Question: I'm a newbie this fall. How can I avoid being typecast as a geek, poseur, witch, airhead, popinjay, or slut?
Answer: Tsk tsk. You haven't even mentioned jester, boor, sycophant, pedant, or satyr.
Ms. Mentor trusts her faithful readers to supply many more academic stereotypes, some of which will inevitably be applied to you (and her). People think in labels, but you must comport yourself so that you're not immediately pigeonholed by powerful people ("another know-it-all whelp") or recruited by malcontents ("aha -- someone else who sees through it all").
Think of yourself as unique, successful, and very wise for your age.
Ms. Mentor reminds you that all of academe is a stage on which we have to play our parts, strutting and fretting. Teaching is universally acknowledged to be a performance -- but so is being a colleague, in the first heady days at a new place. You are on view. You are being watched.
You will be defined immediately by what others think they see in you. That is classic role theory. In groups, someone always rises to play needed parts, such as the rebel critic, the sniveling weasel, and the nurturing mom.
Often you can spot them in your maiden department meeting. The rebel critic will complain about salaries. The weasel will make excuses about something. The mom (who may be any gender) will smile beatifically ("there, there"). Unless yours is an extraordinarily congenial unit, there will be some smirking and eye rolling. Notice who does which, and eventually you'll find out why. Sometimes you'll spot maladroit flirting or overhear amazing faux pas.
Pretend you're an anthropologist. When you're away from prying eyes, take field notes, and hide them safely at home.
You haven't told Ms. Mentor or her avid readers whether you are a new graduate student, adjunct, visiting professor, tenure-track assistant professor, or much-wooed senior star. But whatever you are now, you have probably fit into a similar, slightly awkward slot since the 8th grade. That's when intricate social pecking orders are established.
You've known your place since then. Most likely you weren't among those vying to be homecoming queen or football captain. But as an outsider ("dweeb"), you watched and learned.
And who can forget the fight to be valedictorian? Now, that was brutal.
Since then, you've clawed your way through graduate school, and now you're engaged in a great civic enterprise: finding your niche in a new and mysterious hierarchy. Even if it makes you shudder, Ms. Mentor advises you to flash back to what happened every fall in school, when people were judging each other on horrifically shallow grounds, such as what they wore and what they looked like -- instead of, say, their grade-point averages or science-fair projects.
Now you have the chance to choose your own role, but your first challenge is the same as it was in 8th grade: What do I wear? Especially if you happen to be young and pulchritudinous, you must neutralize first impressions by dressing unostentatiously, combing and washing, tucking in, and generally looking what's called "presentable." Do not be excessively chic ("fashionista") or casual ("slob").
Ms. Mentor has seen new faculty members attend their first meetings in skimpy shorts, with prominent tattoos and piercings. Those can give the senior professors a good laugh and a chance to gawk, but forever after you'll be known as Nose Ring, not as the serious expert on lycanthropy. First impressions, as Malcolm Gladwell shows in Blink, can be forever.
Next, there is your self-projection: brisk, smart, friendly. Smile at everyone, and do not be a shy petunia. Step forward and say, "I'm J. Nova, newly hired from Eggplant U." Have a one-sentence synopsis of your research, should anyone inquire. (Among writers, that is known as the "elevator talk" or "the pitch.") If you're at a teaching college, be ready with an enthusiastic speech about your eagerness to meet the students. If you practice enough, your pitch can sound totally spontaneous.
Shake hands firmly. Make eye contact. Be upbeat.
All this is Deportment 101 or Beginners' Cotillion, but it establishes you as having good manners and social graces. Think Gwyneth Paltrow, or Pierce Brosnan. Be ready with a lively story about your colorful new neighbor or what you've already enjoyed at New U. Or you may have a question ("Which dentist would you recommend?"). Don't, of course, get intimate ("Who's the best proctologist?"), and resist any base impulses to be weepy or smutty. Avoid diet talk and bodily disparagement ("I gained 10 pounds and feel porkish"), as those are boring and depressing. Your department wants an intellectual, not a waif.
Ms. Mentor also advises you not to say no to anything, unless it is illegal, toxic, or hopelessly lewd. Do not reject food, or offers of any kind of help, or invitations to social events. Being a good receiver is a social trait not widely practiced among awkward academics, and you'll be known as the one charmer who adored Professor Francophile's snail salad. (You may, of course, be fed that snail salad at social gatherings forever after, but think of your term as only six years. Once you get tenure, you can conveniently develop an allergy or an unspecified queasiness.)
Ms. Mentor is not advising hypocrisy. If you really loathe your colleagues -- already -- and you can't bear living in your new town and you know in your heart that you'll never be able to stand it, then you should start planning your escape. Apply for jobs elsewhere, including outside of academe. Some newbies, most often urban Northeasterners living in small towns, never do get over feeling deprived of everything that makes life worth living: "I can't even get a decent bouillabaisse in this godforsaken town!"
Ms. Mentor assumes that members of her flock want to be liked, lunched, and launched well into their new colleges and jobs. If you're a new grad student, make a point of introducing yourself to the faculty members and telling them about your research ambitions -- briefly. If you're verbose, their eyes will glaze over. Get together socially with your new classmates, but do not gossip or complain until you know who can be trusted.
If you're an adjunct or a young-looking visiting assistant professor, you may be ignored as if you're a gnat, but swallow your pride and force yourself to meet all the senior professors anyway. Be friendly and try to be memorable. Someone will turn out to be gracious, and may even become a mentor (a sacred calling).
That is the one role always worth playing.
Question: Well, I can toot my own horn, tickle my own tambourine, and self-promote with infinite braggadocio, or I can follow Benjamin Disraeli's advice: "Talk to people about themselves and they will listen for hours." Which sells better for an academic neophyte?
Answer: Disraeli.
Sage Readers: Ms. Mentor continues to be pelted with recommendations for "viciously witty academic novels" that everyone must peruse. Current reader faves include Stringfellow Barr's Purely Academic, Anthony Burgess's The Doctor Is Sick, A. S. Byatt's Possession: A Romance and The Biographer's Tale, Robertson Davies' The Rebel Angels, Michael Griffith's Bibliophilia, David Lodge's Changing Places, Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue, C. P. Snow's The Masters, and Academia Nuts by Michael Wilding.
As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes reading suggestions, ripostes, rants, and queries. Woeful cries will be heard. Anonymity is guaranteed, and all identifying details are buried and torched.
Ms. Mentor rarely answers letters personally, but directs eager readers to her archive, to her tome, Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia, and to The Chronicle's forums and other columns on this site.
