E-mail has made communication between students and professors more convenient, for students at least.

But some professors are concerned that e-mail has blurred the line of privacy between their professional and home lives due to some content received in e-mails and students’ high expectations of quick responses.

Some professors opt to use e-mail as a consistent means of communication with their students, while others feel that e-mail sometimes takes away from professor-student interaction.

“Students should be able to e-mail me for practically anything regarding my class,” Barbara Bennett, assistant professor of English, said. “I don’t think they should e-mail whole papers for me to look over, but I’m usually open to looking at thesis statements or even an introduction.”

Although Bennett said she thinks 24 hours is a reasonable response time from professors aside from weekends, some student lifestyles require staying up until all hours of the night, and they will often e-mail professors at odd hours of the evening.

But not all students expect immediate responses.

Rafael Lugo, a senior in aerospace engineering, said he e-mails professors not only for the convenience, but to allow them to reply on their own time.

“A professor should respond to you within the same work day if I’ve sent an e-mail in the middle of the day,” Lugo said. “However, being students, we do tend to send e-mails late at night, and in that case, I don’t expect one until the next morning.”

According to Bennett, students’ expectations of accessibility has “gotten out of hand.”

“Students e-mail me in the middle of the night about something that has to be done the next day,” Bennett said. “I don’t check e-mail at midnight, and sometimes I believe teachers shouldn’t have to e-mail from home at all.”

Anita Flick, lecturer and professional adviser in biology, said she disagrees.

She said she makes herself very accessible to students and welcomes e-mails and office visits. Flick said she thinks 24 hours is a reasonable response time, although she said if she’s in town, she personally shoots for four to six hours.

“I receive about 40 to 50 e-mails a day from students and I can only say only about 5 percent probably could have been avoided, but it’s worth it to help the other 95 percent,” Flick said.

Elaine Orr, an English professor, has been teaching since 1989 and said she feels the turn-around time on an e-mail response should depend on how many times the class meets and the expectations the professor set out the first day of classes.

“If the class meets once or twice a week, then a professor may take three to four days to get back to a student, particularly if a weekend ensues,” Orr said. “I like to get back with a student before class meets again if possible.”

Orr argued that the time a professor spends e-mailing students can detract from other important tasks, like meeting in person with students.

“A professor could easily spend two hours a day and the weekends in e-mail conversations with students,” she said.

“Since professors don’t have any more time in our lives than we had 15 years ago — before e-mail — this is time professors are not planning for the next class, doing research or meeting in person with students, which in my opinion is the most valuable communication a professor can have with a student.”

Lugo said his father is a professor at UNC Wilmington and checks his e-mail often, influencing his standards, but he said they aren’t unreasonable.

“I really wouldn’t expect a professor to reply from home because they work 9 to 5 like every other normal person,” Lugo said. “E-mail is convenient when I just need a hint to a problem or a simple question, but honestly sometimes if I have a complicated issue with a problem, it is more beneficial to set up a meeting during office hours.”

Orr said she doesn’t think e-mail is a bad thing in itself, but when it becomes excessive it detracts from what she thinks is more important — interaction between the professor and students.

“If professors indirectly give students the idea that what they do is sit in front of computers all day, then we’re sending a distorted view,” Orr said.

“I would like for students to think that an intellectual life includes reading, taking a walk in the woods, doing research in the library, writing a poem about the walk, meeting with a circle of acquaintances to discuss an idea [and] taking a trip to a country where people don’t have e-mail.”

Bennett said e-mail tends to invade privacy, since e-mails are available any time.

“Both students and professors deserve privacy – a time when we can be our ‘other’ selves — not the professor and academic, but just me — dog walker, reader of fun books and movie fan,” Bennett said.