In the world of higher education, we professors like to believe that we are free from the racial and gender biases that afflict so many other people in society. But is this self-conception accurate?
To find out, we conducted an experiment. CONT.
Dolly Chugh, Katherine L. Milkman & Modupe Akinola, New York Times
I feel that there are some confounding factors that were not taken into account in this study. I grew up in East Asia and I am fluent in Mandarin; yet, I would be reluctant to answer emails from an unknown Chinese student.
Ever since I was in graduate school, I have been bombarded with 100s of emails from Chinese students looking to do research with me. They are super annoying but I used to answer all of them politely. Now, I just ignore them. There are too many agencies in China which, for a fee, will send off letters and resumes from Chinese student trying to get them into research programs. 99% of the time the student’s research interests and field of specialty are completely different from my own.
Another side of this problem are the Chinese students who use agents to write their emails, CVs, Cover Letters, Research Statements, etc… for students who do not have the English skills to succeed in university. I have seen many professors get “burned” by accepting a Chinese student who seemed to have flawless English before her/his arrival, only to learn later that the student couldn’t comprehend or communicate in an academic setting.
I think the validity of the study could be corrected by going back and finding out if the respondents who failed to communicate with Chinese students had had previous bad experiences.