A little civility, please

Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009 | 2:04 a.m.

Lee Shumow, an educational psychology professor at Northern Illinois University, regularly uses e-mail to communicate with her students. She appreciates it when they don’t start their messages with, “Hey, Lee.”

As the Chicago Tribune reported recently, Shumow is seeing what several professors say is a new wave of informality — that often borders on incivility — on college campuses.

“I literally cannot imagine having addressed any teacher I had in my career as ‘Hey’ and then their first name,” said Shumow, who has a doctoral degree and has taught at the university for 15 years.

A casual salutation is just the beginning of her concern. Professors regularly see students send text messages, surf the Internet or answer calls on their cell phones during classes. They also say they see students regularly sleep and eat in class and come and go as they like. It’s not a surprise for students to come for presentations dressed in beachwear.

Obnoxious behavior is also increasingly common, professors say, both by students and their parents. One professor said a parent was irate because his child deserved “at least a D” considering the amount of tuition he paid.

It is easy to attribute these complaints to age — older generations always gripe about how the younger generations don’t have it as bad or don’t work as hard or aren’t as polite as they were.

The difference, however, is that previous generations didn’t have the technology students do today. Technology has driven a sense of informality, particularly as students who were raised with computers may see themselves as superior to their elders, who often lack some of the technical know-how.

P.M. Forni, director of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, said the attitude is often: “I don’t need you. I have the ’Net.”

We hope that attitude is short-lived because it is harmful. As we have seen, the Internet can be wrong. Education is enhanced, if not made, by the interaction between students and their teachers.

The first lesson students should learn is: Technology is no excuse for a lack of basic human civility.