What They Don't Tell You in the Non-Existent Training for this Job

File this under: I had no idea students did this.

In my so-called normal professorial existence, students considering applying to my department for graduate school and possibly wanting to work with me send me an email with various bits of information and assorted questions. I have written about this fascinating topic at length before.

But did you know that some students do this?: They go straight to the person they perceive as the 'top' (for example, a head/chair or other administrative leader of a unit/department/etc.) and explain their interest in graduate studies. They may or may not be interested in that person's particular field of research (most of us are, after all, still professors who teach and advise), but they seem to want to make contact with the "head" -- not the director of the graduate program, not the administrative assistant responsible for the graduate program, not the potential advisor/s (although some may write to these individuals as well) -- to announce their existence, their intentions, and to Ask For Things (advice, confirmation of their self-stated outstanding qualifications for graduate studies, etc.).

This surprised me, although maybe it shouldn't have. Does it surprise you? Is this normal behavior in your program or field?

My usual approach to these things is to be as non-judgmental for as long as possible. Some of the student email I get in my normal professorial existence can be classified as "clueless" (I am somewhat sympathetic to these, as I consider myself to have been among the clueless at the applying-to-grad-school stage of my life). But never in 57 million years would it have occurred to me to write to an administrator (other than the graduate director of a department) to introduce myself and lobby for admission.

Yes, I know it is best not to psychoanalyze a student's motivations in sending one of these emails, but that's what we do in blogs.. sometimes. Also, it doesn't really matter what I think about these students because I don't make the admissions decisions, even if some students seem to think that I do.

Pecking Order

While perusing some books and articles on academic administration, I tried to set myself a little challenge that would help me keep reading and not either fall into a boredom-induced stupor or fling the book/e-reader across the room because the author makes so many unjustified and insulting assumptions. And that challenge was to see how far in the book/article it took for me to find something, anything, that was interesting or useful to me.

For some of these books/articles, the challenge is never met and I wonder if this is more a reflection of my administrative inadequacies than the apparent boringness of the reading material, but in one book (by C.K. Gunsalus), I found one thing that perked me up for few moments, a few chapters into the book. And that was a statement that every member of the faculty and all of the "secretaries", as well as most of the grad students and other staff members in academic departments knows exactly what the "pecking order" of faculty is; that is, a hierarchy of sorts, based on I-don't-know-what, but indicated by various "intangible" things.

The intangible items that are listed are a bit bizarre and (along with the mention of "secretaries") made me check when the book was published: the Dean's sherry party? getting your own name on letterhead? etc. But let's ignore that and focus on the "pecking order" concept.

Without defining it or its basis any more than I already have(n't):

Do you think your department has a "pecking order" (and are you faculty, staff, or a student)? If so, what do you think the basis for it is? Research awesomeness? Personality? Other?

And what are the consequences? (salary, office/lab space, invitations to sherry parties)

Is this a bad thing, a neutral thing, a good thing?

I suspect that your comments will make for more interesting reading than any of these guides to academic administrating.

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new*

To: femalscienceprofessor@gmail.com

How come you are so fixated upon your gender.A female professor in science is nothing new.Should I state that I am a male professor and include that in every e-mail really?
Sent from my iPad

Yes, please do that.




* Samuel Beckett, male writer

I May Have Mail

Upon achieving semi-galactic status in a particular academic unit, my mailbox was moved from its traditional spot amidst the throngs of regular faculty and researcher mailboxes up to an exalted location at the very top of the mailbox warren.

My staff said to me "If you want, we can get your mail for you and bring it to your Awesome Office and put it in a special mail-place like we did for your Distinguished Predecessors".

I thought, "That's silly, I'll just pick up my mail on one of my 57 daily trips through the office with the mailboxes."

But. I soon realized the flaw in my plan: I am too short to see into my new majestically elevated mailbox. This was not a problem for my predecessors, all of whom are men, going back into the 19th century.

Would it somehow detract from my attempt to cultivate an aura of gravitas if I placed a little step-stool by the mailboxes?

Now Stand in the Place Where You Work

When I used to blog 5 days/week, it was easy to come up with topics. No topic was too trivial, it seemed. Since I haven't been blogging every weekday, suddenly each potential post comes with extra baggage: is this topic important enough for a rare post? I ask myself. How can I write about mundane issues when I haven't even commented on the fact that some female Olympic athletes from certain countries (Japan, Australia) flew to London in coach class while the male athletes were in business class? Also, there has recently been an amazing outpouring of letters on behalf of FSP-as-mentor (thank you everyone for this); shouldn't I write something mentor-y? etc.

Maybe I should, but today I am not. Because it's summer? My blog muscles are flaccid? All this is to warn you that the infrequency of my blogging does not correlate with the importance of my blog-topics when a rare post appears.

What I was obsessing about recently (and not for the first time) is how we arrange our faculty offices so that people (students, colleagues) can visit us and have an obvious and convenient place to sit. I think about this particular topic:

- when I visit some other faculty offices*; and
- when people visit my office;

(* but not in my own department!; my colleagues mostly have the visitor-chair situation figured out very well. I cannot, however, say that I have this figured out for my own office.)

Despite the fact that many of us have visitors in our offices multiple times every day, it is amazing to me how many times I go to someone else's faculty office for an extended chat and it is not clear where I should sit. In some cases, there is no available chair, or no chair in an obvious place for conversing with the person whose office it is, and so on. Oh sure, there may be one or many chairs scattered about the office, but some or none of them seem safe/convenient/possible for sitting and conversing. It doesn't matter what type of institution it is -- giant university, small college: many of us are furniture-challenged when it comes to receiving visitors in our academic offices.

This is amazing to me, but in a hypocritical kind of way, as my office seems to confuse many people who stop by to chat. They seem perplexed: should they sit in the more comfortable place further from my desk or the less comfortable place closer to my desk? I contribute to the confusion when I occupy the more comfortable seating option rather than sitting at my desk (I do this because I no longer have a desktop computer so why not sit wherever I want? And also I find that sitting in a comfy seat rather than in my desk chair reduces this effect.) Many people choose to stand.

As it turns out, I actually have two offices, and I recently started reorganizing one to be more visitor-friendly. I don't really want to talk to people across a big wooden desk (well, sometimes I do, but most of the time I don't), and I don't want people to stand because they aren't sure where to sit. I also don't want to get up and walk across the room to sit in some other chairs every time someone stops by for a brief chat, etc.

So, how is your office arranged? (Fig. 1).  Do you talk to visitors across your desk? (That is, you are seated behind your desk, visitors are sitting or standing on the other side.) Or do your visitors typically sit in a chair at or near the end of your desk (or desk-like thing)? When you have visitors, do you move to a seating area away from your desk? Or something else?

Figure 1. Some possible office configurations.

And: Is your office arranged in a particular way for visitors because you have thought about how you want to interact with visitors, or because you don't really have a choice given size/furniture constraints?

And most important question: Do you have always/commonly/sometimes/never have to move piles of papers and other stuff off a chair so that a visitor can have a seat?

No, actually this is the most important question: Do you think it matters how your office is arranged with respect to where visitors sit? For example, does it affect how you interact with students and others? Can a well-arranged office make you a better mentor? Or not?

Popsicle Project - Video Instructions Part I

Here is a short video (4 minutes) explaining how to do the tech part of the popsicle puzzle project.

Popsicle Puzzle Project

I made the top popsicle puzzle project with my Girl Scout troop for Valentine's Day and started thinking that it could adapted for academic and notebooking purposes. So I put together a sample project (using both the front and back of the sticks) and showed it to several teachers. Many of them wanted to know when we could start working on it.

I liked it because it had a tech element to it (setting it up in Word) and the teachers liked that it could be used in just about every subject. I have a couple of classes lined up for after our state testing in May (we have four weeks after that till the end of the year). I'm making a rough guess that it will take four class periods to complete....and when you have four weeks to go to the end of the school year time consuming projects are appreciated :)

I put together two short videos that I will post explaining how the project is done both on the tech end and one the crafting end.