My professor’s my boyfriend

“You’re not going to use my name, are you?” she said from the driver’s seat, her long ponytail whipping around as she turned to face me. “You can’t use my name.”

As we pulled into a space in the university parking garage, her voice wavered and her hands fidgeted on the wheel. A 25-year-old USM senior, Rebecca, as she later asked to be called, is dating a professor.

Over the last decade, universities across the country have started revisiting their policies on consenting faculty-student relationships, and the general trend has been to ban them outright.

Yale University revised their policy in 1998 to forbid consensual relationships between students and any faculty who is in a position, or potential position, to grade or otherwise supervise them.

Citing that the “integrity of the teacher-student relationship is the foundation of the university’s educational mission,” Yale decided that such relationships, which involve an inherent inequality in power, increase the vulnerability of both parties and can lead to coercion.

These relationships, they claim, “jeopardize the integrity of the educational process,” and may lead to an “inhospitable learning environment for other students.”

At USM, the policy is much more nuanced: while it does not ban them entirely, it strongly discourages student-faculty relationships.

The policy states that “the power differential creates a strong possibility that the relationship may not be truly consensual, or if consensual may not permit a later decision by the person with less power to discontinue the relationship.”

When a relationship occurs between a student and his or her (usually her) professor, it is required to be reported to a supervisor or dean, at which point a second faculty-member is appointed to grade and otherwise oversee the student.

Any concerns about sexual harassment or preferential treatment stemming from student-faculty romance are taken to the Office of Campus Diversity and Equity, which investigates all discriminatory complaints at USM.

For the past couple years, the office has not received any complaints of this nature. The 2004-05 school year saw three complaints, and in 2003-04 there was only one.

But according to Daryl McIlwain, a complaint officer from this office, “probably most issues are not reported, for fear of the grade or because they don’t want to cause problems for the faculty member or draw embarrassing attention to themselves.”

Whether or not they go reported, these relationships are not that uncommon. “They’re such a cliché,” says Rebecca in the car, half laughing, “And things are cliché for a reason.”

Jeremy Knee, a USM senior, says that he was suspicious of a relationship between a fellow student-group member and the group’s faculty advisor, who was also a professor to both Jeremy and the unnamed female student.

“She was clingy, and you’d see them on the quad together,” he said. “At student-group functions she’d be cuddled up next to him, and there were rumors that she’d been at his house. You can draw what conclusions you want, but I draw pretty strong conclusions from that.”

The consequences of the relationship seemed clear to him.

“While it wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable because they were involved, the faculty was limited in his availability to other students. And I had the thought that if I was a girl who looked like her, I’d be getting a better grade.”

Knee was concerned, so he read through the university policy online.

“I was surprised that USM policy is stated the way that it is. It concerned me, but I guess the university can only do so much,” he said.

He also mentioned that although he maintains respect for the professor as a teacher, he doesn’t know how much he has for the professor as a human being, based on the behavior he saw.

But he also admits that the idea of such a relationship has a certain temptation. “If I had the ability to manipulate someone who had power over me, I might.”

Rebecca doesn’t see her relationship in this way. While she agrees that there is danger in a romance that contains issues of power, she says that her own experience has been free of this.

“When I walked into class, it was like, ‘this guy is my teacher,’ and it’s different than outside,” she said. “He never gave me preference, and since I was very good at the subject anyway, I knew, and it was obvious to everyone else, that I earned my grades.”

Her relationship, which began four years ago, has gone unreported to anyone of supervisory power over the professor, because by the time their friendship had evolved into something bigger, the couple saw no need for the ‘mediation’ provided by the university’s policy-they had already established boundaries for themselves, and she was no longer his student.

While she says that the relationship is great, she still struggles, because she has been forced to lie about it for so long: “It sucks to connect something I’m so uncomfortable about to something that makes me happy.”

It has affected her friendships and family relationships, because she is never able to be fully open about her life – even her two best friends don’t know about it.

“My time with him and the rest of my life are completely separate realities,” she says, “When they cross, it’s really uncomfortable, and I get paranoid.” She has also come to realize the affect it has had on her college experience, removing her from the social situations that most students traditionally become a part of.

The secrets have been painful. Her friendships, old and potential, have suffered, and there’s a constant paranoia —- for his sake — that it will somehow come out.

“But at the same time,” she says, “I’ve had a blast! You think about it, he’s my boyfriend. I love him. And four years! That’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had.”

Rebecca puts a knuckle between her teeth and tugs at her collar with the other hand, looking at me with a sideways glance that is almost coy, “I was just sort of taken by him, his looks, and his intelligence – sometimes I think the bad outweighs the good, but, I’m still with him. I mean, he’s awesome, he’s the best!”

She pauses and smiles, straightening her neck. After a minute, she begins again, “The biggest thing is that I still have a lot of respect for professors – if anything, it has made me realize that really, they have the same issues everyone else has, they’re just people.”