Through some extraordinary coincidence, the Chronicle of Higher Education touches on authority and the academy in this article entitled "Remembering the Old Lions." Some lovely bits:

Who were these "old lions," and where did they come from?

They were almost always men (though there were a few pioneering women), and, by my time, in the late '80s to early '90s, they were at least 60 years old. They all wore similar clothes: dark suits, often with a vest, almost certainly custom tailored and designed to last for decades. They had a preference for bow ties, or ordinary ties with old-school, prep patterns.

Yikes, I've just realized I aspire to be an Old Lion. I'm often called "Professor Bowtie."

I look at myself today, an assistant professor, dressed in cords and a sweater -- basically the same style clothes I wore when I was 20 -- and think how much authority professors have lost since the 1960s, when younger faculty members began to dress like their students, and students began to abandon civilized clothing altogether. I look at my students: some barefoot, others wearing hats and dressed in clothes they could easily have slept in, and I think how the college classroom has become an adjunct of the dorm bedchamber. Sometimes, when I begin classes, I get the impression that the students resent my interrupting their conversations. Few of them take notes, and I unconsciously make an effort to be more entertaining.

Bring back dress codes for colleges! For profs and students!

I can't help thinking that, for all their gruff aloofness, the old lions were extraordinarily effective teachers from whom I can, belatedly, learn a lot (though I doubt I can put many of their strategies into practice).

I once had a prof of the New Left school who clearly made it his policy to never say "no" or "you are wrong" no matter how loony students' answered his class questions.

P: "In Dante's Inferno, he was writing about what rather harrowing place?"
S: "Uh, Burlington, VT"
P: "Well, it can be harrowing there, and it is a place..."

Apparently, if you said, "No, and you are a genuine waste of my time," the student would be chastined and never want to learn again.

Among the old lions, I think there was a genuine respect for students that is very different from the egalitarianism feigned by many teachers today. The old lions expected students to draw a hard line between their personal and professional lives.

There were no excuses. They did not care if you were having emotional difficulties; civilization had to go on, with or without you. They were adults, and they expected their students to grow up. They were not hampered by the fear of giving offense or hurting students' feelings; they believed there were correct answers to questions. They did not believe in unearned self-esteem. They would not congratulate you for simply meeting expectations.

I had a student tell me I graded his final research paper too hard (he failed, if memory serves) because he tried hard and that should count for something in the final grade.

I said "no" and your effort is immaterial.

They were not interested in being students' counselors, confessors, or friends. They were not afraid of being called "authoritarian"; they were authorities. They were indifferent to love, but they commanded respect. And institutions once gave them the power to command it.

Like I said, I have enough friends already. I know something you do not, and you pay an extraordinary amount of money to hear it. So sit down and listen.

I feel like a grown-up child when I compare myself with the old lions, but I have to remember that I am the product of a radically altered culture. Today's tenure process, particularly the requirement that one get high scores on student evaluations, makes it extraordinarily hard to demand as much from students and to use the fear of disapproval as a motivation. It's hard to deny there is a direct correlation between high scores on student evaluations, grade inflation, and the relaxation of standards.

Student evaluations hurt education. They assume the student knows what is best for him, a rather incredible assumption actually. The whole point of a college education is to give students the tools so they will know what is best for them. They do not have those tools yet. Evaluations imply that colleges are run on business principles, that the customer is always right. In fact, colleges and universities are the exact reverse: the producer (professor) is always right, and must be if we expect the product (learning and knowledge) to be of high quality. Demand-side education will play to the crowd; supply-side education leads the crowd.