I want to give my prof a gift, is it okay?
November 10, 2010 4:15 PM Subscribe
Etiquette filter: I'd like to give my Creative Writing professor a gift to celebrate her new baby (due in Dec). Her and her husband are also the advisors for the Creative Writing side of the English Department, of which I'm a grad student. Am I crossing any ethical boundaries?
Not much more to explain, but to expand: I have some extra yarn sitting about and it will make a beautiful baby blanket. I think getting gifts is a nice thing when one has a baby, and I'd just like to make one for them. They're both nice people and they've been very helpful to me so far.
However, she's my professor at the moment (semester ends just before she comes to term) and I'm sure that either one or the other of them will be my thesis advisor or be on the committee. Also, I'm sure to have one or the other as a professor again in the future. I don't want to seem as though I'm trying to curry favors. I just want to do a nice thing.
So, is there a way to just give them a small gift without crossing any boundaries? I really don't know the politics of academia so some insight would be appreciated.
Not much more to explain, but to expand: I have some extra yarn sitting about and it will make a beautiful baby blanket. I think getting gifts is a nice thing when one has a baby, and I'd just like to make one for them. They're both nice people and they've been very helpful to me so far.
However, she's my professor at the moment (semester ends just before she comes to term) and I'm sure that either one or the other of them will be my thesis advisor or be on the committee. Also, I'm sure to have one or the other as a professor again in the future. I don't want to seem as though I'm trying to curry favors. I just want to do a nice thing.
So, is there a way to just give them a small gift without crossing any boundaries? I really don't know the politics of academia so some insight would be appreciated.
Go for it. Her will appreciate your thoughtfulness.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:54 PM on November 10, 2010 [8 favorites]
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:54 PM on November 10, 2010 [8 favorites]
A small handmade gift is just right.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 5:02 PM on November 10, 2010
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 5:02 PM on November 10, 2010
It might be best to wait until you are not currently in a class of theirs, but this is indeed normal and you don't have to.
posted by Blasdelb at 5:42 PM on November 10, 2010
posted by Blasdelb at 5:42 PM on November 10, 2010
Best answer: Speak to your department's or school's academic ethics counselor/officer. Yes, there is one. Keep asking people until they point you in the right direction. Get an official letter from that person (on paper, not via email, if at all possible) saying, "I judge that the gift of one baby blanket on the joyous occasion of a child's birth in no way corrupts the academic relationships among patheral, Professor Newmother and Professor Newfather." That way, on the off chance anyone ever whines about it, you can say, "Look, this august personage, acting in his or her official capacity as Academic Ethics Arbiter, said you can go screw."
posted by Etrigan at 5:57 PM on November 10, 2010
posted by Etrigan at 5:57 PM on November 10, 2010
If you are worried about looking like you are grade grubbing, you could always have the whole class chip in for something.
posted by pickypicky at 6:22 PM on November 10, 2010
posted by pickypicky at 6:22 PM on November 10, 2010
Total derail, (and I don't know exactly what "yarn" might mean) but current thinking on babies seems to be anti-wool. We were strongly discouraged from dressing our newborn in anything other than cotton.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:54 PM on November 10, 2010
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:54 PM on November 10, 2010
A modest baby gift is a-ok.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:15 PM on November 10, 2010
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:15 PM on November 10, 2010
Response by poster: AmbroseChapel, the yarn is acrylic, not wool, and it's for a blanket, not to be worn. It's soft and suitable for a baby's blanket (I raised four, and I wouldn't have had a problem with a blanket made from this stuff).
The only reason I'm thinking of doing a blanket is because I have the material on hand and it wouldn't take me any time at all to whip one up - a few days at the most. Baby blankets are way easy. I'm dead broke and wouldn't be able to buy anything, even if others chipped in. Plus it would do me the good of dwindling my yarn stash.
I'll look for the academic ethics counselor. I didn't know such a person existed.
posted by patheral at 7:20 PM on November 10, 2010
The only reason I'm thinking of doing a blanket is because I have the material on hand and it wouldn't take me any time at all to whip one up - a few days at the most. Baby blankets are way easy. I'm dead broke and wouldn't be able to buy anything, even if others chipped in. Plus it would do me the good of dwindling my yarn stash.
I'll look for the academic ethics counselor. I didn't know such a person existed.
posted by patheral at 7:20 PM on November 10, 2010
Good lord you don't need to see an ethics counselor or get anything in writing. We have enough of that corporate atmosphere creeping into academia already. A baby gift is a perfectly lovely gesture among colleagues. As a professor I have received many lovely personal gifts from students over the years (the best being a bag of tamales freshly made by the mother of a Mexican American student who got into a good law school, with the partial help of a strong letter from me I suppose). Even among my own grad students, I give them gifts when they have babies if I can get my shit together to do so.
And meese has it right. Act like a colleague from the minute you hit grad school. A very junior colleague, but a colleague nonetheless. Observe the nearly medieval code of collegial behavior. How warm and gracious a colleague you are matters even more when there is an underlying dynamic of competition and intergenerational challenge, as there most certainly is. I was out to surpass my teachers. So I treated them, and still do, like unsurpassable gods. My students wouldn't be doing it right if they didn't follow suit and kick my ass in 10 years. Collegiality is one of the most powerful components of your reputation and your profile in the field. Yeah, there are a lot of assholes who make it big, but don't be one unless you're sure your the brightest thing since the Star of Bethlehem.
I would be delighted to receive a hand made baby gift from a graduate student were me and my partner -- whether she was a colleague or not -- having a baby (and as I recall I received several when I did, quite some time ago). I would detect no conflict of interest whatsoever. It's not a bag of cash for chrissake. It's a hand woven blanket.
If you want to take off the edge of "sucking up," which is your bigger concer about being misperceived here (as much by your fellow students as by your professors), organize a little basket of cheap, thoughtful gifts from a group of students.
Ethics officers have real concerns to deal with.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:16 PM on November 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
And meese has it right. Act like a colleague from the minute you hit grad school. A very junior colleague, but a colleague nonetheless. Observe the nearly medieval code of collegial behavior. How warm and gracious a colleague you are matters even more when there is an underlying dynamic of competition and intergenerational challenge, as there most certainly is. I was out to surpass my teachers. So I treated them, and still do, like unsurpassable gods. My students wouldn't be doing it right if they didn't follow suit and kick my ass in 10 years. Collegiality is one of the most powerful components of your reputation and your profile in the field. Yeah, there are a lot of assholes who make it big, but don't be one unless you're sure your the brightest thing since the Star of Bethlehem.
I would be delighted to receive a hand made baby gift from a graduate student were me and my partner -- whether she was a colleague or not -- having a baby (and as I recall I received several when I did, quite some time ago). I would detect no conflict of interest whatsoever. It's not a bag of cash for chrissake. It's a hand woven blanket.
If you want to take off the edge of "sucking up," which is your bigger concer about being misperceived here (as much by your fellow students as by your professors), organize a little basket of cheap, thoughtful gifts from a group of students.
Ethics officers have real concerns to deal with.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:16 PM on November 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
(spelling error):sure *you're* the brightest thing since the Star of Bethlehem.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:23 PM on November 14, 2010
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:23 PM on November 14, 2010
I would be delighted to receive a hand made baby gift from a graduate student were me and my partner -- whether she was a colleague or not -- having a baby (and as I recall I received several when I did, quite some time ago). I would detect no conflict of interest whatsoever.
You would not be the issue in that scenario. Some other student who didn't give you a baby blanket and complained because patheral subsequently got a good grade would be the issue.
It doesn't matter whether every person everywhere ever would detect a conflict of interest. What matters is if one person complains about it and tangles up the ethics officer and distracts him or her from those "real concerns" you cite. Better a few minutes of prevention than a semester of cure.
posted by Etrigan at 5:34 PM on November 15, 2010
You would not be the issue in that scenario. Some other student who didn't give you a baby blanket and complained because patheral subsequently got a good grade would be the issue.
It doesn't matter whether every person everywhere ever would detect a conflict of interest. What matters is if one person complains about it and tangles up the ethics officer and distracts him or her from those "real concerns" you cite. Better a few minutes of prevention than a semester of cure.
posted by Etrigan at 5:34 PM on November 15, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
When you get to grad school, the idea is that you are preparing to be a colleague of your professor's. You're still their students, but it's only going to be a few more years until you're supposed to be the same level as them. You're learning so that you can be part of the same academic community as them, and so it's only appropriate for you to act as if you're in the same community as them.
posted by meese at 4:33 PM on November 10, 2010 [3 favorites]