The diversity among professorial personalities dictates that both students and teachers will not always get along. However, creating a university-wide “civility code” is over-reaching and rather insulting-to everyone.

Students are aware, or should be if they have made it to the collegiate level in their educational careers, of the basic manners and behaviors that are expected of them in a classroom. Professors should also be aware of what college students are generally like when in a cooperative learning environment. A feeling of mutual respect must pervade a university atmosphere, or left with a high school campus with better landscaping and higher tuition.

The civility code being proposed would affect students and professors and give guidelines on what students should expect from professors and vice versa. It is all very well until one understands what this code is truly trying to say: Be respectful.

Most students have had respect for teachers instilled in them by years of primary and secondary education and, as for the professors, if they do not respect their students, the battle to educate them is completely lost. The key word is “most.” Are there students with whom some professors have had issues or altercations? Certainly. However, here on this university campus, it is evident-by merely bearing witness in class-that students are generally respectful and mature.

One factor involved in the civility code is addressing the problems some professors have with creating a syllabus for class. Creating syllabi is implicitly included in the professorial job description. If a professor cannot create a syllabus on his or her own, then perhaps a fellow professor could help. Saint Louis University even offers professors help at the Reinert Center for Teaching Excellence, but there is no justifiable reason to create overarching codes that would be quickly forgotten after initiation.

Students struggle every day to make it to class, juggle homework and prepare presentations, as do professors. All those involved on a university’s campus are merely human. To force problems on students that are inherently professors’ problems is a severely misguided attempt to quell a few incidents of classroom disruption. This is unacceptable policy-making for any school, especially a university.

Using cell phones in class, or “giggling” in the back of the classroom-as mentioned in a draft of the civility initiative-are signs of disrespect and are generally rare occurrences. Such displays of disrespect should be handled on a case-by-case basis and do not necessitate for a university-wide civility code. Enforcing civility at the university level seems to be a crusade against native intelligence and mutual respect, and would not be conducive to fostering closer student-professor relationships.

The enactment of a civility code must be thought about carefully and thoroughly and can certainly not be rushed. Civility codes should not be enacted in response to only a few incidents or a few complaints. In fact, they should not be enacted at all.