I was feeling like a bit of an old curmudgeon today when I received yet another e-mail from someone I don’t know, an e-mail that greeted me as “Dear Steve.” While this is better than the messages that begin “Dear Steven” or the even worse “Dear Stephen,” I am troubled by the forced familiarity.

Today’s e-mail was from a student at another college who was writing to me in a professional capacity. I wonder how he could not know basic professional etiquette and wonder how he could have been failed by his parents and mentors.

I tend to be very formal in professional settings. And even though I work to be approachable to students, my goal is to be friendly and not friends. While I would value the friendship of some of my students, such familiarity is something that can wait until they graduate. It is unlikely that any friendship will develop with those students and I am more than fine with that.

I recognize that I am especially sensitive to formality and fake friendship. As a result, I am not likely to behave badly to such students, to disregard them, or to somehow punish them for their cheekiness. But there are people out there who would.

My students are not harmed by my insistence that they approach their lives in a professional manner. I also know the harm that can come to them if they do not. I recently wrote to a graduate student who had become too familiar too fast (while getting my first name wrong) that such an error would not cause difficulty in our professional interactions but that it could cost her a job or have some other type of undesirable consequence in the future.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD