Ms. Mentor

Is It Research or Stalking?

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Question (from "Vera"): What kind of fool am I? I have always assumed it's a sign of respect to do your homework about people who will be interviewing you for a job. So I've researched the backgrounds of professors at departments where I have applied, planning to mention ways that my research might complement theirs. But when I rehearsed doing that in a mock interview in my department -- I was mauled.

"You'll put them on the defensive," one prof warned, but my mentor was much worse: "If someone did that to me, I'd feel like the candidate was stalking me." She shuddered.

"But why?" I asked, and my profs snickered sourly. "Oh, faculty typically have low self-esteem," I was told. "Don't expose their vulnerabilities."

Is that fear real and pervasive? If I shouldn't talk about the hirers' specific strengths, how can I show enthusiasm and interest? Should I simply stifle the impulse altogether?

Answer: Ms. Mentor shares your bewilderment about academics who recoil when praised -- for she is always pleased when strangers laud her impeccable wisdom. She always congratulates them on their perspicacity. But our fallen world is, alas, full of people who lack sufficient savoir-faire, or bonhomie, or amour-propre. (They also find it annoying, rather than joyously pretentious, when Ms. Mentor flaunts her French.)

Maybe the recoilers have had difficult childhoods. Maybe they were ostracized at an early age for being smart instead of sporty. Maybe they've been told that it's wrong to self-promote, or to discuss one's grades or salary. A few may simply be gnarly and secretive by nature.

In days of yore, before the Internet, it was not so easy to find out who was productive, who was moribund, and who had a secret identity (one of Ms. Mentor's teachers was rumored to be a frequent and potent contributor to True Confessions, though not under his real name). If a humanities scholar proclaimed that his work was "extraordinarily influential," there were few reliable citation indexes to prove him wrong. Even inquiries might be discouraged.

When "Van" was hired jointly by classics and religious studies at "Floyd College," for instance, he asked to see the curricula vitae of his new colleagues, and the dean's secretary said, "Absolutely not. Those are confidential." Word of Van's impertinence got around. Until he buckled down to ingratiating himself and taking people to lunch, he was shunned.

Worse was the case of "Endowed Professor Bart," author of a well-known textbook. Bart was hired at "Mid Range University," where his lifelong friend Dr. Iron Fist chaired a bitterly divided department in which the Young Turks were demanding radical changes. They viewed Bart as a tool of the enemy.

No one now remembers exactly what they were fighting about. But since it was before e-mail existed, the weapons were battalions of paper memos. Today's youngsters will never know the thrill of manually typing vicious screeds, then laboriously correcting errors with Wite-out, lest opponents deem you "illiterate" and put your memo on the bulletin board with a "C minus" scrawled in scarlet ink.

But after a while, someone committed an act that was considered heinous even at Mid Range U, whose faculty members had long suffered from self-doubt ("Are we really a research university, or a cow college?"). Endowed Professor Bart had been hired as a renowned scholar to improve the "research profile." One day, without warning, copies of his vita suddenly appeared in department mailboxes, and Bart was unmasked.

He had published hardly anything at all except half a dozen slightly revised updates of his textbook.

Dr. Iron Fist attempted damage control, asking everyone to return Bart's vita, "as it was sent out in error." No one did, and copies proliferated. Job candidates got them, anonymously. Dr. Iron Fist's wife saw half a dozen in her dentist's office. (Yes, it was a small provincial town, and cable TV had only just arrived.)

So what finally happened? Ms. Mentor's enthralled listeners are demanding to know.

Everyone lost face and the rumor mill hummed for years, but the practical result was the same as in most academic skirmishes: Nothing much.

The whole brouhaha taught Ms. Mentor -- then a young duchess, just learning her craft -- that it might not always be wise to circulate, or know, information about one's colleagues.

Then came the Net. Now most department Web sites for research universities list faculty publications. (Community colleges usually do not, since their faculties are more devoted to teaching.) Professors can also have their own Web sites, and some hardy souls post their visages on Facebook.com or MySpace.com. More recently, RateMyProfessors.com has threatened to post faculty photos taken surreptitiously with students' cell phones.

In short, there is little secrecy for anyone, and Ms. Mentor agrees with Vera that scholarly activity should be publicly known. That is what academic freedom means, including the competition to produce the most provocative title each year at the Modern Language Association convention ("Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl" was it in 1994; "Is the Rectum a Text?" in 2006.)

Vera is wise to read up on her potential new colleagues. Her research on toads can lead to collaboration with Dr. Frog; her political theories may mesh nicely with those of Dr. Post-Marx. Her interest in Darwin's influence can lead to team teaching ("cross-fertilization").

So why do current faculty members, all Net-savvy, recoil at the thought of being Googled?

A few have muttered that "I have the same name as a notorious individual" -- but surely you can explain that you're not that Paris Hilton. There seems to be some peculiar notion of privacy afoot. But Vera is not in a position to change it, and so Ms. Mentor will simply advise her to be strategic.

Do the research, but ask innocent and general questions: "What do you see as your program's greatest strengths now?" is flattering and encourages bragging. If someone does mention a publication, Vera can say, "Yes, I'm eager to read that." "Tell me more" is always a winning response.

In short, a hiring interview can be a strange dance in which the junior partner knows the steps but has to pretend not to. Ms. Mentor, of course, favors straightforwardness over pretense, and would much prefer Vera as a colleague over the updated versions of deceptive Bart or his enforcer, Dr. Iron Fist.

But not everyone in academe is always wise, fair, or sensible. If they were, there would be no material for academic novels -- and no need for Ms. Mentor.

The thought makes her shudder.

Question: If I get tenure, will I feel (a) ecstatic, knowing They do love me; or (b) sad, fearing I'll lose all ambition forever; or (c) relieved, seeing as how I got by again, and they still don't know I'm a total fraud?

Answer: Yes.

Sage Readers: Worried that her readers might be missing new monthly pearls in this section, Ms. Mentor in her last column invited readers to e-mail her, "I read Sage Readers!" and receive extra credit. Within days, some 70 readers sent such e-mails; more are still flowing in; and many add that "I'll do anything for extra credit." Some even parsed "I read Sage Readers," fretting over whether it is past or present tense. They will receive double extra credit for their efforts.

Ms. Mentor also received many excellent queries, as well as vivid rants about "hapless colleagues who screw up every task" and "highly verbal academics together at a holiday meal -- the horror, the horror." For future columns Ms. Mentor welcomes new missives, while reminding readers that she rarely answers letters personally, and that she disguises all identifying details. Anonymity is guaranteed to the wicked as well as the wise.

Ms. Mentor directs eager readers to The Chronicle's forums as well as to her archive and her tome, Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia.

Ms. Mentor, who never leaves her ivory tower, channels her mail via Emily Toth in the English department of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. Her Chronicle address is ms.mentor@chronicle.com

Her views do not necessarily represent those of The Chronicle.