After Office Hours
“It started out as more of a joke than anything,” Meghan Williams*, CC ’08, recalls. “It was sophomore year. My bio TA, Raymond Goldman*, would come up and sort of poke fun at me, and I’d tease him back. I didn’t pursue him too obviously—except for maybe not wearing a bra to class sometimes.”
Given that Goldman was a handsome pre-med with a knack for whipping up chocolate soufflé, their flirtations advanced quickly. “We used to hook up in classrooms. I’d wait for everyone to leave so we could do naughty things in the room. I’d write notes on my quizzes—little pictures, or sometimes dirty things.”
They started meeting outside the classroom. “We’d have dinner out, or stay in and watch movies, just talking and hooking up.” He supported Williams’ work in the class, making a point to call after exams to ask how she’d done. “He’d always tell me how proud he was of me, and how well I was doing in discussion group.”
Gradually, students realized what was going on. “One girl noticed we were always making up lame excuses to leave together. We never got caught, but people suspected. Guys saw Raymond checking me out during class.”
The relationship ended after six months, but a backlash lingered. “This one girl made comments like, ‘I hope she doesn’t hook up with the professor this semester,’” Williams recalls. Another member of the discussion section called Williams a “grade-grubbing home wrecker.”
Despite the stigma attached to Williams’ relationship with Goldman, she wouldn’t have done things differently. “It was really fun. It wasn’t about him being a TA—he was an actual person.”
Columbia’s dating scene can make students feel “like a rat going after the cheese who never fucking learns, despite getting zapped,” as Noam Harary, CC ’08, puts it. But what’s the main incentive for TA-student relationships—finding an exciting dating alternative, or boosting grades? Is your film TA’s charm linked more to his supernatural understanding of Godard and impressive vintage shirt collection, or to his grading power?
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Williams admits that part of her initial attraction to Goldman was based on his status as leader of her discussion group. “A TA’s in a position of power—he’s the closest thing you can get to an actual teacher. And if you’re forced to look at someone long enough, your mind starts to wander and before you know it, you’re in their bed.” She enjoyed the special attention he gave her in class. “It was fun being the extreme teacher’s pet for a while.”
Jennifer Peters, BC ’08, recognizes the appeal of TAs’ academic expertise. “They’re in the position we want to be in eventually, and that’s attractive. You want to pump them for information. I think a lot of girls have a thing for authority figures.”
Not everyone agrees—Ada Egloff, BC ’08, questions the allure of fulfilling authority figure fantasies with TAs. “Who wants to date nerdy intellectuals on a power trip?”
University policy allows professors and TAs to enter sexual relationships with students, although it advises against them. Columbia’s Romantic Relationship Advisory states in the 2007 edition of Facts About Columbia Essential To Students, “A faculty or staff member involved in a consensual relationship with a student is expected to remove him/herself from academic or professional decisions concerning the student.” The Advisory justifies this expect: “The relationship may impair, or may be perceived as impairing, a faculty or staff member’s ability to make objective judgments about that student.”
FACETS also addresses the potential for a power imbalance in romantic relationships between students and faculty. “Consensual, romantic relationships between faculty and other employees and students are generally not considered sexual harassment ... [but] are susceptible to being characterized as nonconsensual, and even coercive, if there is an inherent power differential between the parties,” states the Equal Educational Opportunity and Student Nondiscrimination Policies and Procedures on Discrimination and Harassment.
Still, TAs are legally permitted to have sex with students providing they’re of age. Jonathon Barbee, CC ’08, doesn’t consider TA-student relationships an ethical breach. “I don’t have a problem with it, as long as my TA isn’t trying to feel someone up in class.” He can relate to the desire to date a TA: “Given the chance, I can think of a couple TAs I would have dated, so I can’t really criticize anybody else for doing it.”
Sherrie Hui, BC ’08 and a writer for The Eye, agrees, but only if grades are removed from the equation. “It’s kosher if they aren’t grading you. They’re just normal undergraduate or graduate students. It’s actually kind of cool—you get strong ties to a mentor. As long as you don’t mess up the curve, it’s fine.”
Neal Howard*, CC ’08, has given in to the temptation. He admits to using his “awkward charm,” as he puts it, to get an advantage in classes. The semester’s barely underway, and already Howard is playfully ribbing his TA and lingering after class for chats. He confesses, “I’ve hit on her [his TA] hard. I hit on most TAs. I hit on professors, too.”
Howard does have a certain easy flirtatiousness—even as we sit talking, he casually hits on first-years, getting instant reactions. He knows how to use his “sexual prowess,” as he calls it. “I know full well it will benefit me.” He also claims he’s not alone: “There are a lot people who would sleep with a TA—love, lust, or nothing—just to get grades. They are using their charm and good looks to beat out the opposition.” Still, Howard stresses that he’d only date a TA if she were attractive, citing grade increases as a bonus.
Howard says it’s surprisingly easy for students to overcome a TA’s authority figure status. “TAs are usually students, too, and there’s only a 5-year age difference at max.” Repeated interactions in discussion sections make it possible to build connections without much effort. “If you are seeing someone 1-2 hours a week, you eventually build a bond. From there it’s easy to start to flirt.”
Although Howard doesn’t think his “sexual prowess” has helped his grades, he’s sure it has won him numerous extensions on papers. “I know that I was given leniency that the rest of the class was not.”
Howard has never dated a TA or professor. He believes his flirting has given him enough of a leg up. “There’s a teacher I had first year. Whenever she sees me on campus, she asks me to be in her class—that’s all I’m saying.”
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Students are not alone in considering TA status and grading power an advantage in romantic relationships. As Jonathon Barbee, CC ’08, puts it, “TAs are looking for easy prey” in students. Howard explains, “What are TAs gaining by going after students? Sex by means of academic power—they don’t even have to buy you a drink. And it’s less sleazy than trying to get a girl drunk in a bar.”
Still, Charles Mitchell*, an Astronomy TA, says, “I’d never date someone I was personally grading.” The department frowns upon the practice, he says, and he “personally find[s] it unethical.” Monica Miller, an English professor, thinks TAs should wait until the end of the semester before entering a romantic relationship with a student. “Obviously, a relationship compromises both the position of a student and of a teacher. If it can be helped, these relationships should start after the class has ended.”
Miller points out that relationships deemed inappropriate are a significant taboo and can have social consequences for those involved. “It was the case at Harvard, when I was a grad student. Other grad students didn’t like it, especially the women, because most often, it’s a male TA, female undergrad situation.”
Despite the risk of earning peers’ disapproval, some TAs don’t wait for the end of the term to make their move. Jennifer Peterson*, BC ’08, recalls her experience with an overly friendly film TA her sophomore year.
One Saturday, Peterson ran into the TA at 1020, a popular campus bar. They chatted, and he asked for her number. She complied, not wanting to insult him. After that, her TA tried to start seeing her outside class. “He would call me a lot and text me, I’d decline politely,” she remembers. “On my birthday, he kept asking if he could make me chicken. It was kind of weird.”
Peterson continued to reject her TA’s advances, so he tried a new tactic. He offered her an inside connection with other TAs in the department, inviting her to parties where “there would be a lot of other TAs present.” Although his offers seemed harmless at first, Peterson gradually began to feel uncomfortable. “My roommate at the time thought it was fishy that he would invite me to parties where I could ‘get to know a lot of TAs,’” she explains. “The more he kept pushing, the more I really felt like he was using his status to force me to date him.”
Peterson was aware of his attraction to her in the classroom. “I could feel him checking me out or favoring me during class,” she says. After repeated rejections, he eventually stopped calling. But the semester was still in session, and things remained uncomfortable in the classroom. “It got super awkward after that. I wouldn’t ever raise my hand, and he wouldn’t call on me or look at me.”
Luckily for Peterson, the TA’s frustrated attempts at a romance didn’t affect his grading decisions. “My grades didn’t change—they were what I deserved, and consistent with what I’d been getting all semester. But I wonder, if I had given in, would it have make a difference?”
Peterson admits that she’d not be opposed to dating a TA, even if the relationship were to artificially inflate her grades. “I would date a TA—just not that one. In regards to ethics, I still can’t say that I wouldn’t, because it wouldn’t be fair.”
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Are all TA-student relationships based on the TA’s unethical use of power to attract younger students, or the student’s Machiavellian ploy to secure an A or an extension? In the case of Williams and Goldman, it was about the romance, not the grades.
Still, Egloff doubts that a TA can grade a student’s work objectively if the two are intimately involved. “I just don’t think people can separate their feelings that easily. Even if there’s no bias—which is impossible—the possibility exists, and that’s not fair. I am not okay with it—if I had strong enough evidence, I would definitely say something.” But what if the attraction is strong enough to overcome the stigma? Professor Miller cites a friend, a female graduate student who married an undergraduate from a class for which she was a TA.
A TA’s authority status will inevitably figure into the relationship. Lauren Schmitz, CC ’06, is not one to knock a love of authority or judge those who feel the same. “It’s the TA’s responsibility not to blur the lines,” she says. “If the student gets some ass out of it, good for the student. If they get a good grade, even better. I know a girl who tries to sleep with TAs left and right. More power to her.”
*Names have been changed