Ms. Mentor

A Hint Is Just a Hint

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Question: In my first semester on the tenure track at Small Midwestern College, I am summoned into the office of a venerable but crotchety professor, who tells me he's sure I'll get tenure. And while it might seem rather soon, he is completely confident of his declaration. Tenure decisions, he says, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

So, Ms. Mentor Who Knows All, are tenure decisions really made in the first three months? And if so, what can they be based on, beyond my smile? And is it true that if you're not told that you're going to get tenure, you should assume that you won't? And if you're told that you shouldn't be surprised by your tenure decision, does that mean you won't be getting tenure, or that you will?

And who makes up these crazy rules?

Answer: Ms. Mentor, in her infinite wisdom, acknowledges that few things are more vexing than hints. What is a threat, and what is a promise? What is a danger signal, and what is a paranoid musing? Is a sigh ever just a sigh?

Yet some fundamental things do apply. If, for instance, your disgruntled colleagues have left a horse's head in your bed, take that as serious evidence that you may not get tenure.

But most other signals are open to interpretation. If the maintenance people don't empty your wastebasket, are you the only one? If your mail gets lost, are you the only one? If Professor Curmudgeon snarls at you, are you alone? (Unlikely.)

Ms. Mentor knows educated people will always find dire portents. She recalls the case of "Havelock," a lifelong New Yorker who arrived for his first teaching job at Deep Southern U., only to find that he hadn't been assigned an office. Sure that everyone hated him because he was a Yankee, and equally certain that his career was dead, Havelock took to slinking about with his huge black briefcase, and holding office hours with students in random doorways and alcoves (or, if they were over 21, in bars).

"Man, that guy's creepy and furtive," said one student who'd just wanted advice for his paper on slime molds.

But then, in early November, "Florence," the department's newly-tenured star, accosted Havelock and whispered, "Are you a secret smoker? Is that why you're always skittering about and hiding?"

Once she knew what truly ailed him, Florence laughed, then cleared out some space in her own office for Havelock until the next semester, when his office and desk abruptly materialized. "Another bureaucratic screwup," everyone assured him.

And yet ... When one is new, academic communications all seem a tad Machiavellian. Information is sometimes garbled, or concealed under code words. "A fine mind" means "many friends but few publications." "Brilliant but ... " can mean "is abrasive" or "harasses students." "Flexible" is good. "Rigid" is bad. "Traditional" may be either.

Some academic traditions are baffling even to jaded souls like Ms. Mentor. Why, for instance, are tenure dossiers and recommendations confidential? In business, employees routinely read their own performance reports. Are teacher-scholars considered more fragile, or more cowardly, than the rest of the world?

And then there are tenured faculty members who like to amuse themselves with bons mots that can be misunderstood, or taken far too seriously, by newcomers. "I feel like I'm trapped in a very lengthy game of Clue," one spooked visiting instructor wrote Ms. Mentor. "One colleague claims there are 'big plans for you,' while another says, 'They just brought you in as a brain for their ship of fools.'"

Who should be believed? The wise newbie listens to everyone, smiles, files away the information, and applies Ms. Mentor's Trusty Guide to Informants:

• Does your informant gossip regularly with at least one knowledgeable secretary or administrative assistant?

• Does your informant belong to a powerful promotion, tenure, or personnel committee where decisions are made?

• Is your informant a department administrator, such as chair/director/head, associate chair, or director of graduate studies?

• Is he or she a recovering dean? (They always have special knowledge.)

• Does he or she hang out at the Faculty Senate, or play poker or squash with powerful people who know things?

• Does your informant sleep with anybody important?

If your informant is none of these, you may consider him or her a lively gossip or a dreadful crank, but not an apt interpreter of reality.

But, Ms. Mentor, you are howling, Will they really decide my fate in the first three months?

Well, sometimes they will, although the official tenure criteria (teaching, research, and service) have barely kicked in. (Ms. Mentor urges interested readers to consult her August 27, 1999, column on "Your First Month in a New Job.") The unofficial tenure decider -- "collegiality" (i.e., whether they like you) -- can indeed be checked off in your first semester, if you alienate everyone.

"Oliver," for instance, challenged every curriculum decision; insisted on attending meetings to which he hadn't been invited; disdained the food; despised the students; and loathed the town. He was friendly only to the youngest secretary, whom he'd grab around the neck while crooning, "Got any lately?"

But Oliver, the man without a hint or a clue, is a rarity. Because new faculty members are more apt to be edgy and hypersensitive, Ms. Mentor urges their elders not to spin out conspiratorial musings: Do not make drama out of molehills. Resist the temptation to present yourself as an oracle. Instead, tell the youngsters that the "crazy rules" for promotion and tenure don't come from Mount Olympus. They're in the faculty handbook, and often they're even online.

Ms. Mentor also urges entrenched professors to pay more attention to newbies. Be sociable, invite them to lunch, and help them with unwritten rules (how DO you get your office computer repaired?). Don't carp or prance, but do what Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson suggest in The One Minute Manager: "Catch someone doing something right."

Praise the untenured, and watch them blossom. That's what educators do.

That's what mentors do.

Question: My nice but lazy academic adviser hasn't done enough to help me get a job. If I drop his letter from my dossier, will potential employers think something horrible happened between us, and it was all my fault, and maybe I'm a serious problem (like an ax murderer or serial killer)?

Answer: Yes.

SAGE READERS: As another year piddles down the pike, Ms. Mentor praises her correspondents for the sauciness, pith, and pointedness of their epistles. But she also observes that it is rare for a letter to Ms. Mentor to be free of misspellings. She sighs and wonders what this world is coming to.

In future columns, Ms. Mentor expects to discuss Christians vs. academics; great work, you're fired; academic windbags; and more. As always, she welcomes creative and original questions, as well as gossip, ventilations, musings, and posturings. Anonymity is guaranteed and tales of folly are welcome.