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Students: when reaching out to professors who are women of color, especially right now, please be intentional about the requests and framing of your emails. Here are a few tips (that might be extended to other groups as well).
1. Please include a subject on your email letting us know what class you were/are in and what the subject matter of your email is about. We are inundated with emails daily and need to prioritize our administrative time to account for student requests.
2. Please do not refer to us by our first names. We are PhDs and our positions are often undermined, disregarded, and disrespected. Address us as Dr. or Prof. unless otherwise noted.
3. When requesting a letter of recommendation, please include the necessary information that we need to consider writing. Your resume, the description of the opportunity to which you are applying, and your statement for the opportunity are all helpful.
4. When writing emails to your WOC professors, please note that while you may consider us fun, relatable, and chill, we are not your friends. Emails should remain professional, use academic language when needed. Emojis and acronyms like "lol" should be used sparingly if at all.
5. Some emails should just be a meeting in office hours. If you are working through a complex paper topic or a tough problem set, please do not expect us to sit on our emails responding back and forth for hours. Set up time to meet (virtually).
6. Please do your own critical thinking. I frequently get questions like, "what are we going to do about my grade?" and "how can you help me?" Our job is to empower you with the knowledge and tools to do good, critical work. We are not here to solve your problems for you.
7. Before sending the email, read the syllabus. That's it. That's the whole tweet.
8. We are human. If you send an email at 9:45 pm and we haven't responded by 10 am, give us time to cycle through our inboxes and work through the demands of our lives. If within 24 hours we have not responded, ping us respectfully. However, repeated emails should be avoided.
9. Consider that, in the 24 or so hours before a big exam or assignment, we will be inundated with student questions and requests. Please be intentional about not waiting until the last minute to ask your question or make your request as we are already under a ton of emails.
10. If an instructor gives you an alternate email address for professional matters, only use it for professional matters. Do not send music, questions about the Kardashians, or other random thoughts.
There are tons of ways to practice good email and communication etiquette especially when interacting with WOC professors.
The key thing to remember is that we are disproportionately asked for more unpaid labor and rewarded less for it. Don't reproduce that injustice.
The key thing to remember is that we are disproportionately asked for more unpaid labor and rewarded less for it. Don't reproduce that injustice.
