Invisible Adjunct

I have no personal experience of romance, but I have plenty of departmental experience. I don't think romance inside the department ever works. Ever.

If it starts with two graduate students, it's o.k. -- they're idiots for thinking they'll ever be able to find employment in the same time zone, but it's their decision. Faculty/Student is bad to begin with or turns bad.

Sure this is anecdotal -- but it's based on 23 years of anecdotal evidence.

O.K. -- there's a second question. What about outside the department? I am aware of interdisciplinary relationships (in the strict sense of "sciences/humanities/social sciences"). That avoids almost all possibility of "supervision" unless one of them becomes a dean.

About those relationships I am more guarded. They might work without endangering others.

I have some experience.

I was romantically involved for several years with someone who was a professor at the university I attended as an undergraduate. We became friends through mutual friends outside the university and became involved shortly before I graduated, and lived together for several years afterward.

Having a relationship that was expressly forbidden by my partner's employment contract, inspite of the fact that the concerns of the university about such relationships had nothing to do with ours, put our relationship under horrible strain, which eventually ended the relationship. The fact that our relationship had overlapped 3 months of my being a student, no matter not her student, meant that the issue would become part of her tenure file if discovered (or even rumored, no?). Our friends could not meet, or know of our relationship. I could not answer the phone in my own house. We could not go out together in the small town we both lived in. We couldn't even go to the store together.

I would have never thought about the costs of such rules if I had not experienced them for myself. Why should people be fired for being in love? Why not have a model more like that of the corporate world - if two people become involved, one has to move to a position where they do not directly supervise the other (i.e. this person cannot be your advisor, you cannot take classes with this person, etc.). Rules banning student/professor relationships ban relationships even where the professor has no supervisory relationship. That is unnecessarily punitive.

Conflicts of interest can also be created by relationships other than romantic ones. I once saw a very serious set of problems created by a father-son relationship at work. And there is also major potential for abuse in "mentoring" relationships--the mentor develops a strong psychogical stake in the success of the mentee's career, and may act imprudently to help advance that career (perhaps the recent NYT case, for example)

There's a relevant quote from the movie Dazed and Confused.

I would tend towards an absolute ban on relationships between faculty members and students with whom they have any kind of supervisory relationship. However, I don't see why it ought to be a problem having a relationship with someone outside of one's own department.

There's hardly a massive power imbalance between the 25 year old graduate teaching assistant and the 21 year old undergraduate - especially once any possible impact via favouritism or discrimination is removed from the equation. Even in the case of larger gaps in age and/or status, I don't see why it's anyone's business but that of the people involved.

And what if the "student" isn't a traditional undergrad or grad student?

According to my university's records, I am technically registered as a student. That's because I'm using the university's staff educational benefit -- I'm actually a full-time employee who's taking a class each semester for the fun of it.

I certainly have no problem with not being allowed to date a professor or TA who I'm currently taking a class from, but if that ban were extended to the entire faculty of this university....Look, it'd be a much greater power imbalance if I were dating an undergrad than if I were dating a TA. I'm older than all the TAs and at least one of the profs I've had. I'm not seeking a degree. I don't work in an academic department, so dating a prof or TA wouldn't even be a workplace issue for me (and if I were working in a particular department, that shouldn't prevent me from dating someone in another department entirely).

A blanket "no faculty dating students, of any sort, EVER" doesn't take students like me into account.

I think all the objections above are worthwhile, and imagine there's a chance the folks who make the rules might think so as well: perhaps it's just an application of Occam's razor? Rather than having a policy crafted to be OK with the possible exceptions, the thinking might just be: well, let's obviate all that wrangling over details, and just say Don't ever do it; Go get your dates somewhere else.

I can't understnad why a faculty member would want to date an undergrad in the first place. Beyond the "eye-candy" factor, the reality is they are largely immature, unformed, and about as articulate as like-you-know-and-then-like-and-whatever.(and these are students at a good college) I'm speaking of female undergrads here. As for male students, well, they're actually worse, and I can't imagine any faculty member -- male or female -- having even the slightest interest in them.

Many student-faculty relationships are problematic, but so is life. A blanket ban hardly seems like a thoughtful solution.

But in the end, I think the dilemma as posted by IA -- inappropriate policing of adults, or belated accountability -- have relatively little to do with the UC Regents' decision (though they will happily make use of the rhetoric produced by supporters of the second view). Even though there IS a genuine debate, with real issues on both sides, from a dean's, chancellor's or regent's viewpoint, it's simple: this is a lawsuit avoidance technique. Now, it will be much harder for individuals to sue the University for "allowing" a sexual or romantic (or abusive!) relationship to take place, since the University has a clearly stated policy banning them. That the policy is virtually unenforcable _unless_ something else brings it out doesn't matter much to those who made the policy, I suspect. (But the effect the _policy_ can have on individual lives is illustrated by one of the earlier comments, above -- and no doubt, many individuals could produce cases where a clear policy might have restrained a professor or a student who was inclined to trying for a relationship that might be truly abusive.)

In the end -- especially given the strong tendency in US institutional culture to make a rule rather than trust people to make judgments (viz. the ongoing "zero tolerance" issue -- I think it's important to stand up for the importance of judgment. Thus, the rule is in my opinion a mistake. It may bring about some real good, but at the expense not only of much personal anguish, but also at the expense of trusting people -- professors AND students -- to be sensible, and to cope humanly if they have been non-sensible.

Chris,

I'd refer you to the aforementioned quote from Dazed and Confused.

What's the line, Chun?

"What's the line, Chun?"

My question also.

The problem here is individuality. Not all people are corrupt, nor is everyone perfect. The ban at least discourages the practices that have gone on behind the scenes for ages, but it also punishes those who believe they've found true love. Lifting the ban will only make it easier for those who are corrupt, so there has to be a better way.

I think it would be wise to allow a permit. If Professor McDreamy and his student Suzie Everyundergrad (cousing to Billy Everyteen) fall in love, then let them sign a contract and deliver a copy to the dean. The contract is just something stating that the restriction in the original contract is uplifted only in the case of the undersigned student provided that the two follow certain guidelines of fairness (those very things which could "screw over" noninvolved students: all grades will be evaluated by an objective third party, no letters of recommendation, etc). If the record shows that someone has five such permits during the week of final exams, then it's pretty clear that something's fishy.

I'm gonna sound old fashioned here, but I would be much more comfortable with an open, honest marriage between a faculty member and a student than with the typical student/faculty affairs you tend to see in many departments. When I was an undergrad in an art department (where mid-life crises apparantly ran rampant) it was quite amusing to see the efforts at "hiding" these affairs, which turned out to be very obvious (especially when painting professors would do the same nude study over and over again in their artworks, thus surpassing Wyeth's Helga series in terms of frequency!). I tend to think that the student/professor affairs rather than the marriages breed student favoritism.

If you'd seen the movie, you'd know. You should go watch it. It's pretty funny.

Please, just tell us!

(For what it's worth, I did just see the movie, and I don't remember the line in question. I also didn't find the movie funny, as it was too close to unpleasant aspects of my actual high school experience for comfort. Obviously, YMMV.)

I'm with you, Rana. I saw the movie years ago and haven't watched it since -- despite all kinds of people occasionally telling me 'oh, you've got to see this movie ...' I cringed and winced all the way through it the first time, laughed very little (if at all), and thought to myself 'I lived through this crap, why am I sitting through it again'.

Just tell us the line Chun, please, and skip the oracular posturing.

I think Chun is referring to local loser who says, "That's the great thing about high school girls. I keep getting older, and they stay exactly the same age." Do I win a prize or something?

For me as well, Dazed and Confused seemed too much like my youth to be funny. It also took me a while to catch the subtle humor of King of the Hill. Seriously.

quoting:

I can't understnad why a faculty member would want to date an undergrad in the first place. Beyond the "eye-candy" factor, the reality is they are largely immature, unformed, and about as articulate as like-you-know-and-then-like-and-whatever.(and these are students at a good college) I'm speaking of female undergrads here. As for male students, well, they're actually worse, and I can't imagine any faculty member -- male or female -- having even the slightest interest in them.

//////

Well, in my experience, the reason faculty members are dating students is a desire to exploit the relationship and a complete disinterest in the essence of dating other than exploitation.

I am a former undergraduate/Grad student who was romantically involved with a professor from 1988 to 1991. In the years since leaving the college I have never forgotten about him and are still very much in love with him till this day. I recently readmitted to the college in the Fall of 2001, but for all of the wrong reasons. I was married from 1992 to 1997 and the love I have for my former professor palyed a big part in the divorce. In the time that I was married we coresponed and he even called me to say that he wished that things could have turned out differently. I have a child now and he supposedly was divorced with children at the time I was seeing him. Now that I am divorced, he has told me that he is married, this broke my heart and has destroyed any faith in men that I had left. What should I do?

I am a former undergraduate/Grad student who was romantically involved with a professor from 1988 to 1991. In the years since leaving the college I have never forgotten about him and are still very much in love with him till this day. I recently readmitted to the college in the Fall of 2001, but for all of the wrong reasons. I was married from 1992 to 1997 and the love I have for my former professor played a big part in the divorce. In the time that I was married we corresponded and he even called me to say that he wished that things could have turned out differently. I have a child now and he supposedly was divorced with children at the time I was seeing him. Now that I am divorced, he has told me that he is married, this broke my heart and has destroyed any faith in men that I had left. What should I do?

I also have a comment for the person who thinks that undegrads are immature. I will have you know that some of us are into our thirties and even in our forties and have life experience, this is something that perhaps you have not experienced yet.

"What should I do?"

Well, I'm pretty sure you already know this, but since you posted I'll assume you want to hear it from someone else: You need to get over this guy, and you need to do it now. Not tomorrow, not next month or next year, but *now.* You now realize that there is absolutely nothing you can do that will ever result in marriage to this man. What else can you do but recognize that you made a mistake and resolve to move on?

Okay, I actually had a longer and more detailed reply, but I deleted it because it sounded too much like Dr. Laura or Dr. Phil or one of those Dr. Toughlove types. But the main point was: You must admit that the case is hopeless and that it always was, and then take positive steps to move on.

I understand this and I have tried to move on. As difficult as it is I do realize that is is hopeless and he is the one that is loosing out. I have a friend who actually had a child with her business professor and now her daughter is 16 and has not seen nor been supported by her so called father in 13 years. I am just glad that the relationship that we had did not result in a child for that I am thankful.

I also have something to add as far as undergrads being less mature than grad students. I am 40 and just decided to return back to school after 15 years. I have been married and divorced and I am the mother of an Autistic child. I work with the New York City Board of Ed within the special education district all while raising my son all on my own.

I am also a non-traditional student of 31. I am a divorced mother of two small children who has already obtained my bacherlor's degree in one field and has returned to obtain one in a separate field. I am neither immature or a giggling co-ed. I feel extremely comfortable with my professors considering that most are less than eight years older than I am. If something were to develop with one of my former professors, I feel it would not be a conflict of interest for us to date.