It makes one long for simpler times, when young folk knew their place.
Reports of academics complaining of their students emailing them with regularity and familiarity have popped up on both sides of the Atlantic (well, once in the New York Times and once in the Times Higher, but, hey, that's a trend).
It seems that older academics are used to keeping students at a distance; the sound of diffident footsteps on ancient stone acting as a prelude to a soft nervous knock on a thick wooden door. They could leave an agonising silence before shouting "Come!' to irascibly summon a tremulous youth, who, by then, knew their place in the academic pecking order.
Email has changed all that.
The informality of the medium has seemingly bridged the gap. Professors are now having to deal with the impertinence of being addressed by their first name, of sign offs that read 'hugs and kisses' and 'cheers mate'.
It does get a little stronger. According to the THES, one student threatened "to take his fees elsewhere", while in the US there have been reports that a student felt free to admit that she had skipped class because of too much drinking at a weekend party, and another admitted to missing the class - but demanded the notes anyhow.
Strangely, though, academics also complained about emails being sent at all times of the day and night, as though that meant they had to instantly respond. Some admitted they felt pressured to be on call. Email accessibility has, they feel, reduced them to just another resource to be tapped for information, an alternative to Google.
But isn't accessibility the wonder of our age? Shouldn't teachers in HE get used to being treated as if on a level with their pupils, or are we still supposed to be in an age of deference?
And haven't these people got a delete button on their email browsers?
