I have heard of several cases in which female professors dated male students (and one, in fact where a female professor dated a female student). In the latter case people snickered (more than then might have otherwise)…but I think that generally both versions were met with disapproval. I have also noted that the people who seem to “disapprove” the most are the people who have their own issues with boundaries and “dual relationships”. Perhaps a bit of “reaction formation”…but this may just be limited to the folks I have run into.
Also, I got it that it was a joke about the double standard.
On the “discourage” and “ban” question, I think there should be a policy against it to show the univeristy or college position, but not a rule that could get someone fired if the right undergrad got crazy with the video camera.
Here’s two cents: I know … off the top of my head I can think of two dozen academics easily. With few exceptions they do not think well of their students. In no way do they see students as equals. In my experience, doctors think more highly of their patients, as a rule, than professors think of their students.
Students aren’t the professor’s coworkers. They’re the professors’ CUSTOMERS.
I’m in a business where we grade our customers (an auditing company.) If I slept with a customer I’d be thrown out the door so fast I’d move backwards in time.
It’s a conflict of interest. A dismissal offense in any decent organization.
Interesting points. I’m wrangling with your description of students as customers of professors. I can say this is generally untrue for grad-students, who are regarded as, and act as employees (or apprentices perhaps)…to the extent that they can certainly be fired. I think that your analogy is “nice” but probably not accurate for undergraduates either. Not that this excuses professors sleeping with students mind you, I just don’t feel it adequately describes the relationship.
Definately I can see the conflict of interest regarding customers at an auditing company. But if I sell vegetables, does that mean I can never date anyone who buys a vegetable from me? (Again I am happily married, for the record, and won’t be dating anyone else again except for my wife, ever!!)
I don’t see it as a conflict of interest, unless the student is in the professor’s class. After the student is out of the class and receives the grades, or just will never take the class, then it is ok for a relationship to arise.
I do understand burundi’s position, though. If the student has to take another class in that same department, and the department is small, then it could affect the student’s (not necessarily the professor) grades.
As it is, in my case, the TAs I would like to date are not from my major’s department. The possibilities of dating them are nil, of course.
The threat of sexual harassment is not the only reason to ban interoffice relationships (and by interoffice relationships, I mean those in which either one is subordinate to the other or in which both parties work in the same department or location) There’s also the issue of other employee’s feeling (accurately or not) that X is getting special treatment because of a relationship supervisor Y. I’ve had jobs where a promotion meant a transfer, to avoid the similar problems that might occur when suddenly supervising former coworkers. And the issue of a nasty breakip which doesn’t involve claims of sexual harassment. To give an example from my current job, a long-time (over 10 years) married couple eventually wound up assigned to the same office. Neither one supervised the other, so that wasn’t an issue.They split up. She accuses him of threatening her, which he denies. She gets an order of protection. He works on the floor with the copier, so now the whole office has to get involved. Either someone has to call him so he can leave the office while she makes copies or someone has to do the copying for her. Same thing if he needs to go to her floor. This goes on for months. Neither one is willing to transfer- it’s a union job and he won’t transfer because he hasn’t been found guilty ofanything and he has more seniority, she won’t transfer because she’s the victim and why should she be punished. Eventually, they were both transferred. The whole thing would have been avoided if my employer had a policy against prohibiting relationships between people in the same office.
I know I’m dittoing somebody but I think the following rules strikes a nice balance between the positive and negative effects of professor - student dating.
Professor and student cannot date when student is in prof’s class. Otherwise, prof in a quid pro quo position to offer sex for grades, which is unfair to the rest of the students who are not being given that opportunity.
