Page 39 - Classical Singer magazine Spring Issue 2020

Voice Teacher: The students text me between midnight and 3 a.m. with predictions that they will not make their voice lesson the next morning due to studying for another class or feeling fatigued. One student left a voice memo and I could hear laughter and glasses clinking in the background. Do they think I am checking my phone in the middle of the night? I have devoted my life’s work to educating the artists of tomorrow. I feel as though the department should pay for me to get the iPhone 11 with a new number— then I will be fortified to keep calm and carry on.
Wise Boss: Doesn’t your spouse work for Apple? Can he get me an iPhone 11? Anyway, this is all highly unacceptable. Did you all give your students a syllabus with your email address and specific instructions to communicate with you through the official GVSU email?
Entire Faculty Thought Bubble: Yes, of course. Every semester we quote the university policy directly from the handbook and list our office hours.
Adjunct Professor: Actually, I emailed my syllabus to my students. I thought they would read it because in the subject line I wrote, “Won’t you be my neighbor and please read this email?”
Wise Boss: Rookie mistake. Everyone please pass out hard copies of your syllabi and verbally remind your students to check their email. Next item of business: “Addressing Professors Appropriately.” Dr. Voice Teacher, would you like to comment?
Voice Teacher: Do they still teach English in high school? My students seem to speak in text. They say, “Hey grl” and “Yas queen” and although I am devoted to their success, I want to instill a growth mindset and encourage them without correcting them.
Jazz Professor: Look, Dr. Voice Teacher, we are their professors and we are paid to correct them. Also, maybe if you take down some of those Keep Calm and Carry On posters, they will stop with the “Yas queens.” Personally, I’m done with being called, “Hey man” and “Later drone.” They don’t know me like that.
Human Resources Representative: Is this why I was called to this meeting? Does anyone need to file a formal complaint? If so, I feel compelled to warn
you that is a stack of paperwork that no one is going to enjoy.
Wise Boss: Settle down HR, no one is filing any complaints today. I think our best course of action is to ask our guest readers to lead their fellow Gen TikTok students by example and to please refer to their teachers with their proper titles.
Opera Director: I have several theatre majors in my shows, and they are accustomed to referring to their faculty by first names. So I have spilled the tea and verbally invited the entire cast to call me Renata.
Wise Boss: It is true that theatre departments often operate on a first-name basis, in part because their terminal degrees are MFAs and not PhDs. Music departments tend to have more faculty with terminal degrees earning doctorates and we want to respect the work and experience that led to our titles. But, if you give the students permission to call you Renata, that is university approved.
Orchestra Conductor: Perhaps we can move on to the next item on the agenda. There are currently only two occupied practice rooms while over 20 students are playing Cards Against Humanity in the lobby. Next week we have an orchestra concert and midterm exams. Why aren’t the students studying or practicing? Consider me outraged and vexed and a bit . . . jealous.
Theory Professor: Midterm exams actually begin tomorrow. What is Cards Against Humanity?
Wise Boss: Those cards are dark comedy and entirely inappropriate for any university’s public spaces. Our lobby has always been meant to be a quiet place to wait for class or a practice room.
Choir Director: Well, it’s not always quiet. One student was playing his bagpipe yesterday right under the vaulted ceiling, and other students were practically screaming to hear one another over the noise. When I asked him to take it to a practice room, he continued playing most insolently as he walked down the hall.
Opera Director: Can we encourage our guest readers to organize study groups for their university common rooms and perhaps spill the tea on any
“The students text me between midnight and 3 a.m. with predictions that they will not make their voice lesson the next morning due to studying for another class or feeling fatigued.”
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