I’ve been meaning to write something ever since this was College Misery, and then partially revised (or revived) College Misery, and then it was somebody whose name began with a K, and then I think it was that Hiram guy, and now it’s a horse. So what’s been germinating all this time? It has to do with heroes. I was thinking of heroes when looking through the Chronicle of Higher Ed forum section, and there was a thread about how to make the world better. Without going on too long about the overall character and tone of the Chronicle forum, I would just say that these are NOT the people I’d go to with regard to making the world better. Who would I go to? Well, through some weird twists of fate or circumstance or some sort of supernatural decree, you guys are my academic heroes.
It’s not uncritical love, by any means. Yes, I do think some regulars need to call a “whaaambulance.” There are other regulars with whom I would never serve on a committee. I don’t have much patience for anyone who goes on about how much smarter they are than the department chair (so use your incredible gifts and intelligence to HELP the chair). That “silverback” guy in the “silverback’s lament”? Except for a couple of over-the-top satirical statements, he sounded pretty reasonable to me. And I can’t get through more than two or three sentences of Yaro at a time—I’m sorry. I mean, he seems like a gentleman and a scholar and all that, but… yeah, I just tried again. Couldn’t make it.
But… well, you’re the ones who are there. You show up. You keep your appointments. You teach, provide service, and perform scholarship with whatever emotional and institutional resources you have. And you talk about it—often with pain, rage, humor and eloquence. I’m trying to do what you all are trying to do, too.
I haven’t had many academic heroes. In the Chronicle, there was a regular who posted under “Henry Adams.” He wrote some funny and humane stuff about graduate school and the job search, and he threw in some funny Catch-22 references when he named the people in his life. Even better, though, was that he made the right people angry. Or at least, the right person. There was a poster named Spyzowin—far and away the most mean, cruel, vicious, empathy-less individual in the Chronicle comments lineup (at the time), and I’m certain that as I write this, he’s out somewhere killing a mockingbird. Henry Adams pissed this guy off. He even started a whole thread on how to stop Henry Adams. Clearly, this Adams guy was doing something right. Adams stopped contributing, maybe two or three essays past the point where he really had something to say. But he was something of a hero, at least for a while.
That was when I needed a hero, too. I was an adjunct for a long, long time. I went roughly 4 years putting together something like a $30,000 a year salary by stringing a few part-time gigs together. By the way, you also don’t go to the Chronicle forum for adjunct advice. Their most eloquent (or at least verbose) spokesperson is an unholy amalgam of Frederick Winslow Taylor (the father of “Scientific Management”) and Deacon Thomas Rhodes from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Boil down the thousands of words, and he or she pretty much says if you’re putting together several part-time adjunct gigs together to make a living, you’re an idiot who deserves what you get, and if you tell your unfortunate story, you’re trafficking in “adjunct porn.” (Plus the amount of adjuncts who do suffer are statistically insignificant, and always will be.) The one advocate FOR adjuncts is a full-blown troll on all the other threads, and has, to put it generously, some difficulty in putting together a coherent sentence. So heroes are in short supply.
And now? I’ve played the game for a little while longer, with some success, as a tenured associate prof at a state school with a 4-4 load. The job began as a full-time temporary position—the Dean asked me, “What do we need to do to get you to accept this job?” My reply: “Ask.” That was the extent of my negotiating.
Since then, the closest I’ve come to a hero is one in reverse—there’s an academic in the Midwest whom I use as a near-perfect backwards compass in matters ranging from teaching pedagogy to Woody Allen movies to what constitutes good acting, as well as how to behave like something resembling a decent human being. The reverse compass thing isn’t perfect—we voted for the same person for president—but it generally serves well enough. So for unironic inspiration, I’ve pretty much got you guys.
Thank you for what you do. I might even try to get through a Yaro essay again. Not right now, of course. But soon.
CM and its various flowerings are pretty much it in terms of succor for me.
ReplyDeleteEven when Batshit U was a great place to work (i.e. before we installed President Gol Dintalead) CM kept me going.
Academic heroes? Pretty much the same as GLT XII: I have a hero in reverse (amazing guy, but not in a good way), an adviser from grad school, and the CM crowd.
And then there's the mods. Holy crap, I look up to those guys.
As one might guess from my hanging around this place in its various incarnations for the past four years or so, its denizens are my academic heroes.
ReplyDeleteFor local heroes, I propose Wensleydale and Limburger, who have both shown tremendous personal growth of late. Wensleydale is no longer surveying "focus groups" of students from junior proffies' courses, the results of which he'd used mostly to embarrass said proffies in front of their peers. Whereas, like a dog in a new yard, upon achieving assistant dean status Limburger had set about pissing on everything in his purview, now he is actually listening to his faculty and getting their buy-in before implementing new projects. So: progress!
Aah, who am I kidding? Wensleydale isn't bothering new junior faculty anymore because there aren't any; almost every recent search has failed. We did manage to hire someone last autumn, but she was immediately shielded from Wensleydale by tenure-track proffies who know his shtick. So maybe we can thank this series of events for giving rise to our new peer mentoring program.
Limburger was promoted by The Big Dean in part because of "his success" with the Really Big Project. Because I had a big hand in implementing the project, my colleagues hold me responsible for Limburger's advancement beyond his level of competence, as well as their having to continue the project (another case of a one-time "above and beyond" becoming the new minimum expectation).
It's usually fortunate that Wensleydale's self-importance can accommodate fucking up only one thing at a time, but now that thing is Limburger. However, rather than take on Limburger directly, Old W thought it would be swell to form a committee to "improve" our faculty governance. I'd been part of similar efforts before, so despite some reservations about working with W, I signed up.
Then Wensleydale did everything he had done to the last committee I'd been on with him. "Our proposal" (more correctly, his shitty idea to which he attached our names) was garnering significant resistance even before it had gone to full senate. On the one hand, simply letting it crash and burn would both chasten Wensleydale and lead to the opportunity to craft a better proposal, a tempting result. On the other hand, the ordeal would leave faculty further divided.
Like a dog who can't help but chase cars, I felt that I could fix this (and inaction was intolerable), so I assembled another damn committee. We deliberated and submitted a new proposal, the executive council picked it over Wensleydale's, and the senate approved it. The Big Dean, Limburger and the other assistant deans, my department chair, etc. might not be fully aware of the bullet they dodged, and I didn't do anything in order that I might be praised, but nonetheless it felt good that a few thanked me---surprisingly, Wensleydale among them.
So maybe Limburger and Wensleydale aren't my heroes, but they do help me grow. And I am quite fortunate to have the optimism and jaded pragmatism embodied individually and collectively in my colleagues Bryndza, Feta, Panquehue, and Stilton, about whom I've written several times.