Undergraduates, take note:
If we have academic business to discuss -- a paper conference, say -- I will go out of my way and be up on campus for you on a day I'm normally not here. I don't have to be, and I don't expect that other faculty members ought to do the same -- this is my choice, after all. But because I have made that choice, I abjure any right to resent you for taking me up on the offer, or to loudly trumpet the sacrifices I'm making. If I voluntarily make an offer, I should follow through with a cheerful mein.
BUT...
If you fail to make that appointment, even once, with no notice, just leaving me cooling my heels in my office when I could be elsewhere, you may expect that I will never again go out of my way for you. I will continue to be as helpful to you as you need me to be, but that help will come only during my regular office hours. Period.
5 comments:
Ugh, me too. It's even worse when I have to rearrange childcare.
Hear, hear.
I may follow you in adopting the policy of having students forfeit the privilege of appointment-making if they fail to keep one (I've spent several evenings sadly cooling my heels.)
Days that I have planned on not being on campus, I would never change my plan just for one student.
You are a good teacher. Both in agreeing to meet in the first place,and providing consequences when someone fails to show up.
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