Ms. Mentor

When Should You Grab a Sword?

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Question: (from "Hotspur"): Because I wanted to get a jump on my new life, I moved to "Midsize University" in July. I'm a brand new assistant professor.

But in my very first week, I had a huge fight over a $20 purchase with my department chair, who informed me very rudely that I was "off to a bad start." Since then, "Dr. Chair" has tried to keep me in the dark about how the university operates, so he can maintain power over me. He micromanages endlessly and refuses to believe we need a secretary for our department (seven faculty members), which means that I have to do all of my own clerical work. He disparages everyone outside our department, and many of the people within it.

It's gotten so bad that even before classes started, I went to talk with our campus dispute mediator. I couldn't talk to any of the senior faculty members, who have bad blood between them. Until I found out about the mediator, I had to keep all this bottled up inside myself.

One possibility the mediator mentioned was having a different chair, which would improve things for me. But I worry that by going through mediation and forcing a change, I will be hated forever by Dr. Chair. Should I get out as quickly as possible?

Question: (from "Harriet"): Though I'm a lowly graduate student (not even All-But-Dissertation), I've been made the coordinator in charge of the "Intro to Psychology" sections at my university. The professor who usually runs them ("Dr. Usual") is on sabbatical, and when no other professor wanted the job, it fell to me.

I know I'm in an awkward, fairly powerless position, especially because I must also plan the course with "Dr. Counterpart," the coordinator on our sister campus. He's a tenure-track professor, and this semester it's his turn to come up with "Intro to Psych" experiments and exercises to be used on both campuses.

The problem: The new teaching materials Dr. Counterpart sent me have major statistical flaws. When I asked about them, he says I'm wrong and he's right. And so I've consulted with Dr. Usual, who says she just ignores him, rewrites the experiments, and runs them correctly on our campus. She has been doing it this way for years.

I have stuck my neck out and done that, and am ready to be damned with the consequences if Dr. Counterpart finds out.

But I can't help thinking about the hundreds of students on the other campus. They are being taught wrong statistics, and I'm horrified at the way their papers are being graded. I can't sleep at night.

Answer: Ms. Mentor knows scores of academics who like to imagine themselves as powerful knights, sallying forth to right all wrongs and remove all ignorance from the land. It is a shiny picture, and far more heroic than the image of oneself as dissertation drudge, book worm, or lab rat.

But sometimes it is not entirely clear what the battle is, or who should be fighting it. And so those who grab their swords prematurely often make themselves into gory and unpleasant spectacles.

Ms. Mentor remembers, for instance, the notorious "Dr. Genghis," an assistant professor who, in days of yore, burned with a fever against all injustices -- especially changes in meeting times, parking rules, and audio-visual notification deadlines. Since e-mail had not yet been invented, Dr. Genghis spent hours hunkered down, pounding out caustic memos on his sword-equivalent, a manual typewriter. By the time his colleagues voted not to renew his contract ("Who needs a jerk who harangues us instead of doing research?"), Dr. Genghis's memos filled an entire shoebox. But he had no publications, no allies, and no job.

Hotspur is in the Dr. Genghis mold: slash first, ask questions later. Establish your turf, and fight all encroachments.

Yet a wise knight knows the difference between a dragon and a pumpernickel. Many newly hired scientists do find that their lab space isn't what they were promised, and so they must take up fighting stances. Computer time, library resources, and class size are all significant professional matters, and it is never belligerent or unseemly to say, "I need these to do the best job possible."

But Hotspur should not have drawn his sword over $20. Nor should he have proclaimed himself an expert on personnel management ("We need a secretary"). Nor should he be gnashing his teeth and assuming that Dr. Chair is always plotting "to maintain power over me." Nor should Hotspur file a complaint so early, for it is the bureaucratic equivalent of declaring war: "Now I'm really gonna stick it to the king."

Hotspur has, in fact, stuck it to himself, and his wild scheme -- to dethrone Dr. Chair -- drives Ms. Mentor to pound on the table. Untenured assistant professors simply do not have the power to do that. Ms. Mentor advises Hotspur to be silent; find stress-reduction exercises; do the best he can to make friends; and quietly look for another job. He has almost certainly poisoned his own well.

Ms. Mentor does not mean that new faculty members must swallow all insults or be silent when real injustices thrive. Massive dishonesty, sexual harassment, racism, and homophobia should not be allowed to flourish unchallenged. But a sword is only useful when there is a genuine battle, and where the sword wielder has some hope of winning.

Goliath cannot be defeated by a toothpick.

Now, unlike Hotspur, Harriet is a good academic citizen. But she has become (as so many women do) a responsibility magnet. She has taken on an enormous chore that should never have been offered to her in the first place. Ms. Mentor blames Harriet's university for putting a professionally vulnerable graduate student in charge of a major general-education program, instead of paying a faculty member to do it and allowing Harriet to continue her studies. "Looks good on the resume" is no excuse for exploitation.

Still, Harriet has been wise enough to get advice from Dr. Usual. Harriet has ensured that her students will be taught correctly. She has done all that she has the power to do. And yet ... Harriet cannot sleep nights, for evil still exists in the world. She yearns to grab a sword and take off after the errors on the other campus.

Ms. Mentor does sympathize with Harriet: one does not like to think that students will be taught things that are not true. Yet youngsters cope with the knowledge that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are fakes. Chemists-in-training learn that Boyle's and Charles's Laws don't really work. Historians now acknowledge that history doesn't happen only to white men. Moreover, the debates that excite chemists, historians, and other academic professionals usually bore, confuse, or repel students taking general-education courses, such as "Intro to Psychology."

Harriet may be comforted by the fact that few students later note nor long remember what they learned in "Intro to Psych." Unless it's titillating and spectacularly wrong -- such as the concept of penis envy -- much of what's taught is forgotten after each exam.

And so Harriet has Ms. Mentor's permission not to grab her sword. Hotspur should throw away his sword, since he has a habit of impaling himself. As for academia in general, rare are the times when a sword is necessary. Most quarrels are better handled with shrewdness, diplomacy, low cunning, lying in wait, and advice -- from good mentors, of course.

Question: Should I take my comprehensive exams in January or in May, or is that a very specific bureaucratic question that I should handle myself, without pestering Ms. Mentor?

Answer: Yes.

SAGE READERS: This month's mail has brought Ms. Mentor an assortment of wise communiqués, and a few misdirected ones, such as the one above. Certainly Ms. Mentor, who knows all, could list the bureaucratic regulations at your university, or anyone's. She could delve into the particular personalities involved; she could read all their paperwork, and all of yours. But then she would be neglecting the larger issues and queries, the politically juicy ones for which she is the only and best expert.

In future columns Ms. Mentor will discuss backstabbers, fake credentials, "Great work! you're fired" and many other examples of ill-bred behavior by educated personages. In some cases, perhaps a sword will be necessary.

As always, she welcomes anecdotes, gossip, and scurrilous speculations from winners, but especially from losers, whose language tends to be more colorful. She can rarely answer letters personally, but she guarantees deep anonymity.

No one will know it is you.