Snacktacular

I'm generally underwhelmed by the Great Snack Scandal of 2011, but I think it's worth heading off one of the themes I've occasionally seen in the comments thereon.  Faculty, being faculty, like to grumble about students complaining, and some people are grumbling that since nobody has ever complained before, then surely there's no reason for them to complain now.  Kids these days, etc.  But in fact, it's amazing how rarely students file official, actionable complaints about faculty malfeasances.  Instead, you usually get something like the following conversation:

STUDENT: Chair X, Professor Y is [insert egregious behavior here]!

CHAIR X: Horrors! Student, please submit a written and signed complaint documenting [insert egregious behavior here], and we'll begin investigating immediately.

STUDENT: *crickets*

For any number of reasons, ranging from fear of reprisal to fear of getting the professor in trouble, students are often reluctant to write up [insert egregious behavior here], even when [insert egregious behavior here] would  make any administrator shriek in horror.  In fact, as Dad the Emeritus Historian of Graeco-Roman Egypt has pointed out  more than once, sometimes students won't even document these problems anonymously in teaching evaluations, even when they're perfectly willing to talk about them informally.  Ergo, no paper trail, no proof that anything is wrong.  As a result, the department chair may "know" something, but not know it in such a way that s/he can justify taking corrective action.