Never Say: No One

It is always with great trepidation that I read an article about Our Failing Universities, even an article written by a professor rather than a journalist out to make a splash, and even an article in a publication that I greatly admire and enjoy reading (such as The New York Review of Books).

In a recent issue of NYRB, there is a review/essay by Anthony Grafton titled "Our Universities: Why Are They Failing?" (not Are They Failing, but Why). The essay mentions, at least briefly, 8 recent books with titles (and subtitles: every single one has a subtitle!) such as:

The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get The College Education You Paid For. I have not read this book, but I hate the title (and the subtitle) for a large number of reasons that I can't explain without seeming professorial in the negative-stereotype kind of way.

OK, I will obliquely mention one reason: Do you have faculty lounges at your university? What goes on in them? Or is "Lounges" a verb here?

Anyway.. here's another one:

The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters. I am not really sure what it is that matters, but without reading the book (just the review), I probably agree with the author that there are too many high-paid administrators doing who-knows-what other than making the rest of us do time-consuming pointless things. But mostly I want to know: Have the faculty really fallen? What does that even mean? That we have no say in anything anymore? If so, why am I still on all these committees? Can I quit them? And if the faculty have truly fallen, where are we? It makes me want to say: We are here! We are here! We are here! (Seuss, 1954)

I am skipping over a few other books that have exciting words such as Exclusion and Assault in the title, and others that have already been much discussed in the blogosphere, here and elsewhere.

But I don't want to skip this one: Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life. Again, there is that scary and definitive why. This book is, according to Grafton, "a.. recent polemic against the corruption of the humanities". Alas, that is a topic on which I cannot even pretend to have any insight. Within my very limited socio-professional universe, all the humanities professors I know even reasonably well seem to be quite entranced with the meaning of life, unless they are secretly corrupt, and that is why they all wear so much black. Or perhaps the corrupt ones never leave their offices (or faculty lounges!?) and so I have not met them. Or maybe they are at your university, but not at mine.

In any case, what do we think about statements such as these, from the essay:

Particularly in the natural and social sciences, professors are encouraged to feel that it is legitimate to devote most of their energy to research.

and

The message is clear: no one sees classroom learning as a primary pursuit.

We have all seen statements like this before, and I have discussed them before. But I will ask again: Which professors? Where? Certainly there are research professors -- who typically raise some or all of their money from grants -- but most of the science professors I know are serious about both research and teaching, and see these both as important parts of their jobs. If, however, someone devotes 60% of their time to research and 40% of their time to teaching, the statement is true, but misleading. And that brings us to the second excerpt.

Does no ones see classroom learning as a primary pursuit? Is the emphasis on the word "primary"? If so, then perhaps that statement is also true for many professors and administrators at large universities. Classroom learning is just one of many aspects of a university. Even so, the statement is misleading and is an unfair criticism of universities, administrators, and professors of all sorts.

Classroom teaching is not my primary pursuit, but that doesn't mean it isn't as important as research, including research involving undergraduates. Does it have to be more important for more people for our universities to stop "failing"? My colleagues and I teach, advise, do research, and participate in various service activities in our departments, universities, professional communities, and beyond. We are busy people, doing many different things, most of which contribute to the vitality of the university and many of which directly or indirectly benefit students.

I am not saying that universities are perfect and that there aren't many things to fix, but it is quite rare to see the good and the bad considered in a fair and thoughtful way. Maybe (almost) no one would want to read such a book.

In the end, though, this is why I liked Grafton's essay: because he concludes that these books are not constructive contributions to the large task of figuring out how to fix the problems with US universities. He ends his essay:

..  public discussion and scrutiny would become much more productive if informed writers captured the texture and flavor of the American university .. The novelists discovered this territory long ago. Where are the great journalists? They will find students who manage to do excellent work and many more cases of wasted possibilities, and they might gain some insight into why.

Dear Andrew Hacker?

This is my blog-reply to an e-mail I recently received from Andrew Hacker, one of the authors (with Claudia Dreifus) of Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids, and What We Can Do About It.

Dear Andrew Hacker,

You're welcome. Praising my ability to correctly spell names is setting the bar a bit low, but it's nice of you to say something positive.

I will now say something nice about your book: I agree with you about many issues. Examples:

There are too many mini-administrators, some (most?) are paid exorbitant salaries, and tuition is too high. I am concerned about the amenities arms-race that makes it a priority to have awesome fitness centers at a time when there is little money to provide adequate classrooms and other teaching facilities. I am troubled that so many "contingent" faculty, such as adjuncts, are paid so little, receive no benefits, and are not treated with respect. I think that post-tenure review should be routinely and consistently used to evaluate tenured professors, with consequences for those who are not doing their jobs well, particularly in teaching. There are outstanding students everywhere, no matter how lacking in 'prestige' the college or university.

We disagree, however, about the role of research in universities and colleges, and a few other issues (e.g., tenure). Comments from readers on yesterday's post have done a great job of addressing the researchers-as-teachers issue, including the role of graduate education in a university, so I will not focus much on that specific topic. Instead, I will explain why I did not like your book.

I did not like your book because it is little more than a string of unsupported anecdotes that justify your contempt for professors and your belief that most professors care little about teaching, don't even try to teach well, and try to teach as little as possible. Where are the data that support this?

In recent years, I have seen the teaching evaluations (student and peer evaluations) of every professor in my department and every faculty member being evaluated for tenure and promotion at a higher-level administrative unit in my university. The quality of teaching is very good, with only rare instances of poor teaching, even for the tenured professors. There is likely no general correlation between teaching skill and research success (on this we seem to agree), but I stand by my statement that teaching and research are not mutually exclusive, and are activities that can enhance each other.

I strongly believe that universities can do more to improve undergraduate teaching, and I see a strong positive trend in this direction, even as faculty are under increasing pressure to bring in more grants, publish more papers, and obtain more patents. Through my participation in searches at my own and at other universities, I have seen an emphasis on hiring faculty who will excel at both teaching and research.

In your e-mail to me, you mentioned that, as a social scientist and a journalist, you and your co-author need "evidence". When I read Higher Education?, I was hoping to see evidence for your conclusions and hypotheses. Instead, I saw anecdotes, such as one might find in a blog.

For example, your book starts with the story of a candidate who, in his interview for a faculty position, makes it clear that he is not interested in teaching and is only interested in research. The fact that he was not hired indicates to me that the system worked well, yet you used this anecdote to illustrate your hypothesis that professors don't care about teaching and try to do as little of it as possible.

Another reason I didn't like your book is because you distort facts to suit your purpose of showing how dysfunctional professors are. For example, you do not think that professors work very much. To show that faculty are overpaid slackers, you define "the basic academic workload" as "the number of hours when professors have to be at stated places at specified times." In your scheme, this includes only classroom teaching and posted office hours, and therefore professors at some universities make >$800/hour.

You have anticipated objections. In fact, you wrote that you "..can already hear anguished cries from the faculty club", and so you acknowledge that professors "..do something outside their classroom and office hours." Unfortunately, you are cynical about this something: "But the great bulk of it is less real than contrived: committees, department meetings, faculty senates, and yes, what they call their research.."

What exactly is your definition of "real"?

Yes, indeed, I do spend a lot of time on those other, possibly unreal somethings, in addition to what I call my research, including advising graduate students. You might think some of the committees are stupid (I do too) and that research should be a hobby for long weekends and summers (did you talk to any professors who run labs?), but you should count these hours in your calculations of how much professors make per hour.

Similarly, what is your evidence for your contention that professors don't work as much as they say they do? This seems to be it: "A story is told of a classroom where all the students were busy scribbling as the professor droned on. All, that is, but one, a young woman in the back row, who wrote down nary a word. How so? She had with her the notes that her mother had taken for that class during her own student days." That's the evidence? A possibly apocryphal story?

Another example: At one of the universities you visited, very few of the undergraduates you met had been to a professor's office "to discuss materials from a class". At another (Harvard), a student told you that it was "intimidating" to speak to professors, so students avoid going to speak with professors in their offices. And your point was what? As a professor and a scientist, I know better than to take what students say at face value. I need evidence that it is the fault of professors that students don't come to office hours for help when needed.

There are lots of other "interesting" ideas in your book: engineering is "vocational training", sabbaticals are "sojourns in Tuscany", mathematicians don't need tenure because what they do is not controversial.. the list goes on. I could also mention inconsistencies:

• big football programs are bad, but 3 of your 10 favorite schools are Mississippi, Notre Dame, and ASU;
• tenure forces universities to keep low-functioning professors, but tenure is a "feeble shield" that doesn't actually protect tenured professors from being fired;
• research doesn't enhance teaching because, for example "The information with which a mathematics research project deals is usually inaccessible to undergraduates." (ergo.. the same must be true for all academic disciplines?)

In the end, the book fails in its central thesis about how research is harming US colleges and universities because the authors do not objectively weigh the positive and negative effects of research on undergraduates. There are no data, there are no anecdotes, there are no interviews with undergraduates who have done research, either with an individual professor or as part of a larger research group. There is nothing in the book about the rise of Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs or about how principal investigators on grants are encouraged (by funding agencies) to include undergraduates in grant proposals to enhance the "broader impacts" of research.

Participating in a small research project as an undergraduate at a small liberal arts college changed my life and led me to an interesting and fulfilling career (despite the fact that I have never spent a sabbatical in Tuscany). Working with a professor who was a leading researcher in his field inspired me more than all my classes combined.

You do not have to take this anecdote at face value, especially not from an anonymous blogger, but I feel that you are attacking, perhaps from ignorance, one of the greatest strengths of our higher education system.

Sincerely,

FSP

Do Not Reply

An e-mail was sent to me in response to one of my essays in The Chronicle of Higher Education last fall. Before I show the letter, some background:

For the essay in question, the CHE editors chose the unfortunate title of "I Did Not Slow Down Once I Got Tenure", nixing my preferred title, "Myth of the Tenure Slacker". In any case, the main point of the essay was that recent books and media accounts presented academia, and in particular tenure, in a way that is unrecognizable to me. I proposed the following explanations for this disparity:

- news accounts are intentionally inflammatory; who wants to read about happy tenured professors, even furloughed ones, in a time of economic crisis?;

- the effect of tenure on professorial productivity is misunderstood and misrepresented; and

- there is a misconception that teaching and research are exclusive.

For those of you who have read the CHE piece, you may want to skip ahead, but for those without access to the CHE piece, with respect to the last point, I wrote about my own experience:

The question of whether being a researcher makes someone a better teacher has been much debated. I am sure that the answer varies from person to person, but I know that being a researcher makes me a better teacher because doing research gives me new ideas and insights for teaching, even for courses I have taught many times before. I know many talented teachers who are intellectually engaged without being active researchers, but what works for me is to rejuvenate my courses via my research. Furthermore, being an effective researcher requires some of the same skills that we need to be effective teachers: To get grants and publish our results, we need to be able to communicate what we did in a clear and compelling way, and explain to nonspecialists why our work is important. So, too, do we need to do that with the concepts, facts, and ideas we want to teach our students.

I then mentioned that I typically advise some undergraduates in research, providing them with experiences that help them make decisions about their post-graduation lives. I also wrote:

Research is valuable to a university in some ways that can be quantified, and in many ways that can't, such as the creation of a stimulating intellectual environment (presumably a good thing at a university) and the involvement of students (undergraduate and graduate) in research. We are training the next generation of researchers who are going to invent things, cure diseases, and/or provide new insights about the world (past, present, future). Despite the claims made by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus in their book, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids, and What We Can Do About It, research activities are not responsible for the inadequate emphasis on undergraduate education at some universities.

Last week, I received this e-mail from Andrew Hacker:

Dear FSP:

Claudia and I want to thank you for citing our book. That you didn't agree with us isn't surprising. Still, we appreciate your spelling our names correctly.

In writing Higher Education? we visited dozens of campuses and spoke with scores of faculty members. Every single professor attested, as you do, that being able to do research enhanced their undergraduate teaching. So you have the profession on your side.

But as a social scientist and a journalist, we know better than to take what people say about themselves at face value. We need evidence that teaching by researchers is superior to that of others. Of course, we understand that academics have to justify their research, or at least try to, if only to explain their pleasant sabbaticals.

Don't bother to reply. I don't open anonymous e-mails, for obvious reasons. Yours, Andrew Hacker.

I did not bother to reply by e-mail, for obvious reasons, but I will reply here in the blog tomorrow.

Not For Sale

A reader sent me this link to a blog post by someone who thinks that every employee on a state university campus should be well trained in sales and hospitality services. With such training, when unexpectedly encountering a person who may or may not be the parent of a potential applicant to the university, state university employees can go into recruitment mode, using tried-and-true methods that any competent salesperson would know.

In fact, according to the blog post, everyone the blogger in question met on the campus of Iowa State University was polite and tried to help him in some way. They just didn't help him in exactly the way he wanted to be helped, using the specific language a real salesperson would use.

According to the blog post, here are some of the things that campus workers are supposed to do when encountering someone who might be the parent of a potential applicant to the university, including those people who are lying about being such a parent, like the blogger in question:

1. Say hi! Smile! You are an employee of a state university, and therefore part of your job is to recruit students. Oh sure, you can spend your time on teaching, research, or whatever else you think your job entails blah blah blah, but that's no substitute for a big smile and a hello. It's even better if your smile and greeting appear reasonably sincere, something best accomplished if you can somehow banish from your mind the phrase "helicopter parent".

2. After the friendly hello/smile, ask an open-ended question. Do not ask: Can I help you? or Can I help you find something? when you see an unknown adult who might be the parent of a potential applicant wandering around your campus building. Those are unfriendly questions that demonstrate your ignorance of sales techniques.

OMG, I am so glad to know this now. Sometimes when I am working in my office or walking the halls of my campus building, doing some task that fills the gaps in time between when I can go into sales/recruitment mode for my university, a person unknown to me will walk into my office or appear lost and confused in the hall, and I will say something like "Can I help you?" or "Are you looking for something (or someone)?" Out of total ignorance, I have definitely asked questions like that before. Of course, most of the time the person is looking for something specific, but apparently there is a huge huge difference between "Can I help you?" (an unfriendly yes/no question) and "What can I help you with today?" (a sales-friendly question that is more open-ended).

3. Engage these strangers in conversation. Ask them questions about themselves, their children, where they live, why they are here on campus. Never mind that you probably have 57 things that need doing right now. This is not about you. Knock down walls between you and them.

4. Thank the person you just met. I am so glad that I learned about this one because this, also, would not have occurred to me. Now I am revealed to myself and others as a selfish, self-absorbed lout. I would have expected that the person asking me for information and interrupting my day would thank me, but no, this is not about me me me.

5. Get the hypothetical parent's contact information. Once again, ask them for information about themselves. Do I really need to say this again? This is not about you or even, apparently, about your university.

At this point, I feel the need to make an abject confession about an example of a personal sales FAIL. A few years ago, a man and his son looked into my office, I asked if I could help them (FAIL!), and the man said that his son was interested in Science, so they were just looking around. I asked them if they had any questions (FAIL!), and they both had some. They were pretty good questions, and I spent a few minutes answering them. The father asked me about my research, so I told them a bit about that. I gave the kid a geeky little science gizmo thing that I had lying around my office in great abundance, and this seemed to thrill him. They thanked me for my time, the information, and the gift (FAIL for them!), and went away without my asking them for their names (FAIL!) or contact information (FAIL!).

Now, despite the great effort and perhaps physical pain this will cause me, I am going to attempt to make some sarcasm-free comments about the general issue of the role of university employees in interacting with non-academic citizens who wander onto campus for real or mendacious purposes. I shall address these comments to people who might share the views of the blogger who visited Iowa State, if there are any:

It is bizarre to expect that all campus employees should follow the same rules for sales that might be used by, say, a car salesman. We are not selling cars. Try not to be so judgmental and oversensitive. Give people a break if they don't conform to your strange ideas about exactly how they should be asking you if they can help you.

Employees at a state university work for you in the same indirect way that public school teachers or police officers or garbage collectors work for you and everyone in the community; all of us collectively benefit the community by doing our jobs, but you do not get to take up our time whenever and however you want, especially if you don't really understand the purpose of our jobs.

Example: Administrative assistants who sit at the front lines of department offices are extremely busy people. Part of their job is to help visitors who wander by the office, and there are an extraordinary number who do wander by. Not all of these visitors are polite or able to explain what they want.

If you do happen to drop by a department office with a question, you can expect a polite response, but you cannot expect that a lot of time and energy will suddenly be diverted to helping you. Administrative assistants can direct you to a source of information that will answer your question; it is bizarre to be offended if this source of information is a website, and no, you don't get to use a computer in a department office even if you are pretending to be the parent of a potential applicant.

Here's a thought exercise: Imagine that you wander into a department office, posing as the parent of a potential applicant to the university, and you walk up to the administrative assistant's desk. In the last half hour, this person has had their work interrupted by 3 or 8 other people stopping by with requests for information or to ask for help with tasks that need to be done right away. There have also been a few phone calls in between these visits, as well as e-mails that need immediate responses. In addition, an undergraduate student just stopped by to drop off his late homework at his professor's office or mailbox, but he doesn't know the name of the professor. The phone rings again. Then you walk in and mention that your son might be interested in applying to the university. When the administrative assistant doesn't respond in exactly the way that you want (with questions about your name and your life and your interests, and an offer to use a computer or talk to a professor), you decide to send your fictitious son to another university. Who is the unreasonable person in this scenario?

If you want to come to campus and walk around, you are most welcome. The campuses of state universities are public places, and there are many interesting things to see and do. You can even wander around department buildings, looking at hall displays or admiring the architecture. If you want to talk to someone, you can call or e-mail and make an appointment.

Learn about universities and how they work. They are amazing places. And think, what do you really want in a university: a campus filled with employees who greet you insincerely and ask you to talk about yourself, or a university that is busy with professors, staff, and students who are working hard at the jobs they are supposed to be doing?

Despite Our Natural Inclinations

One thing that interests me about the recent Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education study is how certain media outlets have summarized the results.

According to the study, there may be differences in job satisfaction among untenured faculty in different disciplines at research universities (physical science professors are the happiest). There are also differences in job satisfaction levels between men and women within a particular discipline. The biggest gap is in the social sciences.

The study didn't ask faculty why they were answering survey questions the way they did. Any explanations presented in media reports are from interviews with people musing about the results of the study.

For example, in the Inside Higher Ed article on the report, there is an interview with Rosanna Hertz, the Classes of 1919-50 Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at Wellesley College and "a member of the Council of the American Sociological Association and .. that board's liaison to the association's Committee on the Status of Women in Sociology."

She describes how she has seen:

.. frustration among junior faculty about the tenure process. "Many say that they don't understand the tenure criteria," she said. "They ask 'Do I need a book? How many articles do I need?' They want to quantify it in a way that's not always quantifiable."

A Huffington Post article, which links to and cites the Inside Higher Ed article, summarizes this point as:

Pursuit of tenure often stumps female instructors who wonder what exactly it takes.

In fact, Professor Hertz didn't single out women faculty in her statement, but since we are trying to figure out why the women are so unhappy, I guess we can ignore the confused men for now.

Hartz also notes that faculty in the physical and biological sciences typically work together in labs and therefore have a lot of contact with other people. Social sciences faculty, however, may be more isolated. For junior faculty, therefore, particularly those who would like some guidance, "it can be more difficult to chart a path".

Without any context, the Huffington Post turned this into: new female professors looking for mentors struggle to find them.

For some reason the HuffPo condensing machine decided to skip over the paragraphs about the lack of female full professors (despite the large number of women who get a PhD in social sciences), and about the female economists who feel they are "passed over for promotion in favor of men" who in some cases may be less qualified.

No, we can skip over all that complicated, irrelevant stuff and get to the final point worth noting: that women who do research in fields outside the mainstream of economics (e.g., on gender and inequality issues) may be marginalized and may have trouble getting tenure for research in those fields.

OK, I believe that, but this is summarized as: Furthermore, women tend to get pushed into the gender studies departments, despite their natural inclinations.

This comparison of the source article and the HuffPo summary is not intended to bash the Huffington Post in particular, though it would be consistent with my natural inclinations to do so. Mostly I am interested in how a 'summary' of the findings of a study is not just incomplete (perhaps to be expected in a summary) but contains a fair amount of fabrication, resulting in a rather dim view of women faculty.

In just three short sentences, we learn that women faculty are confused, struggling to find people to advise them, and pushed into research fields that go against their nature. We do not learn that women are passed over for career opportunities and promotion. We therefore do not learn why untenured women faculty in the social sciences are much less satisfied with their jobs than are their male peers.

If you are dissatisfied with your job as a faculty member, whether tenured or untenured, in whatever field, what is the #1 reason for your dissatisfaction? Is it related to the specific place where you are employed, to something more general to your field (does your research go against your natural inclinations, whatever those are?), to your lack of tenure (yet), or something else entirely?

But We Pay a Lot of Money

A few years ago, a certain blogger referred to me as a curmudgeon. This is a great word, but I am not sure it applies to me all that well, at least not most of the time, but today I have decided to try to live up to the word.

I was an undergraduate at a school that had a reputation for educational excellence, and I had an overall excellent experience. Even so, I took classes from some professors who were great teachers, some who were mediocre teachers, and a couple who were truly awful teachers (and tenured).

My tuition, room-and-board, textbooks etc. were paid for by a combination of family contributions, student loans, and my salary from part-time jobs. At no point did it occur to me, even in the worst of classes, to be angry that my time and money, or my family's money, were being wasted. I assumed that a range of educational experiences was to be expected even at the best of schools. Although my friends and I agreed to some extent on which professors were great and which were not, we didn't agree completely. In fact, one of the professors I thought was particularly ineffectual and boring was a favorite professor of some of my friends, and there were other examples of disagreement. This, too, seemed normal to me.

It's true that I didn't pay my own way through college, and so my perspective is likely affected by that circumstance, but my parents are not wealthy, and I was very aware of how fortunate I was to be at that college.

My own experience as an undergraduate and my later experiences as a professor make it difficult for me to understand the point of view of students who are angered by any example of less-than-awesome teaching in one or more classes during their undergraduate years.

Of course it would be great if every class were excellent and every teacher dedicated and talented. I don't think we should just sit back and accept mediocrity or lame efforts at teaching -- I've written before about how there should be programs and encouragement etc. to promote teaching excellence -- but neither should we toss out university faculty who are OK (but not great) teachers because these professors do not meet the high and variable standards of their students for teaching ability.

I am not talking here about the evil, erratic, truly bad professors. Following on yesterday's (and many other previous) posts, I am talking here of good-but-not-great professors. Whenever I write about this, there are always comments from students who will not accept professors who are less than excellent. They are paying a lot of money in tuition etc. and do not want their time or money wasted.

There are many explanations for why a course might not be totally excellent, even when taught by someone who wants to be a good teacher. Consider a new professor who has never taught a class before. Some new professors are amazing teachers from the very beginning, but many more of us make beginner mistakes. It can take a long time to get a PhD, and many PhD students do get some teaching training, but even a better system of teacher training before a new professor stands in front of his/her very first class does not ensure a 100% excellent experience for all students in that class. It's just not possible.

Experienced professors who are generally very good teachers might not be great in every class. Sometimes we create a new class; there might be some rough spots the first time it is taught. There might be one or more difficult students who consume a lot of the professor's time and energy. Some professors are given an extremely heavy teaching load in a particular term, and this might affect quality of teaching; not to the extent of making the course a waste of time, but perhaps to the extent of making it less of an inspiring experience than it could be. Are the students being cheated of their tuition $ if some courses are like that?

That is the question of the day. Where do you fall in the range of opinion on this topic?:

- Universities are like that. Life is like that. We should not be satisfied with mediocrity, but if it happens from time to time, we are not enraged by it and do not feel cheated by it and decide that the education system is broken and all professors are getting paid too much to do too little. We understand that teaching is only one part of the job of a professor at a research university, and many (most?) universities actually do value both teaching and research. Students benefit from an environment of research and discovery and intellectual challenge, even if it doesn't trickle down to every class taught by every professor. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect every single professor to be an outstanding teacher at all times, especially if the evaluation method is teaching evaluations by students just before they take the final exam or turn in the final paper/project for a course.

or:

- Mediocrity is totally unacceptable in any course by any professor at any university or college. A university professor's #1 job is teaching undergrads, even if the university defines it otherwise, and therefore professors should devote most/all of their time to their undergraduate students. Did I mention that undergrads pay tuition? This is more important than research grants, publications, patents, other discoveries, grad/postdoc advising, and other service to the university and beyond. Professors can do those things on nights and weekends, when not grading exams or papers or getting ready for their classes. FSP is a curmudgeon.

- Other..

Infantilized

Recently I was reading some online discussions about student opinions re. recent cuts in instructional staff owing to budget woes at various major research universities in the US. I read complaints from students who were upset at the loss of beloved (mostly non-tenure track) instructors, and who were angry that their universities did not give these instructors tenure so that these good teachers could stay instead of the loser professors who were tenured. An oft-repeated opinion was that universities should consult students about hiring, firing, and tenure decisions, and that the lack of consultation of students indicates that universities treat students "like children" by not involving them in personnel decisions.

This relates to yesterday's post in that it involves student perception of the goals and structure of a research university and the work done by professors at such universities.

Most of us teach, do research, and participate in professional and institutional service, but undergraduates have little idea about these other aspects, and don't have the information or expertise to evaluate faculty in these other respects. You would think that undergraduates at a research university would be well aware that their professors spend a lot of time doing research, but some don't seem to give this much thought.

I fully support the inclusion of students in some aspects of the hiring and promotion of faculty who teach and advise students. Students should be encouraged to attend interview talks and to participate in discussion opportunities with candidates, and to give their views on candidates for tenure and promotion (but see here and here for what this involves and why it can be complicated).

Student opinion should be one piece of information considered along with all the other factors in hiring and promotion/tenure decisions. If a candidate is rude or patronizing to students, or if a tenure-track faculty member has a consistent record of poor teaching (as demonstrated by a variety of evaluation methods), this is important information.

For students, however, to criticize a university for not bestowing tenure on their favorite teacher (whether tenure-track or not) shows a lack of understanding of all the elements involved in personnel decisions. I am not going to get into the complicated general issue of the large numbers of non-tenure track instructors at universities, or the economic factors and implications of this situation. Nor am I implying that universities always make the best and most fair personnel decisions, whether or not in an economic crisis. Clearly they do not.

Nevertheless, I think that for students to feel "infantilized" by a university for not being consulted more in employment decisions shows a misunderstanding of what is involved in faculty jobs.

I can understand the frustration of students who, after all, are reacting to the loss of a talented teacher, but I don't feel "infantilized" when my medical clinic hires doctors without consulting me and other "customers" of the clinic, despite the fact that my health and life may be at stake in these decisions. I have to trust that the powers-that-be know what they are doing, know how to evaluate excellence in medical personnel, and will (try to) make the right decisions. So it is with other professions. Academe is not special in this respect.

Even so, I think it is good for students to speak up when a valued teacher's contract is terminated or a talented teacher is not awarded tenure. I have seen such decisions overturned, including in tenure cases, owing to the actions of a group of articulate and well-organized students. The important thing in these cases is that the students convincingly explained and documented the major positive impact that these instructors had on them, rather than just going on the internet to trash their university administrators because an instructor who is "a really cool guy" lost his job.

Is there a way to avoid misunderstandings like this in personnel decisions at universities so that students don't feel so angry when an apparently inexplicable decision is made regarding the employment status of an excellent teacher? Probably not, but those of us at universities could do a better job of explaining our jobs to students, and students who are critical of university personnel decisions could make an effort to find out more about what is involved in the jobs of various species of professor.

If a university seems to have made a truly unfair and bad decision about the hiring/firing/continuation of a beloved teacher, even in an economic crisis, I hope concerned students will speak up in a clear and convincing way and gather as many like-minded people (students, faculty) as possible to do the same; these efforts might have an effect.

iCollege U?

Knowing that I am interested in how higher education is perceived by those outside academia, and in particular the depiction of higher education in the media, a friend sent me a link to a video of an interview on The Daily Show. In this episode from last week, the governor of Minnesota had this to say about what we need to change about how the government spends taxpayers' money:

For example, higher education.. Do you really think in 20 years, somebody's going to put on their backpack, drive a half hour to the University of Minnesota from the suburbs, haul their keister across campus, and sit and listen to some boring person drone on about Econ 101 or Spanish 101?

No, of course not! In 20 years we will all have personal jet-packs so we can fly from the suburbs to our classes and jobs!

Actually, no one said that. In fact, Jon Stewart said, Isn't that was college is supposed to be?

Governor: Yeah, partly. Partly.

(various jokes about how college is supposed to be boring or students will just party and never want to graduate)

The governor continued: Is there another way to deliver the service other than a one-size-fits-all monopoly provider that says "Show up at 9:00 on Wednesday morning for Econ 101"? Can't I just pull that down on my iPhone or iPad whenever the heck I feel like it, from wherever I want, and instead of paying thousands of dollars, pay $199 for iCollege...

There followed a somewhat incoherent and disjointed discussion involving public vs. private options, the governor's repetition of his statement that there is a "one-size-fits-all" system run by a bureaucracy, and his wish that we could "put the consumer in charge".

This is strange on so many levels. I think it would be great if a college education were much less expensive and easily accessible to all (without massive student loans), but somehow I don't think this governor is proposing to increase state funding for his university to allow for tuition decreases.

But let me be more systematic so that I don't drone on and on like I do in my Science 101 lectures. Here is a list of the things I don't like about this grim depiction of the travails of 21st century college students:

• the emphasis on the (implied unreasonable) physical effort and time involved in attending a class. Even if we expunge from our minds the vision of an otherwise able-bodied student lying on the couch in the rec room of their parents' suburban home, unwilling to do more than push a few buttons on some awesome later generation of iPhone, and instead imagine someone with work/family commitments that make commuting to a campus difficult, does Governor Pawlenty think that even today there are no other options for that student?

• the gratuitous insult that implies that instructors "drone" to passive audiences, making it not worth the effort to attend a course in person. You can't even fast forward when someone is speaking to you in person, in real time!
  

• the implication that it is obnoxious for a university to expect that a student will show up at a particular time and place for a class. I have heard that some companies expect their employees to do this as well, but maybe that's just a vicious rumor.

• one-size-fits-all? Where does that come from? What does that even mean in this context, especially in a statement that implies that, in the future, no one will physically want to travel to a campus to take classes? There are many options in higher education today, not just public vs. private, but also within public university systems, and even within a single university. There are online courses and other forms of distance learning, there are large classes and small classes, there are lectures and seminars and independent study programs. There are day classes, night classes, and summer classes. There are typically multiple sections of intro classes. All of these are potentially quite interactive, including the online courses, providing students with a wide range of options.
  

• Put the consumer in charge of what? That's a buzz phrase -- let's empower the people (who will pay lower taxes), not the big institutions (that suck up all our tax money and give nothing back)!
  

Public universities should provide high-quality education to students, and should keep costs to students and taxpayers as low as possible. There should be constant efforts to improve teaching and the overall educational experience for students. Some of that push to improve comes from the needs and demands of the "consumer", so if that is what it means to put the consumer in charge, I can agree with that. If it means that states can squeeze the budgets of universities because consumers don't want to pay more for a course than they do for an iPhone, then I start to disagree.

And I don't agree that there is a monolithic University bureaucracy that has only one idea about how to educate its students.

All that aside, I do hope that the governors of our states realize that there is more to a university than how it lectures to undergraduates, important though that part of a university certainly is. I hope they realize that the research and teaching missions of a university are intertwined, that there are real people teaching those courses (only some of whom drone), that there are discoveries and innovations resulting from the efforts of those people (including some students), that some courses do require physical participation by real 3D students and professors in real time, and that perhaps businesses and other organizations seeking to hire graduates of our great institutions of higher education will prefer that their new employees are willing and able to haul their keisters into work at a specified time and place.

Ask a Scientist

The Chronicle Review (the magazine-like part of The Chronicle of Higher Education) recently asked a group of "scholars and experts" to comment on stress in the lives of academics, using the Amy Bishop incident as a springboard for the discussion; i.e., what role might stress related to the tenure process have played in this tragedy?

The scholars and experts included:

• a writer and PhD candidate in English literature
• the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
  
• a professor of international politics
• a professor of English
• an assistant professor of public policy and political science
• an assistant professor of sociology and women's and gender studies
• a PhD candidate in anthropology
• a dean of a School of Arts & Sciences
• a professor of management
• a professor of history

Clearly there was an effort to consult a wide variety of academics associated with the US system of higher education: professors and administrators, tenured professors and tenure-track professors, professors at universities and professors at small liberal arts colleges, even some PhD candidates who have no direct experience (yet) with the stresses of being on the tenure-track. Many of these people had thoughtful insights; I was interested to know the opinions of sociologists and anthropologists and others.

Even so, Amy Bishop was an assistant professor of biology. Does it seem odd to anyone else that there were no biology or other science professors in this particular group of academics commenting on the incident? I looked up the chancellor and the dean and learned that their field of expertise is psychology, so perhaps they come the closest, but that's not the same as getting the opinion of someone who has recently experienced the tenure process as a scientist.

I realize that a biology professor would not necessarily have any more insight into the general implications of the incident than those who provided comments in this piece in the Chronicle. And I still stand by my overall view (shared by the PhD candidate in English literature) that the murders were the actions of an imbalanced person with a rage problem (and a gun), and the tragedy was therefore not a direct result of the stresses of academia in general or the tenure evaluation system in particular.

Still, I think it is strange that in an otherwise diverse group, not one is a science professor with direct knowledge of what it is like to get tenure as a scientist today at a university. Consider how bizarre it would have been if an English professor (for example) had committed a heinous crime that may or may not have been related to the experience of being an English professor, and the only people asked to comment (in a particular series of essays) were science, engineering, and math professors.

I also think it would have been illuminating to read, for comparison, the thoughts of a scientist recently denied tenure. With all due respect to the PhD candidates and literary scholars who wrote thoughtful essays for the piece, surely the Chronicle could have found some current or former science professors -- ideally in the life sciences -- to comment?

I don't want to perpetuate an "us" (scientists) vs. "them (non-scientists) mentality, but often when I read about academia, in the Chronicle and elsewhere, the point of view of non-scientists is the only one represented. This gives a very incomplete view of academia and the lives of academics, in general and in extreme cases. Although we have much in common as researchers and educators, there are also significant differences that, at times, merit consideration.

Limited Experience

During the discussion of Friday's post about the perception of academics as living somehow separate from the real world, aside from disagreement about what defines the "real world", there were comments that many academics don't live in the real world because we have had no major work experience outside of academia.

Is there another profession that is criticized for this same thing? Do we long for our doctors to spend more time working for pharmaceutical companies or veterinary clinics? Do we wish that our piano tuners would stop focusing so much on pianos and learn to maintain tubas? Should librarians be encouraged to work in book stores?

Would I be a more real person if I had had a non-academic career before immersing myself in academe for the rest of my days? Would I be a better professor?

I have certainly had some non-academic jobs, most of them when I was in high school or college, but have had no sustained employment experiences other than in academia. I can see how that limits my ability to give detailed advice to students about non-academic career options, but that's why there are career panels and visiting speakers and so on.

Those who work in non-academic jobs but interact with academics may express frustrations about how academics don't understand the need to get things done efficiently and within a particular time frame. Such misunderstandings surely also occur between different companies and government agencies, just as they do between different academic disciplines (e.g., science and engineering). It's one of the (surmountable) challenges of doing interdisciplinary research. Those who must work with others who don't have exactly the same career path and background should expect to deal with differences in approach and priorities.

I must admit that I don't really understand the criticism that academics are unaware of deadlines and the need to get things done efficiently. Many of us live and die by deadlines related to acquiring grants, reporting progress, and advising students/postdocs. Perhaps the typical time frame of a grant (2-3 years) is long compared to the needs of non-academic research.

If I were not also teaching and advising and doing various and sundry service obligations within and beyond my university, and if I had time to do a research project myself or with an experienced and motivated student or postdoc, and if there were no major time delays owing to logistical situations beyond my control, I could get many projects completed to the point of journal publication(s) in less than half the time it takes in the more realistic mode involving training/advising students and divided attention.

But that's not what we're here for. That's not a job I want. I want to be an adviser and a multi-tasker and someone who has the time and job flexibility to explore various ideas and see what kinds of discoveries we can make. That's not a flaw or a liability of being an academic. That's central to what we do, and one of the great things about the job. And that's also why I don't mind that I am going to be in my office working on what is, for many people, a holiday in the US.

That also doesn't make it (or me) any less real than what people with other jobs do. Some people move very successfully between the academic, industry, and/or government spheres, and that's great, but that's not for me.

And yet, despite this lack of variety in my career path, I remain convinced that that I am a (mostly) real person and a (reasonably) good professor.

Extremely Large Esoteric Cats

Note: When I was recently roaming around in the FSP archives to classify my 2009 posts by general topics, I found that in some cases I had absolutely no idea what the post was about based only on the title of the post. In the future, if I look back at 2010 posts, I have a feeling that this may be one of those posts. Today's title, however, is not entirely random; it contains some keywords that are central to this post.

In the recent Lorrie Moore book, A Gate at the Stair, which I very much enjoyed reading*, there is a quote by one of the characters, the mother of a college-aged daughter:

"Hmph.. Academics.. They all shoot from the hip. And the hip is always in the chair."

I didn't really get her point, and neither did the character's husband, who asked "What did you say?" and she replied:

"Keeping a safe distance never keeps one from having an opinion, is all. Having no dog in the race doesn't keep people from having extremely large cats."

OK, I get it now (sort of). I even happen to be an academic with some extremely large cats.

The reference expresses the classic view about academics being far removed from the real life that everyone else is supposedly experiencing. We keep a safe distance from.. well, how would I know? Given that most of us professors do leave campus from time to time to do many of the things that real people do, why is it so common for us to be considered so isolated from the rest of the world?

Of course, one thing that makes many professors different from most non-academics is job security. That's an important difference, but I don't think it is sufficient to explain the view exemplified in the quotation above. Tenure alone can't explain why we don't have a dog in the race (but we do have extremely large cats).

And yet, for various reasons, only some of which are valid, professors are commonly considered and portrayed as living in a strange and different world. The way that campuses tend to be arranged and the apparent distance of many academic disciplines from "normal" life accentuate the appearance of isolation, but I don't see how this is substantially different from many other professions.

On the same day that I read the above passage in The Gate at the Stair, I also read a newspaper article that referred to the esoteric world of academia, contrasting it with the real world. Is academia just a long, strange dream that some of us are having (in our desk chairs)?

Esoteric can refer to something belonging to a select few. Presumably this applies to various types of knowledge, such as medicine, law, or piano tuning, but it is typically used to mean arcane when applied to academia.

Alas. What to do, other than to sit here in my chair shooting from my hip despite not having a dog in the race? I guess I will just give my opinions, such as they are:

- The view of academia as a separate entity from the rest of the world seems to be pervasive;
- This is undeserved in many cases and is a mild symptom of anti-intellectualism;
- I bet there are many professions in which people spend more time in their office chairs than professors do and yet this is not seen as a sign of being removed from the real world; and
- I have some extremely large cats. I may have mentioned that before.

* at least until the last 25% of it or so, at which point I didn't like it so much. But before it got too grim, I loved it. I particularly laughed at the description of the main character's first Intro to Sufism class.

A Wall Between Me & You

And take all your friends with you, or at least as many as you can; purge the city of your presence; you will deliver me from a great fear when there is a wall between you and me. Cicero - Oration Against Cataline


I don't know why, but those lines have stuck in my head since high school Latin class. I use them today to introduce the latest literary and media attempt to portray scientists as a different, pitiful, unfashionable type of human. In this case, the culprit is Walter Kirn, whose writing I have from time to time found of interest. But no more.

I am no Cicero, but Walter should leave, and take his friend, the NY Times book reviewer Janet Maslin, with him. Here is why:

Regarding undergraduate science students during his student days as an English major at Princeton, Kirn wrote in his recently published memoirs (which I have not read and know of only from today's NYT review):

Somehow, someday, they'd reproduce, but that phase was not yet upon them, blessedly. For now they were free to decline communication and dress in pants that didn't reach their shoes.

Ha ha. So clever. And not believable. His contemptuous tone as he repeats this stereotype is much more unappealing than the image of those dopey science students with their unfashionable pants and their unwillingness to speak.

Compounding the idiocy is this introductory line in Maslin's review:

About science students, with the fine-tuned accuracy that makes much of this account so enjoyable, he notes: (see above)

Fine-tuned accuracy? I wasn't an English major, but is that a synonym for contemptuous?

What is the evidence for accuracy? Show me the data. I want photographs, names, confessions. Kirn's description doesn't fit my impression of the science students I knew from Princeton or anywhere at that time. I want proof that "science students" at Princeton, circa early 1980s, were unable to speak, were identifiable by the vast distance between their pant cuffs and shoes, and .. whatever the first part of Kirn's sentence is supposed to mean -- that science students had no romantic experiences or that they weren't yet making or having babies as undergraduates? I think I started hating this author when I got to the word "blessedly".

No, it's not really important that someone has written that they thought science students were dorky in the early 1980's, though perhaps we are becoming inured to memoirists making up random things for dramatic effect.

What bothers me is the us-and-them attitude and the contempt. It reminds me of the ignorant writings of Mrs. Mortimer, the 19th century British 'travel' writer who wrote emphatically about people she had never met and places she had never been. It turns out that everyone who wasn't like her was strange and contemptible.

For example, on the topic of German women, Mrs. Mortimer (according to The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World, by Todd Pruzan), she wrote:

..they are not fond of reading useful books. When they read, it is novels about people who have never lived. It would be better to read nothing than such books.

It sounds like Mrs. Mortimer would have approved of Kirn's memoir.

The University As We Know It

It is always interesting -- and in some cases disturbing -- to read a rant by a professor about the current (apparently awful) condition of graduate education in the US and what (radical) things need to be done to change not just graduate programs but the university as we know it. The most recent example was in the NY Times on Monday.

I do not recognize the university environment described by the author, a professor of religion. It is of course possible that my inability to share the view that the graduate education system is flawed in the ways described could relate to my narrow view of the world but it is also possible that my views are directly related to my very different perspective as a Science Professor.

Long-time readers will know that one thing I love about being at a university is the diversity of academic pursuits. I have a liberal arts background and I teach courses that merge science and the humanities. Some of my best friends are humanities professors..

Even so, I know there is a huge gulf between the experiences and cultures of faculty and students in the sciences and the humanities, especially at a large university. I sit on university-wide committees in which I interact with my non-science colleagues, and I am always struck by these differences and how difficult it can be for each of us to understand the other no matter how much we interact professionally and socially. At a large research university, professors of science and professors of humanities exist in very different worlds.

But there are significant similarities, of course, and that is why it is disappointing when a fellow academic takes a cheap shot, like using the obscure topic of a dissertation, to argue that universities are too hyper-specialized and need to change. We are supposed to be experts at something, and that something, at the graduate student level, can be quite specific. It is not a sign of the horrific state of graduate education that dissertations and journal articles and many books are highly specialized and have titles that appear boring to the vast majority of humans, academics and non-academics alike. Some of these titles even win awards.

Being highly specialized does not preclude one from having a broad view and does not disqualify one from being involved in interdisciplinary research. There are many opportunities to do multi-inter-transdisciplinary research during, but especially after, the PhD. Most of my colleagues participate in various initiatives of this sort, and many of these are organized to benefit graduate education (e.g. IGERT). The stereotype of the ultra-specialized professor working alone to produce scholarly works that 5 people will read is not something I encounter, and I publish just as many articles with obscure titles as anyone.

In fact, many of us live and die by citation indices. One can argue about whether that is better than not caring whether anyone reads our work and whether it is a good thing that we know our h-index and the impact factors of journals, but it would be difficult to make a reasonable case that we don't care about the audience of our scholarly works and are content to send our scholarly works off into obscurity.

And what of tenure? Tenure is either seen as the major cause of stagnation in academia or the key to academic freedom and therefore the ability to be creative and take intellectual risks. That's because it is the source of both and that is why I prefer that tenure live on, but with a post-tenure review process that has sharper teeth and real consequences. It should be possible to create (and implement) a post-tenure review system that is carried out in a constructive, humane way that minimizes political and personal issues and allows for shifts in the research : teaching : service equation over the course of a career.

That said, I think mandatory retirement might be a good thing.

I am not against major, dramatic changes in our universities. For example, I was recently sitting in a large auditorium filled with hundreds of scientists and engineers, and as I looked around and realized that there were about 10 women present (mostly students), I could think of one particular major change I wouldn't mind seeing in my lifetime.

Uphill Battle

Overheard at an airport gate:

Mom to 9 year old son: You're going to be a teenager in 4 years. If you ever start doing weird things when you're a teenager, I'm going to have you locked up in a jail.

Son: What do you mean by weird, Mummy?

Mom: Like wearing lots of black clothes.

Son (voice quavering): But I like to wear black, Mummy.

Mom: No, I don't mean just wearing some black, but wearing only black. Lots of black. Maybe even black lipstick. And being pale and depressed. I will be so mad if you do that.

Son: Oh, I'm not going to do any of that. I'm going to be a paleontologist. I want to study dinosaurs and clone them from their DNA.

Mom: That's just as bad. Scientists lock themselves up in their labs and never talk to anyone and they get really depressed. You are not going to be a scientist.

This conversation depressed me, and I was only wearing a little bit of black. But I am a scientist, and hence easily depressed. Perhaps this mother is actually a fabulous person and her son is a happy and well-balanced child, but what kind of person discourages their child from being a scientist? Or anything, at age 9?

What then must we do (Tolstoy, 1886)? And whatever can be done to change this negative perception of scientists? More interaction with real scientists in K-12 education? A popular TV or book series starring a socially functional science-hero(ine)?

The Unbearable Meanness of Being

This little anecdote is still making me laugh, hours after my husband told it to me:

He was walking near our house and decided to cut through a park with a playground. A little girl he didn't know was rocking back and forth on a large chicken on a spring. As my husband walked by her, she said to him "You're mean."

He was very surprised and stopped in his tracks. He said to her "I hope I'm not mean. I don't think I'm mean. Why do you think I'm mean?" She said "You look mean."

And he does! When he is walking and thinking intense thoughts about Science, he is the classic spaced-out professor for whom the rest of the world doesn't exist. He is off in Science Space, thinking about a problem he is working on, a paper he is writing, a proposal he wants to write. His impressive Science Eyebrows are scrunched up as he walks and thinks. I can see why a little girl on a rocking chicken would think he looked mean.

This has happened to me too. A few years ago the lab coordinator for my department told me that one of the international graduate students was afraid to be my assistant for a lecture course because I had never smiled at him (the student) in the hallways. After being told that, I made a point of giving this student a huge smile and a hearty hello every time I saw him. I personally would find that more disturbing than passing a busy, distracted professor in the hall, but he seemed to like it. Eventually he was my lecture assistant and we got along fine. I still give him a huge smile and hello whenever I see him. I do wish he would finish his degree and leave, though, as all that smiling and hello-ing is exhausting. [<-- joke]

When I was younger, random strangers would sometimes tell me to "Smile!", and that made me feel hostile, even when I'd been feeling reasonably cheerful before. I used to respond with "My best friend just died" or "I have cancer", which was mean, I know. I don't get the Smile! command anymore, perhaps because it's not something you say to middle-aged women.

Do real people out there in the real world walk around with huge smiles all the time, either because they are always cheerful or as a preventive measure so that people won't think they are mean or grumpy? I don't know. Perhaps I am too absent-minded to notice, but I get a lot of my best thinking done while I am walking around.

Corrosion Monitoring of Nude Mice Metaphysics

It will come as no surprise to some readers that I am rather fond of strange and possibly even humorous literary contests, such as those that reward people for deliberately writing awful prose in the style of certain famous authors. You can even buy a compilation of The Best of Bad Hemingway.

Some awards are not so nice and reward people for deliberately writing awful prose in the style of non-famous and unsuspecting persons, e.g. applicants to graduate programs. And some awards are for writing that wasn't supposed to be bad, but is. I don't know if there is an academic equivalent of the Bad Sex in Literature Contest, but the Broader Impacts section of some NSF proposals is a possibility.

There is also an award for the "Oddest Book Title of the Year", the Bookseller/Diagram prize, sponsored by The Bookseller magazine. I like the concept of this award, but I am not impressed with the typical result, which is to choose an obscure technical/science publication that sounds weird to the non-technical/non-science reading public. I suppose these are the publications that best fit the criterion that the book not have been intentionally given an odd name, but I don't like the science-is-weird implications.

The winner this year, based on internet voting, involves a technical report generated to evaluate a certain size and type of dairy container. Other candidates are similarly technical, and in my opinion there is nothing strange about them except that their intended audience is rather specialized; e.g. The Large Sieve and its Application or Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring. What is so odd about those? I find it a bit alarming that a publication on corrosion monitoring would be seen as bizarre.

Similarly Baboon Metaphysics may seem somewhat strange as a title, but the topic of consciousness in primates is not so odd.

The belief that technical-sounding things are bizarre and therefore probably irrelevant is dangerous thinking. It can lead, for example, to suspicion and disapproval about how federal funds are spent; e.g. the recent infamous incidents involving rants by politicians about bear DNA studies and volcano monitoring.

This science-is-weird trend is a tradition for this particular Odd Title award, though. The first winner, in 1978, was for Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice. Anyone who even glances at certain general-interest science journals and magazines from time to time knows about nude mice and why they are useful in biomedical research. This is not weird, irrelevant fringe-research.

I would find an Odd Title contest more interesting and less alarming if the eligible titles weren't chosen so much out of techno-ignorance. I realize, though, that fiction books may be deliberately given a strange title, and therefore they aren't quite as unselfconsciously odd.

Perhaps a compromise might be novels with names that appear to be technical manuals, e.g. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Marina Lewyck), which I read a couple of years ago, primarily because of its title.

Professor President

What are the implications of having a professor as President (again)? There are many possibilities:

- We professors can feel happy knowing that lots of people will vote for someone who is too professorial. Is professorial reserve now cool?

- Perhaps basic science research will be viewed as important. Perhaps there will be recognition by the new administration that there are significant reasons to study fruit flies and grizzly bear DNA.

- Perhaps the stereotype of professors talking but never actually accomplishing anything will fade away into oblivion.

- Perhaps some of our international colleagues won't be so reluctant to visit the US for conferences and other academic purposes.

- Perhaps our students will believe us when we tell them that they have to know how to speak in complete sentences to succeed in life and that they can't randomly make up words that sort of sound like they might mean something.

Leisure Studies

Last weekend, amidst working on a couple of manuscripts and reviews etc. in the office and at home (not to mention doing some overtime thinking), I did some work around the house and garden. While I was rummaging in the garden, a neighbor stopped by to tell me that she works so hard during the week that she doesn't have the energy to work on her house/yard and it must be nice to have an easy job like mine.

I decided not to tackle the issue of whether or not I have an easy job. I just said Yes, it's a great job.

Her job could well be stressful, involve working with awful people, and/or require strict working hours that leave her exhausted on the weekend. My reply to her was therefore sincere. I do have a great job. She has no idea how much or how hard I work, but much of what I do I enjoy, so it could well be that her 40 hours/week in the office of a furniture store is more tiring than my 60+ hours/week in an academic job.

On this particular occasion with this particular neighbor, my goal was to end the conversation as soon as possible, but I was left with the feeling that I had somehow let the side down (← sports analogy!). I may even have reinforced her image of slacker professors leading a life of (smug) leisure.

If one's goal were to generate widespread admiration and respect for the professoriate, is it better to convey the impression that a faculty position:

- is a great job (for whatever reason; flexible hours, interesting work etc.) that leaves one some leisure time, or

- is such an extraordinarily taxing job requiring so many long hours of intense thinking that yard work becomes appealing?

What if both are true?

Professorial Reserve

Barack Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago, so it makes sense for his professorial past to be part of discussions about his experience(s), but not all Obama/professor references in the media are direct references to his work as a professor. In fact, this post was motivated by hearing Obama's recent debate performance described as "too professorial", an oft-repeated phrase in reference to Obama.

An internet search for "Obama" and "professorial" yields several phrases highly favored by the mainstream media and bloggers. I have color-coded these in the examples below, not because I think my readers are stupid and unable to understand complex concepts without having everything simplified for them, but for ease of viewing and for dramatic and aesthetic effect.

Obama struggles to feel voters' pain because of his ..aloof, professorial side.

But whether out of professorial reserve or budding political caution..

Democrats Worry That Obama Is Too Professorial.. In Debate Settings.

Obama's professorial style didn't keep him from scoring quick points.

The intellectual Obama professorial style doesn’t work for most Americans.

Obama's professorial approach to Iraq..

..many people - maybe because of Obama's professorial nature .. seem to think Obama talks down to them.

When he’s not giving Teleprompter speeches he comes across as quite professorial and far too analytical.

But I think Obama, who has had the problem in the past of being too professorial..

..ability to channel enough charisma to overcome his professorial reserve.

That’s him, exhibiting typical Ivory Tower Professorial reserve.

..those that are anti-Obama will say that the cool, calm and reserved demeanor is Obama just being aloof or too professorial.

Obama already suffers from coming across as too professorial ...

Obama is considered by some to be too professorial, too distant..

Obama is too professorial in his convoluted explanations.


Question: Is it OK to be professorial, as long as you aren't too professorial?

In the above examples, there are three professor-themed descriptions that appear again and again:(1) Obama is too professorial; (2) he has/shows professorial reserve (a concept clearly associated with being aloof, distant); and (3) he has a professorial nature, style, and/or approach.

What do these descriptions mean? I think they are bizarre. Nonsense. Stupid. That said, I will now elaborate using complete sentences and perhaps also obscure words and multiple relative clauses that few people can understand.

I get the fact that these descriptions are shorthand for someone who gives complex explanations (= convoluted, not simple) and who does not have a warm and fuzzy personality (= distant, aloof, reserved). What I don't get is what this has to do with professors -- as in, real-life professors that one actually encounters at the nation's universities and colleges -- and why professorial is synonymous with condescending.

Has anyone done a study on this?: What % of professors are aloof? In my personal niche in the academic ecosystem, the number is exceedingly small. In fact, to succeed as a professor these days, the ability to communicate in a clear and compelling way (e.g. to a classroom of students, to a proposal review panel) is essential.

The % of professors who are condescending is larger, but still by no means even close to a majority. I have more commonly been condescended to by doctors and home repair people, but for some reason this description is more typically applied to professors.

I don't spend a lot of time hanging out at the law school so I don't know what things are like over there on a day-to-day basis, but I serve on university committees with law school faculty and know law school professors socially. The words "too professorial" or "professorial reserve" or even "condescending" do not come to mind at all as accurate descriptions of the law faculty I know. Perhaps some law professors glide silently through the halls in their personal space bubbles and over time forget how to be anything but aloof.

I do not believe that professors are statistically more reserved than the average American. In fact, speaking as someone from a part of the country where people are rather well known for not being particularly forthcoming in friendly conversation, it seems to me that the personality of a reserved person, professorial or not, might resonate quite well with ordinary Americans in this and many other parts of the country.

To me, professorial describes someone with deep knowledge of a topic or even someone who can explain things. These are not obviously bad things. It is clearly time to eschew uses of the term professorial that imply a cold, condescending person who is unable to think or speak clearly.

No Opportunity for Advancement

Recently I returned briefly to my ancestral home and spent time with various relatives. I’ve described these experiences before. The women cook, the men sit and drink and talk about war and religion. All of the men have been in the military and/or are ministers (some both).

I have also complained before about how my family thinks I am kind of a loser relative to my brother, who is in the military. I was reminded of this again (and again) on my recent visit.

Army Uncle: So, you don’t seem to have been promoted in a while. What is the next rank you could attain if you are ever promoted again?

FSP: Professors only have 3 ranks: Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor. I’m a Professor.

Army Uncle: So you have no more opportunities for advancement? You’ve gone as far as you can go with your career? That’s it until you retire?

FSP: I can advance in my career without getting new titles every few years. As a Professor, I'm still doing research and making advancements with that.

Army Uncle: Huh.


I can see how, from the outside, being a Professor (as in, full Professor rank) might seem like a career plateau with no major expectations and no major changes until retirement, and there are surely some professors who coast along from promotion to retirement. Most of us, though, are still interested in our work, pursuing new ideas and research directions, obtaining research funds, advising graduate students and postdocs, and "advancing" in our careers in terms of the discoveries we make and, yes, the recognition we get for doing so.

I am glad that we don't have dozens of promotions and titles, though I am considering inventing some that professors can use in discussions with non-academic family members. For example, I think that given the length of time since my promotion to Professor.