August 14th, 2024

A Simple Way to Get More Students to Visit You in Your Office

Studies have consistently shown a myriad of benefits from students feeling more connected to their professors, including learning more and being more likely to graduate. That’s one of the reasons I try hard to be accessible and get students to meet with me in my office. I don't want them to think of me like the stern professor below.

This term, I’m not requiring such meetings in any of my classes. Instead, I decided to conduct a very informal experiment. Near the top of my syllabus for both sections of the course I’m teaching, I included my usual invitation: “I’d love to meet with you anytime my schedule is free. Just use link to schedule an appointment with me that best fits your schedule! We can meet by Zoom or in person, whichever you prefer.”

But in one of my two sections, I spent about one minute in class to ask students to open the syllabus, find the link for setting up an appointment, and click on it—just so they’d know exactly how to do it. I added that I love meeting with any students, and I’m especially eager to meet with first-semester students, first-generation students, and anyone who might wonder whether they really belong at our university.

The result? In the section where I made my short pitch, 9 out of 55 students have signed up to meet with me. In the other section, despite the invitation in the syllabus (on which students are quizzed), no one signed up. A simple investment of 60 seconds or so seems to go a long way to lowering psychological barriers of entry to meeting with me individually.

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