Round-Up Update

Hugo has replied to my question, one of which was:  "What's wrong with recognizing hierarchy [in the classroom]?" He replies:

"In some sense, the reader is right. Using first names and being friendly with my students is a way of creating and maintaining the fiction that we are all equal. But they desperately want good grades, and I have the grade book. In that sense, our "friendship" isn't based on equality, any more than the "fictive friendship" one usually sees between a saleswoman and her client in an upscale boutique. But the fact that there is a power imbalance doesn't render friendship impossible, at least not in my book!"

I do agree that friendship is not impossible.  I was very close to the college professor I consider my mentor, but the friendship was in the context of a relationship with his entire family.  I babysat their children and attended the church his wife pastored.  When I was considering ordination, she was my guide through the process.  They are the reason I went to Duke Divinity School, their alma mater, and they have had the biggest influence on my life outside of my family.  But there was still a sense of formality between me and him.  Last year I met with him to get his opinion about Ph.D work.  We actually talked about the formality, especially in the context of female student/male professor relationships, and his belief in maintaining it while still opening one's self to friendship.  Not that he was less formal with male students, and honestly formality is probably just as much a part of his personality as Hugo says informality is to his.  Someday I will find my own style, God willing, but he will always be my primary role model.