The Alcoholic Horndog Tenured Professor Stereotype: Wonder Boys
This movie is the Great White Whale in the Alcoholic Horndog Professor Stereotype series. It features a novelist-professor running around in a pink bathrobe fretting about how he can’t finish his novel, only to be redeemed by a quirky younger student whose last name is “Leer.” The description is enough to send my blood sugar into the stratosphere. Oddly enough, this one managed to be tolerable.
Meet the Professors:
Grady Tripp: A bathrobe-loving professor who wrote one good novel a long time ago and who is churning out a follow-up as large and as frightening as the opus from “The Shining.”
Walter Gaskell, Chair of the English Department: This dude is so dumb his blind dog knows he’s having an affair before he does.
Sara Gaskell, the Chancellor and Chair’s Spouse: Like many fantasy academics, she has a lot of spare time to maintain her marriage, her affair, her pregnancy and her greenhouse.
Hot Pepper Rating: There must be a pepper in there somewhere if these professors are fraternizing with each other.
Likelihood of Having an Undergrad Piece on the Side: Although Grady fends off the inexplicable affections of nubile Hannah (Katie Holmes), it’s implied that he’s enjoyed his fair share of the ladies and married one or two of them. The big change in Grady’s character is that he discovers his true love is a woman his own age.
Boozing and Drugging Quotient: Wine, pills, pot, self-pity.
Mental Condition: Grady has frequent “spells” that may be attributed to his lifestyle. Or maybe that bathrobe smells so bad that it makes him pass out.
Financial Fakery: Grady rents out a room to a student, so that seems logical. Yet the chair of the English department has the monetary wherewithal to purchase a jacket worn by Marilyn Monroe. As for the chancellor, being an administrator means you get a nice greenhouse.
Teaching Talent: Well, if you call acting as an accessory to a crime or two inspirational teaching, then I guess Grady is a good teacher.
Quotations: Grady in response to the fact that he’s trying to hide the murder of his lover’s dog: “I’ve got tenure.”
Grady to a student crashing at his pad: “I’m a teacher, not a Holiday Inn.”
Rip Torn: “I [weighty pretentious pause] am a WRITER!”
Conclusion: Michael Chabon wrote the book, so I thought it would at least be a well-written piece of syrupy professorial fluff. I was afraid that it would make professors look like useless skirt-chasing creeps, but it makes being a professor–or at least a creative-writing instructor–look like more fun than most other movies in the genre. Jury’s still out on naming a dog “Poe,” though.
Top Grad Student: It’s a tie!
And the winner is….nobody! There appears to be a deadlock between English and Media Studies that seems impossible to break, even with the extended deadline. The fair thing would actually be to hire the Media Studies candidate, seeing as s/he had the most combined votes through all 5 Top Grad Student contests. However, this being academia and all, who says anything is fair about anything? So here’s the typically academic solution to the problem: Not to hire anyone, no matter how qualified s/he may be and how much the dept might want a new faculty member. This is how we imagine the finale and the explanation of the decision…
"Historic neckties" from Noveau Larousse Ilustré (public domain)
It was a knock-down, drag-out search committee meeting at the end, with each side making its case for its candidate. Of course, as time went on, the English folks dug in, and so did the Media Studies contingent. But instead of thinking what might be best in the bigger picture, the animosity on each side only intensified to the point that hypothetical lead judge Henry Louis Gates wished he was back at the Beer Summit last summer and hypothetical host James Franco started wondering why he ever wanted to pursue a Ph.D.
With neither the English proponents or the Media Studies honks willing to give in, the stalemate ended with no agreement and no candidate hired. As the process dragged on and on, the English voting bloc started imagining no scenario under which it could stomach the Media Studies candidate, who now seemed insufferable and could never become a good colleague in its collective imagination, and vice versa. But in order to tie the whole botched search up with a bow, they needed to come down to a bureaucratic solution, which boiled down to some kind of financial excuse and something about needing to hold on to the tenure line and reopening the search next year. Of course, they dithered about the decision and left our candidates hanging–oh yeah, there was that Sociology contestant too, who almost got the job as a compromise choice.
As for our brave Top Grad Student contestants, they were left not knowing where they stood for too long, because the search committee held onto everyone just in case. Wouldn’t it be appropriate, considering the conditions of the real academic job market, that we went through this whole virtual process–more than 5 weeks, I think –but no one ended up with the job and the tenure line in limbo? Thanks to the tied vote, I think the virtual/reality contest actually resulted in the best, most representative ending we could have possibly had. Can’t you just imagine our contestants getting something like a “Dear Applicant” form email explaining how no one was ultimately hired, while encouraging them to apply again next year?
Thanks for voting and for playing along!
Time to herd the cats! Don’t get wrecked by your recs…
"Herd of Cats" by Boksi (Public Domain)
I’m not sure I’m the person who should be giving this advice, seeing as I can’t even decide whether to save the dossier I currently have or just let it be sent to the paper shredder, where it probably belongs at this point. But if I were to, say, start planning for the academic job market, which is closer to starting up than you think, I would probably at least start thinking about the most excruciating part of getting your application together: herding the cats–er, contacting your recommenders–so that you can have your dossier ready to go. You know you’re gonna procrastinate when it comes to actually carrying out the palm-sweating task of asking your mentors to write your recs, so at least put yourself into that mindset now. That way, you’ll actually be right on time after you keep putting it off–call it time doping!
What makes getting recs so stress-inducing is that it’s the only part of your application profile you really have zero control over. If your CV is either too weak or really straining the limits of credulity, that’s on you for doing too little and/or embellishing too much. If your cover letter is a mess and the job you’re applying for is a real stretch, that’s your responsibility. But you have almost no hand in your letters of rec, short of deciding whom you ask to advocate for you.
What’s out of your control–and what you can try to do about it–below the jump…
Ivory Tower Survival: A Sense of Detachment
The response to “Can Being a Lowly Grad Student Kill You?” was intense and informative. One of the comments led me to Bob Sutton’s book “The No Asshole Rule,” and this book needs to be shared with anyone who is about to enter the work force. Sutton argues that a) Assholery results in lost profits and b) Assholery is contagious, so unless you know how to handle a workplace asshole, you might turn into one yourself.
One of the best tips Sutton offers involves how to cope when you can’t escape an asshole. The Hamster World offers many more avenues of escape, but the Ivory Tower is difficult to navigate, and you may find yourself trapped with an asshole. You can’t fight back because assholes can wreck your career, but you can thwart the asshole by employing strategic detachment:
If you face constant abuse, then (until you can get out) going through the motions and “not letting it touch your soul” is one tactic that can help you survive with your self-esteem intact. In my view, when organizations and bosses treat their people badly, they get what they deserve when their people respond by becoming emotionally detached and doing as little as possible without getting fired. In this imperfect world, there are times when learning “not to give a shit” is the best short-term solution available.
A seasoned asshole wants a reaction from you in order to validate his or her own power. Encouraging the asshole only makes matters worse. It is tough to resist punching someone in the face, even if it is richly deserved, but doing so means you’ve just been infected with asshole syndrome. The best survival strategy is to look for a new advisor, a new field or flat-out a new career. At the very least, the asshole will lose interest in you and move on to more interesting prey.
Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Top Grad Student, Finale–Overtime!
Cause we can’t get enough of the virtual/reality show drama that “Top Grad Student” provides, we’re dragging this out a few more days–just what you wanted, right? That’s because we have a tie right now, between English and Media Studies, with 5 votes a piece. That does kinda replicate the whole excruciating waiting game of the academic job market, doesn’t it?, with our finalists stuck in limbo just a little longer.
I’m reposting the text of the finale contest below the fold, if you want the context…
What’s up with the anti-college screeds? Part 2
So we might have gotten into a little kerfuffle with our previous anti-college screed, which involved the author of the article we were snarking on, James Altucher, finding our little blog and responding in the comments thread. But, hey, if he’s fair game, so are we. This time around, we’re asking for even bigger trouble, because I’m going to comment on an author whose book I haven’t even read–don’t tell me that, as an academic, you didn’t refer to or engage a text that you never cracked open, whether as an undergrad, grad, or prof! Anyhow, I’m going to deal with Claudia Dreifus’s anti-college screed based on a Q+A she did with More magazine, so I’m basically going to launch into a polemic based on this. I guess I could play it safe and just say that I’m responding to this interview, and not the book she’s promoting, called Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids–and What We Can Do About It, co-written with Andrew Hacker.
It wouldn’t quite be fair to say that Dreifus is as extreme as Altucher, because she doesn’t suggest *not* attending college, advocating, instead, cuts to make college more affordable and suggesting that parents find good fits for their kids. Couldn’t argue with that, right? But that doesn’t really make contrarian headlines, either. The interview, titled “Is College Worth the Cash?”, begins with a provocative quote from Dreifus:
Don’t send your kids to a status symbol. That’s what an Ivy League undergraduate education often is. At Yale and Harvard, undergraduate teaching is too often an afterthought; at the University of Pennsylvania, the classes can be as large as at many public universities. You’re really paying for the name.
Egad–say it ain’t so that UPenn might be in any way like a “public university”! So, from the get-go, we might want to bracket the question of “Is college worth the cash?” with one asking if a “status symbol” Ivy League or equivalent worth the dough? We should preface these questions by noting that Dreifus should know, seeing as she is herself an adjunct prof at Columbia, and probably not the poor kind of exploited, can’t-find-a-tenure-track adjunct, methinks.
But like James Altucher’s gadfly-esque piece, Dreifus’s interview begins with the same faulty premise: That the most expensive education at an elite Ivy League institution is the best measure of the worth and value of a college education, when that’s actually a possibility applicable to a very small constituency of students.
More below the jump…
The Impostor, the Hamster and You
A person at the Live Journal applying to grad site asked a good question: How does one deal with impostor syndrome?
Now, this person shouldn’t feel like an impostor. This person got into Stanford. The members of the Live Journal group were super-supportive, which is great to see, as the academy doesn’t always get props for having a supportive community.
Impostor Syndrome is a common problem for academics. But why all the low self-esteem? Academics are among the best and brightest. Here are some of the top sources of Impostor Syndrome, at least in my own experience:
The realization that you haven’t read everything. The reading lists for most grad programs can turn a confident person into a sufferer of Impostor Syndrome right quick. Everyone will seem smarter than you, and they will speak more languages than you do.
Hamster image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
(more…)
Top Grad Student finale: Polls close in a few days!
Hope everyone is having a good weekend! We’re putting in a plug to get folks to vote in our “Top Grad Student” finale, which is in the campus visit round. However, voting might be futile, thanks to a very committed Media Studies constituency, which has put our Media Studies contestant at the top week in, week out. Here are the results, up to this point:
Week 1, CV writing — Winners: English, Media Studies (Loser: Poli Sci)
Week 2, curriculum builder — Winner: Media Studies (Losers: Engineering, History, Physics)
Week 3, extracurriculars — Winner: Media Studies (Loser: Math)
Week 4, convention interviews — Winner: Media Studies (Loser: Life Sciences)
So far, English is putting up a good fight and it might come down to the wire for this one. Polls close on Tuesday!
Dolph Lundgren, Post Academic muscle
"Dolph203" by Soman (Creative Commons license)
In case any of you are feeling frisky and/or testy in the comments section, we’ve found Post Academic’s enforcer and bouncer–introducing, Dolph Lundgren! We mention this, because Lundgren has been making the rounds promoting the really-bad-idea of a blockbuster, The Expendables. You know, it’s the movie that stars the washed-up action heroes of our youth, including, somehow, the sitting governor of a state that basically has no budget to fund its public colleges and universities. (Working hard, huh, Governator?) Don’t know whose idea The Expendables was, but Lundgren is probably the only one bright enough to realize it’s a bad one.
Most famous for playing good comrade baddie Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Lundgren was actually a Fulbright scholar studying–get this–Chemical Engineering. A graduate of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden with a M.A. in Chem-E from the University of Sydney, Lundgren was awarded a Fulbright to attend M.I.T., which he did for a few weeks before quitting to go to acting school. According to an old interview with talentdevelop.com, Lundgren explained that he just didn’t want to go any further with his studies, which he apparently pursued as long as he did out of familial duty, since his father and older brother are engineers. Here’s how Sylvester Stallone describes his fake nemesis:
“Contrary to the way he looks he’s actually really smart,” Sylvester said of Dolph. “He’s, like, this beautiful guy, 6ft. 5ins. Viking guy, 29ins waist. I’m like, ‘He’s got to be a moron,’ and then I find out he’s an MIT graduate, he’s done chemical engineering, he’s a full scholar. I’m like, ‘Are you serious? Him?’ Can you imagine him in a lab going, ‘Yes. I will cure this rat of something?’ It’s amazing, look at the transformation. From scientist to savage.”
My favorite line is how Stallone calls him a “full scholar,” like he’s trying to remember the term Fulbright, but just quite can’t.
And it seems like Dolph really is some kind of renaissance man: in addition to being kind of a post academic and the archetypal ’80s fake-Russian villain, Lundgren knows a ton of languages (besides his native Swedish, English, and bad movie dialogue), served in some kind elite military service, is a martial arts expert, and was the Team Leader/coordinator of the 1996 U.S. Olympic Pentathlon Team. So for you post-grads and soon-to-be-Ph.D.s on the fence about what to do next, but are ambivalent about hanging on as academics, you could do worse than to ask yourself “What Would Dolph Do” when you’re in a pinch. The next time you think about the academic job market, just imagine it in the place of Rocky Balboa as you utter Drago’s immortal lines to yourself: “I must break you.” That, or wax philosophical by telling yourself, “If he dies, he dies,” as you’re waiting for the campus visit phone call that’s never coming. Talk about expendable!
Academic Stereotype Fun With Urban Dictionary
I usually wind up visiting Urban Dictionary when I hear a term I don’t understand on VH1, and the definition is usually much worse than I thought. The site also provides sassy definitions for ordinary terms, and the definitions for “professor” offer abundant proof that the academy desperately needs to work on its PR campaign. The second most popular definition on the site is the following:
A person who is an expert at his or her field of study.
Professors do not have a degree in education or teaching.
Matter of fact, I don’t know why the silly bastards are allowed to teach without a degree in education.Want to know why Professors suck at grading? Because they were never taught how to grade…They were not taught how to teach.
If you don’t like that, you don’t want to see what the visitors to Urban Dictionary have to say about “grad students.” Many of the other definitions were along the same lines, although I was partial to “Someone who talks in someone else’s sleep,” which admits that some students will fall asleep in class even if the teacher does cartwheels and sets off fireworks.
We’ve all had lousy professors and lecturers, but the disrespect handed to teachers and grad students is on a par with the attitude toward lawyers. And at least lawyers make enough money to soothe the sting. I wish they had a comments section so I could add, “They work hard, you know. In fact, I worked so much as a grad student that I found the Hamster World to be a more relaxing alternative.”
