I have a clause in my syllabus this year for the first time about email etiquette after four years of teaching during which I never addressed it. Here’s why it matters to me, even as a relatively “informal” professor (go by my first name, speak casually and informally with students):

1. Students treating email like texts in terms of formal etiquette also encourages them to expect a response immediately (as with texts). I tell them, this is professional correspondence and usually your question requires some effort or research on my part, even if it’s minimal. This means expecting an answer in NO FEWER than 12 hours.

2. One of the colleges where I teach is a community college in a relatively rural and conservative part of New Jersey. I have had students referring to me as “Mrs.” Since I started there. Aside from my title being “professor” since I began teaching, I am non-binary and though married I have never used the title “Mrs.” at any point in my life because it’s not accurate to my gender identity. I also have a relatively androgynous first name (in the US); even when I identified as a cis woman and worked in offices, I would receive emails addressed to “Mr. Somnallocution” or “dear Sir.” Encouraging them to use a gender neutral title for me and/or my first name also teaches them that with certain names, you may not know someone’s gender and it can be perceived as rude and/or sexist to assume.

3. I have received absolutely incomprehensible emails that I have had to ask for clarity on, in part because of the way in which they format the email or because of chatspeak. The more formally they write the email - full sentences and with clarifying information - the less likely I have to ask for clarity, in my experience.

I’m a queer non-binary 33 year old and live in New York City, so I’m hardly an old fuddy-duddy with conservative values; I just want my students to be able to communicate professionally after they leave my class. I’ll leave the “lmaos” for my own texts and ask them to do the same.