get explained and harped on well enough.
How you interact with people, the words you use, the grammatical and dialect choices you make, and the tone you take all influence how people see you. Being able to put the "standard, professional English" face on your work and interaction is an incredibly valuable skill. Various flavors of vernacular English, casual address, and informal rapport isn't incorrect, wrong, or inappropriate - it just doesn't have the same sort of effect on the people who will later demand a particular sort of interaction with you.
In short, there's communication habits that will make it incredibly difficult to maintain white-collar employment, and one of the things that college does is teach students to use white-collar professional communication habits.
I Disagree. "Inappropriate" is relative to the situation. Your entire point is that students should learn to recognize the appropriate register for the situation and switch into it.
Agreed, I didn't make my point quite as clearly as I'd like to. What's likely clearer is saying that it isn't "inherently incorrect or inappropriate". Certain registers have certain effects on people, and it's valuable to have more interpersonal tools and better understand how they work.
>Your entire point is that students should learn to recognize the appropriate register for the situation and switch into it.
I don't really want to coerce people into using particular registers for situations. I do want them to better understand what the results of their actions are - if they want to poke at upper-class sensibilities by deliberately using a particular register, that's their prerogative. (I am, however, a little confused by why they're spending the time and effort at college)
For me personally, it's about the effort put into communication. Using poor grammar and spelling makes the author seem lazy or even arrogant, as though their message were so important that the recipient will not mind spending extra effort trying to understand it.
I think I would not mind informality by itself as long as the thought behind the text is clearly communicated, to the best of the writer's ability. However, I suspect that better thought-out communication naturally leads to a more formal style of writing, which might include using the proper forms of address.
I went to a (very small, very odd) college which took the other route: all participants in the class - teachers and students - addressed each other as Mr. or Ms. <family name>.
What's common sense for one student may not be for another. My mother who teaches at the local university, has seen emails that are very gracious, to emails that start off with Hey Prof,
...
> Formal etiquette was not aimed at ensuring respect for all. It was, in part, a system to enforce boundaries of race, class and gender at a time when the growth of cities and mass transit forced Americans into close quarters with strangers. Codes of behavior served “as checks against a fully democratic order and in support of special interests, institutions of privilege and structures of domination”
Hence the argument for a uniform mode of address. Oh wait, we already have that: the email address itself. Why does anyone need more than that?
> You will never offend or annoy someone by being overly formal and polite.
You'll offend all the anarchists, and libertarians, and hippies, and probably some other people.
> You will never offend or annoy someone by being overly formal and polite.
I get that the average person in the English-speaking world might claim that, but Europeans and many other peoples whose languages have a tu/vous distinction are well aware that sometimes you can inadvertently offend or even intentionally belittle someone by actually using the more formal way of address. Context is everything.
Even without the distinction intentionally ignoring context can be used to be offensive.
I guess not really for a student talking in a formal way to a professor. But then you can just be formal in an overly mechanical way to imply that you are merely going through the motions and don't actually intend to convey any respect.
> Worse than the text abbreviations was the level of informality, with no address or signoff.
I some times avoid giving signoff or address so-as to avoid wasting a professional contacts time. I assume my contacts may have information overload and will appreciate a short, to the point, email rather than long run-on emails where the point is hidden somewhere between all the syntax. Email isn't an academic paper after all and brevity is typically welcome.
"Yours, cyphunk" or "kind regards, cyphunk" add hardly any length to the email, but indicate that you have in fact finished what you meant to say and that you didn't mash [send] by mistake.
It's not hard to to write or read. They feel disingenuous though. The truth is email's are not like letters. A letter of at least one half a page should be the minimum, but an email longer than two paragraphs better be seriously interesting. We've carried over the etiquette of letter writing into a medium where using that etiquette feels much more manufactured.
Regarding "blithe informality", are we also incensed that I'm allowed to go to work in khakis rather than the classic suit-and-tie combo? On Fridays I even wear jeans! :)
What I find fairly strange in American academia is that professors are addressed by their last name, but students by their first name. In Austria, for example, there is no situation in which you address someone differently than they address you, except for addressing children. It would be very disrespectful for an adult to address another adult by their first name, but insist that they be addressed by their last name, as if you were a child.
I taught college for a brief period, and would have had no problem addressing my students more informally. I actually let them use my first name, as I felt that a more informal atmosphere would somehow help form the impression that math is not just an ivory tower pursuit.
While my approach may be misguided, I did get an interesting comment from one student: "You are not like the professors. You explain things."
In my experience, this stems from a difference in comfort level between students and professors. Professors often begin class on the first day by inviting people to call them by their first name. Students, however, are normally intimidated and still call them Dr. whatever. Thus, the professor wants to be on a first name basis with the class, but the feeling is not reciprocated.
Same here in Germany (but I graduated a few years ago).
It's kind of the same as in any workplace (by default, with exclusion of the IT sector and maybe some more, also construction sites) - you'll always use Mr/Mrs (Ms not so much anymore, I think that went away in the 80s :P) until you or someone else offers you the possibility to be on a first name basis [0] (example link in case you've never heard of this particularity of German speaking countries).
There are exceptions, of course, but in general (exceptions see above) I'd say using the first name in a formal/business setting is totally more uncommon than in the US.
In general I really do wonder about mentioning social media and text messages as a possible reason. We had text messages in high school in early 00s. We also had social media when I was still studying, I simply refuse to believe that everything has deteriorated this much in just 10 years. (Oh wait, I'm getting old and 'Get off my lawn', right?) :)
Really? Calling a professor by their first name is a faux pas in academia? Here in Brazil if you call a professor by "Mr. Last Name" they'll think you're a weirdo.
And you know what I think? Why does any random loser get to write an article in the nytimes these days? Back in the good old days it used to be only interesting stuff got written in there. Now I have to waste my time digging through the trash to find an interesting article once a month.
Different countries have wildly different etiquette in academia. When I began graduate studies in Finland, it really was odd to suddenly be expected to address all faculty, from the freshest docent up to the elderly grand old man of the department, by their first names.
In the US, I've had a lot of classes where the professor tells everyone to call them by their first name (most people don't end up doing that). Also if you work more closely with them as a research assistant or TA or something, first names are common. I'd feel weird walking into the office of a professor I haven't met before and calling them by their first name, though.
I'm in America, I never know what to call my professors, they're normally PhD/Masters candidates. Rarely have I had an actual PhD. It makes approaching them in a social/networking context damn near impossible. You can't approach them like you would a stranger because they'll recognize you from class.
We've asked you before to stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. (That includes unsubstantive curmudgeonly rants). If you keep doing it, we're going to have to ban your account.
This is a really tone-deaf argument that doesn't recognize the context that modern colleges exist in. Consider that most classes that freshmen and sophomores attend are either taught solely by TAs, lecturers, or other non-professors, or there is a class of 500 and the only personal contact the student receives is with the same.
In this context, when students spend the first half of their post-secondary education learning a method of interacting with people who are excluded from True Academia, understanding that yes, you can be quite a good instructor without these norms (which, by the way, instructors can't or don't enforce because they don't feel empowered to by their institutions), it is not difficult to see why students resist the call for these norms once they start to interact with "real professors".
Any professor who is calling for student respect in this way without respecting that the institution of academia itself has been significantly denigrated is only addressing a symptom of a much deeper problem.
I feel like there is a big difference between the grammar/informality issue and the first name issue. I think students using bad grammar or texting language is unacceptable, it's just disrespectful. But I think students being on a first name basis with teachers is — in some ways — actually a good thing. The relationship between student and teacher should be one of collaboration in pursuit of learning, not an authoritative one.
> The relationship between student and teacher should be one of collaboration in pursuit of learning, not an authoritative one.
Collaborating and having an authoritative relation are not mutually exclusive. Teaching is essentially an asymetric relation, and it is important for the student to understand that he is not in a back-and-forth process, but in a receiving position.
Of course, there may be situations where this is not true, but it makes sense to optimize the communication protocol in spite of it, because the alternative is more harmful.
I respectfully disagree. Even if you don't think it is truly a symmetrical relationship, introducing an arbitrary separation makes it harder for students to develop relationships with their teachers. And learning is definitely enhanced by relationships between students and teachers.
I'm all for people getting called what they want - and the staff in question have earned the professional rank they're insisting on, so it's only polite to follow their wishes.
The broader point that formal academic titles matter generally (outside the particularly cultural environment these professors find themselves in) is much less convincing, though. As a graduate student we referred to the most senior faculty by first name without a moment's thought - and without loss of respect for their professional skills. That was simply the cultural norm in our department, and we conformed. As an undergraduate at a different university staff preference varied, but our respect was generally conditioned on teaching competence, not what title they'd chosen. I now have my own PhD and a university research job, and frankly my status compared to undergraduate students is high enough just with that, without insisting on them referring to me as "Doctor".
Likewise, the value of being able to signal your understanding of formality (and your lower position) by dressing formally for a job interview doesn't mean that it's necessary for workplaces to insist on collar-and-tie every day. Norms change.
Graduate students are colleagues -- they write papers with, present alongside, and publish in the same journals and conferences as professors. The expectation of formality is rightfully less. Undergrads are a whole different story; >90% of them have no future in academia and you are training them to succeed in a the working world. A large part of that includes grovelling and kissing ass. Despite not being a very formal person at all I found myself strongly agreeing with this article.
Sorry - I should have been clearer. I'm in the UK, where there is a pretty sharp distinction between the taught Masters, taken both by intending academics and by others (but in neither case are you in any real sense a colleague of the faculty) and the PhD programme proper (where you are, albeit a very junior one).
Academics in my department were on first-name terms with both the MSc and PhD students, though in other ways the nature of the relationship was as different as you describe.
TBH, my experience of pre-academic workplaces was also that people would be referred to by name rather than title. I know that varies a lot depending on where you are.
I generally agree with you, but it's going to be awkward if you're the only one saying "Call me Dr. So-and-So" when everyone else is saying "Call me Pat" (or vice versa).
I was a lecturer at a community college. I was mostly referred to by my first name. Sometimes I was referred to by Mr. LastName (sorry Dr. LastName in this thread), and I quickly said, hey it's just FirstName.
Prof. Worthen missed one thing that may be helpful.
When a teacher or other professional helps a student with something, it's always appropriate for the student to say "thank you."
I think it's important to have an email client with a way to Undo the Send button for half a minute or so. That way there's a second chance to get it right.
I love the William Raspberry quote. I grew up reading his columns. He was a rare voice of sanity in DC where I lived with my parents, during the Nixon / Watergate train wreck.
"In 1834, Harvard students rebelled when some of their classmates were punished for refusing to memorize their Latin textbook. They broke the windows of a teacher’s apartment and destroyed his furniture. When the president of the college cracked down and suspended the entire sophomore class, the juniors retaliated by hanging and burning him in effigy and setting off a rudimentary explosive in the campus chapel."
> Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of condescension; it’s the first step in treating students like adults.
If you have to spend several paragraphs explaining how something isn't an act of condescension, you may have just spent several paragraphs apologizing for committing acts of condescension.
I suppose this article makes me crabby because it's written solely with the needs/wants of the professor in mind. The author initially wanted to be the "cool" teacher. It's a teacher's "job to correct sloppy prose". Formality helps defend the university's values "at a time when they are under continual assault." A professor has to "establish that I belong here" because "I'm the first and only black teacher they've every had."
How about the students? What's the most effective way to get them collaborating with each other and thinking critically about the material to which you've introduced them? Especially given that lectures have been shown to be one of the least effective means of teaching?
You do remember the students, right? Those people taking on burdensome debt in a desperate hope to gain permanent employment long after taking your class? I'd say if "cutie_pie_98@hotmail.com" finds it worthwhile to send you a question over email, you should put in the maximum possible effort your professorial brain can muster to write helpful and meaningful response. If you really think that response starts with, "it's time to retire that address," at least consider that your priorities are so out of whack that it may be time to for u to retire ur address.
In the most recent episode of econtalk (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/tyler_cowen_on_1.ht...) Tyler Cowen had the very interesting thesis that less formal dress codes make it harder for outsiders to fit in and makes it harder to climb there ladder. Instead of just wearing what's prescribed for your role you now have to decide yourself what might be seen as appropriate and maybe even decide how to stick out or what clothing match your desired perception and ambitions. He pointed out that as a immigrant from a foreign culture you'd be relieved to just get a simple answer like "white shirt and black tie".
I wonder if the same principle might be true for language. Having formal rules how to address someone might make it easier to do the right thing and not having to waste brain power on something like that.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadI remember being in AP English in 11th grade. We had to grade papers for the regular English class. I distinctly remember grading a paper that was using "red" to mean "read". This was common and not unusual.
But, you know what? These kids went to public universities because apparently we don't need garbage men anymore so if you have a 2.5 GPA and a 16 on the ACT, you can get into college.
And "many kids receive absolutely no education during their former years" is objectively false. You may disagree with its value but "absolutely no education" certainly isn't true.
The educational disparity is the real root of this problem. You add in that the average salary of a teacher after 5 years of experience is less than nearly any job after 5 years of experience.
This feeds into educational disparity even further as the good teachers want to teach in a wealthier school district as it is a much easier position to be in. More support from teachers, "smarter" kids, ability to get paid more as the taxes from that area can afford better teachers.
Contrast that with poor school districts and you get the exact opposite. You have a variety of kids from troubled homes, you don't know if they had or can afford breakfast, you don't know if they have even a remotely okay home environment to do homework in.
So sure, "anyone" with a pulse can get into college but the real issue is not that. It starts much, much earlier in the education system.
It took me a long time to figure out how fortunate I was to grow up in a wealthier school district, and the fact that I worked my ass off to get where I am now but I'd be lying if because of white privilege + a wealthier zip code I wasn't exposed to more opportunities that made busting my ass pay off more.
I agree with your overall point, but given the "proper language" nature of this thread I feel I must: there, not their.
And teachers benefits outstrip almost any other job. Far more time off, pensions, good healthcare, etc. It's not a problem of what teachers are paid (there is no teacher shortage), it's a problem of how they are managed. Limited competition, degree and seniority driven promotion, tenure, etc.
But again, the best teacher in the world is going to struggle if their kid's parents don't give a crap about working with them at night.
(Also you're denying the overwhelming evidence of stats and science on this matter)
I was on reduced lunch as well for many years at my school, and out of the 70ish kids in our AP "block" format(2 hours, same room, co-teachers) only 3 other kids were on reduced lunch. Again, wealthy zip code(s) make up the school boundaries and small % of kids on reduced lunch that I was aware of.
If I managed to offend you, that wasn't my intent. There's plenty of research out there showing the importance of parents in the home, and many other factors that have a correlation with income and income drives free/reduced lunch.
Additionally, several of my friends did/are doing Teach for America in extremely poor school districts. Add on top of that, that while I lived in LA I volunteered at after school programs for children.
So please, don't judge someone when you don't have the background of what someone has been through or seen first hand.
One day I'd love to be able to fund a study of things like this, but until that day I'll have to rely on my "bets".
The scientific consensus is that there is a Gaussian distribution of intelligence, and most intelligence variation is heritable [1]. Aside from the most extreme criminal abuse, people reach their genetic IQ potential regardless of what zip code they're in or whether their parents pay attention to them [2].
So you are correct that you're privileged, but your privilege isn't your social position at birth; it is your genes. That's what made busting your ass pay off more. You could've been born in the same house with 100 IQ and had no chance at joking about being a "brogrammer".
[1] http://differentialclub.wdfiles.com/local--files/definitions...
[2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/21/ssc-journal-club-childh...
I do openly admit that I do believe that grit is one of the most fundamental elements of individual success but I do think also that the distribution of intellectual potential is much smaller than the studies suggest. Albeit, this is a gut/personal opinion and the research out that you've shared has me challenging the belief I hold.
Like, rap albums have some incredibly clever use of a vernacular dialect of English. It's not "dumbed down" by any stretch of the imagination. It just doesn't conform to the expectations of certain groups of prestigious white-collar professionals and executives.
In a way it's bullying since an agreed upon style is now considered old by some but if everyone is not aware of the change how does everyone communicate respectfully?
It's fundamental communication that both sides understand each other's meaning.
How you interact with people, the words you use, the grammatical and dialect choices you make, and the tone you take all influence how people see you. Being able to put the "standard, professional English" face on your work and interaction is an incredibly valuable skill. Various flavors of vernacular English, casual address, and informal rapport isn't incorrect, wrong, or inappropriate - it just doesn't have the same sort of effect on the people who will later demand a particular sort of interaction with you.
In short, there's communication habits that will make it incredibly difficult to maintain white-collar employment, and one of the things that college does is teach students to use white-collar professional communication habits.
Agreed
> isn't inappropriate
I Disagree. "Inappropriate" is relative to the situation. Your entire point is that students should learn to recognize the appropriate register for the situation and switch into it.
>Your entire point is that students should learn to recognize the appropriate register for the situation and switch into it.
I don't really want to coerce people into using particular registers for situations. I do want them to better understand what the results of their actions are - if they want to poke at upper-class sensibilities by deliberately using a particular register, that's their prerogative. (I am, however, a little confused by why they're spending the time and effort at college)
I think I would not mind informality by itself as long as the thought behind the text is clearly communicated, to the best of the writer's ability. However, I suspect that better thought-out communication naturally leads to a more formal style of writing, which might include using the proper forms of address.
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/weird-abrupt-scottish-...
Hence the argument for a uniform mode of address. Oh wait, we already have that: the email address itself. Why does anyone need more than that?
> You will never offend or annoy someone by being overly formal and polite.
You'll offend all the anarchists, and libertarians, and hippies, and probably some other people.
I get that the average person in the English-speaking world might claim that, but Europeans and many other peoples whose languages have a tu/vous distinction are well aware that sometimes you can inadvertently offend or even intentionally belittle someone by actually using the more formal way of address. Context is everything.
I guess not really for a student talking in a formal way to a professor. But then you can just be formal in an overly mechanical way to imply that you are merely going through the motions and don't actually intend to convey any respect.
I some times avoid giving signoff or address so-as to avoid wasting a professional contacts time. I assume my contacts may have information overload and will appreciate a short, to the point, email rather than long run-on emails where the point is hidden somewhere between all the syntax. Email isn't an academic paper after all and brevity is typically welcome.
While my approach may be misguided, I did get an interesting comment from one student: "You are not like the professors. You explain things."
It's kind of the same as in any workplace (by default, with exclusion of the IT sector and maybe some more, also construction sites) - you'll always use Mr/Mrs (Ms not so much anymore, I think that went away in the 80s :P) until you or someone else offers you the possibility to be on a first name basis [0] (example link in case you've never heard of this particularity of German speaking countries).
[0]: http://www.dw.com/en/the-du-sie-dilemma-in-german/a-16494631
There are exceptions, of course, but in general (exceptions see above) I'd say using the first name in a formal/business setting is totally more uncommon than in the US.
In general I really do wonder about mentioning social media and text messages as a possible reason. We had text messages in high school in early 00s. We also had social media when I was still studying, I simply refuse to believe that everything has deteriorated this much in just 10 years. (Oh wait, I'm getting old and 'Get off my lawn', right?) :)
And you know what I think? Why does any random loser get to write an article in the nytimes these days? Back in the good old days it used to be only interesting stuff got written in there. Now I have to waste my time digging through the trash to find an interesting article once a month.
In the US, I've had a lot of classes where the professor tells everyone to call them by their first name (most people don't end up doing that). Also if you work more closely with them as a research assistant or TA or something, first names are common. I'd feel weird walking into the office of a professor I haven't met before and calling them by their first name, though.
In this context, when students spend the first half of their post-secondary education learning a method of interacting with people who are excluded from True Academia, understanding that yes, you can be quite a good instructor without these norms (which, by the way, instructors can't or don't enforce because they don't feel empowered to by their institutions), it is not difficult to see why students resist the call for these norms once they start to interact with "real professors".
Any professor who is calling for student respect in this way without respecting that the institution of academia itself has been significantly denigrated is only addressing a symptom of a much deeper problem.
Collaborating and having an authoritative relation are not mutually exclusive. Teaching is essentially an asymetric relation, and it is important for the student to understand that he is not in a back-and-forth process, but in a receiving position.
Of course, there may be situations where this is not true, but it makes sense to optimize the communication protocol in spite of it, because the alternative is more harmful.
The broader point that formal academic titles matter generally (outside the particularly cultural environment these professors find themselves in) is much less convincing, though. As a graduate student we referred to the most senior faculty by first name without a moment's thought - and without loss of respect for their professional skills. That was simply the cultural norm in our department, and we conformed. As an undergraduate at a different university staff preference varied, but our respect was generally conditioned on teaching competence, not what title they'd chosen. I now have my own PhD and a university research job, and frankly my status compared to undergraduate students is high enough just with that, without insisting on them referring to me as "Doctor".
Likewise, the value of being able to signal your understanding of formality (and your lower position) by dressing formally for a job interview doesn't mean that it's necessary for workplaces to insist on collar-and-tie every day. Norms change.
Academics in my department were on first-name terms with both the MSc and PhD students, though in other ways the nature of the relationship was as different as you describe.
TBH, my experience of pre-academic workplaces was also that people would be referred to by name rather than title. I know that varies a lot depending on where you are.
Not sure what the solution is there.
I think it's important to have an email client with a way to Undo the Send button for half a minute or so. That way there's a second chance to get it right.
I love the William Raspberry quote. I grew up reading his columns. He was a rare voice of sanity in DC where I lived with my parents, during the Nixon / Watergate train wreck.
What happened to the United States I love?
If you have to spend several paragraphs explaining how something isn't an act of condescension, you may have just spent several paragraphs apologizing for committing acts of condescension.
I suppose this article makes me crabby because it's written solely with the needs/wants of the professor in mind. The author initially wanted to be the "cool" teacher. It's a teacher's "job to correct sloppy prose". Formality helps defend the university's values "at a time when they are under continual assault." A professor has to "establish that I belong here" because "I'm the first and only black teacher they've every had."
How about the students? What's the most effective way to get them collaborating with each other and thinking critically about the material to which you've introduced them? Especially given that lectures have been shown to be one of the least effective means of teaching?
You do remember the students, right? Those people taking on burdensome debt in a desperate hope to gain permanent employment long after taking your class? I'd say if "cutie_pie_98@hotmail.com" finds it worthwhile to send you a question over email, you should put in the maximum possible effort your professorial brain can muster to write helpful and meaningful response. If you really think that response starts with, "it's time to retire that address," at least consider that your priorities are so out of whack that it may be time to for u to retire ur address.
I wonder if the same principle might be true for language. Having formal rules how to address someone might make it easier to do the right thing and not having to waste brain power on something like that.