<p>I think he was just giving you a tip for future occurrences. You should be saying please in the first place when making a request. Brown-nosing = key. Sounds stupid, but seriously.</p>
<p>It depends on the professor, but that email seemed a bit blunt. </p>
<p>I had a microbiology professor who was extremely smart, but he didn’t know how to interact with people. I would email him and get one or two word answers or get a very blunt message. Sometimes that is just how people are!</p>
<p>Your email to him had an implied “finally”…as in “Let me know when you FINALLY get around to doing this.” </p>
<p>Guarantee you went to the bottom of his to-do list. And he has probably rolled his eyes and discussed it with other profs “God, you will not believe the emails these kids today …”</p>
<p>So, yes, you were rude or (at least) demanding.</p>
<p>Periodically, we get complaining threads on CC about profs who don’t answer emails. In addition to the status differential, many profs aren’t necessarily into the hip, casual interactions you’d use on a bud. They aren’t your buds. On top of that, you are asking them to handle something for you. If you have a choice between polite and “it doesn’t matter,” choose wisely. It’s a life lesson.</p>
<p>Personally, I didn’t feel you were “rude”, however, I thought you were demanding in your request. I thought the professor offered a gentle reminder to you. </p>
<p>I believe the idea of bringing this up to a Dean is ridiculous and shows a lack of maturity in the way you are handling the situation. </p>
<p>As others have stated, the professor is assisting you. He is asking for respect and feels that it is lacking. In the end, his opinion is the only one that matters. </p>
<p>A professor is not a peer and communications with them should be written in a professional manner.</p>
<p>I just re-read the entire thread because I thought that maybe my assessment had been overly harsh to the OP. Now I think maybe not harsh enough…</p>
<p>So the professor is the newly appointed head of the department–which means he has lots on his plate right now, and this is not one of the big items on his plate. Basically the OP wants him to identify a professor in the department that he is just taking over who would be qualified, able, and willing to develop an independent study course that both would meet the OP’s desires and the department’s requirements. In other words, there is a lot involved, and it’s not a major priority for the department head at this time.</p>
<p>Can you just imagine OP contacting the dean, complaining that the mean professor told him that it is customary to use the word “please” when making a request ?</p>
<p>I would not be in the least bit surprised if the department/professor politely declined the OP’s independent study request.</p>
<p>And I would love to see the OP’s reaction then.</p>
<p>***Maybe I shouldn’t, but I am wondering about the OP’s cultural background. One of my son’s suitemates a few years ago was a prince from a middle eastern country who had similar views–that using the word “please” was debasing, and that professors were his “subjects”, so to speak. He was a nice enough kid, just very used to getting his way, immediately and all the time.</p>
<p>Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Learn from this experience and move on.</p>
<p>The professor works for you like the traffic cops who catch me speeding work for me. Ha.</p>
<p>^ L O L. Yeah, he is in no way under you. Maybe equal in rights because we are <em>A M E R I C A</em> but in the hierarchy of internship or whatever, he’s on top.</p>
<p>I haven’t read all of the replies, but I will say this:</p>
<p>Regardless of the professor’s new position, he told you he would do things he did not follow up on. Doesn’t matter if you’re a student or his supervisor. When people say they will do/have done things, they need to follow up on them. And this professor is months late. He is not developing the course himself. He is putting the student in contact with someone who will do the actual work. </p>
<p>Professor-student relationships are different at every school. In first emails to professors I don’t know, I always say “Dr. _____” or whatever other prefix they have. They almost always sign the reply email with their first name, in which I know that it is okay to refer to them by their first name. In my experience, more intimate student-professor relationships are when both parties call each other by their first name (and sometimes calling the professor by their last but that’s not too common). </p>
<p>With that said, since you referred to him as “Dr.” (And he replied with that), that shows you two don’t have an intimate/relaxed relationship. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don’t think you were demanding or ordering, but “let me know” is a casual phrase and you and this professor don’t have this relationship (I would never say that to a professor, only a TF that is an undergrad or grad student where such language is common in exchanges). </p></li>
<li><p>That professor WAS rude in his response. Just because you were rude first doesn’t mean he can be rude back to prove a point. His word choice was poor just like yours was. That’s immature. He could’ve said that several ways better.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t take it to the dean. Higher ups stick together and this is not a situation of blatant abuse of power (and this professor probably doesn’t have a record of this behavior, but who knows).</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t agree with posters here saying learn to suck it up when people walk all over you in the “real world”. I have never done that before in dealing with adults. I always handled the situation maturely and was respected more for it. When I was a volunteer at 14 years old my supervisor went on a rant about the female volunteers (she was a woman herself) and said pretty disparaging and immature things, especially since they were directed towards young girls. Not even to our faces the whole time, but she turned around and was yelling it to everyone. This woman had a history of this attitude and favoritism of male volunteers. I was angry so I left the immediate vicinity to cool off. Then came back and said, “May I speak with you in private?..I don’t appreciate the way you were speaking to me earlier (to which she replied with “huh? What do you mean? I didn’t say anything”)”. So I repeated back everything she said and she was shocked - I mean jaw dropped, red faced. She apologized and said she appreciated that at my young age I approached her in a mature way instead of yelling like a teenager/child would. And she never did that again (in my presence, anyway). </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I don’t tolerate being disrespected. I would change jobs before I am walked all over. I don’t want to work for someone like that - dignity is invaluable. That said, you can’t take everything as an attack. This email was not an attack. Snippy, yes. You should send a reply saying your intentions were not to demand. However, I wouldn’t say “please” to everything. Asking “can/may (if may is proper in this context) you notify me when _____?” is sufficient. Specifically requesting “please” instead of telling OP to use better manners is debasing.</p>
<p>Okay, a few things… </p>
<p>First, I agree that the prof’s reply may have been a bit snippy, but I don’t think he was out of line. He didn’t flat out say “I won’t respond to you and I won’t follow through with the independent study.” He said “if you would like me to respond,” which, from my reading, is just a polite way of trying to show Justin some tact.</p>
<p>Second, OP, I don’t think you were necessarily rude, but I don’t think you were completely polite, either. Sometimes just saying “thanks!” isn’t enough. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have said anything about your tone, but I think Dr. X is just trying to help you in the future. </p>
<p>In general, I’ve found that being overly polite can almost never hurt you. You don’t necessarily have to say “please” all the time. Saying “I was just wondering if you could possibly let me know if you hear from Dr. X about the independent study? I would really appreciate it, and I thank you again for all of your time on this.” Heck, I even say things like these on here! It’s not “bowing down” to anyone or anything; it’s just being nice to people who are helping you. </p>
<p>So, while I agree this is a weird situation that probably shouldn’t even be one, I would NOT go to the Dean. Just send him an email like this: “That sounds great, Dr. X. Thank you so much for all of your effort on this. Also, please excuse my last email. I did not mean for it to sound demanding, and I sincerely do apologize.” </p>
<p>Also, being a Department Chair is a big deal and they are CRAZY busy, especially if they’re just getting into it. I can’t even imagine what your prof has got on his plate. One of my profs this past summer was one, and even during her “vacation” of summer, she was teaching, grading papers, making up tests, meeting with students, hiring faculty, doing research, organizing conventions coming to our school, overseeing independent studies and on campus every day figuring out fall semester schedule stuff. She took a week to grade assignments that probably could’ve been returned the next class, but in the context of her responsibilities, that’s perfectly fine.</p>
<p>My point is that maybe he was in the middle of doing all that and was just a bit irritated. He’s human, too, and students expect their professors to be magicians sometimes.</p>
<p>CPUScientist, it is summer, and sometimes that means that follow-ups don’t happen as quickly as people would like. Now let me be clear: I would not have written that email. I understand the department head’s concern (that the OP would even think about taking something like this to a Dean suggests a lot about the OP–it’s an hysterical overreaction and makes me suspect the professor’s admonition might have been about more than just the email), but I think that addressing the situation would be better done via a face-to-face conversation. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the poor department head may not even be responsible for the hold-up. Perhaps the department head did ask the other professor, but the other professor’s knee-deep in archives in Köln and ignoring phone calls from her own husband and children so that she can get through all the material, which means that she sure isn’t going to give a damn about a request for something for Spring 2014 and thus isn’t responding. Instead of throwing his colleague under the bus and exposing her to potential emails, the department head keeps radio silence instead of being truthful (“no humans other than the manuscript librarian and two pages have spoken with Dr. Z in two months, so I don’t know if she wants to do this”). I’ve had a few budget questions and some tiny administrative tasks to do this summer and it takes me, on average, about two-three weeks to hear back from my colleagues, who are traveling, at libraries, with their families, or otherwise just don’t want to be at anyone’s beck and call. </p>
<p>boysx3’s post is really spot-on; this guy’s got tons of other stuff to worry about right now.</p>
<p>I’m overpolite, but informal. The email was curt and demanding, but his response was childish. </p>
<p>To those who say manners have eroded in recent generations: “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” </p>
<p>Find this reflective of today’s culture?</p>
<p>Plato wrote it more than 2,300 years ago. </p>
<p>“We fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper.”
I think most would agree that this statement applies to the world we live in. The editorial board of The Sunday Magazine circa 1871 would agree.</p>
<p>^True, but the balance is off here. A whippersnapper kid reacting to a prof as if he were an employee. *Does he think he is above me and that I should be bowing down to him? I pay to be in school, and he gets paid by the school to do a job, and in my opinion he is not doing it. * It’s occurred to me that OP kind of owes us a “sorry,” too.</p>
<p>In summer, some profs scatter. OP probably left out plenty of details…because he doesn’t know. I find it telling that, despite limited knowledge, he starts an outraged thread. Really?</p>
<p>To the comment that the DHead didn’t fulfill a commitment, say what? The project is for spring 2014, the wheels are still turning. DHead is supposed to find a prof who can handle the IS. Frankly, we don’t even know what a project related to the pool industry is about, how it relates to the dept resources, whether there is an appropriate prof. If there were, I think that would have been OP’s first stop.</p>
<p>I also think it’s telling that many of us are on his case. We don’t agree with OP.</p>
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<p>I’m not saying that the OP should suck it up when people walk all over him, and I don’t think other’s are advocating that as well. But in this case, he WASN’T being walked all over. Everyone interprets things differently (as we can tell by the differences between the professor and the OP’s response to the original email), and if the OP really feels that strongly about it, then he can address the professor in person about it. As an objective third-party, though, I don’t think he was being taken advantage of, and my personal advice would be to choose your battles. To me, this would be a silly thing to contact the dean about or pick a fight over, but the OP is welcome to disagree.</p>
<p>Your professor was being a little irrational. It might have been misplaced irritation from other students, but who knows. The best advice I can give you would be to send your professor an email with an apology. Explain to your professor you meant no disrespect and you appreciate their cooperation.</p>