Lowering the bar... Yeehaw!

Years ago, when I was trying to get up my nerve to submit my first big dissertation research article to a professional journal, I happened across what may have been one of the worst articles I have ever read, published in the same impressive journal where I was planning to send my article. It was a good moment, because I thought, "Hell, if this piece of crap can get published, surely my article might make it in?!" That thought gave me the impetus and confidence to submit the article, which was accepted. (Of course, the unfortunate implication might be raised that my article may have been just as bad as the other I mention, but I have received enough positive feedback on it that I don't believe that is true.)

A recent blog article about the search to fill the Presidency of the New Mexico state system provided a similar feeling, as it explained that both James Oblinger, the disgraced former Chancellor of North Carolina State, and Richard Herman, the vilified former Chancellor of the University of Illinois, are among the finalists for the position. While I can make MANY jokes about the possible interview questions (e.g., when the Governor's daughter's best friend gets rejected for admission to the university and the Governor calls to complain, what will you do? What if, while he has you on the phone, he tells you that his wife needs a job?), it reassures me that the bar for senior leaders is actually a little lower than I would have thought.

Now, my feminist sister-outlaw would say that I shouldn't get too carried away, and that the lowness of the bar is actually just the setting for white guys, not for the rest of us.

But all one has to do is check out the professional rebound of former University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman, who saw so many scandals in her time at CU that it is hard to list them all:

• a nationally watched football recruiting scandal that culminated in a
  federal lawsuit filed by three women who claimed the university athletics
  department knowingly allowed sexual assaults by CU football players or recruits
• CU Professor Ward Churchill calling Sept. 11th victims “little Eichmanns”
• the drinking death of an 18-year old fraternity pledge
• a student riot on Halloween
• Hoffman's embarassing state legislative testimony where she explained that the term "cunt" could be used as a "term of endearment"

So, where did Dr. Hoffman end up after she was fired? Well, as the Provost at Iowa State University! So, while the boys may move laterally or even move up, looks like the women might have to take a little step down. Nonetheless, one step back is pretty good, considering.

So, former Iowa Central Community College President Robert Paxton--oh, he of the "shirtless beer bong with young coeds" pic that went viral and cost him his job--should take heart! While he may have lost his lawsuit against the community college for sacking him accepting his resignation, he made off with a dismissal package of $400,000 and he has the potential for another presidency or chancellorship any day now!

Yep, in some cynical way, I am encouraged by the lower bar these stories suggest. It becomes a little more feasible for me to become a President or Chancellor. Obviously, I would aim to be better than these feckless few, but it is good to know a mistake or two wouldn't cost me a future in academic leadership. And thanks to these stories, I know behaviors I want to avoid: covering up rape on campus, boozing with students, setting up patronage jobs for politicos, and helping their friends get into our institutions. Yeah, I think I can manage that.

What is an extrovert administrator to do?

Extroverts can make wonderful administrators.

Just to define our terms here, extroverts are people who like to have interactions with other people. We get energy from these interactions, and that energy is sustaining. We also tend to process ideas out loud, rather than internally as introverts would, and we see our understanding grow through discussion and debate with other people. We think best through conversation. We don't like spending too much time alone, as it saps our energy and sense of self.

There are some clear pluses to being an extrovert and administrator. We are good with people. We don't mind being in the public eye and giving presentations, trainings, and facilitating meetings. We are not shy in advancing our agendas, and we have gifts in communicating our ideas to others.

On the other hand, we extroverts face some challenges. We don't always listen as well as we should to people in meetings, being more focused on participating as part of our own thinking process. We may come on so strong that people take our statements to be firm convictions, when they may really just be tentative thoughts. We may tend to dominate or shut down more introverted people in these conversations as well, in a rush to participate or assert our own ideas. And we may struggle with confidentiality in our need to process--out loud--issues that are troubling us. It makes sense, in that extroverts tend to think by talking, and how can one think about, say, a personnel issue without talking about it with other people? Of course, personnel issues are just one of many that need to be confidential in a workplace, and results of breaking that confidentiality can range from a loss of friendship with colleagues to winding up in court.

I have taken many approaches to these dilemmas as an extrovert administrator. In meetings I am facilitating, I try to take notes about what others are saying and what I want to respond. That way, I won't forget my thoughts, but I also won't jump in prematurely and dismiss out of hand the ideas of others in the group.

I try to signal that I am open to challenge and changing my mind throughout a discussion by trying on the ideas and suggestions of others, though I am loathe to qualify my own thoughts. As a feminist, I just cannot hold with the "perhaps it's just me, but I think..." or "I may be wrong, but I thought perhaps..." school of speaking. Sorry, I know I speak in declaratives, but that is just what I prefer. No namby-pamby half-statements for this woman... you get run over by the guys if you do that.

The issue of managing confidentiality has been my biggest challenge, because the legalistic nature of our society takes away a lot of options for processing. Written reflections, such as journals and notes, can be subpoenaed, and conversations and emails can also wind up in court. My best recourse has been to use my partner (and some off-site professional colleagues) as a processing mechanism and as a support to my determination to keep things confidential. We process work-related issues, and she allows me to use this to think through tough issues. I will claim spousal privilege, since we are officially married in another state, though I would likely lose in my own state since we have a constitutional amendment banning recognition of same-sex relationships, which is a drag.

My partner is also the person who holds me accountable for maintaining confidentiality. I call her when I am tempted to disclose inappropriately to other people, and she helps me keep things confidential. I find that I am worse at saying things I wish I didn't say--not necessarily things that are professionally confidential, but things that are private or better not shared--when I am tired or, alternately, really excited and overstimulated, say after a day of teaching and public interactions. I have found that the best thing to do at that time is just to go be alone or be private with my partner. If I don't, I make mistakes that I regret.

So, how do my other extroverted friends handle these issues? What do you do to manage your mouth?

Imposter syndrome

I talked to a friend last week about that terrible experience that sometimes happens when one is teaching when you feel like an imposter. A students asks a question that leaves you stumped and looking like a fool in front of the class. At that moment, there is a feeling that a knowledgable professor exists out there who knows everything about all of the material you will cover in class. Unfortunately, you are not him/her. You just know bits and pieces very well, and you valiantly prepare for class every week trying to fill in gaps and cover rough spots so students will not find out that you are not really the know-it-all they assume you to be.

This imposter syndrome can crop up in a lot of settings, and not just with students: presenting on one's research at a professional conference, publishing a book or article, sitting on a curriculum committee, and even when receiving a big award. The thought rushes through your mind, "If they really knew how little I know, how poorly prepared I really am, they would leave the presentation/rescind the acceptance/kick me out of the meeting/take back the award."

I don't know if this feeling crops up more often for women than men; I am guessing that everyone shares that feeling sometimes. Of course, there are also times when you feel like you actually do know the most about the subject at hand, though that feeling is seductive and untrustworthy, because you can always be corrected on some misstep or misstatement of fact.

As we discussed the classroom issue, I recalled a time I taught about a concept that, honestly, I never learned well when I was in grad school, never followed up because it was unrelated to my own work, and never thought about again until I got a teaching assignment for a class that included that concept. The concept was developed by folks in another related field, but is frequently used in our field by people who do that kind of work. Like a good girl, I read the assigned reading on the concept, read additional readings, and felt pretty much prepared for an overview. Unfortunately, I had a few students in this grad class who had undergraduate degrees from the related field, and they critiqued my explanation of the concept and offered a better, richer understanding. With little else to do, I sucked it up, acknowledged the assistance they gave and the ways is expanded our understanding of the concept, thanked them for their input, and moved on to the next concept. From that point on, however, I think that those students who helped, and some of the others, thought a little less of me and challenged me a little more.

Even as I write about this episode, though, I feel the creeping sting of shame and weakness, the reinforcement of the belief, hammered into me in grad school, that I am not really as smart as I should be.

How do you cope with the imposter syndrome? Do you get over it at some point and recognize that it is impossible to know everything and we all do the best we can? Does the fear of being found out paralyze us or drive us to work harder and do more?

The Artful Dodger

What the hell is wrong with men on faculty committees? Especially the older, straight, white men. I mean, DAMN!


After all of the great posts about committee meetings and their limitations and abuses, I felt the need to bitch about my own recent committee meeting experiences and my encounters with a kind of academic man I like to call the Artful Dodger.

Okay, so here is the scenario. As we wrap up the first meeting of new committee to change the world, we start to review and assign the list of tasks we identified to complete before the next meeting. Of course, a few people step up to take on tasks, but those few are women. I suggest that one of the senior white men take on another task, which I swear to God was something as mundane as "ask someone for a document," and the Artful Dodger quickly passes it off to a junior white man. As a result, Dr. Dodger has no responsibilities as we walk away. I am irritated, because I realize that this happens in almost every damn meeting I attend outside my department. Hell, it occurs at some meetings inside my department, too!


I know I am not alone in my frustration. I complain about this phenomenon with women I know all the time.


My favorite recent story about this phenomenon actually happened to a friend at an LGBT meeting. The committee members agreed to pass around the responsibility for taking minutes during their long-as-hell meeting, so no one would get stuck taking minutes the whole time. After three women took minutes, the laptop was passed to the next woman... bypassing 2 Artful Dodgers in the process. That woman, a no-nonsense feminist, said that she would not take notes until at least one of the men had done so. The silence, she told me, laughing, could have been cut with a knife and went on for more than a minute. Eventually, one of the younger gay men anted up and did the typing.


This gendered division of labor--even among the queers--led us to wonder, what happens in all-male groups? Do they forego minutes and between meeting tasks? Do they just pass these along to a secretary or intern?


I rejoice in my few white male colleagues who will step up to the plate and do the shit work, but there are far too few of them. I want to shake those Artful Dodgers by their lapels and say, "This is a working group. That means that everyone in the group is supposed to work, dammit!" Instead, of course, I bitch about it to the gf, who tells me that the situation is the same in business meetings and on nonprofit boards, which does little to pacify me.


So, I am going to take my anger and turn it into something useful. Beware straight white men! I will be watching you to see if you step up in our meetings. If you don't, I predict that I will be that bitch who points out that you don't seem to have a task, and asks you what you would like to do. That should win friends, eh? And even scarier, I soon will be chairing a committee, and I will make sure that each Artful Dodger gets a freakin' assignment to complete. And if you don't get it done, the women on the committee will not fix it for you! No, we will leave it on your desk, let you know publicly that we are waiting on you, and shame you into finally getting it done. Your Artful Dodger days have come to an end!


This has been a public service announcement.

Heterosexism and civility

This is an older post I just found and decided I wanted to post.

Okay, I know that we live in a world that is, for the most part, pretty damn homophobic and heterosexist. I forget that sometimes when I am spending time on my liberal campus in my liberal college town.


I had one of those AHA(!) moments when I found a recent graduate's obituary published online in her local, small-town paper. The graduate was a lesbian in a long-term relationship (think double digit years). Of course, the gf is left out of the obituary in the paper. That kind of thing just pisses me off.


Granted, I am already saddened by the graduate's sudden death. She was a wonderful person, and her premature death is a great loss. But publishing an obituary that omits the gf and her role as a mourner and survivor OF THE HOME lacks civility, grace, and basic humanity.

Overcommitte(e)d

Okay, no one really commented on this great new word (Overcommitte(e)d) in my last post, so I must re-post on it specifically. I complained in that post about how I was serving on more committees than (almost) ever, and I have since been asked to serve on yet another university committee. The count now stands: 5 University committees and 6 departmental committees, as well as one ad hoc university committee. (I also am serving on 3 national professional committees, but that seems outside the scope of this post.) Now, the academic committees vary in terms of my own day-to-day responsibilities, with some only calling on me once or twice a semester to simply attend having read the documents, while others I chair and require prodigious amounts of pre-and between-meeting work. Oh, and did I mention that I hold a lesser administrative post, with its own work requirements, and I am at an R1, where grants are king and service is an afterthought?

Tenured Radical mentioned that there are many among us who "over-serve" on committees, often because our colleagues are "under perform." I find that to be true, though I also think that some folks who don't serve on committees or, especially those who don't get chosen to serve, tend to be angry that some of us seem to be directing everything because we are on all the committees. Dean Dad wrote a response to TR, trying to blame the situation on the tenure system. I agree with one of his commentators, who notes that tenure in and of itself is not to blame; instead, it is the yardstick by which we measure tenure and the expectations we set for quality job performance. As I said in my response to him, we ought to have quality committee service on the expectations before and after tenure, and if you don't pull your weight, you risk being fired. Of course, that would be a stretch for R1 schools, especially if the faculty member is bringing in massive grants and writing LOTS of articles. Of course, a lot of the faculty who are under performing as regards committee work are underperforming elsewhere, too.

I find it a challenge to avoid committee work, for a number of reasons. First, I like serving on committees, because I like making a difference in the curriculum, current practices, etc. Whether it is a departmental curriculum committee or a university task force on student services or general education requirements, service on these committees means that I am helping to shape student learning and student experiences on our campus. I also recognize that these committees greatly affect the lives of faculty and staff, and I want to make sure that my perspectives (and on university committees, the interests and concerns of my departmental colleagues) are represented. Further, service on tenure and promotion committees in the university and the department have a rather tangible impact on the individual lives of faculty as well as on the well-being of the department as a whole. Committee work matters, and I like to be a part of something that matters.

Another reason I often don't refuse such service is that I have aspirations about moving higher in administration someday, either on the departmental level or in central administration. The more committees on which I serve, the more I learn about the functioning of the department and the university, and the better I can serve in an administrative capacity. And the committee service looks good on the vitae for just that reason. Further, I accept the appointments to the university committees, especially, because the administrators get to know me personally, come to see that I have potential for central administration, and might perhaps consider me for a position.

Now, committee work can sometimes be a serious pain in the ass, especially when committee members act like jerks. Dr. Crazy had a great post about trying to manage a dismissive group of men in her recent committee meeting, a post eerily similar to my own (which was also a response to an earlier post by Crazy...what can I say, I dig her!) ... That is the exception, though, in my current university, and I find my colleagues within and outside the department very solid and thoughtful. And the underperformers generally tend not to show, so we just get the work done around them.

All of that said, at some point committee service becomes too much. I am gonna hold my breath and hope that this year's set of commitments are manageable. The good news is that I can cycle off one of these commitments at the end of the semester, and several of them end when the year ends. And, if the sabbatical proposal gets approved, I will be committee-less for a WHOLE YEAR! Now, that is something to smile about!

Yup, got it!

Yeah, that didn't take long. Of course, I don't know for sure that I have the H1N1 virus, because no one is actually testing for it unless you are hospitalized. Otherwise, you just have to hide in your home--drinking fluids, popping decongestants and analgesics, and sleeping--and make sure your classes are covered and meetings are cancelled. Though some friends have told me that I am lucky to get it out of the way early, others have said that it is no blessing and that I can get reinfected at any time. Hmm.

So, as I sit in my hole (otherwise known as our guest bedroom) hoping that my temperature doesn't go up again, I have had a lot to contemplate. Here are my random thoughts:

1. For a lesbofeminist, I really love me some guy movies. Top 5 crappy guy movies that I have watched too many times to count: Con Air, The Negotiator, Fast and the Furious 2, all the Jason Bourne flicks, and Gone in 60 Seconds. Oh, and I also like US Marshals, though I will watch almost anything with Wesley Snipes (even those silly Blade movies). The dialogue in most of these movies just cracks me up, as I noted my comments on Dean Dad's recent post. And I like some action flicks when I am sick at home.

2. Quarantine sucks. I feel sorry for people who were quarantined when life was more primitive than now, what with my wireless internet, cable tv, phone, kindle, and every other damn distraction known to humankind. Of course, perhaps they got better faster than those of us who read our kindle too long. Sigh.

3. There are some really BAD books available on kindle, and I will still read them. I have entered some sci-fantasy adventure/romance book phase, thanks to the Twilight series, and I seem to be have stumbled upon some that are more porn than romance, which is not my scene. I need to head in another direction, but still something fantastic that doesn't bog me down in real people and their messed up lives. Or maybe I will just go pick up "Straight Man" again, which is perhaps one of the funniest academic books ever.

4. Reactionary people never get less reactionary over time... they seem to stay that way, no matter what happens. They never learn to temper their responses or let them stew for a while before sharing them with the world. Unfortunately, knowing this truth about reactionary people does not make me like them any better.

5. I am realizing that I may have over-committe(e)d myself this year. Okay, so that is not a word, but I think it should be. Very PoMo, eh? Like a title of a paper when I was in grad school. "The Overcommitte(e)d: One faculty member, 365 days, and more responsibility than you can shake a stick at" (There had to be a colon, some re-spelled word, and a list of three things following the colon for the title to work.)

6. Tenured Radical is on sabbatical. (Doesn't that just trip off the tongue? It sounds like something like "eating her curds and whey" should follow...) While I don't hate her, I am jealous. Perhaps I should think of this quarantine as a mini-sabbatical, in that I am not at school teaching, but I am still working everyday. Just like my friends the historians, I am locked in a small, dark room, reading books, sneaking in little bits of food and drink, and furtively checking my emails even though people tell me not to do so.

7. I should be sleeping. My sleep schedule is a mess. I have a constant headache, my body aches all over, and I am moderately grumpy, having been sequestered from the not-yet-sick gf for days now. When I am really, really sick, I like being alone, but after days of it, I just want to cuddle up and let her be sweet and close. But I really don't want her to get sick.

8. Perhaps when there is a flu virus going around, a university and its departments should not hold their regular "welcome back" gatherings, celebrations, orientations, and the like. Had I not attended 40 or so of these in the last couple weeks, perhaps I wouldn't be SICK RIGHT NOW. Sigh.

Good news is that I have not had a temperature for about 12 hours, so only 12 more to go for me to be proclaimed no longer infectious. At least, that is what they tell me. I hope it is so, because we have guests arriving from out-of-town this weekend and I have a meeting Friday that I would hate to miss. That last part reveals something really sick about me, I think, beyond the H1N1--and it likely won't get better anytime soon.

To paraphrase an old TV line, "Let's stay healthy out there!"