Recently in Academe Category

This story about the prof who got busted for surfing porn and sending emails about his sexual fantasies to a friend totally creeps me out, but some of the comments creep me out more.

Look, there's a difference between idle fantasy of the "she's hot/he's hot" variety and sending long, drawn-out, "Dear Penthouse Forum, you'd never believe what happened to me last Tuesday" style emails to your friend about them.

Side question for the menfolk - is emailing your buddies about your sexual fantasies just an everyday occurrence, or does that strike you as decidedly odd?  And creepy, but let's just stick with odd for now.

I thought women were supposed to be all about the oversharing, but I can pretty much guarantee that I would never terrify my friends and accquaintances that way.  Ick.

But back to my main point, which is this:  some of the commenters are all up in arms like this is some sort of witch hunt.  Look, first of all, it is not cool to surf porn on university computers.  Period.  We've fired quite a few folks for that behavior, although the firings here have tended to skew toward the staff side, not the faculty side.  It's not a quesion of intellectual freedom, or freedom of speech, people. 

Secondly, because this is a bit more subjective, this dude's emails are just disturbing, and not in that "eek!  Protect my puritan eyes!' kind of way, but in the "Hey little girl, want some Caaaaaannnndy?" kind of way.  And to the commenter who left the flip quote about the damage of Victorian mores--uh, seriously?  I thought the point was that the professor was so completely sexually UN-repressed that he felt no compunction about spending office hours indulging his proclivities.  Victorian mores, in this case, could have helped him refrain from hitting the "send" button, and thus helped him keep his job.

Bottom line:  It's fine to be a creepy weirdo in your private life, but "tenure" doesn't equal "Let fly the work porn!"

So today I called in to a media teleconference that was featuring one of the researchers in one of the colleges I do PR for.

Now, in order to attend a media teleconference, someone in a PR office has to give you the dial-in number and a passcode.  You dial in, give the passcode, and tell the folks your name and affiliation, then you're signed in.  Usually, they'll have the scientists give 5 minute presentations, then they open the floor to media questions.

To ask a question, you hit a couple of keys on the phone and you're in the question queue.

Sounds easy and civilized, right?

O.M.G.  Not today.  Today, after the presentation portion of the media conference, the questions began.  The first two were garden-variety science writers asking follow-ups on the research.

And then some random weirdo comes on and says, "So does this mean we can ship moon crickets off of earth?" 

Huh?  I don't know about moon crickets, but you could hear regular crickets chirping as everyone tried to figure out what in the hell this yahoo was talking about.  [ETA - apparently, the "moon cricket" thing is a racist slur, and one that was completely lost on me, as well as the others at the press conference.  Seriously, I thought the guy was trying to conflate space aliens and insects, or something.  Good Lord.  This only makes the whole thing simultaneously worse and, if possible, more stupid.  Thanks for the head's up, Skippy!]

So the mediator recovered nicely and moved on, and things went along okay until suddenly beeping was heard and some wackjob starts yelling about how he wants to talk about va-jay-jays!

At a press conference.

About astrophysics.

Yeah.

My only question?  Well, perhaps I should say my most important question? 

Who gave those freakjobs the number and passcode?

My job...never, ever, boring.

UPDATE - Wired liveblogged the event.  Their version of events is here.

So elections for chair of faculty senate are coming up soon, and our office has agreed to publish the "leadership statements"--I know--of the two candidates in our faculty/staff newsletter.

One of the candidates is a professor of english, the other is an engineering prof.

One leadership statement is three pages long, the other is 3/4 page.

One statement contains a metaphorical deconstruction of the purpose of the position complete with flowery language and a one-page biographical sketch of the candidate; the other is pretty much a laundry list of stuff the candidate did and stuff he promises to do.

So, which candidate authored which statement?  A poser, I know.

I laughed long and loud when I read these documents side-by-side.

Okay, so you're a professor of philosophy teaching an intro class that has approximately 400 students in it.  Your stated cell phone policy is "No texting/talking on the cell phone in class."  One day, you notice a chick in the front row just texting like the wind.  Do you:

A:  Ask the student to stop texting in class

B:  Confiscate the cell phone

C:  Storm out of class in a huff and send a long, racially-tinged diatribe to all the students as well as the college administrators

D:  Tazer the holy hell out of the kid and stand athwart her unconscious body screaming "ATTICA!  ATTICA!"

If you're this guy, you'd choose C, then sit back and watch the collective freaking out begin.

Follow-up poll:
You're an academic, and you come across a story about a professor who walks out of his class because a student was texting during the lecture, then followed up by sending a long, racially-tinged diatribe to all the students in the class as well as select college adminstrators.  Naturally, being an academic, you are SHOCKED! And must post a reply.  Are you more horrified at:

A:  The fact that the professor punished 400 students for the actions of one

B:  The fact that the professor dragged race into the whole kerfuffle--and then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on diversity/politics/what is WRONG with you people in general...

C:  The fact that the academy is still using the outmoded "lecture" method of teaching--and then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on pedagogy in general...

D:  The attitude of entitlement pervading "kids these days"--and then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on giving professors properly obsequious respect...

E:  The fact that more people don't do this--then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on classroom management tactics in general...

F:  The fact that the professor misused/misspelled a word in his rant

G:  The elitism apparent in everyone who picked option D in this poll

H:  The fact that tazers aren't standard issue to professors in large lecture situations

And that's only because it features Davidson.

I vote we adopt Inside Higher Ed's bracket system, and hail the NCAA "hey, we actually pay attention to the 'student' part of student athelete" champions for 2008:  Davidson College!

Yes, I am being a big ol' geek.  You'll recover.

About the slow death of the study of english literature, in The Nation.  I know!  Best quote:

In other words, the profession's intellectual agenda is being set by teenagers. This is also unprecedented. However bitter the ideological battles Graff described, they were driven by the profession's internal dynamics, not by what our students wanted, or what they thought they wanted, or what we thought they thought they wanted. If grade schools behaved like this, every subject would be recess, and lunch would consist of chocolate cake.

This quote could go a long way toward explaining why so many english departments resemble particularly vicious playgrounds...

Anyway, sorry about the dearth of original content.  But never fear - Hublet's Prom Experience 2008 will take place this Thursday, and I am fairly assured that hilarity will ensue.  Well, if by "hilarity" you mean "the pain and suffering of grown-ups who have to spend 5 HOURS listening to a blend of hip-hop and pop-country music."  I fear I will be tempted to fling one of my newly-acquired super cool pumps (bless you, Zappos!) at the DJ's head.

This piece at Inside Higher Ed which calls for a more "professional" dress code for the professoriate.  The comments, as always, are where the hilarity ensues, because, you know, we're all so "over judging by externals, maaaaaaan!"

I have only my personal experience to speak from, but since I have a long and storied tradition of haranguing you people with the expertise that this experience confers, I will do it again:

Dress Like You Care.

That's it.  Because your students will look at you and make immediate assumptions about your character based on your clothing.  I know it's not cool to admit it, but it happens.  And if you're in your late 40's and you're still swanning about the classroom in "post-doc just rolled out of bed, dude, I need a blunt to get through the day" mode, your students will think one of two things about you:

1.  You're trying too hard to be cool, except you're old, and that's just lame and/or icky.

2.  You're eccentric and you probably smell bad.

Granted, neither of these opinions have any bearing on your intellect or your ability to teach, but they do have an effect on the amount of respect the students will give you.

Perhaps I'm more sensitive to this because I was both young and female when I taught, but I noticed quickly that students definitely treated you differently based on your attire.  For me, I didn't want to give them an excuse to see me as a peer.  I dressed in what I guess you could call "corporate casual" in order to reinforce the power barrier between me and the students.  Yes, I said power barrier, and yes, I said it in tones of abject approval.  All hail the power barrier!  Of course, I didn't have a deep-seated psychological need to be BFF with a bunch of callow 18 year olds, but whatever.

And it worked.  Because like it or not, young women who teach have to try a little harder to establish authority early on, and clothing helps.  I relaxed my dress code as the semester progressed, and we got into established patterns of behavior, but I still never did the whole jeans in class thing.

Again, this was in the humanities.  I probably wouldn't have worn skirts to teach in a lab environment, for practical reasons. As always, YMMV.

But let's not pretend that looks have no bearing on how others perceive you, relate to you, or how much they'll respect you. I mean, sure, people can overcome first impressions, but I guess I'm just wondering why you'd want to set up that uphill battle in the first place?

Of course, I've never been a fan of Don Quixote, so maybe that explains my attitude.