FIRST PERSON

The Four-Year Standoff

A moment of minor irritation at a student's dumb question can make for major aggravation

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By JOHN LEMUEL

The first hint of trouble came in an e-mail message. It took me a minute to realize the sender was a parent and a bit longer to recall hazily the brief interaction with her son that prompted the message. The words "helicopter parent" had not yet entered the academic mainstream, but I braced for the encounter to unfold.

Skimming the message, I initially felt some sympathy for a mother's pain. But then I glanced at the address line: She had copied this e-mail to my boss, the academic dean. Here was a situation that didn't have to be contentious, but now it was, and I wasn't backing down. Bring it on, lady!

Here's what happened: In my first semester as an assistant professor at my university, this woman's son was in my writing class. Like many new faculty members at our institution, I had been pressed into teaching freshman composition until a new hire, someone even lower on the totem pole, took my place.

I had an arduous schedule of back-to-back-to-back classes. The composition one came first in the day, and I almost had to race my students out the door to reach my next classroom in time.

In the second week of the term, as I was gathering my things to leave, a student approached: a tall jock with a cocky walk and a sidekick trailing behind. "Maybe you can help me," he started. I was already calculating how quickly within the bounds of common decency I could blow him off, so I wouldn't be late for my next class.

"See, reading's not really my thing," he continued, "and you assign a lot of it, so I was wondering, do you have any suggestions for me?"

Scratch that part about common decency.

I have told this story to colleagues and, without exception, at precisely this moment of the tale, all have blurted out something ranging from a deadpan, "Yes, get out of college," to an elitist, "Try flipping burgers for a living," to a mild, but hardly sympathetic, "Get with the program" — if not something entirely unprintable.

They also, without exception, have been flabbergasted to hear that that's about how I replied. "You actually said that?!?" they gasp, all tender compassion for the student now.

Well, I was rushed, and it was a stupid question, so, yes, I blurted out that he was possibly in the wrong place and should either make reading his thing or look into other career options. He persisted, and before dashing off I described a few reading and time-management strategies, urging him to experiment and see what works.

You say heartless, I say candid. Potayto, potahto. Most students asking for shortcuts early on aren't strong retention prospects. So I figured either I'll see more of him or I've seen the last of him.

In truth, I soon forgot about the exchange. That early in the semester, I couldn't even recall the face to go with the name when I received the e-mail message from his mother a week later.

Clearly her epistle was an act of catharsis, containing a week's worth of ruminations. It recounted the incident from her son's perspective in baroque detail, including the damaged state of his psyche; her misgivings now about sending Junior to our college; and her elementary-teacher ideas of my role as a nurturer. She resented my implication that Junior didn't want to work, replying that he had done hard (blue collar, no less) work all summer.

Without a hint of irony, she insisted she did not fight Junior's battles for him. And she stated that he didn't know about this e-mail message and never would. Not feeling bound by her secrecy, I dialed her son's dorm room. "Think you could come by my office? Your mom sent me this e-mail, and I'd like to follow up with you."

A regular kid entered my office, no sidekick, no cocky walk. We reviewed our prior talk, and I abstracted his mother's e-mail. If you don't want her doing this in the future, I advised, take up your professor problems with the professor first.

"You acted like I was wasting your time," he countered.

Between classes is no time for meaningful consultation, I parried. He knew I held several office hours each week because I kept reminding students of that in class. He conceded his opening question hadn't made a good impression.

Our initial exchange had prompted him to write three furious pages in the journal he was required to keep for my composition class. "I guess that was a good thing," he reflected, because he'd been having procrastination problems.

That was a small consolation for me: I knew I'd blown it and would probably never regain credibility with him. And since he was a freshman, I stood to be reminded of this for the next four years.

His adviser later gave him the reading advice he was looking for: Use a highlighter. To my astonishment, he insisted he had never heard of highlighting or underlining a text.

In the end, he agreed to buckle down, get to work, and stop by whenever he needed help. He never came by my office again, not even to pick up his journal at the end of the semester, and passed the class in decent shape.

I e-mailed his mother that day after talking with her son. Had it been a private correspondence, I would have been gracious but guarded, invoking the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act restrictions against discussing his academic record without his waiver. As a legal adult (as most college students are), the law lets him control his academic privacy and reminds parents that their grown children are responsible for themselves.

But she had copied the e-mail message to my boss, the academic dean, and if she thought I would be cowed into submission, she was mistaken. Her message had emphasized, for leverage, what a bad impression of the college this story created, as she had told everyone she knew. Clearly she wanted my boss to call me on the carpet, if not fire me outright.

Being new to the institution, and with the new boss watching, I angled to show myself strong and capable. Likewise copying the dean on my reply, I was polite but firm.

Junior's account in mother's retelling didn't mention the suggestions I had tried to give him, however briefly. I filled in the gaps and added context in a professional and professorial tone that I hoped conveyed authority, explaining that I had already followed up with her son, and I think we understood each other. Between the lines was a simple message to mom: Butt out.

I admitted I had no control over what she said to anyone about me or the college but promised not to hold that against her son in my class. Between the lines was a message to the dean: Kids and their parents, huh?

I knew she had a right to be mad, but playing hardball made me play hard right back.

She replied briefly the next day, to me only, thanking me for my response and for meeting with her son. No desire to go another round, to my relief. She hadn't wanted her son involved; I hadn't wanted my dean involved. But my dean reassured me of his support and praised the way I had kept the situation from spiraling out of control. I'm sure parent and child similarly consoled each other.

Both sides came away from the experience like most kids do emerging from a schoolyard fight: feathers ruffled but largely unscathed, a little sadder and a little wiser.

Starting his freshman year, and my first year here, in that manner produced a four-year standoff marked by excessive courtesy and icy reserve, as each of us strove to prove ourselves better than our worst moments.

"Good to see you," I called whenever I saw him on the campus. When he invited me to a campus event he was part of, I made sure to go. I met his dad there; his family met my daughter. "Oh, this is that professor," his dad remarked. That's right, the one who also won a teaching award last year, I thought, hoping they hadn't missed that.

For four years I pictured a dramatic scene at graduation, but he missed it to attend a national competition off campus. The story about that competition appeared in a campus publication next to one about my winning a service honor.

And so it went, round after round of shadowboxing with an undergraduate and his parents.

Like most standoffs, it began in misunderstanding and ended anticlimactically. Sparring with an undergrad for self-respect seems appallingly petty, but at times it's felt like I've been doing just that, staying on my toes in case I have to dodge or throw a punch.

The missed opportunity was mine, and the resulting aggravation a pointless drain. The lesson: For my own good as well as that of my students, I have resolved to take a breath and look beyond a dumb question before I let fly the left hook.

John Lemuel is the pseudonym of an assistant professor in the social sciences at a small liberal-arts college in the Midwest.