Comments on: Just a few questions on Sen, please

By: Miguel

Miguel — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:37:54 +0000

As an undergraduate, reading this post has completely discouraged me from emailing my professors. But then again, I’m a little on the sensitive side. What about slightly unrelated foot-notes in philosophy papers? For instance, what if some ethical problem reminds you of the inverted specturm problem (just an example, who knows what that problem might be) is it obnoxious or pretentious to add a foot-note which notes this similarity? Is it obnoxious to ask this question?

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:23:11 +0000

I haven’t yet gotten through reading all responses. So I apologize in advance if this is a redundant comment.

Something I noticed, which is not intuitive to me, is that achieving the proper tone via e-mail can be difficult. As an undergraduate, I have found myself on both sides of this issue. I have e-mailed professors at my university (even my research advisor on some occasions) and been surprised by how antagonistic I read the response to be. I have also spent considerable time composing an e-mail on a subject I thought might be delicate, so I show my draft to a friend who quickly remarks that my tone is not appropriate and potentially adversarial. Usually I find that the antagonism I originally detected from the professor’s response to my e-mail was a complete mis-read. And I can say with certainty that I have never felt the adversarial tone that my draft e-mails have expressed. I suspect that e-mail is peculiar in that it is a difficult balance between a conversational medium and a more formal one. Furthermore, when a student is composing an e-mail to a professor he/she is, for the first time, on equal footing with the professor.

I should also point out that, although I seem to be in the minority among undergraduates commenting on this post, I have had many fruitful experiences stemming from e-mails with professors I have never met before. I think this issue is much less of a problem than people are making it out to be. For the most part professors are surprisingly active in aiding curious undergraduates. Although I hope there is not a future backlash against responsing to undergraduates who introduce themselves via e-mail, I also think that it is a worse situation for everyone if a professor feels obligated to respond beyond the level of response he/she is comfortable with. In particular, if there is an unaproachable, undergrad-hating professor in person, I wouldn’t want to be mislead to his office by kind responses to my e-mails.

By: Philip

Philip — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:06:17 +0000

See? No one—yet—has answered my question. Why? Because you didn’t have to, just like Robeyns didn’t have to answer a write-my-term-paper-for-me question a complete stranger asked her.

By: Philip

Philip — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:51:23 +0000

C’mon, this is a no-brainer. The student wasn’t enrolled Robeyns’ class; s/he didn’t even attend her school; so why is Robeyns under any obligation to respond?

I’m a teacher, too, but that does NOT mean that I must answer any and every question that anybody or everybody sends me via email, does it?

By: Ingrid Robeyns

Ingrid Robeyns — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:54:06 +0000

Before this thread is archived, one final thought. I think that many of the comments in this thread were out of proportion, but to me our discussion showed me that (1) many/most scholars/professors work crazy hours and those who are putting demands on their time often don’t realise this; (2) that I may have misjudged that what I took to be statement of puzzlement and suprise (the original post) has come across to some CT readers as insulting or has been interpreted as ridiculing this particular student. I think I have now stressed sufficiently that that was never intended, but our discussion does show to me that depending on the experiences that people have had (e.g. being put off by scary professor, versus being at the receiving end of too many e-mails of which one may wonder whether it is one’s duty to answer them) we interpret such posts very differently.

By: Ingrid Robeyns

Ingrid Robeyns — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:44:19 +0000

wildcrier, CT doesn’t publish e-mail addresses, but does post the names that people give. I understand you didn’t want your real name under post #62 and have thus edited it for you – I hope that’s what you wanted.
Your e-mail to me probably didn’t come through since the ingrid (dot) robeyns (at) crookedtimber (dot) org is forwarding to a no longer functional address (only me to blame); if you want to you resend your message, please use i.robeyns at fm.ru.nl

By: wildcrier

wildcrier — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:23:52 +0000

I was shocked and mystified to find that Crooked Timber had published my email address (#62) contrary to their declared policy not to publish the email address.

What was equally intriguing was that my personal email to Ingrid was returned to me without being delivered to her.

I think only Crooked Timber perhaps could explain this breach.

By: wildcrier

wildcrier — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 22:55:13 +0000

Ingrid, I have every sympathy with your predicament I appreciate that it is not only not humanly possible to answer all or even some of the (200 or so daily emails?) received by the profs from students not necessarily from their own universities, but it also begs the question as asked by you as to why a prof should be obliged to answer such queries, particularly when an undergrad expects a professor to do his job for him thus saving his painstaking information-gathering just because the prof knows the answers or can easily find out where to look for them as was the experience of Kieran Healy with regard to his correspondent, the B.Sc student who asked him for an overview about Michael Mann’s book so he could find a shortcut to answering his management exam questions.

That said, one must also take on board, as suggested by aaron_m (#28) that if a genuinely motivated student with an enquiring mind asks some questions which may take only 10 minutes to give guiding answers as against the poor undergrad’s 10+ hours to even scratch the surface of the whole answers, then I should make an effort in rare circumstances, as suggested by Zephyrus (#27) minus the “rude” parts of his reply.I do admit that these 7 guestions (a bit vague though) about Amartya Sen are rather over the top, let alone trying to answer them; yet if I were to answer them I would do so in the following way:-
1. Read “Development as Freedom” & see below.
2. See below.
3. See below.
4. Yes. See below.
5. None. Read “Identity and Violence…”
6. Yes.
7. (a)No. (b) Huntington’s “Clash of civilisations”

N.B.Refer to Sen’s Nadine Gordimer lecture in South Africa yesterday,his recorded lecture in the Humanist Chapel’s 30th anniversary conference at Harvard University today,Sen,s Naascom keynote speech at the IT conference at Mumbai in Feb,07 followed by his speech as guest speaker in the Indian President’s especially organised conference at Delhi attended by some foreign statesmen including the Pakistani Foreign minister and Manmohan Singh the Indian PM and a Cambridge economist, followed by his UN’s Lifetime achievement award speech in Bangkok; Sen’s speech in Beijing in Nov.06 about the deterioration of Chinese healthcare due to the reversal of the Govt. policy; watch out for Sen’s forthcoming keynote speeches in Basel,Paris,Harvard again, Oslo, York, Oxford in May-June and Munich, Osnabruck, Hong kong, bangkok again, Singapore, Calcutta and Delhi in July.

Wildcrier.

By: Jacob T. Levy

Jacob T. Levy — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 12:46:18 +0000

al is absolutely right. There are finite minutes, and they’re better allocated to students in one’s classes, students one has agreed to advise, and the occasional e-mailer who has taken the time to really think some things through. I’d love the added 15-20 hours per week solely dedicated to the education of students that would allow an extra half hour each to my PhD and MA advisees, an extra half hour to prepare for each of my classes, an extra four hours for more office hours to talk through paper-writing and intellectual substance with my own undergrads, an extra two hours for better e-correspondence with current and former students asking serious questions, and an extra two hours for work on letters of recommendation. I spend a lot of time on all of those now, and if I had more time I’d spend more time on them.

That the extra 8-10 hours per week that would be involved in sending anything other than the curtest of replies to e-mails like these, or even the extra 2 hours that would be necessary to carefully distinguish “I want you to do my homework for me” e-mails from “I’m very interested and curious and just don’t understand the most productive way to ask these questions” e-mails, seems to me like an incredibly low priority is really truly not about “hating students” or “refusing to fulfill [my] obligations as teacher.”

I have to say that I’m disturbed that Ingrid’s been taking any flak at all for this; the response to Kieran’s post to which she linked was very different and much more on-target.

By: hilzoy

hilzoy — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:55:24 +0000

“Having once been a student of Hilzoy’s, I can mention that her actual students were usually far too terrified of her to actually ask any questions, about anything, anywhere.”

So all those roughly twenty year olds were imposters?

By: lindsey

lindsey — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:46:31 +0000

It’s a phenomenon that even I can’t explain. They just are scary. Maybe it’s the intelligence factor, who knows. My problem was that I never had any questions, per se. So I felt silly going in just to talk, though now I realize I could have gone in to talk about the material more in depth than we did in class (who knew?). Shy students feel weird brown nosing, even if all they want is intelligent conversation (which is harder to find in most American universities than you’d think).

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:32:48 +0000

What makes a professor so scary as to make going to office hours scary? I’ve had students say that they thought I was scary but I don’t understand it at all. (I was much less scary or aggressive or harsh than my own undergrad professors were, for example.) Students almost never came to my office hours, despite my encouraging them to do so. (Some of this might have been due to my tendency to schedule one hour at 9am, though.) Most professors will be quite happy to have you come by. (Why would Hilzoy be scary? I’ve only met her once but she didn’t seem scary at all.)

By: lindsey

lindsey — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:19:19 +0000

Ingrid and al,
I do realize (now) that office hours are quite handy. But that’s only because I had a very nice prof who encouraged me to come in, and after I did I realized perhaps not all profs are scary. However, before that professor talked to me, I was quite terrified of all my professors, office hours or not. Undergrads are easily intimidated, and if they feel a professor is extremely busy, then they may not even try to come in (though of course, they should). It’s just a matter of perception. So to all the professors out there, make sure you tell your students that you want them to come in (even if they just want to chat)! Though of course this is all besides the actual point which is about non-student emails, but it’s still something worth noting if you’re a professor…

By: AL

AL — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:46:43 +0000

A few more things non-academics probably don’t know about, but which take up a lot of our time: referring for journals, administrative work like hiring or grad school admissions committees, writing reference letters for students and outside scholars, organizing conferences, presenting at conferences, work for professional organizations, etc. I’m not complaining about this, just noting that there are a lot of aspects of academic work that are invisible to people outside the profession.

Yes, teaching is a part of our job, and for many of us it’s one of the main things we enjoy. This is exactly why Lindsay from #45 should go to her professors’ office hours – we’re busy but we mostly really like talking with students.

For our own sanity we have to restrict this to OUR OWN students! This is nothing personal against other students – but we only have so much time to devote to students each day, and ethically we need to devote it to our own students first. Often the time we devote to our own students will eat up the day’s allotment of “student time.”

By: AL

AL — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 23:59:30 +0000

#45, Go to your professors’ office hours! They would be pleased to talk with you then. Students rarely take advantage of office hours, but it’s a time when professors have to be in their office anyway, and when they are usually relaxed and receptive to talking.

Don’t be discouraged by this thread; for Pete’s sake, Ingrid is complaining about someone who is not her student – or even at her school – writing to her, asking her questions that would take a book to answer. She and others are saying that it’s not realistic to expect professors to take an extra few hours out of their day to have an open-ended discussion with people they have no specific professional obligation to. (Many professors will, because we’re helpful folks, but it’s above the call of duty.)

That is, her complaint is NOT AT ALL representative of the attitude your professors will have toward you! If you let this get you down, then you are much too easily discouraged.

You should actively seek out all the good discussions you could have—every week, if you wanted!—if you just went to the scheduled office hours of the people who are teaching your classes. Be polite, go there with a couple of specific questions, and have a great discussion. If you can’t make the scheduled time, email them and ask for an appointment – most professors are happy to set one up.

More generally addressing Ingrid’s points… I think the short “here are the best sources, best of luck” strategy is the best.

Why don’t some posters above see the ludicrosity of the email presented?
I think there are two things going on: (1) many non-academics think of the professor’s life as being one of leisurely free time in between teaching classes, and (2) people who don’t know much about a subject area don’t realize how broad their questions are, and how time-consuming it can be to give an informative answer—and giving an informative answer is even harder if it’s going to be understandable by someone who doesn’t have a lot of background.

On the question of free time: the working hours of most (non-parent) pre-tenure professors I know are something like 8 AM - 7 PM and then again from 9 PM - 2 AM or so. Yes, there’s some websurfing and coffee breaks in there, and we have the flexibility to go run errands mid-day if we need to, but in general I think people outside academia seriously underestimate the amount of the day we spend working. (eg because they don’t know about committee work, or don’t understand what research and writing are like, etc) An imposition on our time is still an imposition on our time.