Professor-Student

This term, I am doing something that I really don't have time for but am doing anyway: I am taking a class. As a student. With undergraduates. My university allows staff to take one course/term, and we pay only fees but no tuition, but part of the deal is that we have to take the course for a grade or pass/fail (no audits allowed).

I am taking an introductory language class to improve my ability to speak a language that I need to know for some of my research activities. In the past, I've taught myself some basic skills in this language by tapes, books, a tutor, informal conversation groups, and of course travel, but I felt that I wasn't making any real progress beyond really basic conversation.

This class meets every day. We have homework every day, and right now, I am studying for the latest quiz. It feels very strange to be studying for a quiz. I am more than twice the age of any other student in the class, and I am older than the instructor. I was very aware of this at first, as were they, but after a few weeks we settled into a comfortable routine. The class is very interactive, so we have conversations in class about our lives: our families, hobbies,what television shows we watch, what grade/class we are in. The other students give presentations on their parents and siblings and so on. I give presentations about my husband and daughter, and otherwise I am getting a lot of practice with the negative form of verbs. I do not watch television, I am not in a grade/class, etc.

Aside from the strangeness of being an 'undergraduate' again, there are other things about this class that are very different from my usual day-to-day experience here in Scienceland. Some of these differences are related to the fact that the class is part of the Liberal Arts college:

- The class is 89% women students. I have not experienced anything approaching this ratio in any class I've taken or taught since my days at a women's college, decades ago.

- The instructor is a non-tenure-track adjunct who teaches 3 times as much as I do in any one term, no doubt for significantly lower pay and respect. She is amazing. She grades our homework every night and makes useful comments, and every day she is well prepared for class with an interesting activity and exercises. I know that universities rely on such people, but such reliance should come with better treatment: more respect, better offices, more job security, more pay.

Despite the time, which I don't really have, I am glad I am taking this class. It makes me stretch my brain in a different way, and I like that. It also gets me out of my building and my lab and into a new and alien environment, but an interesting one.

Overcommitted

I have been mulling over some recent reviews of an NSF proposal that wasn't funded. There are a lot of positive critical comments in the reviews to help with revising the proposal, and we got enough Excellents and Very Goods to definitely warrant resubmission. So, although I'm disappointed, I feel optimistic, and I have enough funding to keep me going for a while, so the rejection doesn't have dire consequences. As usual, though, I brood over the criticisms that I consider off-base/unfair, though fortunately I only brood over these for a few days.

Since the few days of brooding are not yet up: The comment that is most annoying in these reviews is one that says that I shouldn't get this new grant because I already have enough funding and am "overcommitted". I have a long record of showing that I can handle several simultaneous projects, get results, and publish them, so this criticism is baseless. Moreover, I have been on enough panels to know that there are men in my field who have more grants than I do, that this criticism is not applied to them, and that they just keep getting more grants.

I suppose I shouldn't look at absolutely everything through the Gender Lens. My husband has gotten reviews that have said he already has enough funding, but those comments have been phrased in terms of "and there's not enough money to go around", whereas in this case, the criticism is of me and my ability to manage my time and my research group.

In an effort to be not quite so relentlessly negative, I will say that most of the reviews said very nice things about my research group, and I will try to keep those comments in mind. I feel very fortunate to have the funding that I do, and to be able to support my excellent grad students and other researchers. Next time..

No Faculty Left Behind

There's a bizarre op-ed essay in the New York Times today. Eugene Hickok, from the Heritage Foundation (and a former Bushee), thinks that universities and colleges need to be more accountable for the performance of their students. I would hope that if he really wanted to make a strong case for this point of view, rather than writing the typical conservative rant, he would use facts instead of delusional myths. For example:

"Faculty members decide what they want to teach and when they want to teach it, if, indeed, they teach at all."
On what planet is this true? Should I inform my university, which seems to be unaware of this 'fact'?

".. undergraduate instruction, which is something of an afterthought on many campuses."
OK, I get it -- he's not just on another planet, he's in another century. This statement has not been true for a while at even the most research-oriented universities.

"Faculty members typically spend fewer than 200 hours in the classroom. That amounts to just five 40-hour weeks."
He can do math! Unfortunately, he does not seem to have spent any time in a real college or university -- that is, in the kind of place where professors spend time preparing for classes before actually walking into the classroom (not to mention grading), and where faculty do research, not to mention enriching service activities. At my university, the mandated time split between teaching-research-service is 40-40-20.

"And there needs to be a greater emphasis on teaching students what they need to know, rather than what faculty want to talk about."
Maybe he and his all-knowing colleagues can give us scripts to read so that we don't stray from the appropriate and relevant topics? That would eliminate the need to prepare for classes, and since he's not counting that time anyway, why not?

And then there's: "(the academy) is a culture seriously out of touch with much of America".
I suppose that's his unoriginal way of saying that we are liberals and most real people aren't. In any case, I don't feel particularly out of touch with my students at my large state university (other than of course the usual professorial phenomenon of getting older while our students stay the same age). There are exceptions: I do not feel 'in touch' when I have student who think God uses natural disasters to punish sinners and anyone else who happens to be around, nor am I in touch with students who don't believe in evolution but who make sure to get the latest flu shot. However, Eugene Hickok would no doubt be relieved to know that I feel very much in touch with sexism and discrimination, and that parts of the Academy are very much in tune with the rest of society with respect to how it treats women.

There's No I in Team If You're Batting A Thousand

Subtitle: Faculty Meeting Today!
Sports Analogy/Metaphor/Cliche Count: 3!
Number of Sports References I Understood: 1!

In addition to the loathsome sports references, there were 2 additional issues, both of them perennial, at today's meeting:

1.
At the past 2 meetings, I have made a point about Situation X, but the discussion went nowhere. At today's meeting, Professor Senior Colleague made the EXACT SAME POINT, and the Chair said "That is an EXCELLENT POINT. THANK YOU for bringing it up. What do YOU think we should do about it?" etc. I guess it's good that a real person finally made the point, instead of just me.

2. Over and over again, the senior faculty bring up the issue of the more junior faculty (including 'junior' full professors like me) being unwilling to make a commitment to spending several summer weeks in a teaching program that requires substantial travel. THEY have paid their dues, and they are perplexed that the rest of us aren't willing to take our "turn at bat" (that's the sports references I understood). I am tired of pointing out that I DO NOT HAVE A WIFE. With the other professional travel that I do in the summer, I would be away for 5-7 weeks each summer, and that is just not possible. Nor do I want to spend that much time away from my family. There are other options for instructors for this program, but these are short term options (postdocs, senior grad students, adjuncts). The senior guys keep making the point that these are inferior options because we need 'continuity'.

Well, maybe they should make the junior faculty promise not to have babies, and no one should be allowed to become ill or make any other commitments other than teaching this course every summer. The senior guys get all dramatic about how people like me are harming the undergrads by not doing our share of the summer teaching, as if our own children are abstract concepts they can't quite imagine. I have made the point that this is another example of Business As Usual in our department, but so far no one is actually listening.

Huge Girl Sale

I just saw a sign advertising a Huge Girl Sale, and couldn't resist using that for a title. The next street over is having a Monster Sale. Both sound scary, especially if the Huge Girl Sale is infested with dolls. It might be time for another poll -- which is the scariest kind of doll: Barbie, Bratz, or American Girl? I think they are all creepy each in their own special way.

Academics R Us

My favorite academic novel of all time is Straight Man by Richard Russo. I recently read Intuition by Allegra Goodman, but I don't think it qualifies since the action mostly takes place in a lab only loosely affiliated with a university. So.. what do you think?

Which is your favorite academic novel? (published in last decade)
	Straight Man by Richard Russo
	Moo by Jane Smiley
	The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes
	Small World by David Lodge
	Thinks.. by David Lodge
	Publish and Perish by James Hynes
	Other? (leave a comment)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Pink Butterflies

A colleague of mine just attended a welcome reception for new faculty at his university, and everyone was given an informational packet about resources and programs at the university. One colorful brochure had lots of pink on it, and pictures of butterflies, flowers, and babies. The brochure didn't have a lot of content to it, but my colleague thinks it was intended to make the point that the university cares about hiring women. He looked around the room and didn't see many women, even though the reception included the humanities as well as the sciences. He says he feared that the brochure was intended to prove that the university was aware that it had a problem, in place of real action. In our field, this university has no women faculty, and has never had any. The grad student/postdoc population, however, is 50% women, as it has been for a while.

Confessions Of An Immature Professor

Today a colleague was looking for my husband, but couldn't find him, so the colleague came to find me instead to ask me where my husband was and to see if I knew the answer to the question he was going to ask my husband. It happens with some frequency that someone will look for my husband, not find him in his office, and come to my office to ask me where my husband is. I don't mind so much if my husband is out of town and someone has been looking for him without success for a while, but other than that, it's just another interruption in my day. AND, the *strange* thing is, when people can't find me, they don't go ask my husband where I am.

Anyway, today this colleague asked me his question because he couldn't find my husband. It was a logistical/technical thing, and it wasn't something I could answer because it involved my husband's lab and the fee structure for an apparatus. My husband's lab tech could answer this question, but it's not a typical *pillow talk* topic for us. This is the same colleague who confused me with one of my female colleagues a couple of days ago, so when he asked me his question, I didn't say that I didn't know, I just made something up. It wasn't life-or-death and I doubt if the time he ends up wasting will set him back in a serious way. If he ever wants to ask me a question that is really intended for me, I will answer as graciously as I can. But not this week.

Even On Weekends

Today (Sunday) I was in the department to do a few things before the next hectic week starts. A senior colleague was showing a semi-distinguished visitor around the department, and stopped to introduce me. I have met this visitor several times before, but he never remembers me, so I just pretend that we've never met. That's fine -- he's old(er), some people are not good with names/faces etc. etc. What bothered me was that my own colleague described my research field completely incorrectly -- he confused me with another woman faculty member in our department. It's not a huge department, we all have our research niches, and the research field of the woman he confused me with is very different from my own field. I don't even look like this other woman. It was a minor but bizarre little event. I corrected him, and he was briefly embarrassed.

What To Wear, 2

More random thoughts on Un/Professional Attire

I used to think that my husband could wear whatever he wanted to conferences year after year, but that I couldn't. I was envious that he would just throw some nice-ish shirts into his suitcase (the same shirts he wears for teaching), and not think anything more about it. A few years ago, however, a Rather Famous Person in his field said to him at a conference "Is that your meeting shirt?". I laughed so much, and am still too entertained by this to this day. Now, although I can't say that he gives a huge amount of thought to what he wears at conferences, he does at least pause and wonder, "Did I wear this last time?".

Another challenge for the Modern Young Male in academia today: I have several students who wear baseball caps ALL THE TIME, even at meetings. I think I wrote about this a few months ago. My female students may well come across as more serious just because they dress more professionally at conferences. When a prospective graduate student approaches me at a meeting to discuss their application or potential application to work with me, I don't mind if they are wearing a baseball cap or are otherwise informally dressed, but I greatly dislike talking to people (students, anyone) when they are chewing gum. Memo to prospective students: lose the chewing gum before talking to potential advisors.

I have a male colleague who makes crude and lascivious comments when he sees women (young or old) dressed in an alluring way. His behavior disgusts me, but there is some satisfaction in the fact that most women think he is a troll. He once said to me "You should see me in the summer when I'm not wearing a shirt and I'm tan and in shape from hiking in the mountains." I just laughed, in what I hope was a not very nice way, and said "I could do without seeing that". I prefer to think that there is no one on this planet who would respond in a positive way to his invitation, but the fact that he is married implies that there is at least one person who at some point found him attractive.

Men and women in my field tend to dress rather the same (not counting the baseball cap fashion, which seems to be a male phenomenon) in the U.S., even at meetings, but this was not the case during my recent year in Europe. This became clear to me the first time I was invited to attend a science/business/social event, and asked a colleague what level of formality of dress was typical. He said "Oh just wear what you wear to work in the department, that's what I do." So I did. And he did as well, and he fit in perfectly with what all the men were wearing. The women, however, were extremely elegantly dressed. One woman was wearing a slinky, low-cut red silk dress with high heeled shoes. Another woman was wearing a see-through filmy top over black lingerie. I wore a black sweater and black jeans, similar to what several of the men were wearing, so I was dressed appropriately, but apparently it was only appropriate for the gender I am not. At least I wasn't wearing a baseball cap..

It Starts Early

A few months ago, my elementary-school aged daughter asked: "What's it called when someone says that girls can't do something, like math or a job or a sport, just because they're girls?". I explained about sexism and stereotypes, and gave examples. Since then, she has been very alert to pick out examples at school, in movies or books, and in our extended family. She recently surprised my mother by saying "That's a sexist stereotype!". She was absolutely right. Now the family thinks that I have indoctrinated her, although she really figured it out herself and I just put a name to what she was seeing at school and in the world at large.

Oppression O' the Day

Despite my apparent obsession with the topic of women-in-science, I really don't have to work hard at all to find examples of ways in which women are patronized, discouraged, and discriminated against on a daily basis. Some of the examples are trivial:

Trivial example: I was laughing in the corridor with a colleague yesterday, and someone (male) passing by told me that I "laugh like a schoolgirl". My immediate thought was that this must be one of the people in my department who thinks I am too young for a leadership position.

Some examples are very serious:

Serious example: A promising undergraduate student who is doing senior thesis research and has plans to go to graduate school has to change her thesis topic because she is pregnant and can't be exposed to the chemicals in the lab in which she was working. Her thesis advisor (female professor) has ideas for alternate projects, but this morning, the Undergraduate Advisor (old male professor, has a wife who raised the kids etc.) gave the student a stern lecture about how she will have to make compromises and it's going to be really difficult and he's not sure she can do research now etc. etc. He also has "intellectual" concerns about the alternate projects. This is one of those cases where mandatory retirement for aged faculty is really appealing. The student is fortunate, however, that her thesis advisor is going to make sure that she has the support she needs and can do a senior thesis.

We Don't Want To?

Too bad NYT columnist John Tierney doesn't have a fact-checker for his essays. If he did, he might have avoided publishing such a deeply flawed column today (NYT, September 26, 2006, "Academy of P.C. Sciences").

It is clear that Tierney is a very sensitive guy, though. His essay oozes with empathy for the lone man on the NAS committee that produced the "Beyond Bias and Barriers" report. I don't know how Robert Birgenau survived the experience of being on a committee in which everyone else was of the OPPOSITE GENDER. Well, OK, I sort of do, since I've been on 57 MILLION committees where I was the only female. I am sure that Tierney would have no trouble believing that those committees all produced objective, scientifically-sound, non-P.C. results, since the gender ratio was apparently skewed the appropriate way.

[note: Several years ago, one of my graduate students said to me, "I don't know if you realize this, but every once in a while, a little bit of sarcasm creeps into your speech." Then he laughed in a not-entirely sane way.]

What sort of person assumes that a committee whose membership is female-dominated is incapable of producing an objective, relevant, accurate document?

What would it take to convince Tierney that there is a problem? A committee of men concluding the same thing as Shalala et al.?

I don't know about you, but based on my own experiences, I found this less than compelling as an explanation for why there are so few women in science:

"As Science magazine reported in 2000, the social scientist Patti Hausman offered a simple explanation for why women don’t go into engineering: they don’t want to."

I saw nothing in the essay that explained why so many women students "want to" do science and engineering as students. What happens to them after that? They get a Ph.D. in science or engineering and THEN discover that they are more interested in "social values", "people contact" blah blah blah? And since when do science and engineering not involve "people contact", not to mention "social values". Hello! Ever heard of climate change, natural disasters, and energy resource exploration and extraction, not to mention TEACHING students, most of whom could technically be considered "people"?

Yes, what about those women who do not have "different priorities" than men? What about women who are interested in "learning how (a) dishwasher works."? Why don't they succeed in greater numbers? How nice that Patti Hausman found social science, so she doesn't have to care how her dishwasher works, but don't say that we don't have a problem here because we surely do. How cheap to dismiss a report because it was written by women about women. How weak to avoid the main issues and dismiss a problem for which there is abundant evidence, no matter who compiles the data.

Reinventing A Very Stupid Wheel

Someone should come up with a Geneva Conventions-type document for faculty. Somewhere in there should be a mention that faculty meetings, including *retreats* that last more than 6-7 hours, are cruel and illegal. There should, however, be a specified set of punishments reserved for people who enjoy these events so much that they make them last even longer by talking about non-essential things, like themselves.

With what little lucidity that remains to me until I recover from my ordeal, I will say that my considered opinion is that I just wasted a huge amount of time going to this thing. We talked AT LENGTH about the same old stuff, came to the same old conclusions that we need to talk more about these things, and nothing was accomplished.

And what is more, almost the first thing out of the meeting's discussion leader was an incorrect statement attributing one of my accomplishments to one of my senior (male) colleagues. It was very classic. I wish I'd been sitting there with a copy of "Beyond Bias and Barriers". I could have said "Um, excuse me, but what you just said is covered on page x in Chapter 3. Shall I read this to you?" and then everyone would gasp as they recognized their unintentional discriminatory behaviors and they would all vow to change and it would be amazing. As I said, I am not lucid right now.

Women As Bad Investments

It's taking me a while to read through the whole report recently released by the NAS on the lack of women scientists and engineers, but I like what I've read so far (I am part way through Chapter 3). Even though the results are mostly obvious to women who are already deep into a career as a scientist or engineer, it's still nice to see it written out.

For example, this is what I and others who have commented on my blog have been talking about recently:

".. on average, people are less likely to hire a woman than a man with identical qualifications, are less likely to ascribe credit to a woman than to a man for identical accomplishments, and when information is scarce, will far more often give the benefit of the doubt to a man than to a woman. Although most scientists and engineers believe that they are objective and intend to be fair, research shows that they are not exempt from those tendencies."

Will anyone recognize themselves in this and change their wayward and discriminatory behavior? I do not believe so. I do have some hope, however, that the recommendations that administrators and funding agency directors take specific actions might have some effect, especially if there is accontability and if there are more women in these positions.

So, overall, I like the report very much. I like seeing forceful statements and calls to action. And graphs. I really like graphs, even when they are scary.

It is a weird feeling to see that I belong to such an exclusive set: in my field, < 5% of full professors at research universities are women (and the number is lower at my university). I participated in the survey that went into the database that is graphed, so I really am in there. Does that mean there is something strange and/or lucky about me that got me here? I use the word lucky to indicate that I really do love my job, however much time I spend dealing with (and complaining about) obstacles and jerks. I am really not a very aggressive or competitive person, so am not especially 'male' in my personality. I can be quite assertive (which I think is more elegant than being aggressive), and I love research and teaching, so I have never been (too) tempted to give up. And I've been lucky.

Another Planet

Sometimes when I read an article about Academia, even a corner of Academia that I supposedly know a bit about, it is not uncommon for the article to diverge wildly from my own experience. Either I am out at 7-sigma (or beyond), or the articles are skewed by the random anecdotes chosen, or something..

Example: An article on CNN.com today, "Some universities shift future professors' focus to teaching". News flash: it's not just about research anymore. It hasn't been just about research for quite a while, at least in my field. Sure, there are some professors not teaching or teaching poorly, but teaching has been a major component of tenure and promotion decisions at many research universities for more than a few years. According to the article, the job market "..seems moderately more interested in teaching skills than in the past". I would change "seems moderately" to "is significantly", and perhaps define "in the past" a bit more specifically.

And then there was a quotation by an art history grad student who just wants to teach and not do research
"It's unfortunate to know you have to go through all that other stuff to get to do something you love," she said." Isn't "all that other stuff" the things you need to know in order to be able to have something interesting to say? And more than just knowing a lot of things that you can repeat to students, research gives you the opportunity to be creative, go in new directions, teach others things they can't read in books. I don't know much about art history from personal experience (though some of my best friends are art historians!), but I would hope that research and teaching complement each other very well, just as they do in the sciences. I would never argue that you can't be an outstanding teacher without doing research as well, but in my own case, doing both research and teaching makes me better at both.

Metaphorical Cats and Roosters

This morning, my husband showed me an article in which a political contest between 2 women was described as a "catfight". I think the description illuminates more about the reporter (and his editor(s)) than anything else.

We searched for news articles that use beast-adjectives to describe acrimonious political contests involving 2 men, but didn't find anything easily. I can think of one good one, but it would never be printed.

Rewarding Awards

The issue of Awards (prestigious grants, honors etc.) just won't go away. I recently finished my term on one awards committee, but have recently been asked to be on a different one. I said yes because this one involves early career faculty. This type of award can have a major impact on someone's career, and it's important to have a diverse committee.

This phenomenon of getting asked to do something after just finishing a similar activity also seems to occur with reviews. I will just finish one review and send it off, and within minutes or hours, the next request will come in from a different journal. It's as if editors sense a reviewing void and rush to fill it.

But back to awards: I had some early career awards that helped me a lot, and I think it is important for more senior faculty to encourage younger colleagues to apply for those that can be applied for, and nominate younger colleagues for other types of awards. As you get older, awards aren't so critical, but they are still a gauge of how you're perceived in your field, and to some extent a monitor of your visibility.

Of course, the whole awards thing can also be disheartening. For example, as an associate professor, I was nominated for an award that involved a nice bit of unrestricted research funding for a couple of years, but my chair unfortunately asked the 'wrong' person for a letter. I got to see the letter, and found that although the writer thought highly of me and my work, he felt that I had published "too much", and was working "too hard", and that this was "not healthy". He encouraged me to slow down. He thought that I was a "victim" of the modern pressure to publish too much and write endless grant proposals, and that he would be encouraging this if he supported my nomination . So, I didn't get the award and it went to a male colleague who had published a lot and written endless grant proposals.

Other experiences with awards have been more satisfying. A few years ago, I realized that neither my husband nor I had been nominated for fellowship in a particular professional society in which one of our spectacularly unproductive senior colleagues was a fellow. One could reasonably ask why we would want to belong to a *club* that had members like that, and there is no good answer. In any case, there was no reason we weren't fellows of this society, other than it had not occurred to anyone to nominate us. Our colleague clearly wasn't going to rouse himself from his torpor to nominate us, so I pointed out my husband's fellowlessness to another colleague (who had just assumed we were both already fellows) and this colleague got the process started. Being a Fellow (can't someone think of a better name for this?) has no effect whatsoever on one's life, but to me it felt like correcting a slight imbalance in the academic universe.

The Professor News

Thanks to Maxine for reminding me about the letters to Nature (Aug. 24) re. the Barres' commentary. The statistics on the number of women who have received some major awards is shocking in an unsurprising kind of way. Also very interesting was the letter about how changing the wording in an NIH proposal announcement and instructions - and changing the make-up of the panel - seems to have 'fixed' the problem they had both with getting women to write proposals for the young investigator grants and how the grants were awarded. For example, removing the description that "high risk" proposals were encouraged may have been one factor in increasing the number of women who applied.

That interested me in part because I don't think that the "high risk" wording, or the other descriptions mentioned, would have stopped me from writing a proposal. In fact, I find the concept appealing. I've long assumed (with some evidence from observations when serving on panels) that women's proposals are in some cases deemed to be "too risky" (for a woman?) whereas men are given the benefit of the doubt for similar proposals. So, a proposal that was not going to be undermined by a high risk factor might actually work for women IF the reviewers and panels apply fair criteria when evaluating them. In other words, I guess I'm a hurl-myself-at-the-castle-wall type (apply and see what happens).

Random note about Nature letters, which all start with "SIR-". If the editor-in-chief were a woman, would these all say "MADAM-"? (Maxine?)

In other professor news: I temporarily set aside my reluctance to read yet another barrage of New York Times articles about Harvard, and read about the demise of early admissions. If it helps those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged with their chances of admissions, that's great. I am too cynical to believe that this will happen, but will keep an open mind and see what happens. Speaking entirely selfishly as someone who applied early to one college, got in, and was done with the process in a low-stress and efficient way, I very much appreciated a process that defanged my father's obsession with the application/admittance process.

My Far Flung Correspondent

From an email from my conference-attending husband, in Europe: "You would hate this conference. Lots of senior men dominating the meeting. A few senior women, mostly keeping quiet."