I remember opening up a freshly-printed syllabus from my professor – who shall remain nameless- the beginning of the semester. It looked similar to every other one I had received, except for a couple of things.
There was no e-mail, no office hours, not even a room number. A little puzzled, I just disregarded it. I might not need to talk to him, I thought.
Well, questions did arise about assignments. To e-mail the professor I looked at the faculty directory. The Brockport Web site would have to offer answers, I thought. It didn’t.
One time, the day before class, I received a call from a random woman, telling me my class was cancelled. Before I could ask who it was, she hung up. I took her word as true, and didn’t go to class. I heard later that some of the students in the class weren’t on this calling list, and walked/drove to class.
I’m not saying this is the end of the world, but a little communication can go a long way. I can see not wanting to be contacted by nagging students through e-mail. Relying on word of mouth, however, just does not make sense.
Making it hard to contact this professor didn’t take away from my class experience. But it is something expected out of professors in order to make people’s lives on both ends a little easier.
