Ms. Mentor

Professor Pelvic Practices His Thrusts

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Question: (from "Joanne"): My best friend has a thesis adviser who kind of creeps her out. Yesterday they were in his office, discussing her first chapter, when he stood up, threw around a few couch cushions, and asked if she minded if he stretched out on the floor -- because he has back problems, and that would make him feel better. Though she thought it was odd, she went on discussing her work.

But a couple of minutes later, she noticed he was doing pelvic thrusts. "This really helps my back," he said. "I hope you don't mind the informality." Of course she did mind, a lot. He was also looking up her skirt. "Let's reschedule," she suggested, but he refused. Is this all weird? What could she have done?

Question: (from "Karen"): I know my friend Joanne's already written, and I wanted to add that my thesis adviser has never made direct inappropriate comments to me. (I don't consider the pelvic thrusting direct, because he did give the old "I have a herniated disk" excuse.) He also kept apologizing for his informality. But I think he should have told the student (me) to wait outside while he stretched his back.

I have always had this uncomfortable vibe around him, and so do other female grad students. One even filed a complaint against him, and found out that there were similar reports from previous years. But the other faculty members don't seem to care, and I don't think I can do anything about my feelings. I need his knowledge for my thesis now, and I'll need his reference letters for future jobs. Wouldn't it look odd if I didn't have my adviser's recommendation?

It's very difficult to focus on writing and seeing this through, because I really want nothing to do with him. Of course I'll finish, because my topic interests me, and I need the degree for my career. But is there anything else I can do?

Answer: First, Ms. Mentor is warmed by the knowledge that Karen is not a lonely planet in the academic universe. Joanne is a loyal listener, and Karen wisely tells her all about the peccadilloes of Professor Pelvic. When victims remain silent, and when friends do not rally, sleazy behavior proliferates and cross-pollinates, and everyone winds up covered with slime.

Unlucky Karen is indeed a victim of "inappropriate behavior" by Professor Pelvic. He is a teacher, entrusted with her intellectual growth. He should not be mounting a bump-and-grind sideshow. While he has not made a direct sexual overture, his shenanigans have limited Karen's ability to focus on her tasks. He has, therefore, denied her equal educational opportunity -- at which point some of Ms. Mentor's more fire-breathing readers will shout, "File a grievance!" or "Sue his pants off!" (A few may even mutter darkly, "Call Lorena Bobbitt!") These readers will cry for justice. And revenge.

But Ms. Mentor urges them to take deep breaths, shake themselves, and look again. In this, as in so many matters in real life, the victim, Karen, is facing a fork in the road. She has two choices -- or two narratives, or two paradigms -- and she cannot trot down two paths at once.

The high road -- the dashing road, the sweeps-all-before-it road -- is the narrative of justice, or the pursuit of revenge. Karen may choose to cast herself as a white knight, righting all wrongs. If Karen chooses to gallop down this fork, she will file a grievance against Dr. Pelvic, probably for creating a "hostile environment."

Then she will meet with other professors in her department, learn how to write up official paperwork and memorandums, consult human-resource specialists, and perhaps hire a lawyer (almost certainly at her own expense). Eventually she'll have at least one hearing before a university disciplinary committee.

Karen will wind up surrendering her thesis time: She will be fighting instead of writing. Certainly she will embarrass Dr. Pelvic, but it is unlikely that he'll be punished in any other way, for what he did is not a "crime." Too often, truth be told, academic committees are not courageous. They side with the entrenched one, not with the outsider.

A fire-breathing Karen will also have to answer naysayers and belittlers: "Well, he's just an unusual guy. What's the big deal?"

Most teeth-gritting of all: Karen will have made a life's enemy of Dr. Pelvic. She will lose his intellectual guidance, and if he writes recommendation letters for her at all, they'll be lukewarm ("Karen did a good thesis"). To future employers, it will seem as if Karen has done something to alienate or enrage her own mentor.

It'll look like Karen is impossible to work with. Does Karen want to be a martyr?

The other fork in the road is less morally satisfying. To political activists, and to academic revolutionaries, it will seem to be a repugnant sellout. (The word "careerist" is already springing to some fevered lips, Ms. Mentor knows -- and she herself is tempted to stamp her foot and throw a rock.)

Nevertheless ... Karen needs Dr. Pelvic's knowledge, she needs to finish her thesis, and she needs his recommendation. How can she achieve those goals?

She needs a cool head and a plan. She must make appointments with Dr. Pelvic only during the busiest school hours. She should bring a friend, who'll wait outside his office. If he starts to close the door, Karen can call, "Joanne, I'll be just a minute!"

To insensitive souls like Dr. Pelvic, Joanne may seem to be a chaperone -- even a duenna. But Karen knows what else she is: a potential witness.

Karen has already been impeccably professional ("I'll come back later"). Ms. Mentor suggests she do so even more firmly. If Dr. Pelvic begins his thrusts, Karen can say, crisply, "Oh, I see this isn't a good time. I'll call for an appointment later on." And walk out.

Ultimately, this kind of tacky melodrama can be character-building, Ms. Mentor observes with a wan smile. Dr. Pelvic's crude behavior does force Karen to focus on organization, deadlines, and boundaries ("We'll discuss chapter 2 at 1 p.m. on Thursday, agreed?"). The presence of an ogre often does goose grad students to finish faster -- to flee from his foul clutches. What Dr. Pelvic puts out is a whip rather than a carrot -- but both can make a grad student think, write, move, and finish faster.

Moreover, every profession, and every office, has its peculiar characters, with whom non-weirdos must learn to cope. Karen and Joanne are learning, early, about protecting their intellectual integrity and keeping their eyes on the prize.

They will not be defenseless, ever.

And the world's Dr. Pelvics do fear exposure and paper trails. Karen should find out where she can file a confidential complaint -- so that there'll be a record, but not one that Dr. Pelvic can use for retaliation. She should check the student handbook; ask at her women's center or women's-studies program; and consult her university's human-resources office.

But Ms. Mentor exhorts Karen, and Joanne, not to make it a crusade to persecute Dr. Pelvic (although he deserves it). Research, not revenge, has to be Karen's theme. She and Joanne may also find it energizing to put up, everywhere they can, posters of Xena, Warrior Princess and her best friend, Gabrielle, at their most fierce.

Once Karen is a professor herself, she'll be in a position to prevent future Dr. Pelvics from being hired and tenured. Justice delayed is not always justice denied. And Dr. Pelvic, by forcing Karen to strategize, is actually motivating her, molding her into a proper professional -- and there's a term for that.

It's called mentoring.

Question: O revered Ms. Mentor, you have oft opined that most malicious academic behavior stems from exhaustion and incompetence, rather than from the active pursuit of evil. Yet my Ivy League experience with people who deliberately set out to ruin each other's careers has convinced me that I'd rather be a bag lady than one of those Pod People again. May I choose financial bankruptcy over ethical bankruptcy?

Answer: Yes.

SAGE READERS: As another academic year struts, frets, and spits itself to a close, Ms. Mentor lauds all those survivors who mentored or were mentored. She praises all those who behaved ethically, who taught and thought brilliantly, and who added to the sum of human knowledge -- and who comforted the troubled and the weak and the meek, and made academia a place where smart, dedicated, and honorable people may often thrive.

Ms. Mentor also sends nosegays and plaudits to the graduate students in English 7724, "Women's Advice Literature," at Louisiana State University. Ms. Mentor's noble work of vouchsafing her perfect wisdom to the huddled masses of shivering, uncertain academics and those who love them was greatly aided by the thoughtful analyses, wry humor, and unfailing ingenuity of Nicole Donald, Marie D. Goodwin, Tena Helton, Kerri Jordan, Thomas Maul, Kristine Plukarski, Rachel Roubique, and Jennifer Walker. They are now, and forever, known as Ms. Mentor's Consulting Group.

That is Ms. Mentor's brief commencement address, and now she turns to her audience and asks: What will you accomplish this summer?

Will you wear yourself out teaching or taking a second job, and have no energy for family, friends, or writing? Will you fritter away your time in social activities? (Remember, academics are not supposed to have fun.) Will you take short trips, breaking up your intellectual flow so that you will never be able to focus on library or lab work, writing and research, preparing for teaching?

Will you find yourself in the middle of July, whining because you've accomplished little? And will you find yourself in the middle of August with enormous momentum, well-launched on an astonishingly good project -- which you're going to have to abandon, because teaching and committee work will take all your time?

Ms. Mentor welcomes communications from readers who've used their summers wisely, or badly: Stories of success and folly are equally welcome. In future columns she also plans to discuss Backstabbers, "Great Job -- You're Fired," and many another academic foibles. As always, she promises anonymity, declines to do your research for you, and cherishes anecdotes, humor, and gossip.