Handling Bad Assignments from Professors

(Twitter is failing me because I get no input box in which to tweet.)

One of our librarians distributed a web article she came across recently about bad library assignments professors make their students do (Collier). The article is from a second-year librarian. She comments about the difficulty of imagining approaching a faculty member to discuss the assignment. "What moxie!" She says.

I'm now a fourth-year librarian and in many ways I've forgotten about the challenge of approaching faculty. I think this is mostly because (I believe) I've both cultivated a strong relationship with my faculty and learned how to be diplomatic with phrasing concerns. It helps that despite being a fourth-year librarian, I've been in the work world for 20 years and have an easily approachable personality (I've been told!).

Last year I noticed the pattern of students from the same course searching for specific articles on genetic modification every year. The big problem was that the obvious keywords of gene modification weren't yielding good results. Couple that with the problem of the article having to be less than 3 years old and no one being permitted to use an article that someone else found.

I nipped the problem in the bud by immediately getting on the phone and asking the instructor for an opportunity to do a 15-minute instruction. What worked is that I knew the instructor and knew I could approach the subject tactfully by offering to come into the class. But even if I hadn't known the instructor, I'd still have made the call. Just another opportunity to connect with someone!

As students we see professors as paragons of intellect and wisdom that we must uphold with high regard and can approach only with temerity and humility. They are people, too, with their own personalities, weaknesses, and insecurities! So much can be accomplished by approaching them with due respect, tact, and empathy, but with candor.

Not to say there aren't profs who are full of themselves. At least at Arcadia University, I don't see much of them. There will be situations in which problems are irresolvable. Nobody wins all the time.

Works Cited
Collier, Ellie. "Stepping on Toes: The Delicate Art of Talking to Faculty about Questionable Assignments." In the Library with the Lead Pipe. 18 March 2009. 17 April 2009 <http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2009/stepping-on-toes-the-delicate-art-of-talking-to-faculty-about-questionable-assignments/>.