A tense situation arose in 2015 after a faculty member at the Premier School of Management in New Delhi, India, mistakenly emailed a test paper to a group email address that included the school’s students, faculty, and alumni. An alumna who received the email responded to the professor using the “reply to all” option. The tone of her email was considered to be disrespectful to the professor. The professor responded by sending his own “reply to all,” explaining his error to the alumna and chastising her for using a tone inappropriate for a student-to-teacher communication. The alumna apologized, but one of the students on the group email then wrote his own offensive email to the alumna. Was there a way to defuse the mounting tension and avoid a possible rift between the alumna and her former school?

A tense situation arose in 2015 after a faculty member at the Premier School of Management in New Delhi, India, mistakenly emailed a test paper to a group email address that included the school's students, faculty, and alumni. An alumna who received the email responded to the professor using the "reply to all" option. The tone of her email was considered to be disrespectful to the professor. The professor responded by sending his own "reply to all," explaining his error to the alumna and chastising her for using a tone inappropriate for a student-to-teacher communication. The alumna apologized, but one of the students on the group email then wrote his own offensive email to the alumna. Was there a way to defuse the mounting tension and avoid a possible rift between the alumna and her former school?