Contact me:

email:

Go ahead and send me an email. I am generally available, and usually respond in a day or so. Sometimes I take three or four days, however, so don’t email me about a paper or exam the night before or the morning of, asking for vital information that will change what you will write or study—the chances of me being able to respond in a time frame that would be useful to you are low. This happens to me dozens of times in a typical semester. Generally speaking, if I don't get back to you after 3 or 4 days, send me another email; I forget, emails get dropped into the Junk mail folder, other stuff goes wrong. That‘s not rude in my world.

Do you want college to prepare you for the work world? Our students say they do, and yet they often don't treat college like what it is—a profession. Please write to me the same way you would your team manager or boss at work. “Dear Rob” is fine, especially once the semester is underway, as is “Dear Professor” or “Dear Professor Rushing.” Everyone who grew up with paper mail (i.e., many of your future employers) will find the lack of an opening greeting weird and offputting, and an abrupt "Hey" will sound rude. (In all seriousness, I hear my colleagues complain about this more than any other thing that students do.)

phone:

I guess we don't have phones anymore. There's something called Lync from Microsoft, but the last thing I need in my life is more corporate software from Microsoft.

office hours:

I’m in my office (4150D, on the fourth floor of FLB, in the northeast corner of the building) every Tuesday and Thursday from 10-11. Come prepared with specific questions or ideas—it’s a generally unproductive session when a student arrives and says “I have no ideas for the paper, and I don’t know what movie I want to write about.” It’s okay to come from time to time to just chat, but don’t ‘occupy’ my office hours—other students need to talk, too, and a surprising number of people don’t knock or let me know they’re waiting. This is particularly important this year, since I am the only member of the Italian faculty on campus.