Professor Pamela, Panty Sniffer

Part 1

Professor Pamela, Panty Sniffer (part 1 of 5)
(F/F, humili,professor student, panty fetish)

By Professor Christina (editied, monkeyed with, and 
generally screwed up further by cowgirl)




Pamela_snyder@darmouth.edu. 

I gazed at my email address and pondered it withmore than a little pride. 
I'd finally made it!  Here I was, Pamela Snyder,Associate Professor of Psychology, a
tenured faculty member and respected scholar at a prestigious Ivy League
university, still only in my mid-thirties, (okay, creeping up on forty).

And it made me feel even more proud to have  accomplished this, without
having to compromise my outspoken feminist principles, in a male-dominated
department of a male-dominated university.  Regardless of my modest looks, I

out-strip practically all other faculity members in my ability to analyze, 
intellectualize, explain and catagories everything and anyone I came across,
including myself. 

But I'd struggeled with a secret.  Ever since shildhood, I'd long struggeled
to Ignore or supress. . . . . some of the stranger and more. . . well, for
lack of a better word, *lurid* Impulses that lurked and boiled inside myself
. . . Not exactly debilitating emotional or sexual undercurrents to my
intellectual and professional accomplishments, nothing like that. Just,
vague musings I eventually learned to supress by collage and recognize for
what they were strange and undermining desires that could be handeled.  

My years of study and training in psychology have expossed that I have
developed over the years, as a coping mechanisim certian traits and unusal
practices and habits that reveal my dificulties in my early deveopment. It's
simply an ugly fact that certain typical abilities usual mastered in the
anal stages of childhood development, centering around basic personal hygen
and urinary capabilities, eluded me until the late into puberty, and even my
teen aged years, which were just more fuel to the fire for such shameful and
disturbing lurid, even burningly sexual images of what the other highschool
girls my age would think or say at such a basic and regressively juvinal
failure on my part. These twisted degrading shameful images, or rather
fantasies, subconsciously formed from a fearful childhood that were too
disturbing to consciously access, process, assess or even address. 

Rather, it was the way the female students responded to intellectual jargon
in general, feminist ideology in particular that botherd me. My mounting
concern, was these female students seemed to be undermining not only the entire
feminist ideology, but their casual dismissive atitude by extension, seemed
to be dismissive of myself personally as well. 




Not psychology or even Feminist ideology. The female students seem jaded to
this with their smug little smirks and their adolecent frivolatry, as they
concerned issues of gender and sexuality.  And, at least implicitly, not me either,
personally or professionally, as much of an authority on anything.  These
girls seemed impervious to my efforts, and memories of my exclusion by their
kind in hich school haunted my  awareness, and I fought in my own mind, to
see myself as the professonal woman and faculty member I was, and not the
simpering outcast I was banished to at their age. 

In fact, given the prevailing cynicism in our current political culture, merely 
claiming authority on anything might well have brought my integrity before these
girls into serious question.  But, under the sway of popular culture, these 
giggeling students cared even less about political culture than the little they 
knew about it, and therefore any authority I might claim wasn't even worth 
seriously questioning, or even  considered seriously at all. . From the rolling 
of their mascaraed eyes and the smug little smirks of their glossy lips, to the 
gossipy whispers and giggling titters, I was the least of their concerns. 


And, the more I tried to impress upon them the serious issues and concerns
of gender and sexuality, as matters of both personal identity and professional
study, the more they promptly reponded by making me and what I said 
the focus of their ridicule and condesending amusement.


And, most disturbing to me as a feminist, it was mainly the females who lead
the way in all this.  My students Imature effort to try and fathom feminity
was silly and cartoonishly embarrassing at the least, and disgustingly
repugnant at worst!  But, even more vexing and as a devout feminist, there
was nothing the least be compliant or obedient about these giggling,
wriggling package of hormones.  I was not only in risk of losing their
respect, but even worse, I found myself passivly allowing their
eintimidatingly self-assertive rude and condesending smiles at my lectures. 



The feminist struggles that still sternly concerned me were little more than
a frivolouse joke to these female students, and by extension, so was I for
believe in them. These girls  were becoming casually dismissiveof me and all
I stood for as a person and a woman! 
Rather, to these girls, I and everything I said stood for was silly.




*******

It was the beginning of the Fall Semester, when I walked into the office
less prepared for the start of classes and smart-assed students than ever before.

 Wandering to my desk, I was unprapared for even an obsequiously
well-mannered student, much less the contemptuously ill-mannered one who
presumptously stompted into my office unannounced, and greeted my stunned 
silence with insolence and an angry insistence I take a stance in her defense.


This must be Cindy Margolis, I thought to myself, though she couldn't be
bothered to introduce herself, and I was too vulnerable at that moment to
try to take the initiative myself.  Cindy was the new part-time work-study
assistant to our department's full-time secretary.  Or rather, as the more
current, politically corrected title termed this clerical position, our
office's administrative assistant.  Which made Cindy a part-time assistant to a
full-time assistant.  Not that anyone would know her humble status listening
to her grumble about her supervisor.

While our department's administrative assistant was Cindy's supervisor in
her work role, I was her faculty advisor in her student role.  As such, I'd
already gotten an earful about her dreadful attitude and awful attire from
her supervisor, and, prompted by her complaints, had taken a look Cindy's
academic record.  In fact, that was one of the few things I actually did do
to prepare for the semester--calling up the school's computer file to
acquaint myself with this new student causing such a stir before the
semester even started.

As an incoming freshman, there was little in Cindy's file beyond her high
school grades.  As  uninspired as her grades were, Cindy apparently aspired
to something else, having already grated on her supervisor enough to almost
get herself fired, and now, unabated, demanding that I, her faculty advisor,

chew out her supervisor for *daring* to suggest she should dress more
appropiately and watch her personal hygiene.

With her face strikingly cute--no, startingly pretty--even scrunched up in a
churlish scowl, and her lush mane of chestnut hair pulled back into a girlish
ponytail, Cindy was certainly a study in contrasts.  Contrasts that became
arresting as my staring eyes wandered down.  With her slim yet shapely form
sleekly poured into her crop-top and skimpy skirt, both skin tight and
shimmering metallic hues of pink and green, Cindy's  scanty attire was . . .
well, lurid, to be sure.  But was it really lewd, I wondered as my eyes
traveled back up to her face, then abruptly stopped as I caught her noticing
me and I blushed.  Astonished at my lapse in judgement, worried about whether my
embarrassment was as transparent as my all-too-busy eyes, I quickly admonished 
myself that her revealing outfit, no matter how appealing, was certainly not
suitable office apparel.

'No matter how appealing?'  Now my head was reeling.  My stomach churned and
I turned to look away.  My eyes darted back and forth, then rested on her
again.  What was that last bit about hygiene.  I squirmed in my seat,
wondering if she'd noticed, as I looked up at her face.  Seeming to be
oblivious, Cindy continued on about how, when she pressed her supervisor for
specifics,the woman confessed her repulsion over the panty line clearly
visible through the girl's tight skirt.


"That's her problem, not mine!  Your supposed to be in charge around here
Dr. Sniffer. You're going to tell the snobby busy-body to jump in the lake,
right?" Little Cindy spat.

I swallowed, somehow terribly worried about the troubling prospect of a
confrontation.  Suddenly, I heard myself desperately trying to sooth her, 
eagerly agreeing word for word with everything she'd said. Yes it *was* her
supervisors problem and not hers, and yes, it *was * unfair for her to speak
that way to her, and yes, she had a very attractive bottom in fact . . . 
and, before I knew what I was saying, she even had me obsequiously promising I'd
fire off an rightiously infuriated email chastising the woman for her
behaviour.


Which I did.  Right then and there.  Well, as soon as the arrogant girl
stopped smugly glaring at me, turned and stomped back out the door, without
offerin so much as a word of thanks or farewell.  And, well, anyway, well
alright, I didn't write it immediately.  It took me a while to calm down,
collect my thoughts, think of what to say and how to say it, as
appropriately as possible.

Which wasn't easy.  In fact, I worried over it, carefully phrasing and
fretfully re-wording it, for nearly an hour.  Mumbling to myself, stumbling
over every statement, each time I found myself stopping, staring
apprehensively at her email address.

Carol_Stern@dartmouth.edu.  Actually, Miss Stern, as she stubbornly insisted
on being called, and even resisted email for a while because it did not
allow enough letters for her to be addressed by the formality as well as her first
and last name.  And, as sensitive as she was about her administrative status, 
she insisted that not only students refer to her so formally, but faculty as
well.

Well, not all faculty.  A few never did, although we all knew that she
preferred to be referred to that way.  As more of mere formality with the
faculty, over whom she had no authority, and who, in fact, had authority
over her.  A simple, spoken token of respect, as she put it, to reinforce her
authority with the students, whose spoken tokens of respect for any
authority, even the faculty, had conspicuousl lapsed and withered over the
years.  And there was an awkward interval, several years ago, when the few
faculty who routinely referred to her by her first name grew to include most
in faculty in the department, and some grad students as well.  As she
bristled and fell into a stubbornly sullen silence around the
office--resolutely only speaking to those who called her by her first name
when absolutely necessary--any non-routine or strenuous administrative work
stopped altogether, typos cropped up and went uncorrected in some memos,
while others were misdirected.

Gradually--after a stubborn stand-off, some angry outbursts, and lots of
mutual animosity--all the faculty, and even the grad students, no longer
referred to her with any formality at all in her presence.  And, in her
absence, plenty of them referred to her with profanity as well.

Well, actually all the grad students and nearly all the faculty, gave up on
formalities to her presence in favor of profanities in her absence.  Not
quite all the faculty, because  I was new to the faculty when this ugly
struggle began.  And, full of anxiety about securing tenure, ensuring
propriety, and not threatening any more authority than my feminist
principles compelled me to, I quickly adopted the formality, self-consciously
maintained it, and even abstained from profanity about our adminstrative assistant,
long after most of the other faculty.

Well, all of the other faculty, to be frank.  And now, when even beginning
grad students, and a growing number of undergrads as well, don't bother with
any spoken formality in token recognition of the authority of our admininstrat
ive assistant, here I am, my tenure secure, the only faculty member who can
be heard to mumble Miss Stern in her presense, and not even grumble about
her in her absence.

I'm not clear why I continue to call her Miss Sterns.  I just do.  Partly
out of habit, I guess, and because old habits die hard.  But I must admit that
this habit is also hard to hold on to at times, particularly when I hear
other faculty scoffing at me, and students  snickering and rolling their
eyes, because it's so embarrassing.  But, it becomes even more distressing when
Miss Stern, despite my politely respectful formality with her, almost in
spite, she still pretends she doesn't hear me until I have say it louder.  I
doubt she does it to intentionally to intimidate or humiliate me.  At least
I don't think so.  Rather, I think that she's still so resentful about the
loss of any other token to her authority, spoken or otherwise, that the only way
she can feel all that proud, is to make the only faculty who refers to her
with the formality she prefers to, do so loud enough for others to hear.

It's humiliating for me, of course, when I hear faculty scoffing and students 
laughing at me, as I'm sure it is for Miss Stern too.  In fact, I think it's
because she finds the scoffing and laughing so infuriating, that she's
become so bossy and intimidating toward me, which only makes it that much more
embarrassing and humiliating, as they scoff and laugh at me all the more.

And her bossing me about the office has not only been embarrassing and
humiliating, it's also has been debilitating to my career, as all the respect 
I've shown to her has, I suspect, lost me a lot of respect among my collegues 
the faculty, grad students and undergrads as well.  As much as students have
changed, I'm sure I'd have less problems being taken seriously in the
classroom if I acted less obsequiously in the office around Miss Stern.

Now, I wished I would have stood up to her earlier, at least when tenure was
secure.  But, in some misplaced feminist principle of sisterly loyality, and
sympathy for her loss of face and authority in the office, I thought my
respectful formality would offer some small solace.  Well, however much she
may have appreciated the gesture then, any sense of loyality and sympathy I
felt for her had long since dissipated, and I wondered why I tolerated the
way she humiliated me.  And now, through the immediacy of email, but 
without meeting face-to-face, I'd finally gotten an opportunity to regain my
authority with her.

For all the desired immediacy, restoring my status as her superior still
required delicacy, and that became a source of some concern right from the
start.  Should I say, Carol, bla, bla, bla, bla?  Or should I say, Miss
Sterns, bla, bla, bla, bla . . .  and, by the way, I'm going to start calling
you Carol from now on, like everybody else.  Well, I thought, I should leave
out the latter phrase, which makes me sound defensive, and may make it more
offensive to her than it already would be.  But, I worried, could I just
declare I was going to call her Carol from now on without explaining it?
And, I wondered, if I could, why not just do it at the very beginning?  But,
these particular (rather, peculiar) circumstances notwithstanding, it still
seemed presumptuous and, yes, disrespectful, to simply decide to call a
person by a different name without at least asking their permission.  Yet,
asking permission would defeat the whole purpose, I reminded myself. The
fact  this little Cindy Margolis, a simple first year student, was indierctly
causing me to  take such elaborate pains to avoid a possible confrontation with Mrs. Stern,
only compounded my self anger, anxitey, and humiliation. But after wrestling
with the  most basic elements of the email for the better part of an hour, I finally
ending up  writing, and re-writing, what turned out to be a brief, polite email,
addressed to Miss Stern, asking her to please go a little easier on our more
sensitive students, and would she mind if I referred to her as *Carol* from now on.  

Having ruminated about it, worried over it and re-written it for an hour, I
still hesitated to send the two-sentence email.  

But, after procrastinating for a few more tomented moments, I just gritted
my teeth, pressed my finger and sent it on its way.I was astonished, and more
than a little anquished, went I received a reply moments later, before I'd even
turned my fixated eyes away from the screen.

Swallowing hard, I opened it and scowled at the curt but obscure reply. 
"No. Yes."  That's all it said.  Not complicated, but still I wasn't sure I
understood.  Of course, I could simply walk down the hall and clear it up
quickly.  But, with little humility or generosity evident in the curtly
stated two-word email, I wasn't sure I was ready to speak to her in person.
So, I wrote back, simply and lamely, "I don't understand."  

A few more suspenseful moments later, but not many, I received her reply. 
NO, she would NOT go easier on Cindy, and she thought it was inappropriate 
And rude of me to undercut her authority with students.  And, YES, she most 
certainly DID mind me starting to call her by her first name, and having the
temerity request to do so while attempting to undercut her authority.  In what was
offered in what might have appeared as a reconciliating gesture, but was humiliating
just the same, she concluded by stating that, my impertinence notwithstanding, 
she would still continue to call me Pam, as I'd long ago told her she could,
in the hope I would return the favor, correct the lapse in my behavior and
visibly demonstrate more respect for her in the future.

More respect for her?!  Visibly demonstrate?  What did that mean? I wondered, 
and shuddered to think about it.  Knowing I'd only made things worse, and
regretting it already, I wondered now how I'd salvage my reputation and
authority before Cindy eyes.

cindy_margolis@dartmouth.com

Miss Margolis,
I spoke with Miss Stern.  I'm sorry to say things did not work out the way
you wanted.  It's a complicated situation, and you're a student--a first year
student, working as a part-time assistant, under Miss Stern's supervision.
Miss Stern is this department's administrative assistant and has been for
many years.  She takes her job very seriously, and expects loyalty, respect
for her authority and decorum in the office, including what she considers
appropriate office apparel on students employed by the university put under
her supervision.

I sympathize with you, Miss Margolis.  I know this must be difficult for
you, a first-year student, new to the university, going through so many
life-changes and adjustments in a new environment.  It creates quite a bit of
anxiety for anyone, and, while we'd like our new students to have positive
experiences, some negative experiences are, unfortunately, to be expected.
You've already had a negative experience that's obviously upsetting for you,
and rightly so.

But, as with all negative experiences, it's important to try to turn them
into positive ones.  It helps if you try to get beyond your negative
emotions, be more objective about what's happened--to view them as new
learning experiences, opportunities to see things in new and different ways,
understand them more fully from other perspectives, in a more comprehensive
way, as an expansive experience, a personal-growth experience.

That's what I hope we can do here.  You came to me for help.  And this is
the best way I think I can help, under the circumstances.

I know I now must seem annoyingly like any other teacher or counselor here,
making you weary, droning on, giving you dreary advice.  But I am, after all,
a teacher, a psychology professor, and your faculty advisor, so giving you
advice, is my proper role here, for better or worse, I suppose. But, as a
professional psychogist, my expertise is, broadly speaking, human behavior.
So, in the spirit of turning a negative experience into a positive one, I
hope you'll permit me to use my expertise and experience, professionally and
personally, to offer you some advice and help you through this difficult,
trying, upsetting experience, turning it from a negative to a positive,
expansive, growth experience and help you make the necessary changes and
adjustments.

Changes and adjustments, of course, are difficult and anxiety-inducing
experiences themselves.  So turning a negative into a positive is a difficult
task, requiring a person to endure even more changes and the anxieties they
generate, and thus more negative experiences, before turning the original
negative experience into a positive one.  It's hard, but it helps to keep in
mind--keep reminding yourself about; visualizing it as an image and keeping
it in view--that your goal and eventual destination is a positive, expansive,
growth experience, where you've gained valuable new knowledge, viewing things
from different perspectives, in an expansive, more comprehensive, now wiser,
way.

This is one valuable way to keep the positive in view, in turning a negative
into a positive experience.  And another way, closely interconnected with
this, is to view what your doing as not just reactive, which is still
negative, but as proactive and expressive, in which you are taking the
initiative to make the negative a positive, expansive experience for you.

Making what was working against you, in a negative way, now work for
you, in a positive way.  That's the key.

Now, the question is, how can we do that here, for you, with this situation,
and how can I help?  I hope what I have said already is helpful for you. But
it's all still rather abstract, I know, and perhaps it's not clear how you
can apply it to this particular situation.

Having had some experience, professionally and personally, with office
situations of this sort, and being familiar with this specific office
situation, in our department, I think I can be helpful here, too, on both a
professional and on a more personal level.  Of course, as helpful as I'd like
to be, we have to be careful here, in taking things from a professional to a
personal level.  Boundaries can get blurred.  Roles and expectations can get
mixed up.  Things can get confusing, and feelings can be hurt.  Even in
trying to be helpful, with the best of intentions, if we're not very
careful, it can turn out hurtful instead.

So I want to be very careful here about breaching the boundaries between 
professional and personal relationships here, with all the potential ramifcations,
emotional implications and complications.  I know I still sound pretty
abstract here.  But not only am I trying to be careful with how helpful I'm
being here, in crossing the boundaries between the professional and personal
levels, but I one of the ways I think can be helpful--and be helpful about
being careful--is in helping clarify the boundaries, explain and understand
them.  As abstract as it may seem, analyzing a situation is essential for
being more objective about, learning new perspectives, and turning positive
into negatives.

Now the situation we have here involves, of course, Miss Stern, as an
administrative assistant in a departmental office of a large, prestigious
institution of higher learning--a university, where Miss Stern works in an
essentially clerical occupation, in an administrative staff position, in an
office where her work brings her primarily into contact with faculty and
students.

I know this seems like merely a description of simple facts obvious to
everyone.  But the facts are important for understanding the office
situation, the position and role of Miss Stern in this office situation, her
professional and personal experience in this position and role, and her
perspective and expections for others she works with.  And that involves
understanding these in ways that are not always obvious to
everyone--especially to those not familiar with the informal, more personal
and emotional aspects of office relationships, and not simply the more formal
or professional ones.

In her daily interactions with faculty, Miss Stern deals with professors who
have Ph.Ds., and are in society's third highest status, most prestigious
occupation, as surveys indicate, beneath only doctors and lawyers, and above
even corporate executives (though our pay is lower than any of them).  She
also deals with students, who, though still students, and usually much
younger than her, are destined, with further education, for professions and
occupations that will, in most cases, be quite a bit higher than
administrative assistant, especially with a degree from a prestigious
university like this one.

While honored to work in such a prestigious institutional setting, with so
many persons either already in, or destined for, prestigious jobs and
high-status occupations, it can also, as you must understand, be frustrating
and demeaning, even humiliating, to be an administrative assistant, like Miss
Stern, in a relatively low-status, clerical occupation, have to continually
deal with those with either more formal education and higher status, like me
and other faculty, or those in the process of achieving it, like yourself and
other students.  This is Miss Stern's workplace situation and experience, and
it is what shapes her perspective, her behavior, and her expectations of
others behavior.

Like any administrative assistant, much of her perspective is shaped by being
sensitive--even overly sensitive, from other's perspective--about her status
situation, which is precarious and, as I noted, in some respects, demeaning
and humiliating, compared to the faculty and students she works with.  In
fact, one of the things that makes her even more sensitive about her status
and authority is the frustrating experience of being in a very contradictory
status and prestige situation--working at a high-status-and-prestige
insitution, with others in high-status-and-prestige positions, but in a
low-status-and-prestige occupation, herself.

Altogether, the demeaning, humiliating and frustrating aspects of her daily
work experience make her, not only very sensitive about her formal status and
authority, but also about formalities in general, including things like dress
codes and office decorum.  As sensitive as she is about these things like
status, authority and formality, this can make Miss Stern come across as,
well, quite cross and stern, of course, but also quite stiff and stuffy, nosy
and bossy.  In fact, with her insecure, frustrating and humiliating formal
status position, you'll find she can be quite annoyingly, and even abusively,
nosy and bossy, poking her nose into everyone's business and trying to make
it her own.  As annoying and even abusive as this can so often be, it is
helpful to know and keep in mind that this is natural for someone in her
insecure status situation to be nosy and bossy more than others think she
should.  It is also helpful to remember that, bossy or not, being nosy helps
give secure and even raise status and power, informally if not formally, by
gaining a lot inside information and knowledge about the personal and
emotional lives of others, which is especially helpful for her in dealing
with those of higher status, giving higher status and more authority than she
otherwise would have, or formally deserve.  All of which means, no matter how
bossy she gets, and how angry that may make you, you should be very careful
around Miss Stern, because as nosy as she is, she's gotten a lot inside
information, not only on people's professional lives, but on their personal
and emotional lives as well, and knowledge gives power, especially that kind
of knowledge--personal and emotional knowledge about people's private lives.

Of course, in the spirit of turning negatives into positives, I should point
out that it's not simply a matter of being very careful around Miss Stern
because of all she knows and the power that gives her.  For the very same
reason, she can be very helpful too, in providing valuable inside
information.  Like others in her situation, she's not only nosy, but gossipy
as well.  In fact, the two go together, giving information in exchange for
receiving it.

So, with her inside knowledge, and now with your new knowledge about her,
perhaps you can turn this negative experience into a positive one, after all,
and develop a new, more positive relationship with Miss Stern.  As sensitive,
nosy and bossy as she is, and as careful as you have to be, with all her
inside information, someone like Miss Stern can be quite helpful to someone
like you, an incoming freshman, new to the university and its ins and outs,
and who's who and what's what.

In fact, that is precisely what I suppose I am attempting to do here.
Offering some knowledge and information, professionally and personally, that
I hope will be helpful to you in this situation, in your transition to this
new environment, and in the changes and adjustments that will need to be made
to turn negatives into positives, and make your experience as positive and
rewarding as possible.

As far as any further, more personal and concrete advice on what to do with
your immediate situation with Miss Stern, I'm not sure what to say, frankly,
and I have to be even more careful here.  As a new student here, I don't know
if you are aware of this, but I am not only a psychologist, but also a
feminist.  And as a feminist, under most circumstances, I would not feel
comfortable telling another female what to do--at least an adult female, even
a student, who, at least at college, should be treated largely as an adult.

And I would feel even less comfortable telling her how to dress and what to
wear--to be more conservative in her attire, for instance, which is a very
sensitive issue in feminist circles these days, provoking lots of debate.  I
know lots of feminists, most in fact, are from an older generation, my age,
that younger females, those in your generation, view as rather rigid and
stodgy, stuffy and stuck in their old thoughts and ways about clothing and
attire, dress and decorum, appropriate apparel and appearance, and all
that--and especially as it relates to sexuality and self-expression, and,
well, self-display.  In fact, as a feminist psychologist, specializing in
studies of gender and sexuality, this is my area of special expertise, and I
teach classes covering these issues, which you might be interested in taking.
Anyway, I know this field of study rather well.  And, from my talks with
feminists and students, and current literature and debates in the field, I am
well-aware of, and very sensitive to the issue of females wearing revealing,
sexually provocative clothing--whether it sexually objectifies, demeans and
exploits females to do so, or whether it empowers them as an assertive form
of self-expression.   There is little question that clothing is a form of
personal display and self-expression, and that dressing oneself is an
identity-defining activity that, without saying any words, nevertheless
"speaks" to others, saying "this is who and what I am," asking "how do you
like me?"  In this sense, all clothing is symbolic and self-objectifying
And so there is little question that dressing in revealing, sexually
provocative ways is sexually objectifying.  The question is whether that is
submissively demeaning and degrading, or assertively empowering and
persuading.

I'm sorry.  I seem to have gotten a little carried away here.  I sound like
I'm teaching a class.  But that tends to happen when you have a passion for
your profession, like I do.  See what kinds of interesting things we would be
talking about in my classes?  Anyway, what I was trying to say was that the
conflict you and Miss Stern have is an instance of a very salient larger
issue that is unresolved now and being hotly debated, between non-feminists
and feminists, older and younger feminists of different generations, and, at
home, between parents and daughters as well.  In fact, at home, it's not even
a new issue.  It may surprise you to know that females of our generation had
the same kinds of arguments with their parents, about how revealing and
sexually provocative our clothing should be, about self-expression vs.
self-exploitation, about what a "self-respecting girl" could and should wear
and show.  And, although I know females of my generation seem very stodgy and
conservative to females of your's, I remember feeling just that way about my
mother other women of her generation, and arguing with my mother about
wearing things that she thought looked lewd, obscene and "slutty," even
though my clothing was pretty reserved and conservative compared to my peers.
In fact, I can remember being scorned by my mother for too revealing
clothing and by girls my age for too conservative clothing, and being looked
down on by both my parents and my peers was very difficult for me, as you
might imagine.  In fact, ironically, though I'm an adult now, I find myself
in a similar situation with Miss Stern, where I'm . . . .

Well no need to go into all that here.  Need to be careful, as I say.
Anyway, I was only saying that to be helpful, to show you that I know the
kinds things you're going through, and understand how difficult it is.

So I hope this is helpful to you.  Whoops!  I almost slipped and said "to
you, Cindy."  And I haven't asked you if I may do so.  I know teachers
typically call students by their first names, and some teachers are even
informal enough to make that mutual.  I'm not sure I feel comfortable with
that myself.  Blurring professional and personal boundaries and stuff, you
know?  Of course, I do typically call my students by their first names, but I
try to make a point of asking first, out of simple respect, and treating them
like adults--and especially with students I advise, where personal stuff is
often talked about, and boundaries can get blurred.

So, can I call you Cindy?  I know we've only just met, under stressful
circumstances, and haven't even been properly introduced yet.  But, with me
as your faculty advisor, you working in the office and perhaps also taking
classes from me, I expect we'll be in contact quite a bit.  And, after this
letter, with so much personal as well as much professional stuff, and on
issues that are rather emotional, perhaps our relationship might develop from
a professional to a more personal level, and even develop into a friendship.

Well, maybe I shouldn't have said that. Wow. I normally don't have
friendships with students.  Actually, I've never had any, at least not with
undergrads.  Of course, I've had a few closer, more personal relationships
with grad students, as virtually every faculty member has, when you work
together, over an extended period of time, when grad students are your
teaching or research assistants.  I'm speaking her of proper and appropriate
relationships, of course.  Maybe a bit closer, and more personal, but nothing
sexual.  Some faculty, of course, have affairs with their grad students--and
undergrads too, which is worse.  But I don't believe in them.  I think
they're professionally unethical and never healthy.  Always exploitative
because there's always a power difference.  In fact, I fought to get the
university by-laws revised to establish stricter rules about teacher-student
relationships, and, after a long struggle, we finally got it passed.
Actually, I even chaired the faculty committee that wrote the new sexual
harrassment statute that was added to the by-laws, and have served as a
consultant on the issue to faculty at other universities.

But, what was I saying?  Oh, yeah.  (I had to look up to read it and see).
Anyway, as I was saying, I normally don't have friendships with students, and
never with an undergrad.  So, I'm not sure about it. Whether I'd feel
comfortable with it.  There is the age difference, of course, along with
crossing professional and personal lines.  I know I never felt comfortable
about it before, and always was careful to keep some distance.  In fact,
quite frankly, I've always been careful about keeping my distance, and have
never had many friendships--or any that were really close.  So recently I've
been thinking that maybe I've been too careful about personal relationships,
not forming any real friendships, always too focused on professional stuff.
And, well. . . .  Well, I don't know what I'm saying here.  You're a new
student and I've barely met you.  We haven't even been properly introduced
yet, and I don't even know if you'll permit me to call you by your first
name, yet, much less whether you might be interested in friendship.  You
probably have plenty of friends.  A lot more than me.  Though you're new 
here, so maybe you haven't made friends here, yet.

Well, listen to me rambling on.  I guess I'm going through some changes and
adjustments too.  This letter has been a lot longer than I intended, but it's
actually been helpful for me to think and talk some of these things through.
I hope you it has been helpful for you too.

Most Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Pamela Snyder