MISSING MANNERS A RUDE AWAKENING IN COLLEGE CLASSES.

Byline: SUSAN ABRAM Staff Writer

NORTHRIDGE -- They arrive late, talk on cell phones in class, throw temper tantrums, send ill-mannered e-mails and make threats.

Sounds like a job for Super Nanny, right? Yes, if these were children.

But across the nation, professors on university campuses are watching students in their classrooms sink into this abyss of rude behavior, prompting discussions on how to encourage civility without infringing on freedom of expression.

``In my syllabus, I used to include a policy on conduct, but now I have to be more specific,'' said Teresa Vazquez, professor of urban planning and development at California State University, Northridge. ``Now I have to say I'm going to dock points.''

The university also recently joined a nationwide conference on encouraging civility, a follow-up to a campuswide workshop held last year.

``It's important not to generalize, and it's not across-the-board because we have students who are wonderful, and those are the ones you reach out to,'' said Kiren Dosanjh Zucker, director of Faculty Development and the Center for Innovative and Engaged Learning Opportunities.

``But if you look around campus, you have students who have iPods, cell phones, BlackBerries -- and they are in their own world,'' she said. ``There isn't any interaction or that community component found 20 years ago. It would certainly behoove the faculty to take on more of an active role.''

The notion that American youths aren't minding their p's and q's is continuously debated in editorial pages across the nation. And it's not just the young who are rude.

A poll conducted by the Associated Press last year found that 69percent of 1,001 people surveyed said society is more rude compared with 20 or 30 years ago.

The same poll found that 68percent lay the blame for rude children on the parents. Another 38percent believed athletes, celebrities and public figures were to blame.

And rudeness, it seems, has gone global. Paris' transport authority declared a war on rudeness last week by inviting passengers to visit a Web site and rank the most irritating manners on French trains and buses.

``We have become a very crude society,'' said Naomi Poulson, founder of the California-based Etiquette Company.

Corporations frequently ask Poulson to teach etiquette to employees.

More business leaders are noticing their employees lack basic social skills that could hinder important business deals.

Poulson said there are many reasons for the erosion of civility, but the solution proves to be more challenging.

``We have lost respect for our politicians, our religious leaders, our sports figures, so that they do not set good standards for the generation coming up,'' she said. ``We no longer have this tradition of a society. Everyone now is striving to be the same; therefore, we don't look up to anyone.

``Now, we're seeing movie actors and others in society that are so crass, that people are emulating them.''

Poulson, a former school teacher, said professors have little leverage when they encounter a student acting without manners.

``The administration (on college campuses) is so paranoid that the students are going to rebel, but the administrators are the problem. The parents are the problem,'' Poulson said. ``They've got to set the example. The instructor should be entitled to say, `I don't want you in my class.'''

At CSUN last year, some students in the College of Business and Economics set out to compose a set of core values that include respect, honesty, integrity, commitment and responsibility.

But students at CSUN agree that rudeness still runs rampant on their campus. Some say even if a professor hands down rules, they may just be scoffed at.

Stephanie Badali, 19, and her friend Dorine Farsad, 18, said students who bring laptops to class are often surfing the Internet -- and there's little professors can do.

``It's like high school all over again,'' Farsad said. ``As much as a teacher will say please don't do it, they are just going to do it anyway.''

Others said they wish professors would take a stand because the disruptions are cutting into instruction time.

``I had a class the other night where some students were yelling at the professor because they didn't like the textbook,'' said Tom Everroad, a 23-year-old human resources and management major. ``It's irritating because I'm paying money to find out what this professor can teach me.''

Etiquette expert Poulson said there is a real reason for demanding civility.

``It's a matter of what comes around, goes around,'' she said. ``When we see other people let us pass into a traffic lane, we feel good, and then those values are going to pass down to someone else.''

susan.abram(at)dailynews.com

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