If you disagree, feel free to append “IMNSHO” to each.

• Respect your students: Learn their names. Start and end on time to the best of your ability. Admit your mistakes and when you don’t know an answer. Answer questions without implying they are stupid ones. Set out all expectations in the syllabus and stick to them. Be prompt returning graded work.

   

• On fairness: Strike a balance in class between answering all questions and keeping lecture moving. Enforce the rules you set and do so consistently (to facilitate this, only set rules you really care about). Compassion is good, but keep the phrase “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” in mind when you are tempted to make concessions for a single student without a very good (e.g., dean’s office approved) reason – generosity to one student can be unfair to the rest of the class. Even what seems to be generosity to the entire class may not be; extending a deadline at the last minute does not benefit the students who did the right thing: buckled down and got it done by the original due date.

   

• Find your style in the classroom. There are many ways to engage with your students: tell jokes, ask them questions, ask them for their questions (noting that a sufficiently long pause will likely feel uncomfortably long at first), make a few mistakes on purpose, bring them to the board, walk among them, give them small group work. Figure out what behavior bothers you and what doesn’t. Do you care about attendance? tardiness? whispering? eating? reading the paper? sleeping? My recommendation is to ignore it unless it really bothers you, but do feel entitled to ban actions that get under your skin. I didn’t worry about any of those examples in general, but at the beginning of the semester I told the students that the standard in my classroom was whether an action was disruptive to other students. You can be late, but don’t plow through four students to sit in the middle of a row. You can eat, but make sure the packaging isn’t loud and the food doesn’t have much odor. Etc.

   

• If a student starts crying in your office, pass the tissues and carry on. Gently, of course. In my experience most crying students are embarrassed they couldn’t control themselves, and making a big deal out of it just makes things worse. The other two situations I can conceive of also bear this reaction: the student is glad to be crying because maybe it will make you feel bad, or the student is genuinely upset but is okay with you seeing that because they’re that comfortable in their own skin.

   

• Key elements to students liking you: Be clear, be accessible, care. Clarity is lecture organization, lecture content, and boardwork (don’t erase things you’ve just written, use the boards in a sensible order, erase thoroughly, don’t write across the lines in the board because that makes some people CRAZY). Accessibility is arriving at class early and staying late to answer questions, if possible, and having a variety of office hours to accommodate schedules. Caring is learning names, keeping track of how your students are doing, learning about them as individuals to whatever extent possible, and being responsive – if something really isn’t working in the classroom, change it. Students will forgive a multitude of sins if they see that you genuinely care about their success in your class.