As an academic, I use a CV to track my accomplishments, however modest. Within its pages, I summarize my education, research activities, publications, professional affiliations, and more.
In one version useful to my home institution, I also include the classes I teach, the seminars I present, and the research students with whom I have worked. It's easy to obsess over the details. After all, they form a snapshot of the years during which I left home, completed my formal education, selected a profession (after several detours), and launched my career.
Like mechanics tuning the engine of a prized car, academics are forever tinkering with their CV's, and it was during such a tinkering session that I first noticed chinks in the foundation of my own CV.
It all began with my computer's spell-checker. I rarely use that program, but for some reason I did that day. I dropped down the "Tools" menu and double-clicked on "spelling," and with that seemingly innocent act, my computer -- drawing no doubt on its extensive life experience and considerable wisdom -- proceeded to point out the inadequacies and many shortcomings of my apparently unremarkable accomplishments. It even recommended ways for me to get my life back on track.
I'm a botanist, and one of the plants I study, a beautiful wildflower called bird's-foot violet, has the scientific name, Viola pedata. Despite agreement among plant taxonomists regarding the appropriateness of that name, my computer peremptorily changed "pedata" to "pedant."
I have two problems with that change. The first is professional: It was made without consulting the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, a set of guidelines for assigning plant names.
The second is more personal, and has to do with the particular epithet, "pedant," that my computer selected. I can only hope my colleagues and students don't share my computer's opinion of me as "a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning."
And can I be described as somebody who "adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense"? (Those and subsequent definitions are from my dictionary.) I do love books, and I suppose I am somewhat formal, but am I rigid? And do I live in that ivory tower removed from the common sense world? How would my students answer that question?
My computer was trying to tell me something, and I felt a need to read on. My university places great importance on faculty members guiding undergraduate research. During my more than a dozen years here I've worked closely with many students -- at least, that's how I would characterize our relationship.
My word processor apparently assesses my commitment to our students less favorably, however, since it replaced my choice of words, "mentor," ("a wise and trusted counselor or teacher"), with "monitor."
I'll be disappointed enough if it is accusing me of merely watching over or supervising my students, but I'll be truly crushed if it is suggesting that my primary role has been as "a person who admonishes."
Am I deluding myself when I claim that I provide meaningful research experiences and learning for my students, when in reality I barely keep track of what they are doing. Worse yet, am I providing cursory oversight followed by rebuke?
In combination with other slights directed against my teaching and my person, those substitutions raised the specter that my computer was mounting an attack on my character -- "specter," in fact, being my computer's replacement for "spicata," which is part of the scientific name of another plant I have studied.
Whereas many of my computer's changes were personal, others were more in keeping with my professional interests. Years ago, I conducted a field study of the Columbian ground squirrel in the Rocky Mountains of Canada, and I'm intrigued that my computer substituted "columbine" for "Columbian." The columbine, a beautiful member of the buttercup family, is obviously a plant, while ground squirrels are animals. Even in this age of DNA manipulation, gene transfer, and cloning, I find the substitution of a plant for an animal rather shocking.
In another example, and in a rare acknowledgment that I might have some decision-making ability after all, my computer allowed me to choose among "leech," "leek," and "leach" as a replacement for the abbreviation "lec" (for "lecture"). All three terms seem reasonable since I am an ecologist, and I recently co-wrote the Timber Press book Ecology for Gardeners. On the other hand, that reference to a leech could have been yet another swipe at my character.
In fact, one uncanny aspect of my virtual makeover was the number of gardening terms my computer inserted. In substituting "spore" for "spr" (my abbreviation for the spring semester), perhaps it was reaching -- in a figurative sense -- into the damp soil and planting a garden, since moss spores play an ecological role similar to that of the seeds of flowering plants.
Yet another recommendation from the gardening world was to substitute "mulch" for "Mulcahy," my Ph.D. adviser's last name. I don't quite know what to make of that, but Dave is an agreeable guy, and I don't think he'll object.
My computer made one other curious substitution. It changed my last name from "Carroll" to "carpool." I don't much care for "carpool" as a surname, but my computer is right that I could share rides into work more often.
Having reached the end of my CV, I find I'm bruised but still standing. Upon reflection, I vow to take a more commonsense approach to life and to spend more meaningful time with my students. But in the meantime, does anyone out there know how to disable a spell-checker? I have an evaluation coming up, and I don't think my CV -- or my ego -- can stand up to the scrutiny.
