Ms. Mentor

Are You a Bad Fit?

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Question ("Abbott"): Last year I took a one-year teaching job at a local college, but things did not go well, and I left after the fall semester. I'm afraid search committees will call the department chair (with whom I had a lot of problems) and ask about me. What can I do?

Question ("Betty"): I am a professional, 40ish, new to academe three years ago. Right away a colleague began announcing in faculty meetings, without consulting me, that I'd volunteered to help develop his "projects." He enjoyed the surprise, ordered me around, treated me like mud. After three such incidents, I wrote a nasty e-mail message telling him never to volunteer me again. I also told him and my chair, in a private meeting, that I am not his lackey. Since then my teaching's gone well, research is fine, and he doesn't commandeer me into his projects -- though he still treats me like a lower form of being. Now it looks like he'll be our next chairman. Should I worry?

Question ("Clyde"): I'm an associate professor at Mid-Level U, where enrollment's increasing and budgets are shrinking, and several of our new hires clearly think they're entitled to "something better" than our institution. Though I (and others) have done everything to help them, they can't stop carping about the university, the faculty, the students, the town, the state, the lack of single eligible dates, and no doubt they think my dog's ugly. I thought it was common knowledge that you put forth your best possible efforts/personality to get tenure or be able to move. Am I a grinning fool?

Question ("Diane"): My fiancé's a Navy officer, and once we marry, we'll move around every six months to two years. Can I have an academic career?

Answer: Ah, Ms. Mentor remembers well the days when "bad fit" simply meant gloves that would not acquit themselves, or perhaps a gown that adhered too tightly or too loosely.

"Good fit" in academe means that a new hire -- who's met the written requirements perfectly -- moves smoothly into the job. Dr. Good Fit seeks advice, shares research, joins committees, makes lasagna for the department potluck. Dr. Good Fit teaches superbly, has astonishingly good publications, smiles a lot, and is beloved by all. Dr. Goodfit is also a fictional character. Real life is messier.

"Abbott," for one, has gotten into a mess. Ms. Mentor hopes that his chair is the one with the impossible personality -- and that Abbott hasn't burned bridges by failing to be a lively, hard-working, attentive colleague. Abbott needn't suffer from the "bad fit" label as long as someone in the department can write him a recommendation saying that, "We wanted to keep Abbott, but weren't able to." Abbott can finesse his situation if he doesn't shriek about it.

"Betty" has already shrieked, and Ms. Mentor wonders if Betty has hurt her own future with that unforgettable word, "lackey." Ms. Mentor deplores the double standard for outspoken behavior -- he's forthright, she's a bitch -- but knows that too many mortals are far more critical of women, especially those who leave a colorful trail of acrimony ("nasty e-mail").

Betty was right to complain to her chair privately. Academe, like most dysfunctional families, works well on the surface if people merely backbite and backstab. Public confrontations are much too entertaining to be forgotten by anyone, ever -- and they're always used against the weaker party.

Still, Betty has made an enemy who, as her new boss, will write the letter for or against her tenure. Even if Betty is perfect in teaching, research, and service (the three official categories), her enemy has the power to construe her record otherwise, hinting that she's an unstable colleague, declaring her a "bad fit," and calling her unworthy of tenure.

What's to stop him? The academic tenure chain does have checks: Many people read reports; many people at different levels vote. Betty may need defenders in other parts of the university, and so Ms. Mentor advises her to study the faculty handbook rules and get to know the people who'll be judging her. She should ask deans to lunch, and try mending fences with her nemesis.

But why, Ms. Mentor? He's a tyrannical scoundrel.

Indeed he is, but tenure is a great gift of freedom, and once Betty has it, her boss can only annoy her, not dislodge her. Eventually, tenured, she may be able to dethrone him and become the chair herself.

That would be a good fit.

"Clyde," meanwhile, is throwing fits about the behavior of his younger colleagues. Ms. Mentor shares his mystification -- although she recalls that even in Plato's day, the old were criticizing the youth of Athens: "Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?" But the prospects for tenure-track employment today are so bleak that Ms. Mentor wonders why those on track don't feel incredibly grateful to have jobs at all.

She has never understood people who shoot themselves in the foot.

As for poor Diane, she will never get a tenure-track job, unless she decides to live apart from her husband. She may pick up a course to teach here and there, as an adjunct. But her choice is stark: trailing wife or independent professional. Diane must choose, perhaps wrenchingly, between love and work.

Finally, Ms. Mentor must mention the most sinister meaning of "good fit'' and "bad fit": Do you look like, sound like, act like, the people already entrenched in the job? The idea of "good fit" has indeed kept out people of other races, sexual orientations, and languages -- and such an exclusive, clubby atmosphere is illegal, immoral, and soul-deadening.

If any of Ms. Mentor's readers do encounter such a hostile atmosphere, she wants to be informed -- so that she may throw a fit.

Question: I'll be a new faculty member this fall in "Smallville," where the best doctor in town is the dean's husband. I'm a rather attractive young woman (for an academic, anyway), and wonder if college functions will be awkward if the dean's husband has seen me naked?

Answer: Yes.

SAGE READERS:Now that Ms. Mentor's column appears in the solid paper edition of The Chronicle, as well as in the ethereal realm of the Internet, her mail has changed. The dedicated Internet correspondent who wrote every month that, "You are still full of ..." seems to have disappeared, and has been replaced by senior faculty members eager to roar, often in most amusing ways. Ms. Mentor always enjoys a good curmudgeon.

Ms. Mentor reminds all readers that she rarely answers letters personally, and that many common queries have already been handled in her tome (Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia) or in her previous columns. New questions may also be answered in her second tome (in progress), but she cannot be rushed.

As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes queries, rants, gossip, and speculations about the horrors and fascinations of the upcoming academic year. She continues to collect material on academics as romantic partners and parents, coming out in academe, tenured whiners, and more. Absolute anonymity is guaranteed, details are scrambled, and no one will know you are the bad egg.