A Simple Formula

A couple of weeks ago, I received a student email that read something like this:

From: vita.villanova@_____cc.edu>
To: sparky.lightbulb@_____cc.edu
Date: May 16, 2006 2:54 PM
Subject: Late assignment

I need you to just approve "heart disease" as the topic for my research paper. I don't have time to pitch nine different topics and explain my interest in them because my grandmother just died. Not completing that long form won't hurt my grade, will it?

Vita

An email like this makes my usually easy-going nature as inflexible as a brick wall. The likelihood that Grandma has died is slim, the possibility that the student is hoping to recycle a research essay from a previous health class high. The self-importance evident in the student's belief that she gets to determine how to complete and count an assignment lights my anger. I responded diplomatically, though: "I'm sorry for your loss, but I cannot treat you any differently than the other 24 people in class. You must complete the form before I will approve a topic for your research essay." In a case like this, I might give the student a break on the late penalty in case Grandma really has passed, but I will make it clear that it is for that one assignment—and only if I get it within a day or two.

This student chose to employ a formula that meant my inflexibility was the only possible outcome:

Take stance as the Center of the Universe
+ Fabricate a ridiculous excuse
+ Indicate that course policies should be the student's prerogative
= An angry professor without sympathy

I too faced many brick walls as a student, but instead of lying about a dead grandmother, I plugged into a surprisingly effective formula that got me one exception after another:

Acknowledge the power of the person granting the favor
+ Admit one's own inferiority
+ Make a reasonable request
= An exception to a usually hard-and-fast rule

This people-smart formula worked in all kinds of situations. For a professor who prided himself on never giving an extension:

Dr. Conner, I hate to trouble you when you have so many important things to do, but I am a butt-head who has mismanaged her time and needs the weekend to finish the paper due today. I promise it will be under your door before you arrive on Monday, and I will accept whatever late penalty you give it for my lack of punctuality.

Received = 3 scowls, 1 threat that I shouldn't expect better than a C, 1 grade of A when he returned the paper

For the cashiers in the bursar's office:

You have been so helpful and kind about accepting my tuition in little chunks all summer, but I am sick with worry that I won't have it all paid before Labor Day. Is there any way possible I can start fall classes even if I still owe about $200?

Received = Paperwork shuffle that kept the bursar from discovering the "gentlewomen's agreement" we had arranged

I guess my advice would be that if someone can't be a good student [and good students, by the way, get their work done even when Grandma has really died], then that person should at least learn the method for manipulating people more effectively!