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This article in today’s New York Times caught my attention. It’s about the emails students sometimes send professors (which are sometimes demanding, inappropriate, abrupt, etc.) and the way professors sometimes feel overwhelmed by these.

At first, it struck me as another article about how technology and education are a bad mix. Usually these are about school districts that have banned student blogs, because students reveal too much personal information online, or about how IM-ing is allegedly ruining students’ ability to spell properly. The general tone of this genre is negative. Some of it is true, but a lot of it is sensational.

But at closer look, I saw this article as having some interesting insights: first, that we need to train students to communicate over email. And it does not have to take up a huge chunk of time. But what could be more relevant in communication-intensive courses than to spend a moment on what kind of communication is appropriate? At Baruch, where we’re preparing students largely for the world of business, teaching students to email professors is relevant to teaching them how to interact with people in companies they may work with.

Professors cited in the article complained that students were emailing to ask what kind of notebook they should buy, to request paper drafts be read days before the final draft was due, or to give excuses for absences (the example was not a serious one, but a student taking the day off class to play with his child).

Though they had many complaints about email content and delivery,

Still, every professor interviewed emphasized that instant feedback could be invaluable. A question about a lecture or discussion “is for me an indication of a blind spot, that the student didn’t get it,” said Austin D. Sarat, a professor of political science at Amherst College.

College students say that e-mail makes it easier to ask questions and helps them to learn. “If the only way I could communicate with my professors was by going to their office or calling them, there would be some sort of ranking or prioritization taking place,” said Cory Merrill, 19, a sophomore at Amherst. “Is this question worth going over to the office?”

But student e-mail can go too far, said Robert B. Ahdieh, an associate professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta. He paraphrased some of the comments he had received: “I think you’re covering the material too fast, or I don’t think we’re using the reading as much as we could in class, or I think it would be helpful if you would summarize what we’ve covered at the end of class in case we missed anything.”

Students also use e-mail to criticize one another, Professor Ahdieh said. He paraphrased this comment: “You’re spending too much time with my moron classmates and you ought to be focusing on those of us who are getting the material.”

Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he once received an e-mail message late one evening from a student who had recently come to the realization that he was gay and was struggling to cope.

Professor Greenstone said he eventually helped the student get an appointment with a counselor. “I don’t think we would have had the opportunity to discuss his realization and accompanying feelings without e-mail as an icebreaker,” he said.

A few professors said they had rules for e-mail and told their students how quickly they would respond, how messages should be drafted and what types of messages they would answer.

Meg Worley, an assistant professor of English at Pomona College in California, said she told students that they must say thank you after receiving a professor’s response to an e-mail message.

The bottom line is that professors just aren’t used to that much contact with students. And students are sometimes so comfortable with email as a quick and rough medium for communication, that they forgo the niceties of polite communication. It seems like some of the comments students were sharing according to the article (such as requests for feedback on drafts, or requests that material be handled more slowly or more quickly) might even help professors tweak their courses to better suit student needs.

As with classroom face-to-face interactions, it does not hurt to make the ground rules clear. It also doesn’t hurt to remind students of the amount of time it can take to type out answers to lots of questions–and that often a quick word at the end of class, or a quick phone call during office hours might be more efficient.

For professors who might want to share some emailing advice with students, say in a link from a course website, “How to email a professor,” from Orange Crate Art gets to many of the complaints in the NYT article.