THE CASE FOR SOCIAL DISTANCE. An Inside Higher Ed column on college profanity policies, or not, gets to the heart of the matter.

"If you stand in a financial aid office and scream and scream and scream, that's not a First Amendment issue, that disrupts the office," said W. Scott Lewis, associate general counsel of Saint Mary's College, in Indiana, and president of the Association for Student Conduct Administration.

Lewis gives seminars for many colleges through the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, and he said that a consistently popular topic is how to train faculty members to manage their classrooms in ways that enable them to be respected by students. "We don't train faculty members on that," he said. "They are trained to be great physicists and political scientists, not on how to manage a
classroom."

Several societal trends appear to be related to an increase in student rudeness, Lewis said. Many students these days "have a sense of entitlement, backed at times by their parents," many more have mental health issues, and many feel significant stress over the economy. Adding to these factors, he said, many professors say that they don't feel they are even "allowed" to challenge rude behavior.

While Lewis doesn't want them to challenge the behavior through the student disciplinary system, he said that faculty members can promote civility. He said that they should talk about expectations on the first day of class and in the syllabus, making expectations clear. "You need to talk about rights and responsibilities," he said.

Some professors go too far, Lewis said, in removing the distance between themselves and their students, and this is part of the problem. "You need to establish your role as a professor, and that means not having students use your first name, but calling you Professor or Dr.," he said.

Similarly, attire sends a message, he said. "If you show up for class in cargo shorts and a ratty polo shirt, you may feel that you are being one of the students. Well, you may accomplish that and become a peer" who doesn't get the same respect as a professor, he said. (Lewis, who still teaches, said that in front of a class, "I would be, at worst, in business casual.")

Not everyone agrees, although the bull session is civil enough.