Did you get my email?

About once per class, a student will ask me, right before we start, “Did you get my email?”   It’s a superawkward question; the answer is almost always:

I don’t remember—I have a lot of students and I haven’t memorized my inbox.

My response time for emails, during weeks when classes are in session, is one week: five business days. Weekends are not business days. Given the fact that I deal with a lot of students at once, I’m pretty proud of that response time. When classes are not in session, responses will take longer. See my resources page for more.

Sometimes profs get buried under, like any of us, though, and it takes me up to a full week (or, very rarely, longer) to respond. When that happens, the plain, off-the-cuff “Did you get my email?” stings a bit.  If you happen to see your prof in person in the interim, why not just ask your original question again?

Otherwise, here’s what to do if your professor (including me) hasn’t gotten back to you yet: If the email is urgent, and it’s been four business days or fewer since you sent it, you simply have to wait. We’re happy to respond to your emailed contact, but your professor is not on call. Be proactive and ask your questions with enough time for the response to be of help; if you haven’t been able to do that, that’s a situation that it’s up to you to solve.

If the email is urgent, and it’s been more than five business days since you sent it, then politely re-send with a note explaining that you still haven’t received a response. If the email is less than urgent, do as above—but wait at least two weeks.