Battered Academic Egos

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By Andrew Kemp, Samara Madrid, and Joseph Flynn

Andrew Kemp: The day I started 10th grade, back in 1984, I remember feeling on top of the world. I had just finished three years of junior high, I was past puberty (well, most of it); finally, I was a high-school student. And then ...

Everyone knew more than I did. Everyone had relationships. The boys were men, the girls were women, the teachers were old. Within a day, I went from the top of the world to the bottom of the heap. Here I had thought I was growing up, but suddenly I felt like a child again, insignificant and insecure. My ego was stomped.

Fast forward to August 16, 2007, my first day as an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University. Everyone knew more than I did. The faculty and staff members had relationships. The office was filled with intelligent, accomplished, and experienced men and women (I won't say they seemed old). I thought I was grown up, but again, I felt like a child. Here I was, just having finished the pinnacle of academic achievement, and I felt insignificant and insecure, again. Damn.

Life is cyclical like that. At every level of your education and career, you start at the bottom of the pile and work your way up. When I earned my doctorate, I thought I had reached the very top. But I was just at the bottom of the next level.

Walking around the halls, leaving the safety of my lamplit office, I see all of these active, vibrant minds, the accomplished teachers and scholars, the colleagues that seem to have it all together, working and producing. Where do I fit in? Where does this proverbial 10th grader who still listens to punk rock, alternative music, and Pink Floyd way too loud, who secretly enjoys video games and watching Rock of Love fit into an intellectual society?

I am hoping that confidence grows the longer you are in the job. The more accolades you get, the more publications you produce, the more dissertation committees you serve on, the more you are eventually convinced that you are good at what you do.

I am still amazed when people come to me for advice. But the fact is, I have been able to answer their questions on everything from the subjects I teach, to professional development, to career advice, to research, to philosophy. Maybe I do know what I am doing. Maybe I am ready to graduate again. Except the next stage doesn't come for another few years when I go up for tenure. Tenure. Here we go again.

Samara Madrid: Over the past few years, I have meditated on a beach in Hawaii, on the top of a mountain in New Zealand, in an ashram in India, and in a Buddhist temple in Japan. All of those journeys have been focused on uncovering my spiritual and "true self," while dissolving my ego and "false self." Ego, however, is like a shadow. It can be seen only when you are standing at the right angle and in the right lighting. And just when you think you have it under control, it appears beside you, bigger and denser than before.

When we decided to write about ego, I spent several hours sitting at the computer. Nothing came. What was the problem? Talking about my ego, in this column, with my real name and professional affiliation, places me in a vulnerable position. Few academics truly want to discuss the embarrassing details of their egos in a national forum.

Do I actually have to tell others how perplexed I feel when I hear criticism from my students, colleagues, and friends? How could anything be wrong with my teaching? How could my paper need revisions? How could I use an attitude adjustment? Yes, it's a daily struggle to admit to myself and others that I am not perfect and need to get a handle on that damn ego of mine.

A former professor once suggested that you need a big ego to make it in academe. Being invisible and selfless is the last thing you should strive for as a young aspiring assistant professor. The bigger the ego, the more grants you get, right?

But that notion collides directly with my own spiritual quest, and I am struggling to build a connection between the two. For example, in my teaching I have moved away from the traditional lecture and sought to create a classroom atmosphere based on dialogue, critical thinking, collaboration, and care. Yesterday, I asked my undergraduate students to anonymously tell me how the class was going. I had the same set of students last semester for another course, in which I earned very good ratings from in-class evaluations and an in-class assessment by a senior colleague.

Here's how one student responded: "I think last semester we took advantage of you, and this semester you flipped out and are wound way too tight." Huh? Took advantage? Wound way too tight? That could be interpreted as: Last semester we walked all over you, and for no logical reason you've decided not to let us do it anymore!

The collision of my ego, spiritual beliefs, and academic values are made visible through that comment. Was I too interested in being accepted by my students last semester to notice they were taking advantage of me? Did my liberal spiritual beliefs turn me into that "flaky" professor whom everyone can walk over? Have I been so wrapped up in starting a new research project, getting an article out, writing a book prospectus, and presenting at conferences that I now appear wound up? Have I let my academic self-centeredness and competitiveness take over?

What happened to the serenity I found on that beach in Hawaii and in the ashram in India? How do I keep that selflessness and peacefulness when I am in a space where people may take advantage of me, where I may take advantage of others, and where it's hard to see when it's happening?

Perhaps I need to stop seeking the answer to those questions in far-off places, and begin to seek them in the academic life I have chosen.

Joseph Flynn: Welcome to the big leagues, kid. When you spend a significant portion of your life pursuing a goal, you risk that what you will find upon achieving it will fall short of your expectations. Everyone wants a .350 batting average. And as my man Jay-Z says, everyone wants to be able to dust off their shoulders. Those of us in academe are no exception.

Ego can be the fuel you need to say something unpopular or wholly original. In some cases, ego alone can get you through. But, sometimes ego can be your undoing. It is a crazy Cirque du Soleil act; you lean too hard one way and you break; you lean too far the other way and you fall into shame. Learning how to negotiate those contortions is the trick. And trust me, in academe, there are a million and one opportunities to fail.

I can't speak for others, but when I finished my dissertation and set foot on the campus of Northern Illinois University, although I was a bundle of nerves, I was filled to the brim with ego. I had been told I had good ideas. I had just written what amounted to a book. I had respect from my mentors, new colleagues, family, and friends. I was finally making a decent salary. My stuff was set!

But then real challenges emerged. After the "honeymoon," you begin to realize, like any player in the big leagues, that you must produce. It is no longer enough to talk about how you can knock a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth; now you are expected to do it -- regularly. And then, you are handed your first defeat, or more appropriately your first series of defeats.

Earlier this academic year I was handed the first of two defeats. I was not approved for research grants from my college and from my university. Colleagues said my proposals were good and the projects interesting, but the powers that be felt otherwise. After I got the news, during my state of blue funk, a few senior faculty mentors counseled me, confessing that they, too, had lost out on numerous grant proposals and that applying for a grant is always a crapshoot.

That helped only a little, but then my ego said, "Get up dogg and dust your shoulders off."

At the beginning of this semester I submitted my first article for publication. I had a few colleagues run through it who seemed impressed. My ego was satisfied. I sent it to a top-tier journal and figured that if the editors did not take it, they would at least be able to tell me how to fix it.

Four months later, I got that "thin envelope," and we all know that is never good news. My article didn't even make it past the first round of review, and got no feedback. I asked myself, "Man, they didn't even think it was good enough to tell me what was wrong with it?" My ego was shattered.

The reality is, even if you have a .350 batting average, it still means you missed two-thirds of the time. So I am still here, revising my article and reconsidering where to send it. And of course, dusting my shoulders off.

All Three of Us: Ego can be a splendid thing. The very ego that has been seriously wounded for each of us over the past year is the same ego that motivates us to get back to work, challenges us to keep reading new ideas, and encourages us to create our own.

As academics we have found that we must accept the losses, which can come in droves, with the successes. And every day we must acknowledge the ego and keep it in check if we are going to succeed and be happy.