Listen Up

Imagine that you have been making one particular not-very-complicated point for many years in various faculty meetings, individual discussions, memos, and e-mails. This point is about an administrative matter, not something related to your research; say, something involving the undergraduate curriculum (for example).

In recent years, you have made this point many times because your department has been discussing the curriculum a lot. When relevant and necessary, you say something like "Science 201 is an important class because it lays the foundation for every other Science class. It is the only one that involves concepts related to the dynamics of kangaroos, the moons of Saturn, and the novels of Willa Cather."

Most of your colleagues are convinced, but for some reason, the issue keeps coming up again and again: Is Science 201 still an important class, or is it a relic to which some of us are clinging because we hate change? Does this class integrate different aspects of Science? Is it broad or narrow? Is it fundamental?

These are important issues to discuss for any class. It is worthwhile to reexamine the curriculum from time to time and make sure that it meets the needs of the students. You don't mind in general having to justify this course and its continued place in the curriculum, but you do find it frustrating to make the same point again and again because certain people either don't believe you or aren't paying attention.

Furthermore, it isn't actually your own *special class* you are defending, although you have taught the class, so no one should discount your opinion on the grounds that you are just defending turf.

Now imagine that one of the colleagues who has most often brought up the issue of whether Science 201 is important (or not), and who is one of the primary reasons why you have to repeat yourself so often about the importance of this class, stops you in the hall and enthuses about an interesting talk he heard by a brilliant senior scientist at a conference. This brilliant man said that Science 201 is an important class because it is the only one that involves concepts related to the dynamics of kangaroos, the moons of Saturn, and the novels of Willa Cather! Did you know this? Maybe you could incorporate some elements of this idea into the class when you teach it?!

And maybe, if you use some of Brilliant Man's ideas and methods, the course could become as interesting and relevant as your colleague's courses are.

Question:

Does this mean that you have finally won because your colleague seems convinced that the course is relevant and important?

Or have you lost because your colleague, to this day, does not recognize that you have been making this same point to no apparent effect until it was said by a Brilliant Man?

The answer is: both. You may now have less trouble justifying a course that you feel is essential to the undergraduate program, thereby benefiting students (if you are right about the importance of the course), but you are still just a yapping female (in this case) with nothing of significance to say, even about topics with which you have some expertise.

Too bad that Science 201 is likely to be somehow flawed whenever you teach it because how could you do it right when you are not a Brilliant Man?

Of course one must consider the possibility that the Brilliant Man made a more compelling, eloquent case than you were ever capable of doing, but, after careful consideration, you find this explanation insufficient.

And perhaps the most depressing thing of all is that the Colleague Who Doesn't Listen To You is a junior colleague.

Not For Sale

A reader sent me this link to a blog post by someone who thinks that every employee on a state university campus should be well trained in sales and hospitality services. With such training, when unexpectedly encountering a person who may or may not be the parent of a potential applicant to the university, state university employees can go into recruitment mode, using tried-and-true methods that any competent salesperson would know.

In fact, according to the blog post, everyone the blogger in question met on the campus of Iowa State University was polite and tried to help him in some way. They just didn't help him in exactly the way he wanted to be helped, using the specific language a real salesperson would use.

According to the blog post, here are some of the things that campus workers are supposed to do when encountering someone who might be the parent of a potential applicant to the university, including those people who are lying about being such a parent, like the blogger in question:

1. Say hi! Smile! You are an employee of a state university, and therefore part of your job is to recruit students. Oh sure, you can spend your time on teaching, research, or whatever else you think your job entails blah blah blah, but that's no substitute for a big smile and a hello. It's even better if your smile and greeting appear reasonably sincere, something best accomplished if you can somehow banish from your mind the phrase "helicopter parent".

2. After the friendly hello/smile, ask an open-ended question. Do not ask: Can I help you? or Can I help you find something? when you see an unknown adult who might be the parent of a potential applicant wandering around your campus building. Those are unfriendly questions that demonstrate your ignorance of sales techniques.

OMG, I am so glad to know this now. Sometimes when I am working in my office or walking the halls of my campus building, doing some task that fills the gaps in time between when I can go into sales/recruitment mode for my university, a person unknown to me will walk into my office or appear lost and confused in the hall, and I will say something like "Can I help you?" or "Are you looking for something (or someone)?" Out of total ignorance, I have definitely asked questions like that before. Of course, most of the time the person is looking for something specific, but apparently there is a huge huge difference between "Can I help you?" (an unfriendly yes/no question) and "What can I help you with today?" (a sales-friendly question that is more open-ended).

3. Engage these strangers in conversation. Ask them questions about themselves, their children, where they live, why they are here on campus. Never mind that you probably have 57 things that need doing right now. This is not about you. Knock down walls between you and them.

4. Thank the person you just met. I am so glad that I learned about this one because this, also, would not have occurred to me. Now I am revealed to myself and others as a selfish, self-absorbed lout. I would have expected that the person asking me for information and interrupting my day would thank me, but no, this is not about me me me.

5. Get the hypothetical parent's contact information. Once again, ask them for information about themselves. Do I really need to say this again? This is not about you or even, apparently, about your university.

At this point, I feel the need to make an abject confession about an example of a personal sales FAIL. A few years ago, a man and his son looked into my office, I asked if I could help them (FAIL!), and the man said that his son was interested in Science, so they were just looking around. I asked them if they had any questions (FAIL!), and they both had some. They were pretty good questions, and I spent a few minutes answering them. The father asked me about my research, so I told them a bit about that. I gave the kid a geeky little science gizmo thing that I had lying around my office in great abundance, and this seemed to thrill him. They thanked me for my time, the information, and the gift (FAIL for them!), and went away without my asking them for their names (FAIL!) or contact information (FAIL!).

Now, despite the great effort and perhaps physical pain this will cause me, I am going to attempt to make some sarcasm-free comments about the general issue of the role of university employees in interacting with non-academic citizens who wander onto campus for real or mendacious purposes. I shall address these comments to people who might share the views of the blogger who visited Iowa State, if there are any:

It is bizarre to expect that all campus employees should follow the same rules for sales that might be used by, say, a car salesman. We are not selling cars. Try not to be so judgmental and oversensitive. Give people a break if they don't conform to your strange ideas about exactly how they should be asking you if they can help you.

Employees at a state university work for you in the same indirect way that public school teachers or police officers or garbage collectors work for you and everyone in the community; all of us collectively benefit the community by doing our jobs, but you do not get to take up our time whenever and however you want, especially if you don't really understand the purpose of our jobs.

Example: Administrative assistants who sit at the front lines of department offices are extremely busy people. Part of their job is to help visitors who wander by the office, and there are an extraordinary number who do wander by. Not all of these visitors are polite or able to explain what they want.

If you do happen to drop by a department office with a question, you can expect a polite response, but you cannot expect that a lot of time and energy will suddenly be diverted to helping you. Administrative assistants can direct you to a source of information that will answer your question; it is bizarre to be offended if this source of information is a website, and no, you don't get to use a computer in a department office even if you are pretending to be the parent of a potential applicant.

Here's a thought exercise: Imagine that you wander into a department office, posing as the parent of a potential applicant to the university, and you walk up to the administrative assistant's desk. In the last half hour, this person has had their work interrupted by 3 or 8 other people stopping by with requests for information or to ask for help with tasks that need to be done right away. There have also been a few phone calls in between these visits, as well as e-mails that need immediate responses. In addition, an undergraduate student just stopped by to drop off his late homework at his professor's office or mailbox, but he doesn't know the name of the professor. The phone rings again. Then you walk in and mention that your son might be interested in applying to the university. When the administrative assistant doesn't respond in exactly the way that you want (with questions about your name and your life and your interests, and an offer to use a computer or talk to a professor), you decide to send your fictitious son to another university. Who is the unreasonable person in this scenario?

If you want to come to campus and walk around, you are most welcome. The campuses of state universities are public places, and there are many interesting things to see and do. You can even wander around department buildings, looking at hall displays or admiring the architecture. If you want to talk to someone, you can call or e-mail and make an appointment.

Learn about universities and how they work. They are amazing places. And think, what do you really want in a university: a campus filled with employees who greet you insincerely and ask you to talk about yourself, or a university that is busy with professors, staff, and students who are working hard at the jobs they are supposed to be doing?

Personal Growth Experience for Sexist Jerks, reprise

A few years ago, I posed the question:

What do you do if someone you know to be a long-time sexist jerk is selected for a position of responsibility in a professional organization that directly impacts the lives of women academics, their funding, and therefore their chances of career advancement?

The context: I was upset to learn that a certain person had been given just such a job, but I felt that there was nothing I could reasonably do about it except feel anxious. The man had already been hired into his new position, and I did not feel that a "Oh by the way, he has a problem treating women (and some men) in a respectful way" note from me to the institution that hired him would do anything but show that I was an oversensitive and possibly vindictive person.

The optimists among us hoped that this position of responsibility would be a 'personal growth' experience for him, and that he would become a more mature and respectful person, as required by his new position. I had known him for >20 years and was skeptical that such a growth/maturity episode was going to occur anytime soon.

That was a few years ago, and now we know how the story turned out. This man did not experience any personal growth, and may even have gotten worse once in a position of power. He was quickly removed from all official roles that involved making decisions about research involving female investigators. His behavior towards women in his new job was apparently deemed unacceptable by the people who worked with him, and they took action to limit the damage. I was very impressed that they did this.

I would have been more impressed if he had not been hired in the first place. This man was hired based on his research record, which was very good, but his appointment to this job had shocked quite a number of people -- women and men -- who had seen him in action over the years at meetings, as a reviewer, as a colleague. It really would not have taken too much effort for his potential employers to find out more about his attitudes and methods of working with other people, an important component of his new job. His behavior in his new job was totally consistent with his mode of operation in the decades before.

And now he's moved on, I know not where.

At some point during this man's time in that particular job, he told a mutual colleague that I had always been very competitive with him, even when we were undergraduates. My apparently long-term competitiveness with him was news to me. When we first met, I didn't even know if I wanted to go to graduate school, and, if I did go to graduate school, I didn't know if I wanted to get a PhD, and even if I did get a PhD, it didn't occur to me to imagine myself at a big university (at the time, I was interested only in possibly teaching at a small liberal arts college). Competitive Sexist Jerk Guy, however, had known he wanted to be a professor at a big university since he was 2 years old. Perhaps he was projecting his own competitiveness and/or his disappointment (bitterness?) at never having the sort of career he wanted, whereas I ended up with that sort of career.

I think he's a sad person with lots of emotional problems that may be far beyond his control, but it's a lot easier for me to feel sorry for him now that he has moved on.

Mean Women

Quite often, I get e-mail that goes something like this:

"A female professor/supervisor was really mean and unfair to me. What's up with that? I thought women were supposed to be really nice and supportive because there are so few of them/us. How are women ever going to get ahead in science/engineering/math if some women are really mean?"

Some of these complaints are from young women who are disappointed that they had a negative experience with someone they hoped would be a mentor.

Some of these complaints are from men who note that if women want to be respected, we had all better start behaving better (because of course every single woman is a representative of all other women).

Is there really any mystery here? Some women are jerks. Men do not have a monopoly on jerk behavior. The existence of male jerks has not stopped men from succeeding.

I wish there were fewer jerks in the world and I am not defending female jerks or condoning their behavior or lacking empathy for their victims, but at the same time I think it is unwise (and not quite fair) to expect all women to be nice.

I also think that the belief that successful women "pull up the ladder" so that younger women cannot attain similar levels of success is a myth based on assorted anecdotes of not-nice behavior by some women.

I think that I am overall a somewhat nice person, but that doesn't mean I am consistently nice, or that I am nice to everyone. Does my lack of total niceness mean that I am an obstacle to the progress of women in science? Does anyone believe that the only way women will attain increased representation in the sciences (for example) is if every single female scientist is super nice to everyone all the time?

A related question: Does anyone really believe that the world's problems will be solved when there are more female leaders? I think there should be more female leaders of the countries of the world, but only because women make up ~50% of the world population and because some women are fully capable of being in charge of a country. I am not under any illusions that world peace will automatically ensue once more women are presidents and prime ministers.

When more women are given the opportunity to be in positions of power, whether over countries or academic science department or even over individuals in scientific research groups, a wrong will have been righted -- i.e., the systematic denial of opportunity to people for reasons unrelated to their abilities or qualifications -- and maybe some things will get better. Maybe there will be fewer unfair barriers to career opportunities and advancement for women in STEM fields, and maybe academic culture will overall be improved for everyone when there is more diversity of experience and opinion represented in these fields.

Maybe. Just don't expect all women to be "nice", either nice according to a universally accepted unisex definition of the term or nice according to a more restricted perception for how women should behave.

What I Said

Yesterday I described how a Great Man of Science sat in my office and explained to me some exciting research done by one of my recent PhD students and me, as if the work had instead been done by one of our collaborators, a very famous scientist (the Other Great Man of Science mentioned in yesterday's post).

What did I do?

First I wanted to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding the conversation. Did he really have no clue that I was involved in this research or was he just expressing himself in an awkward way, focusing for some reason on the fact that my famous colleague supervises the lab in which one part of the research was done (by my student) and just not expressing himself well?

It soon became clear that he had no clue. His further statements proved it.

I have previously been in situations in which someone didn't realize that I was one of many co-authors on a paper, and that hasn't bothered me as long as I really was a minor co-author.

In the case under discussion here, however, I was offended because Great Man didn't even remember that we had met not-so-long ago (~ 6 months) at a multi-day workshop that focused entirely on this research, much less that I was one of the organizers of the workshop. He thought he was telling me something I didn't know.

In talking to him, it was clear to me that, in his mind, this research was associated only with Other Great Man of Science. Despite the fact that he had abundant evidence to the contrary during the workshop ~6 months ago, he had erased the existence of the rest of us from his awareness of this research: the students, a not-famous but nevertheless awesome colleague, and me. In his casual conversation about this research, the only one worth mentioning was the Other Great Man of Science.

Other Great Man of Science is definitely not responsible for this situation. He is a nice person, a quiet man, and a great supporter of all students involved in our project. He has been generous with his time and research facilities, and he is not a back-stabber. Our research collaboration involving 3 professors at 3 institutions and students at each place has been successful because of positive interactions among the groups.

For Great Man to believe that this research should be credited to Other Great Man, and to express this to my (apparently forgettable) face, with no recollection that I had even been at that workshop, was truly strange. It was not malicious. The Great Man's habit of savoring the names of other famous men was a feature of his visit to my department. At one point, he compared himself to Max Planck.

So this is what I did after swiftly contemplating my options:

I said something similar to what many commenters to yesterday's post indicated that they would have said. I said "Yes, of course I know about that research because a large part of it has been my work." Then I launched into a calm but very detailed description of the project, highlighting the work of my student, placing Other Great Man's contributions in context, and describing the evolution of the project. I wondered whether, even though he clearly didn't remember me, he remembered the excellent presentations of my former student, Young Awesome Scientist, from the workshop? I continued to elaborate for a while about the research, in what I hoped was an authoritative but nice way.

He was definitely somewhat embarrassed, although I don't think the feeling went too deep. He mumbled something about not being good with names and faces, then changed the subject to his favorite topic: himself and other famous people he knows.

Right after my monologue and his mumbled excuse, he said "Oh, so your field is Z? I know The Greatest Man of Z Science of the Last Half of the 20th Century. Have you ever met him?"

Indeed I have. I do get out now and then, including to workshops that I help organize on fascinating research topics that even attract Great Men of Science as participants, although some of them, despite being impressed by the research, have a selective memory about the experience later.

Invisible Me

Not long ago, a Great Man of Science came to my department, gave some talks, and met with faculty, students, and researchers. I have met him before, most recently ~ 6 months ago, but we do not know each other well at all.

I expected him to be familiar with only one part of my research; i.e., research on topic X, as it was in the context of my work on X that we most recently met. Therefore, during my individual meeting with him in my office, I was amazed to hear him say:

My good friend, Other Great Man of Science, is doing some really interesting work on X right now. In fact, he is transforming the way we think about X, and has some recent results that are very exciting.

I was stunned when he said this, and sought clarification. I thought maybe I heard him wrong or somehow misunderstood.

I was stunned because he was talking about my research group's work on X.

The interesting ideas and results have not been generated by my collaborator, Other Great Man of Science, who is at another university. In fact, the exciting results are primarily the work of one of my recent PhD students, as part of her doctoral thesis work.

Other Great Man of Science was a collaborator on the NSF grant that funded this work, but he has not been the most active member of the group and has not been a driving force behind the research. In fact, although I enjoy working with Other Great Man, his part of the project has been lagging.

My PhD student (now graduated) has been the most visible person doing this research and making the interesting discoveries and interpretations. Great Man also met her 6 months ago and saw her present her research results, at length. Yet Great Man erased her from his perception of the collaboration as well. In his mind, the only person worth remembering or mentioning is Other Great Man of Science.

It was surreal to have my group's research described to me by someone else and attributed to a colleague, as if my student and I did not exist.

My ego, which is generally healthy but not too huge on most days, was wounded, but not mortally so, as I am dealing with the situation by wallowing in outrage and contempt for this particular Great Man of Science (as a person, not as a scientist).

I hasten to say that Other Great Man of Science is not responsible for this situation. He has not taken undue credit for the research. In fact, he has been very supportive of my student and would be the first to confirm that it is primarily her work and that she has made the most interesting discoveries of the work thus far.

It is Great Man of Science's perception of the research that is the problem. He sees his famous friend; the rest of us either don't exist or can't possibly be important. Given the incredible amount of name-dropping he did during his talks in my department, this may be a habit with him.

If you had been in my place when this Great Man gave credit to his famous friend for the ideas and work of one of your students and/or you, despite the fact that you and your student had published and given talks on the research (and Other Great Man had not) and you knew that Great Man had been present at those talks (and had asked questions at the time), what would you have done? Confronted him immediately? Let it slide because who cares what he thinks -- he won't change his ideas and why cause an embarrassing situation, assuming the Great Man of Science is capable of being embarrassed? Expressed anger? Used humor? Nodded silently? Wondered if he was losing his mind?

Later I shall reveal what I did, but for now this post is a cliff-hanger.

Ruined

Imagine that there is one research group that doesn’t like or respect another. It is perhaps not so difficult to imagine such a scenario. In such cases, the people involved typically deal with the conflict in ways that may include aggressive tactics, passive-aggressive behavior, or simply benign dislike. Some of these interactions stay entirely professional and the disagreeing factions confine their battlefields to the literature and conference presentations. In other cases the disagreements become more personal.

Other aspects of inter-research group conflicts include whether the conflicts involve only the principal investigators or whether other members of research groups are involved, and whether the conflicts are mutual or largely one-sided (e.g. one group feels hostile towards another, but the group that is the target of the ire doesn’t participate in the conflict or even really care).

I recall an incident in which I met a particular person for the first time at a conference. We had both been graduate students at about the same time at different universities with advisers working in a broadly similar field, and had become professors at semi-neighboring institutions. This other person noted that it was unlikely that we would get along very well because my adviser had been his/her adviser’s “nemesis”. I thought that was a strange remark; I had no particular feelings of hostility towards anyone in that group, and I don’t think my adviser did either, even if he didn’t agree with some of their research methods and interpretations. I would call that an example of a one-sided conflict.

Now consider a different situation – one in which a faculty member in Research Group 1 tells a recent PhD graduate of Research Group 2 that the student made a huge mistake in choice of adviser and had probably ruined his/her career by working with this person. This is an example of a conflict that broadens to include various members of a research group, not just the principal investigators.

Is there any circumstance in which this is an OK thing to say? I am trying to imagine someone who may believe that they have sincere motives and deep concern for the newly minted PhD. Even in that case, though, what good does it do to say such a thing after the student has already received the PhD?

And in a specific case of which I am thinking, both recent PhD student and advisers had a mutually compatible working relationship, and the student’s research was very successful and led to interesting job opportunities. In that case, the person making the critical comment about the student’s choice of PhD advisers is perhaps best interpreted as spiteful, as the student’s career has clearly not been “ruined”.

Some colleagues and I were discussing this incident the other day. Responses among my colleagues included:

1. The (former) student can take of his/herself in this situation and doesn’t need any help from the adviser (except sympathy at having to deal with the spiteful person).

2. The former adviser should step in and directly confront the spiteful person, perhaps issuing a threat of some sort, or should take revenge via reviews.

3. The former adviser should say nothing but should refuse to review the spiteful person’s work.

I was a proponent of the first response; I think the student is confident enough to deal with the situation, however unpleasant, and that it would be a mistake to escalate the conflict, as in the second option. The third option should be used if those involved really felt that they could not be objective.

Of course the best thing would be if everyone could find a way to be as professional as possible about their intellectual hostilities.

Thanks But No Thanks

It is so gratifying to know that other professors (Angry Professor, for example) also get exciting offers of international travel. Here is one of my own examples:

Dear Professor FSP,

I am an instructor at [insert name of university I have never heard of in the most troubled part of a Very Troubled Country in which Americans and others have been kidnapped and killed with some frequency] and I am very interested in your researches. I have followed your papers. I am happy to tell you that this year is the nth anniversary of the founding of my institute.

Sincerely,

A Scientist from a Very Troubled Country


Dear Scientist,

Thank you for your kind email. I congratulate you on the anniversary of your institute.

Sincerely,

FSP


Dear Professor FSP,

Thank you a lot for your reply and good wishes. I would like to invite you to visit my institute and give a speech as part of our anniversary celebrations. The speech will be on [insert date a few months away]. It will be my honor to show you our beautiful institute.

Sincerely,

A Scientist from a Very Troubled Country


Dear Scientist,

Thank for your invitation. I am honored but I regret that I am not able to accept. I have other commitments for travel at the time of your event. Congratulations again on the anniversary of your institute and best wishes for a successful celebration.

Sincerely,

FSP


Dear Professor FSP,

Your name is on our printed programs as the most special speaker of the ceremony and we cannot change this now, the ceremony is too soon. I have told all my colleagues that you are coming and we are happy for your coming. It will be very bad for me if you do not give us a speech. We are waiting your visit. Please tell me of your arrival time and I will be at the airport to meet you.

Sincerely,

A Scientist from a Very Troubled Country


I feel great sympathy for my would-be colleague and the difficult conditions under which he lives and works, but I tend not to respond well to manipulation and deceit, even if accompanied by an invitation to visit an intriguing place.

Is there really anyone who would have replied "Oh well, OK, if the programs are already printed, I will change my existing plans, buy a plane ticket, attempt to get a visa, acquire more life insurance, and jet off to give the speech."?

What an Insult

A few weeks ago I pondered ways in which professors try to insult each other. Today I feel like adding to the list.

A particular comment that, when phrased in certain ways, can be like a knife to one's academic heart, concerns the extent to which other people have heard of you and are aware of your work; that is, have read your publications.

A particularly direct and impolite way of expressing this sentiment is to say simply: "I've never heard of you."

I used to hear this when I was a young professor, and I do not believe that this phrase is typically recommended for use upon meeting someone for the first time. I suppose it was meant to signal that I must not publish much or that I published only obscure and boring papers that were not worth reading. Even a professor who is not seeking awesome fame as a scientist at least aspires to have some of her/his papers read, so this statement could be quite devastating.

One specific example that I recall was when I had just arrived at my university as a new Assistant Professor. When first introduced to a grad student whose research was in a field closely related to mine, the student said "I've never heard of you." Then, in case this comment was a bit too subtle for me, he added "You must not publish very much."

At that point in my career I had published at least 20 papers, including ones in all the major journals of his (and my) research specialty and also a few in a high-impact general journal that is rather widely read by researchers in and beyond our specific field. Some of the topics of my papers were highly relevant to his research.

I was confident in my publication record, so I said "You must never read any scientific journals. I find that surprising for a senior graduate student. Is that typical of this department?"

In that situation, the student was trying to insult me. Saying "You must not publish very much" to an academic is not just bad manners, it is an insult. In other situations, though, polite variants on "I've never heard of you" can be a way to start a conversation about someone's work, or can be an expression of unfortunate ignorance.

When I was a graduate student, a fellow grad student once asked a Very Famous Scientist "And what do you work on?" when introduced to him at a small meeting. I was amazed that he had not heard of the Very Famous Scientist, whose work (in a field similar to that of the grad student's) over many decades was widely cited. The Very Famous Scientist was extraordinarily polite and answered the student with a list of the main topics he had worked on in recent years. I was impressed by the grace with which he answered the student's question.

It is important for those of us who are old enough to hope that at least some people have heard of us to remember that it can take many years to get to know the names and topics of researchers in a particular discipline. Therefore, if confronted with a polite variation of I've-never-heard-of-you, especially from a student, this should not be taken as an insult.

Even so, I recall another time when I saw from a distance a Very Famous Scientist talking to one of my students at the student's poster at a conference. This scientist was the person in the world whose research was most closely related to my student's work, so I assumed that they were having an interesting discussion. By the time I got there, the VFS had already moved on to other posters, so I asked my student about their discussion. My student said "That guy? Who was he anyway?".

Well.. if my student had remembered the 57 papers by this scientist that we had read and discussed in recent years, or if he had picked up on conversational cues that this person knew a fair amount about the poster topic, he might have had a different conversation with "that guy". As it was, because he didn't recognize the man's name (which is rather distinctive), my student didn't take advantage of the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion with an interesting person with relevant expertise. If I'd gotten there sooner, I could have helped my student connect the dots, but it was entirely reasonable to expect that he would recognize this man's name on his own.

We read the literature so that we learn new things and find out what is going on in Science World, but we also read so that we get to know the people in the field and perhaps have interesting conversations with them at conferences or other scientific gatherings. For those who are not good at remembering names and faces, perhaps it would be advisable to develop a strategy for making connections between research and researchers without resorting to the potentially treacherous "What do you work on?" types of questions.

In the case of the rude grad student who insulted me when I first arrived at my university, imagine my surprise when he contacted me a year or so later to say he had seen my ad for a postdoc and was wondering if he could apply. It was tempting to write back and ask "Who are you?", but I resisted, though I did not hire him; he had only one publication, and it was boring.

Working With Jerks

In the comments on yesterday’s post, a number of people said that I shouldn’t bother working with a particular obnoxious person. This made me think about the issue of working with jerks. It is unrealistic to believe that one can spend one’s entire career working only with nice, sane people, and there are certain circumstances in which working with jerks is necessary.

First, a definition: In this context, a jerk is someone who behaves in a consistently rude, manipulative, or unethical way. I am sure there are other adjectives, but these three cover a fair amount of ground. It is important to note that I am not talking about difficult people, or cranky people, or people who work at a different pace or in a different style than what I prefer. I am talking about people whose conversational style involves insults or threats and who lie about issues important to research collaboration (for example).

Why work with jerks? When is it necessary or even (on balance) preferred for a professor who has a lot of independence in choice of research topics and colleagues to work with a jerk?

Example: Early in my career, I chose to take my research in a new direction that required me to work with someone who had particular expertise and contacts. He turned out to be a high-level jerk (rude, manipulative, and unethical), but he helped me get started with this research. I benefited from working with him because I launched a new research project, and he benefited from working with me because I added him as a coauthor on many papers and supported some of his research funding with my grants. He does not publish much on his own, and these papers helped his career. Nevertheless, owing to his ghastly behavior, once I had attained a particular level of expertise in this research field, I jettisoned him. I felt that I had repaid the favor he had done me of sharing his knowledge, and it just wasn’t worth the continual stress and trauma of working with him any longer.

Now that my research career is well established, I don’t have to work closely with such people if I don’t want to. Nevertheless, in some cases, research collaboration involves working directly or indirectly with people who have one or more jerkian characteristics. If they are low-level jerks (rude, but not unethical), it might be worth it. Or not. It’s a choice that can be made in each circumstance.

Regarding the jerk I described yesterday, I help him or not as my time and inclination permit. I get to choose, and sometimes I choose to help him with his research or manuscript editing. His being a jerk is of no consequence to me. I don’t know him and I don’t have to work with him. So why help him? Helping him helps his students and is compatible with my philosophy of helping scientists in less fortunate circumstances than my own. I have chosen not to apply a jerk filter when deciding whom to help. That is a far different situation from one in which you have no choice and your career depends on a jerk.

OMG You Don't Suck

This post is sort of inspired by yesterday's post by Dr. Shellie.

It occasionally happens that students will apply to a graduate program without really knowing much about it other than that there is some match with their research interests and/or the school has a good enough reputation that they might want to go there. It is difficult to have a good feel for working environment, research opportunities, and advisor-advisee interactions before actually visiting a place, and impressions of a department or potential advisor can change (for better or worse) as a result of a visit. Lacking the information and impressions gained in the course of a visit, it makes sense that a student might be initially inclined towards the more prestigious university, typically a Highly Ranked Private University (HRPU).

On a number of occasions over the years, prospective students have visited my research group, spent a day or two talking to people and checking out the facilities, and have been pleasantly surprised that they had such a positive experience.

That's nice, but it surprises me how direct some students are about expressing their surprise. Expressions of pleasant surprise range in tone and directness, but are typically along the lines of "I didn't think I'd be impressed at all [because you are not at a HRPU], but I was".

One such undergraduate who applied to the graduate program at my previous university, and who ultimately went to grad school at another university, became a legend among some of my colleagues because this student wrote such an intensely patronizing letter to the director of graduate admissions after visiting our department -- along the lines of "You may be interested to know that although your department is not in the Top 3, it's actually surprisingly good. I didn't think it would be, but after my visit, I realized that some fairly high quality research is being done in your department. I visited even though I wasn't seriously considering attending your school, but I was so impressed by my visit that I actually thought about it for 5 minutes before deciding to go to one of the Most Highly Ranked Private Universities in the world."

Aside from the unfortunate wording of her letter, which she might not have meant to be as patronizing as it sounded, the fact that she set up the visit thinking there was no way she would consider accepting the admissions offer, and thereby wasting everyone's time for 2 days, indicated a higher level of selfishness and immaturity than one would typically want to see in a student, however smart.

Oh well, it's all part of the fun of academia. My former colleagues and I still joke about that student and the famous letter.

I do not take the comments from naive students personally except in extreme cases, and will continue to attempt some fairly high quality research and to recruit energetic and creative graduate students. It gets easier once you've had an established research program for a while, but fortunately there are some students who are attracted to the possibilities and energy of being part of a new assistant professor's research group, and who are willing to forgo alluring offers from more established labs. I hope that will be the case for Dr. Shellie and others.

Troll Tales

Lest anyone wonder if my previously mentioned most trollish colleague (1, 2, 3) confines his denigrating, patronizing, and rude comments to me, fear not: he treats other women faculty the same way.

Today, in the presence of an undergraduate student, Professor Troll loudly berated a female assistant professor in the hallway, telling her that she was irresponsible, that she was selfish, and that she was endangering her students' futures. My colleague said, as calmly as she could, that she had no idea what he was talking about. He said that she had a responsibility to provide letters of reference for student applications to graduate school, but she had not fulfilled this responsibility. She said that she believed she had.

She went to her office to investigate what had happened -- perhaps her letters had gone astray or not been uploaded correctly? As she was checking, she got a message from the department chair asking to see her. He told her that he had heard she had not written letters of reference for her undergraduate advisees etc. etc.

Soon after, she got the information she needed. All her letters of reference had been received, but another referee, a senior male professor in our department, had not yet sent his letters. Professor Troll just assumed that the problem was the FSP, and, without checking his facts, not only embarrassed her in front of her student and others within earshot, but he went to the chair and complained about her. When he does things like this to me, it is obnoxious; when he does this to an assistant professor, it is evil.

Will he castigate the malingering senior male professor in the same way, with raised voice and a lecturing tone? Will he apologize to the FSP? I don't know, but past experiences do not give much reason to think so. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, though, as this might at least demonstrate that his main interest is in the welfare of the students and not in the thrill of reprimanding a FSP.

Qualified v. Quantified

Today a random grad student stopped by my office to ask what he described as a random question. He said he was going around asking various people a particular question, and even though my research is "not quantitative" and I "probably never use equations", since my door was open, he thought he'd ask me his question anyway. He was asking people which equation editor they use.

I am "not quantitative"? Those are fighting words in some fields..

I did not challenge the student to a duel or shove my equation-filled reprints in his face; I just answered his question, simply telling him which equation editor I use. He was surprised that I use equation editors and have opinions about them, but he didn't comment further.

Not all of my papers have equations, but some do, including a few very recent ones. Since this student has clearly not read my papers, I wonder what about me screams "not quantitative" to him. Of course I have a hypothesis, but then, I just happen to be wearing my gender lenses today.

To many, being quantitative shows that you are a serious, rigorous scientist. I was discussing this with one of my students recently in relation to the main goals of his research. He said that a main goal was to quantify things. I said "Why?" and he seemed surprised, as if quantifying things was an end in itself. This turned into a wide-ranging and interesting conversation about his research and future directions for his work, including discussion of where quantifying things fits into the general scheme of his work.

Another frequent quantitative topic is something I call my you can always get a number speech. This speech has several parts: (1) You can always get a number.. but does it mean anything? and (2) You can always get a number, but even if it means something.. what does it mean? (i.e., the number itself is not an end in itself, you have to think about it).

It is surely a sign of age that I have these little speeches that I find myself giving over and over. There is probably an equation I could write (if I ever did such things) that relates my age in any given year to the frequency with which I give these speeches. Or something.

Water Off A Duck

This weekend as I was contemplating some home improvement projects, I remembered an incident from when I first moved here. I arrived at my present job with an infant, I was coming up for tenure after only being at my new university for a year, and the tenure bar was higher than at my first university. My husband and I bought a house soon after arriving here, but we didn’t have time to think about the house or garden for the first few years that we lived here.

One of the technicians in my department lived in the neighborhood, and he and his wife (a grad student) frequently went for walks in the evening. Their walking route occasionally went past our house.

When this couple was about to leave the city to go to new jobs and I was saying goodbye to them, the technician informed me that there was something he had wanted to tell me for as long as I'd lived in my house: every time he walked by my house, it really bothered him and his wife that I had shades in my windows rather than curtains. He then proceeded to describe what he thought were the perfect curtains for my windows. Perhaps I could even make the curtains myself!

Aside from the fact that I didn’t want curtains and I don’t know how to sew anything more than the occasional button, at that time of my life, the attractiveness of my windows was quite far down on my list of priorities. Tech Guy didn’t understand that, but I sometimes wonder if he does now that his wife is a professor and they have kids and a house.

At about that same time, one of my senior faculty colleagues described me as a swimming waterfowl. He said that, at the surface, I appeared to be gliding along gracefully and effortlessly, but he knew that I was paddling furiously underwater at top speed. Those who heard this analogy then disagree now about whether he compared me to a swan or a duck, but whichever it was, I took it as a compliment. I certainly didn’t feel like I was doing anything gracefully, but it was nice that someone thought I was.

Ten years later, I am not so duck (or swan)-like, and my garden (if not my house) looks great, but I’m still not going to get (or make) curtains.

Dining With Jerks

At least several times each year, I host a scientific visitor who gives a talk or two and who spends time with my research group and others. In some cases, the visitor is someone I know and I therefore have a good idea of how to arrange the logistics of their visit, including social activities (meals).

In some cases, I don’t know the person. This situation occurs when (1) the department as a whole invites a visitor to give a talk and I either volunteer or agree to be the host; or (2) my research group invites a speaker whose work we know but who is not known to me personally. I like meeting new people, especially if they have interesting things to say, and I don’t mind at all being host to someone I don’t know. I have made some great new colleagues this way.

There may, however, be pitfalls to hosting someone you don’t know. When I organize the schedule of someone visiting my research group, I ask my students and others who can go to lunch, who can go to dinner, who can meet in the lab at what time, etc., How it all works out depends on everyone’s schedules. Despite my apparent obsession with gender issues in science, I don’t even think about gender balance when organizing these schedules – my group is diverse, so it's not an issue.

As it turns out, one dinner that I organized for a visitor I had never met before would have involved the visitor’s dining with an all-female group (not including me; I had another commitment that night). I didn’t think anything of the gender ratio of the planned dinner party until someone who knew the visitor from a previous institution told me that she respected his research greatly but that he should not be alone with women in a social setting. She and other women had some bad experiences with him at social events at their previous institution.

What to do? Find a male bodyguard for the women? Try to get so many women to attend the dinner that he wouldn’t dare try anything? Suggest they eat at a steakhouse so they will be well-armed with useful utensils? Make him dine alone? Threaten him politely to avert potential problems?

Science Lady Asked For It

A few months ago I wrote about a strange man who had been wandering into my office and acting in a disturbing way. He continued to appear at random times throughout the summer, in my department and in other science departments, and was seen stealing books. He pretended that he was my student or was working for me, and frequently asked people where I was and how to contact me. On numerous occasions when he made an appearance, I or others called the campus police, but he was never caught.. until today.

Today he showed up in my office and I sent off a quick 'call the police' email to a department colleague who checks his email every 8 seconds. The strange man left my office, and I wasn't sure if my colleague had called the police, so I called the police myself and they came quickly and apprehended the man. Because I had made the call to the police, I had to identify the man as the 'person of interest', and he started shouting at me that he hadn't done anything wrong and I had no right to call the police on him. The police issued him a citation for trespassing and let him go, then the police officer came to my office and proceeded to criticize me for how I have handled the situation.

First he told me that if I don't want to be bothered by people like that, I should keep my door closed at all times and only open it for people I know. He said "I don't think it will wear you out too much to have to get out of your desk chair from time to time and walk all the way to the door, ask who is there, and open it. Then you can return to your desk chair." Perhaps he has Issues with people who work in offices?

I invited harassment by provocatively leaving my office door open?

Then he asked me if I preferred to be listed on the report as "Dr." or "Professor". I said that it didn't matter, either was fine. He said "Ooooh, how nice for you to have all those titles." That was bizarre as well. This is a university campus and this police officer is a member of the campus police force. This place is littered with PhD's, and some of them are even women.

Then he said "If this guy has been bothering you since May, why haven't you called the police before?". I said that I had called the police before, as had many others in my department and other departments throughout the summer. He said that he had no record of this. I said that he could talk to the administrative assistant in the main office for a full accounting of the trespasser's activities, and he could also check with the Other Science Departments to find out what had been stolen from them. He replied "Yeah sure, me and my crack team of investigators will get right on it, science lady." Then he rolled his eyes and walked out.

Lest anyone think that my days are relentlessly grim and filled with people who insult and patronize me, I have had many fun and interesting interactions with colleagues and students, and a major paper that I worked on for years was published this week.

Grad students are (typically) people too

In the not-so-distant past, I wrote about a hostile reviewer who afflicted one of my students with anonymous rude comments that, without basis, called into question the ethics, intelligence, and writing ability of the student and his co-authors (including me). We revised the manuscript and resubmitted it with a strongly worded rebuttal letter.

In this case, "strongly worded" refers to the fact that the rebuttal letter clearly stated where we disagreed with the hostile reviewer, but at no point did we descend to his level of being hostile or rude.

Today this formerly anonymous reviewer identified himself to me and one other senior co-author in an email message. He did not include the Ph.D. student in the email, although the student is first author on the manuscript. This reviewer had seen the rebuttal letter and revised manuscript, and although he admitted that the revised manuscript was good and should be published, he was incensed by the rebuttal letter. He wrote that he "did not appreciate" the fact that the letter essentially accused him of being critical of our research (!).

It takes no imagination or inference to think that someone who writes in a review that the results/interpretations are "nonsense" and includes many pages of hostile comments is critical of the work.

I think it is at the same time bizarre and strangely understandable that this person's delicate feelings were hurt by our rebuttal letter, which refuted some of his more serious criticisms. I think that an apology by this reviewer to the student would have been in order, but instead the reviewer wrote to the Professors who are co-authors, saying that, although he respects our distinguished professorial selves, he has grave doubts about the integrity of the student author. It is a cheap shot to convert a scientific disagreement into doubt about someone's integrity, exploiting that person's lack of power.

Perhaps more disturbing than the reviewer's aggression and over-sensitivity is his lack of respect for the student. Why didn't the reviewer write directly to the student? Do we really have to wait until the degree is printed and framed before treating a student like a professional colleague? I think the very act of writing and submitting a manuscript should be a strong signal that the author is a serious scientist who is responsible for the content of the paper. There are exceptions to this (e.g., when the first author is not the communicating author listed as the main contact), but the default assumption, unless one is informed otherwise, should be that the communicating author on a manuscript is capable of discussions regarding the content of the manuscript, even if he/she is still a student.

Pay-Per-Review

Now that the academic year is over, it seems that reviewers and editors (including FSP) are getting caught up with their tasks. Yesterday I wrote about some reviews I received. Soon after, I got an email from someone who was reviewing another manuscript of mine.

I hate it when this person reviews my manuscripts because he always writes to tell me that he is doing the review, has some possible problems with my interpretations, suggests that we 'discuss' it, and then he asks me for a favor. Once he asked me to pay for his travel to the U.S. This time he asked me to do some analyses for him. Sometimes I request that this person not review my manuscripts, and I give a vague reason like "conflict of interest", though I didn't do that with this manuscript.

This particular unethical reviewer I've just described is the only one I've encountered who does this. I think it is a rare situation, but it raises the general and more relevant issue of how and whether to suggest that someone not review your manuscript or proposal.

Most journals (and NSF) give authors an option of listing "non-preferred reviewers". I don't like to use this option if at all possible. In an ideal world, we are all objective and will focus only on the Science. But back in the real world, there are people who should not review certain (or any) papers/proposals, and sometimes editors and program directors don't know who these people are without some information. If a reason must be given, "conflict of interest" is vague but professional. Somehow I have never felt comfortable writing things like "He harassed my postdoc" or "He asked me for money the last time he reviewed one of my papers".

If I don't have direct experience with someone's giving me an unfair review, I don't list them as a non-preferred reviewer. I would never use a suspicion that someone might be unfair as a reason to request that they not review something of mine. Delusional though it may be, it's best to give someone the benefit of the doubt unless there is evidence to the contrary.

As an editor, when I see non-preferred reviewers listed, sometimes I know the situation and can evaluate whether the list is valid, but in other cases I wonder why. I typically respect the wishes of the authors unless their list is long and includes everyone with any expertise in their subject. In these cases, the list of preferred reviewers is typically loaded with the names of the authors' friends and former co-authors. [memo to authors: Don't do this.]

I am sometimes asked whether it "looks bad" if you list non-preferred reviewers, as if you are afraid of criticism and not confident about the excellence of your paper. The advice I give is basically what I described above: if you have a concrete reason for requesting that someone be excluded from reviewing your work, you should do it. If you just have a suspicion, don't do it.

Turnabout

Years ago, a certain senior professor in my field slammed my nomination for an award, saying that I published 'too much' and therefore my getting such an award would only reward this behavior. The award went instead to a young male scientist who had published too much. Fast forward to this week.. this same senior professor wants to collaborate with me. He sent me an email, proposing a project that relies on my expertise and my lab. Should I write back and say "OK, we can do this, but only if we don't publish the results?". Of course I won't. I'll say sure, we can do this.

The Mommy Card

This has been one of those academic 'perfect storm' weeks in terms of having a huge number of events occur in the same week, sometimes at the same time. At one point today, I realized I needed to be in two different places on campus at the same time. I have not had breakfast or lunch for days. Adding to what would have been an insanely busy week anyway, my husband has been out of town most of the week, our daughter was in a school play, I organized a 2-day workshop, and I am hosting two international visitors. I leave town this weekend, soon after my husband returns, and I am not yet ready for that trip or for the 2 trips that will follow it in quick succession. Add to that some teaching, meetings, deadlines, students, the undergrad class I am taking.. You get the idea. It's actually been a fun week, albeit hectic.

I've been doing just fine, mostly, and even worked things out so that I could have several dinners with the visitors (thanks to help from babysitters). Tonight, however, The School Play was taking place in the evening, so I arranged for four of my grad students to have dinner with the visitors, one of whom is leaving tomorrow. This afternoon, a postdoc (not one of mine) criticized me in front of a group of faculty and students for not having dinner with the departing guest on the last night of his visit. This postdoc is from the same country as the visitor, and on that basis felt compelled to point out my apparently rude behavior. Perhaps I was violating some etiquette rule in that country, but my visitor was aware of why I wasn't dining with him tonight -- we had dinner together last night, and spent some time talking about our families -- and he was looking forward to spending time with the students. My grad students are perfectly capable of entertaining a visitor. They are doing exciting research, and are friendly, interesting people.

I explained to the concerned postdoc that my daughter was in a school play this evening, but I got the feeling that this only partly excused me. The "mommy card" is not an ace, by any means.