Legal Commentary

When I went to college (1995-1999) and law school (2000-2003), I never considered e-mailing a professor a question about a class. Rather, I would come up to the professor after class or stop by during the professor's office hours. When I started teaching (2007), I received some questions via e-mail, but the vast majority of student questions came from students after class or during office hours. But over the last 3+ years, I have seen a change to the point where I receive a majority of questions about class via e-mail.

As a result, I have considered converting one of my office hours to an e-mail office hour or adding e-mail office hours to supplement my traditional office hours. Basically, with an e-mail office hour, I would tell students that during a given hour (say, Monday from 2-3), I will be by my computer, answering student e-mails. Of course, I currently try to be diligent in answering student e-mails, but that still means that it is often hours or a day after a student's e-mail before I give a response. And, if the student has follow-up questions, we can be talking about a matter of several days before the student has his or her exact question(s) answered. With e-mail office hours, students would have complete answers within the hour.

Of course, the student could get such a quick response by coming to office hours, but many students have conflicts or do not want to come by the school just for office hours (especially at commuter schools). I give students the option of scheduling times to meet outside of office hours, but some students just feel more comfortable e-mailing questions than meeting with a professor face-to-face. So, what do you think? Have you noticed an increase in the number of e-mail questions and a decrease in students visiting office hours? What do you think of the idea of e-mail office hours? Would they be a good response to changing student behavior or should we be encouraging students to stop by our offices for a variety of reasons? You can respond by leaving a comment and/or responding to the following poll.

-Colin Miller