Hugo Schwyzer

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve had a whole new batch of “older men/younger women” relationship emails come by way. Perhaps it’s seasonal: in the spring, a young man or woman’s fancy turns to love and baseball; in the fall, it turns to age-disparate relationships and boundary violations? One wonders.

I can’t post about all the emails I get, and those that simply repeat old queries are better off looking at my growing archives under older men/younger women, or perhaps student crushes. But there’s always something new to think about; “Kay” wrote to me last week:

I have (a) professor whom I adore and who I know is keenly interested in my future…he has said before how much he enjoys my being his student. I have nothing but platonic interest in him (your posts on understanding the difference between mental and physical arousal have been VERY helpful). I’d really like to be his mentee as well…but it would be more of a big brother connection as he is only 34.

So, the question: What can a young female student to do help build the best and most appropriate mentor-mentee relationships? I’m sure I’m not the only person who has, after a time, realized that their initial motives in relationship-building were slightly askew. More specifically for my situation, how can I let him know that “friend” is off the agenda? Any advice would be helpful…I’ve been feeling as awkward as arse around him lately.

It’s a good question Kay asks. In both graduate school and undergrad, mentor/mentee relationships are vitally important to both students and faculty. There are few aspects of my job from which I derive more deep and enduring satisfaction than the opportunity to mentor young men and women. And looking back on my own days at Berkeley and UCLA, I’m eternally grateful to the men and women (Fred Tubach, Scott Waugh, Marilyn Adams) who served as my academic advisers and guides. Students need to be encouraged to seek out mentors from the ranks of the faculty, and professors need to be reminded that nurturing students’ intellectual and personal growth, while not always among our stated tasks, is our moral responsibility.

Where a student and professor are close in age, each can be tempted to adopt a “friend” approach to the mentoring relationship. And on one level, there’s nothing wrong with that! I talk about music with my students, I talk about veganism and politics and fashion. I understand well how “small talk” (as if veganism could ever be “small talk”!) serves as a lubricant for social interaction. A discussion of common interests doesn’t need to obscure the healthy hierarchy at work in a mentor/mentee relationship. At the same time, new junior faculty in particular need to remember that their own common unease and uncertainty about their newly acquired status doesn’t mean that the power they now exercise isn’t real. Kay’s prospective mentor has gone from being a graduate student to tenure-track faculty in the same department in which she studies — and he, as well as she, needs to be keenly aware that that upgraded role has a real impact on everyone.

If Kay’s professor seems unclear about his role, it’s not her job to set the boundaries for him. At the same time, Kay can do a lot to make clear how she sees him. Little things can set the tone: visiting him only during his listed conference hours rather than meeting him for coffee. (There’s nothing wrong with students and teachers having coffee together, of course — but usually that’s best after a very clear line of demarcation has been set up. And that line is best set up initially inside, rather than outside, the office.) While calling him “Dr.” or “Prof.” when she has previously addressed him by his first name is probably a step too far too soon, directing the conversation onto academic rather than personal topics ought to do the trick.

Years ago, I dated a woman named “Jacqueline.” Jacqueline had a best friend whom I came to know well, “Eileen.” Jacqueline and I broke up on reasonably friendly terms, and a year or two later, Eileen came to see me. Eileen was a single mother, only three years my junior. She was finally returning to college, having dropped out her frosh year at UCSD to have a child. Eileen wanted to be a history major, and wanted to enroll in my classes. (I’m the only professor on the whole campus teaching the ancient history course she wanted.) She was a bit worried that I would be uncomfortable teaching her, given that we had met as friends. And of course, she also wanted some advice and counsel about how to go forward with her re-started academic career.

Eileen took three of my classes before transferring to nearby Occidental College (a private school with a particularly good program for non-traditional older students). When we met in my office hours over the course of a year and a half, we talked mostly about school and about ideas; we only mentioned the “time before” (when she and I had been out on double dates, together with our respective partners) a few times. The transition from friends to mentor/mentee was remarkably easy, largely because both she and I were very clear about what it was that we each expected from our relationship.

Kay also asks, separately, about the appropriateness of giving gifts to teachers/professors/mentors. Different colleges have different policies, but the general thought is that gifts of nominal value and without personal significance are appropriate. I am often given Starbucks gift cards at the end of a semester. Coffee mugs are also often bestowed; I like that sort of thing and do not consider small gifts excessive. Jewelry or clothing is much too personal, and anything worth more than, say, $25 is surely over the top.

Honestly, the best gifts I’ve ever been given by students are heartfelt notes. Letters really matter more than anything else.