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More is
not necessarily better
Student-Faculty Interactions
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Previous experience
with large graduate-oriented departments had suggested to us that
“warming up” the department social climate is beneficial to women
students and faculty (Dresselhaus, et al., 1995; Whitten, 2000). We somewhat naively believed that this
is a linear process, as shown below.
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Our experience with
smaller departments is very different. In all the
departments we visited (successful and typical alike) the faculty
are focused on teaching and mentoring students, and believe that
they are approachable and friendly to their students. Students for the most part confirm this.
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In these warm and
friendly departments we have seen that close student-faculty
relationships can, if overemphasized, become counterproductive. We
saw several stages to this process, as shown in figure 2.
More
is not necessarily better
Poor
Role Models
Availability
is really important, I think. But
we go overboard on that. You
may hear from faculty that we feel we are too available.
That our doors are always open. And the last year or so we’ve been raising consciousness
about this—that you don’t have to have your door all the time
for students. (Female
Dean)
- First,
faculty may inadvertently become poor role models for students.
Women students, in the later part of their undergraduate
career, are beginning to wonder how they might balance their
interest in physics with their desire for a partner and perhaps
family. They watch
their faculty, particularly women, to see how they model that
balance. If they
see their faculty always working, with no time for a personal
life, they are not encouraged to continue in physics.
(Seymour, 2003) While
students appreciate faculty availability, they themselves aspire
to lives balanced between professional and personal. Faculty who have no real life apart from their job do
not make good role models.
- One
male student told our BA-level interviewer that, while he
appreciated being able to go to his professor for help on his
quantum homework late at night, he would not want to live that
way.
- A
male professor told us that, if we want our students to want to
be like us, we must model attractive lifestyles ourselves.
More
is not necessarily better
Paternalistic
[Male
professor] is a person who, I would say, is genuinely concerned and
loving toward his students, but on the other hand he can worry you
to death. He’s
like—you know how your mom just bugs you all the time?
Go do this and pick up your clothes and clean your room and
did you do your homework and what about this paper you have due
three months from now? That’s
[him]—he’ll call you every day if he has something on his mind.
<Really? Does
he drive you crazy?> Batty.
(Female
student)
- Second,
faculty may begin to behave in an inappropriately paternalistic
manner toward their students.
While this may occur out of concern, and a genuine desire
to be helpful, college age students do not need to be hovered
over by adults. They
are at the stage of their lives when they need to be making
their own decisions (albeit with adult advice) and taking
responsibility for the consequences.
Faculty who read students’ body language and demand to
know about their social life are transgressing appropriate
boundaries and becoming paternalistic.
- Students,
particularly women, have mixed feelings about paternalistic
behavior, as the above quotes show.
They recognize that this behavior comes from concern and
often appreciate it, but, upon probing by our BA-level
interviewer, they express annoyance and frustration.
- We
observed this behavior by faculty at successful schools, which
may suggest that female students are tolerant or even welcoming
of hovering, overly parental faculty.
But it encourages dependence, and we believe faculty
would do better to observe appropriate boundaries.
- We are aware that there is no clear
boundary between appropriate and paternalistic behavior; indeed,
behavior that is appropriate in one context may be paternalistic
in another. The
best guideline is to confine your questions to professional
concerns (class, homework, career plans) and let students take
the lead in talking about personal matters.
More
is not necessarily better
Harassing
-
Finally,
and most distressing, in an atmosphere in which professors are
encouraged to invest too much of their time and energy in
relationships with students, some few faculty may come to expect
emotional or sexual satisfaction from their students, and become
sexual harassers.
-
When
a professor exhibits sexual interest in a student, it is
experienced as a “devastating betrayal of trust,” that often
has very negative consequences for her education; women students
“quit research teams, drop courses, switch majors, and drop
out of college altogether” because of “what many people
perceive as harmless flirtations” (Rabinowitz, 1996).
-
Studies
of sexual harassment of students by professors (Zalk, 1996)
makes clear that there is no one kind of faculty member who
engages in this behavior, and we certainly do not mean to imply
that all sexual harassment grows out of an overly friendly
department culture. Nevertheless,
we did encounter, at two of our five successful schools, clear
cases of inappropriate faculty behavior in otherwise warm and
friendly departments. In
both these cases it seemed to us that unclear student-faculty
boundaries were partly responsible.
-
Research
(Rabinowitz, 1996) shows that the consequences for the student
are most severe when sexual interest is manifested in a
long-standing relationship; she may come to question her
academic success and become skeptical of any praise or
encouragement. This
suggests that the intrusion of a professor’s inappropriate
sexual behavior into a warm and friendly department may be
particularly devastating. The student may feel uniquely singled out and isolated in a
department where “everyone else” seems to be thriving.
She may be reluctant to report misbehavior on the part of
a popular faculty member whom “everyone else” appears to
like and respect. One
of our student participants refused to file a complaint because
she was afraid the whole campus would turn against her because
the professor was so well liked.
She preferred, she told us, to just “get through it.”
-
Please
note that we are not
claiming for a moment that every faculty member who expresses
personal concern for students, who invites students to her or
his home or spends long hours talking to students about
professional or personal concerns is a potential harasser.
Devotion to students is one of the most admirable
qualities of the faculty we interviewed, and one of the most
important aspects of the strong female-friendly departmental
culture we are advocating.
We are saying that “more is not necessarily better” and that
appropriate boundaries must be maintained.
When we observed clearly inappropriate behavior by
popular teachers in successful departments, we were disturbed to
realize that it is part of a continuum that stretches from warm
and friendly to paternalistic to harassing.
More
is not necessarily better
Achieving
Balance
- It
is the responsibility of everyone at an institution to work to
achieve an appropriate balance in student-faculty relationships,
and between professional and personal lives.
- The
administration needs to encourage faculty to balance personal
and professional lives by maintaining the family-friendly
policies discussed above. In
addition to being an effective way of recruiting and retaining
faculty, these policies help faculty be effective role models
for students, and encourage women students to believe that they
can be a scientist and still have a satisfying personal life. This will assist in keeping women students in physics.
- The
administration should encourage an atmosphere in which
appropriate student-faculty boundaries are defined and observed.
Both faculty and students must be kept aware of current
guidelines. (See,
for example, Sandler and Shoop, 1997.).
- It
is the responsibility of the administration to be sure students
are informed of the institution’s policies and procedures
regarding sexual harassment.
This is difficult to do; in our conversations with
students we realized that they do not pay attention to such
information until they or a friend need it.
Verbal information is ignored, and written information is
quickly lost.
- The
best way to inform students of harassment policies is through
the Web. Students are used to searching the Web for information, it
can be obtained privately, and it is easy to keep current. We have observed some very good models that include the
policy and clear explanation of the procedure a student should
follow, along with contact information for a variety of people
the students can contact for advice and further information.
See, for example, the Webpages of
-
-
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- Faculty members need to seek a
balance of teaching and mentoring students, conducting research,
and maintaining a private life with family and friends. They need to recognize and respect their colleagues’
different commitments and encourage them likewise to lead
balanced lives. Faculty
who spend too much time with students, to the detriment of their
personal lives, should be objects of concern rather than praise.
- Students also need to recognize their
professors’ need for personal time, and limit their demands.
- A
warm and active department culture is an important part of a
female-friendly department, but it should not supercede
commitments to family and friends outside the department.
Eisenhart and Finkel (1998, p. 229) argue that fields
like physics are “greedy,” demanding too much time and
energy and driving away women who would like a rich and
satisfying personal life in addition to their career. What all members of the community need to achieve in their
own lives, and help each other achieve, is balance.
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