By Ms. Mentor

Question (from "Vic"): My graduate-school classmate has just been fired. We were both doing dissertation research in a group headed by "Dr. Alpha," who seemed to be a prince of a fellow. He was smart, hard-working, able to give advice and even joke with his underlings (us). He's also coming up for tenure this year. He has grant money and publications, but anything could happen at a Large Self-Important University like ours. And now he's told "Millie" that she's no longer on his research team. She's welcome to join another group, he says.

The rest of us, the survivors, are in shock. Finally, on behalf of everyone else, I asked Dr. Alpha about this. He said my work is fine (whew), as is the work of my other groupmates, but Millie just doesn't have what it takes. "A degree from Large Self-Important University has to mean outstanding work," he says, "and I'm only taking on students who'll be superstars. Otherwise I'm wasting my time."

Does he have the right to drop Millie like this?

Question (from "Norma"): A while ago I almost got lured away, to a dream job at Coastal Prestige U. I already have a tenured position and a published book where I am. Then the dream job went to "Tamara," a good scholar but a pompous and insufferable person. Now she's off to Coastal Prestige U, with her boy toy, but she's still tormenting me. Recently I sent an informational post to our field's listserv about a new controversy. The post has appeared elsewhere online, so it's not some dreadful secret. But Tamara rejected it for the listserv she controls. When I complained, she said, it's "not suitable for the focus of the listserv."

I'm furious and hurt. I'm not going to file a grievance or devote my life to revenge, but I have told a lot of powerful people what she did. What right does she have to do that?

Answer: Ms. Mentor usually ducks her head when academics talk about "rights." Too often they mean "I deserve more turf"—a bigger office or lab, lots more money, or a title that someone else already has.

But, except for tenure, academics do not have special rights, such as the right to a kinder, saner workplace. Rather, academics have many responsibilities: teaching vigorously, with up-to-date material; aiding struggling students; grading papers; collaborating with colleagues; trekking to meetings; and publishing things that add to the sum of human knowledge. Academics must also, constantly, make judgments.

And so, it is not against the rules for Dr. Alpha to fire an unsatisfactory worker. Ms. Mentor sympathizes with student idealists who want to believe that the ivory tower is a refuge from downsizing, layoffs, and arbitrary maneuvers. Vic, like many graduate students, may want academe to be a nurturing nest where everyone is above average, or will be.

Young and sensitive students can be devastated when their string of A's and praise runs out in graduate school. Law and medical students are ready for that, but the weeding out of students in the arts and sciences isn't so well known. The culling of the herds is done quietly but efficiently. As far as Ms. Mentor knows, there is no conspiracy—yet no more than half of the students who pass their Ph.D. exams ever finish their dissertations, and perhaps they shouldn't. Especially in the humanities, there are very few tenure-track jobs waiting, even for the superstars coming out of Large Self-Important University.

Ms. Mentor hopes that Millie has a backup plan.

Yes, Dr. Alpha has the right to reject anyone he chooses, as long as it isn't discriminatory—and if he were famous enough, alas, he might even get away with something like that. Vic's Dr. Alpha does not seem to be that kind of bully, but the judging and sorting that go on in academe can be scarring. Many people consider themselves the walking wounded. And some keep track of every time they've felt slighted ("They have no right to do that to me, those moral maggots!").

As for Norma, she seems to be kicking up a legendary feud—the type that makes professors sneer and interrupt each other at conferences, scuttle each other's grant applications, and fail each other's graduate students (yes, it happens). Ms. Mentor deplores all that—and wonders what Norma's letter is really about.

Norma asks if her rival, Tamara, has the right to turn down a listserv posting. Yes, of course. Freedom of the listserv belongs to those who own the listserv.

Moreover, advice givers are supposed to answer only the question that the correspondent asks. Ms. Mentor has done that, and yet another question keeps tugging at her sleeve. Why all this rage and hurt over a listserv post?

Ms. Mentor wonders if the embers of disappointment over the prestigious job are still smoldering. She wonders if the two scholars have clashed before. She hopes it's not about the "boy toy."

But Norma does seem to be making a pyramid out of a pea. Her information is out on other listservs, attributed to Norma: there's no academic scooping and no coverup. When Norma's post was turned down, she might have printed out the e-mail, then torn it up, or even burned it for her own satisfaction. But after that, no more embers. One shrugs. One teaches. One publishes. One moves on.

Norma is obviously talented and accomplished. Ms. Mentor would not advise her to lie in wait, knife in teeth, for the next horrific assault on her dignity. It is much better to be gracious.

Sometimes a listserv is really only a listserv.

Question: Don't you loathe the false cheer of "How was your summer?" especially when colleagues should have been reading your Facebook entries and should know that yours was dreadful, with pratfalls in Prague and bathos in Bulgaria? Shouldn't they be keeping up with every detail of your life, because it's so fascinating, and because it's yours?

Answer: Sure.

Sage Readers: Ms. Mentor trusts that most of her flock have now returned to their respective educational environments, from which they will learn, teach, and produce marvels of erudition and intellectual sustenance for millennia to come. She also hopes they still have jobs, assistantships, desks, and working bathrooms, since maintenance is one of the first casualties in hard economic times. So far she knows of only one institution whose faculty members bring their own toilet paper, but that could change.

As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes rants, queries, and things mentionable and unmentionable. She regrets that she can rarely answer letters personally, and never immediately. Confidentiality is guaranteed, and published letters are always edited to conceal the identifiable fetishes or gaucheries mentioned in the originals. No one will know that you are the one with those tawdry fantasies.

(c) Emily Toth

Ms. Mentor, who never leaves her ivory tower, channels her mail via Emily Toth in the English department of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. She is the author of the recently published "Ms. Mentor's New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia" (University of Pennsylvania Press). Her e-mail address is ms.mentor@chronicle.com.