Physicist and award-winning master teacher Robert Brown [1] taught me several years ago to learn every student’s name every semester. This begs a related question: what should students call you?
At many independent secondary schools (for example, Quaker Friends schools) and progressive liberal arts colleges, students have been on a first-name basis with teachers for decades. But there seems to be a formality at the university level in general and at Baruch in particular (even my administrative assistants call me “Professor”). Why is this?
Struggling with this question, I thought about Brown. He insists on being called “Doctor Brown,” and yet his students consistently rate him as the most helpful and approachable person they know. Brown tells me that he knows of many faculty who are called by their first name, and their popularity with the students, in his opinion, is really not closely correlated with whether they are on a first-name basis.
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[1] Brown, R. 2005. “‘Lowfalutin’ Learning List”, The Physics Teacher, 43(1), 55-56. (This collection of 10 suggestions for young teachers is a “must read” for all junior faculty of any discipline.)
My first semester here, I had just turned 30. I thought it would be cool for the 22-year-olds to call me “Andrew.” They walked all over me. But, then again, I dressed very informally, which probably had something to do with their perception of me as laid-back.
So I began wearing ties (some hand-tied bowties) and jackets. Students were still allowed to call me by my first name, but they gave me more respect. My problem was I couldn’t stand the self-imposed restriction of my own outfits. I then officially moved over to “Professor” but reverted to wearing t-shirts and jeans. However, I was never really comfortable with the imposed formality of “Professor,” so about 7 years into the process I decided to refer to myself by the one name “Tomasello” (in keeping with the practice common among many musicians: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/onename.pdf). It seems bizarre, I realize, but it works for me and for them, I think. Know that they all call us by our last names behind our backs anyway.
My white hairs and wrinkles now help me keep a respectful distance from my students.
The name question brings to mind two cultural values: formality and power distance. Germany, where I grew up, ranks higher on formality than the U.S. but lower power distance. This has the effect that, on one hand, even same-age colleagues may call each other by the last names, but that, on the other, one doesn’t perceive as much of a threshhold when dealing with superiors or skipping hierarchical levels on the other.
Our students come from cultures where formality and power distance is often much higher than in the United States. I have the feeling that some of these students (e.g., from Asian countries) may feel uncomfortable, calling an instructor by the first name. I wonder whether some may even be so shy about it that they’d be hesitant to approach the instructor.
Then again, personally, I like the informality of the United States . . . and wish that power distance was lower as well, actually. Maybe our students from contrast cultures feel the same way? I had one student from South America once who, after the semester was over, kept in touch via e-mail and switched to first-name basis without prompting. Which brings up the other question of whether we shouldn’t discuss such matters with the students in the context of workplace etiquette. Students often seem unsure.
Prof. Gareis’s . . . er . . . Elizabeth’s š comment about same-age colleagues is interesting. When speaking to students about faculty members, I always refer to the older colleagues as, “Prof. Smith,” Whereas in referencing my age-mates or those younger I toss out merely the last name. That’s probably considered rude (as opposed to friendly) by many students.
This reminds me of an old joke that Brooklyn comedian (and former high school teacher) Sam Levinson would tell back in the 1960s. One day teacher Levinson, passing one of his students in the hall, was greeted by the boy with, “Hi, Levinson!” The future comic stopped the student and said, “Call me Mr. Levinson.” To this the student replied, “I didn’t know you got married.”
Iām actually more interested in the (thus far) unremarked-upon notion that I should learn every studentās name every semester. In this case I think thereās a significant difference between āshouldā and ācan.ā I call the roll each day as a means of both learning names and communicating the fact that I am paying close attention to whether theyāre there or not. When I started out 35+ years ago, I could learn everyoneās name in a couple of weeks. But no longer. The part of my brain that stores and processes names and faces is nearly filled up. I can usually remember where a student habitually sits, and look in that direction, and when students say or write something that particularly grabs my interest and attention Iām much more likely to remember them. But I have had to admit to myself that Iām no longer able to recognize them all and recall their names, even by the end of the term. I refuse to think that this is a failure of interest or good intentions on my part, and Iād hate to think that there are others out there feeling guilty about thisāI know from many conversations that it happens to most of us as we mature (i.e., grow more or less gracefully older).
Glenn, you raise an excellent point. Something that helps is when institutions support name learning. For example, the Darden School at Univ. of VA and the Ivey School at Univ. of Western Ontario provide professors rosters with student photographs. In the case of the Ivey school, it is a panoramic picture of each class taken from the front of the room with students in their assigned seats and name cards in front of every student. At Darden, it is a large collection of individual portraits (like a yearbook page) laid out in a grid that matches the classroom seat assignment.
I’ve found the best way to learn students’ names is to make sure they learn each other’s names and use them in class discussion. I do a lot of ice-breakers at the beginning of the semester to help them do this, promising that we can stop doing ice-breakers (even though I think they secretly enjoy them) when they start to use names in class discussion. And then I ask that they introduce whatever contribution they have to make by first linking it to something someone else previously said (“I agree with…, disagree with…, want to build on…, go back to…, clarify…,” etc.). It works pretty well, and the extra reinforcement helps me learn their names quickly.