Speak Up!

How to Talk to Your Professor

Amy Handlin

• Publisher: Kaplan Test Prep
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781506258171
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Speak Up! teaches students how and why they should reach out and connect with their professors. Author Amy Handlin provides thoughtful and strategic advice based on her 25+ years of teaching and advising experience. Students know it's important to connect with their professors, since those relationships will pay off immediately and throughout their academic careers. Approaching professors can be intimidating, but this step-by-step guide prepares college and graduate students to advocate for themselves and develop the skills they need to build connections with professors. Speak Up! includes cut-and-paste sample emails, scripts for in-person meetings, and tips for navigating tricky situations.

CHAPTER 1

Do Professors Really Care About Students?

Opening Quiz

1. Why reach out to a professor if you’re doing fine in the course?
2. What is unique about adjunct professors?
3. What’s a disadvantage of relying on TAs (teaching assistants) for help?

Professors are easy targets for criticism—not only from students, but also from society at large. That’s because much of what they do is visible only to other professors, who read their articles in scholarly journals or listen to them present their research at conferences. Steeped in the high-level theories of their fields, they use a lot of unfamiliar words and pick on minor errors. For example, a professor might say something to you along these lines: “I liked the part of your paper where you successfully synthesized several conflated paradigms. Now you need to distill dispositive evidence for your argument. Oh, and it’s incorrect to use i.e. and e.g. interchangeably when listing your examples.” Translation: “You’re doing a great job. I want to help you do better.”

Behind the big words and seemingly picayune criticism, professors (at least the vast majority of them) care—a lot—about what their students learn and how well they learn it. These things reflect on the quality of their teaching skills, the value of their scholarship, and their overall professional competence. After all, they chose to pursue careers in education, where the ability to share knowledge is celebrated and admired.

That’s all very well, you’re probably thinking, but I want to know if they care (or even know) about students as people. Does my professor really care about me?

Here’s the truth: How much an individual professor cares about an individual student is largely up to the student. Why? Put yourself in that professor’s shoes. Most of the time, she walks into lecture halls filled with hundreds of anonymous learners. After lecturing in front of that ocean of faces, she may conduct seminars with dozens more students, who, while advanced in the field, are also just names on a roster. From among that vast crowd, whom will she get to know on a personal level? Whom will she come to care about? Those who stand out . . . those who speak up!

In this chapter, you will learn:

Section 1: A professor’s job

What’s visible to a student is only one part of the complex, demanding job of a professor.

Section 2: Who is your professor?

The more you know about what makes your professor tick, the better your chances are of connecting with her.

Section 3: Adjunct professors, online professors, and TAs

There are some significant differences between on-campus professors, adjuncts, online instructors, and TAs. But all of them play major roles in the academic community and can be very important to you.

Section 4: What a dean can do for you

Deans are administrators, not teachers, but they can offer a wealth of resources.

Section 5: What’s in it for them—and for you

When a professor shows that he cares, he benefits himself as well as his students. It’s a classic win–win!

Section 1: A Professor’s Job

To get a better understanding of where your professors are coming from—and why it’s so important for you to take the initiative—let’s take a look at the typical responsibilities of a full-time professor at a four-year college or university. These responsibilities are divided into three main categories: teaching, research, and service.

A. Teaching

To a casual observer (or student), teaching at the college level looks easy. Professor X breezes into a classroom and runs through her slides or lectures for an hour or so. After answering a few questions and calling attention to upcoming assignments or tests, she’s done for the day. Or so it seems.

In reality, what that student sees is the end product of many hours of work. Not only does Professor X need to write lectures and prepare slides for each class session during the term, she must also create the syllabus, website, homework, and exams for every course she’s teaching (usually between two and four, but the number can go higher). At most institutions, professors are expected to grade papers, advise both undergraduate and graduate students, hold office hours, oversee independent studies, and supervise honors or graduate theses. Their teaching responsibilities extend to designing new curricula, degree programs, and courses—and often involve writing textbooks for those new courses. Of course, Professor X must also find time to respond to the dozens of questions, complaints, and requests for help that can arrive every day from students, administrators, and/or other professors.

B. Research

The amount of time professors spend doing research varies widely. At some research-intensive universities, it may be 75 percent of an average week or more; elsewhere, research may be a lower priority. But at virtually every four-year institution, there is an expectation that each full-time faculty member will engage in serious efforts to advance knowledge in his or her discipline.

While every project is unique, research by professor’s is likely to involve tasks such as the following:

• Conducting studies that lead to new insights in their field
• Writing articles about their studies and preparing them for scholarly journals
• Reviewing the work of their peers
• Applying for and administering grants to support their research
• Giving talks at academic conferences or other institutions
• Collaborating with other researchers both on and off campus
• Supervising the research of PhD candidates
• Conducting research seminars
• Reading journals and books to keep abreast of advances in their field
• Speaking to the media about their area of expertise

And remember—all of these research tasks must be completed without sacrificing teaching time or quality!

C. Service

As if teaching and research were not enough to fill a professor’s day, he is also responsible for what’s called “service.” On a college campus, the term refers mostly to sitting on committees. Faculty committees may meet as often as once a week or as infrequently as once a year; they address issues as different as graduation requirements and hiring policies. Most professors are members of multiple committees at once. Off campus, there is more service work—editing a journal, organizing a conference, or helping to run a professional society.

Here’s the bottom line: Professors act busy because they are busy. Much as they might love to get to know every one of their students, their schedules make it impossible. However, professors want very much to feel that they’re making a difference. When a student puts forth the effort to reach out to them, that effort says: “You matter. You’re important to my life.” It would be hard to find many professor’s who wouldn’t, to the best of their ability, respond in kind.

Raise Your Hand

Question: What does it mean when a professor has tenure?

Answer: Tenure is a guarantee of lifelong employment at the college or university that grants it. Just as important, it is an internationally recognized, highly prized mark of academic achievement. From a student’s point of view, tenure generally means the professor is extremely knowledgeable in her field and well known on campus. She is likely to have a wide network of contacts who can be of help to her students. Her opinions are sought after and respected. Often (though not always), a letter of recommendation from a tenured professor will carry more weight than one from a more junior faculty member.

Take advantage of every opportunity to introduce yourself, talk informally, and make an impression on your professors. Later in the book, you’ll learn about how, when, and why to choose particular communication tools (email, face-to-face meetings, instant messages, and so on), and what to say in common situations. For now, what’s important is to commit yourself to using one or more of the options soon. Start making these contacts before you need to make a request, lodge a complaint, or ask for a favor. Why the emphasis on timing? Because when or if you do need help, approaching a person with whom you’ve had some friendly talks is much more comfortable than pleading your case to a total stranger.

Section 2: Who Is Your Professor?

What’s behind the name, title, and office location of that woman or man who holds so much sway over your academic life? How is she different from, or similar to, other professors? And why do you need to know?

To be clear: It isn’t necessary (or appropriate) for a student to peer into the details of a professor’s personal life. But it’s very smart to learn enough to find some common ground. Particularly at the beginning, establishing rapport and laying the foundation for a relationship will come a lot easier if you can talk about something beyond the syllabus.

Fortunately, many professors make it simple to get a sense of their interests and priorities. They maintain an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. If they’re well-known experts, they may be opinion writers for major newspapers or commentators on television news shows. The point is, a little research into publicly available information should give you more than enough background to start a conversation.

Here are examples of what you might find and how you could build on it:

• Let’s say a professor of politics posts the following: “I spent the summer crisscrossing Europe to interview activists for my study on cross-border grassroots movements.” All you need to know is that he recently visited several countries. If you’ve traveled internationally, this would be a great ice breaker: “I noticed that you spent time in Europe last summer. I did too! Where did you go?”
• A professor of zoology is referenced in a magazine article as a “groundbreaking researcher in the Amazon jungle.” If you can read enough of the article to say something relevant (don’t panic—this can be as simple as “Your research on monkeys in Bolivia sounds really interesting”), the professor will be struck by your initiative.
• A professor of business is interviewed on television about his work as a consultant for a range of companies. Are you a customer of any of those companies? Have you seen their ads? Even such a tenuous link can be sufficient to kick off a brief and interesting exchange.
• A professor of environmental science informs her Twitter followers: “Appeared as a guest on National Public Radio yesterday to discuss Arctic climate change.” Here’s a possible comment: “I know you’re an expert in Arctic climate change. When you discussed it on NPR, did you get a lot of feedback from listeners?”

Another approach is to pick up on something the professor said—or didn’t say—in class. For instance, it’s common to end a lecture by saying something like “I’d like to get into some alternative perspectives on this topic, but we’re out of time.” Why not go up to him and ask, “Could you tell me a little bit about the perspectives you mentioned?” Or, if you found the material engaging, “I’d like to learn more about the topic you covered today. Can you recommend any extra reading?”

A cautionary note: These ice breakers and conversation starters are intended only to lay the groundwork for a relationship. While even a single informal interaction with a professor is far better than none, it will take time to form, and reap the benefits of, a meaningful connection.

Raise Your Hand

Question: Why can’t I just start a conversation with my professor by talking about the course assignments?

Answer: You can, and it certainly won’t hurt you. But it won’t help very much either. Talking about the assignments signals only that you want a good grade. Talking about the professor’s work, interests, or accomplishments (or asking him to expand on a lecture) suggests that you’re a curious, creative learner—the kind with special potential, the kind he’ll want to know better.

From a Different Perspective

The following are quotes from professors who were asked about the nature or importance of their interactions with students. They represent vastly different fields (from English to computer science) and institutions (from Ivy League to big state schools).

“The students who have over the years found their way to me have been the source of great joy, and many are still friends virtual and actual. We share Facebook photos and actual meals. But when they were still students what we shared was collaboration on what their lives might become.”

—Former Hunter College and Princeton University dean, quoted in Huffington Post

“The ideal relationship between a professor and a student is a conversation. One thing everyone needs to understand is that professors chose to be in the profession of teaching, and teaching is part of a conversation that is very large and is between the professor and the subject and the student.”

—New York University professor, quoted in MetroUS

“I relish the opportunity to interact with my students and get to know them better. My hope is for students to be as successful as possible in my classes.”

—Florida State University professor, quoted in College Magazine

“Interpersonal interaction in less formal settings can result in greater understanding of concepts taught in class. These interactions also can help put students at ease in class and there...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• About the Author
• Table of Contents
• Introduction: Why You Need to Speak Up
• Chapter 1: Do Professors Really Care About Students?
• Chapter 2: Myths and Truths
• Chapter 3: What You Say and How You Say It
• Chapter 4: Choosing the Right Communication Channel
• Chapter 5: Using Time to Your Advantage
• Appendix I: Guidance for Three Uncomfortable Situations
• Appendix II: Sample Communications and Tools