"My advisor wants me to call him by his first name," many foreign graduate students in the U.S. have said. "I just can't do it! It doesn't seem right. I have to show my respect."

On the other hand, professors have said of foreign students, "They keep bowing and saying 'yes, sir, yes, sir.' I can hardly stand it! I wish they'd stop being so polite and just say what they have on their minds."

Differing ideas about formality and respect frequently complicate relationships between American professors and students from abroad, especially Asian students (and most especially female Asian students). The professors generally prefer informal relationships (sometimes, but not always, including use of first names rather than of titles and family names) and a little acknowledgment of status differences. Many foreign students are used to more formal relationships and sometimes have difficulty bringing themselves to speak to their teachers at all, let alone address them by their given names.

The characteristics of student-teacher relationships on American campuses vary somewhat, depending on whether the students involved are undergraduate or graduate students, and depending on the size and nature of the school. Graduate students typically have more intense relationships with their professors than undergraduates do; at smaller schools student-teacher relationships are typically even less formal than they are at larger schools.

To say that student-teacher relationships are informal is not to say that there are no recognized status differences between the two groups. There are. Hut students may show their respect mainly in the vocabulary and tone of voice they use when speaking to teachers. Much of their behavior around teachers may seem to foreign students to be disrespectful. American students will eat in class, read newspapers, and assume quite informal postures. Teachers might not enjoy such behavior, but they tolerate it. Students, after all, are individuals who have the right to decide for themselves how they are going to act.