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If you had to make a monument to the four faces that are attatched to the bodies of the four scholars or theorists whose work you most admire or has most influenced you, who would they be? I'll start. Gloria Anzaldúa Édouard Glissant Frantz Fanon Walter Mignolo

How is anything I described sexual harrasment?

What law are they breaking?

Youth and mobility? So what? How does that lastingly affect the professor at all? I'm talking about serious, professionally crippling actions. Purposefully writing a bad letter of rec without the student's knowledge. Speaking ill of the student when he or she goes on the job market and institutions come calling. Deciding that he or she doesn't want to serve as a dissertation advisor anymore.

You're generalizing. A relationship between a student and a professor is wrong mainly because of something unique to academia: tenure. Edit: What's to stop you from hiring a hitman? The law, financial limitations, the difficulty of finding a hitman. Even though your example is obviouslly silly, it illustrates the point that for someone outside of a professorial position, there would be repurcussions for their actions. Because of tenure and their place of power, a professor could get away with a great many things.

Just to throw in my two cents on what was this thread's original topic... While the identity politics surrounding student-teacher relationships certainly have a place in this discussion, I don't think they are the chief issue here. Regardless of the participants' race or gender, a relationship between a professor and student shouldn't occur because of the absolute power that the professor receives. Shouldn't a professor recognize that even the best intentions and most sincere emotions might one day lead them to a spurned and spiteful place? Would they have the self control to not excersise the many methods of professional ruin that they have, and that their student does not? Maybe not. As an educator and mentor, they shouldn't put themselves in that place. Just wait until the undergrad graduates or the grad student hands in the dissertation.

Tenure.

I don't know why this topic is being downvoted. I've seen very similar discussions take place in academic journals, such as Critical Inquiry, by respected scholars. It's interesting and important. To answer the question, yes I've had a crush on a professor. I said nothing and nothing happened, as it should have. I believe relationships between professors and students, be them undergraduate or graduate, are fundamentally wrong. The imbalance in power belies any notions of consent on the less senior party. Also, if something in the relationship goes wrong, perhaps general unease or anger over being spurned, a professor has innumerable ways to professionally crush their sweetheart. No bueno.

Finding music that seems to empathize with the current situation works. For instance switch "summer" with "winter" in this song, and bingo: Also, reading end of the year best-of lists and looking up albums or movies I wasn't aware of helps me.

You might understand if you spent some more time reading different posts on this forum that go back a few days. I don't want to draw out any comments that have been argued over elsewhere, but rest assured that the capitalized outburst was the least of it. In any case, it seems to have abated. Perhaps unfortunate errors in judgement were realized.

I have a friend whose fit paragraph, in my estimation, was very poor. She talked in generalities, i.e. being excited to learn from an "illustrious" faculty. She mentioned looking forward to studying with a creative writing professor who was a big name but whose work had nothing to do with her proposed intellectual interests, especially considering she was applying for a PhD and not an MFA. The rest of her SOP and grad school package were awesome. She got in. I also have a friend who had an amazing fit paragraph. He was able to synthesize the work of three faculty members and show how it had influenced specific projects of his, like an honors thesis, and his general intellectual trajectory. It showed very thoughtful research into the department. The rest of his SOP and application were also awesome. He got in. That both of these people got into the same "top 5" program tells me that the fit paragraph, while maybe one of the final deciding factors between two otherwise extremely similar applicants (unlikely), it's not that important if the rest of your application is good. Everyone has things in their package that make them uneasy, I just feel that if the fit paragraph in your SOP is one of the main ones, then you're probably in good shape, so don't worry too much.

You're just wrong. Most of what Phil was criticizing, notwithstanding the potentially interesting discussion on the sexual tensions between grad students and professors, was nothing "intellectually useful." It was the general bitterness, rudeness, and hostile elitism that some people on this forum spoke (wrote) with. If you're going to systematically act that way, despite what you might think about between the differences of on and offline personalities, it says something about your character that, in my opinion, calls into question how good of a colleague, educator, and mentor you would be. Because this is a public space, and because it is so tied to academia, there is nothing wrong with members of admissions committees potentially browsing these forums, seeing a litany of posts by a single author that signal personal qualities they don't want in their department, and taking that judgement into account if said poster decided to reveal telling personal details, like what programs he or she is applying to.

I'm new here, but I just sent in my final application, so here's to wading in anticipation with you all. Cheers!