It must be the weather, or maybe the threat of swine flu, but, between screaming at slow-moving strangers and what happened yesterday, I fear I am losing my Pollyanna touch. Gentle reader, I am cheesed off.
Yesterday, partly to burnish my “student engagement” cred, I was coordinating a project with some former and future students, and a non-teaching colleague in a faculty support role (not IT, but along those lines) agreed to help out. This colleague has worked with my students before, even wheedling a letter of recommendation out of me (alas, my letters get around), but yesterday he seemed to sabotage my students, who had gathered on a cold, rainy afternoon to work on their project. After an hour of condescending gibberish, I intervened, prompting him to show them what we had agreed he would show them.
That I had to intervene cheesed me off, but something much more trivial has me simmering like Velveeta in “queso” dip. See, throughout the afternoon, I had wanted to model respect to non-teaching professional faculty, so I consistently addressed and referred to my colleague as “Mr. McGillicuddy.” He neither addressed nor referred to me until the last ten minutes or so, and then he was directing my former and future students to “Listen to Jane” and “Look at what Jane is showing you.” That was strange: if he used to address me by my first name in front of students in the past, I didn’t notice.
I had planned to correct him after the students had left, as well as to inquire into the bizarre decision not to show students how to do what he had explicitly agreed to show them how to do. The latter he had already acknowledged, but does he need to be told that women—especially younger, petite women—have enough problems maintaining authority without their colleagues undermining them? I kept mum, however, because students had lingered after: some of us hadn’t seen each other since April.
Or did Mr. McGillicuddy, however unconsciously, set out to undermine me? I call him my colleague, but not all colleagues are equal. I outrank, have more degrees than, and am a well-regarded member of a more powerful department than that of Mr. Melchizedek McGillicuddy—to such an extent that he depends upon me to speak well of him to his superiors. But no, men would never behave passive aggressively! Never.
In fact, yesterday evening he sent a gushing email thanking me for trusting my student group with him. And would I put in a good word with the Big Cheese?
Well, that cheesed me off. I didn’t delete it then and there, but I don’t want to reply. Am I overreacting? Would making some “queso” and chilling out with some beer at 9 in the morning mellow me out, make me less of an insecure, screamy-meamy beeyotch? Or is my collegial irreparably harshed?
Posted by Fretful Porpentine on November 13, 2009 at 11:28 am
I see what you’re saying, but people’s preferences about the first name / last name thing are so idiosyncratic that I’m not sure it’s reasonable to assume that the guy is being passive-aggressive. (To be honest, it always grates on me a little when one particular colleague insists on calling me “Dr. Porpentine” in front of students — I understand what she’s trying to do, and I would never correct her because I’m well aware that her intentions are good, but to my ears, it sounds both artificial and condescending to the students. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.)
Posted by Flavia on November 13, 2009 at 12:38 pm
No, I’d be pissed, too; I occasionally get condescending and peremptory emails from (sometimes very low-level) staff I’ve never met who address me “Ms. Fescue.” I wouldn’t mind being addressed by my first name, but their using the wrong title when they’re being high-handed in other ways really gets my goat.
But although I DO think your colleague was undermining you, I DON’T know that it was conscious.
It seems to me that it would still be appropriate to bring up the fact that he wasn’t doing what the two of you had agreed he’d do, and to inquire more or less neutrally as to the reason for that (“just to clear up any confusion for the next time,” or whatever).
And I don’t think it would be INappropriate to mention that it’s important to you to cultivate a certain kind of respect for professionals in your students, which is why you called him “Mr” and would prefer that he address you in front of them as “Dr,” so they don’t get confused.
But simply doing the first — without responding to his reference to the Big Cheese at all — might be enough of a way of reasserting your authority. (I’m a big believer in the effectiveness of being just a bit frosty and a bit withholding — musta learned it from my diss director.)
Posted by That Anonymous Commenter on November 13, 2009 at 7:43 pm
I agree with Flavia. I don’t know about the frosty part, but I’ve taken to being extremely direct in such circumstances. “Thank you for helping out. One thing that bothered me was…”. And of course (as you know), never EVER apologize for your need for respect (i.e., no “I hope you don’t mind my bringing this up” or “I don’t mean to sound petty” or anything of that sort). In other words, write the email as if you were a man….
Posted by waterkant on November 14, 2009 at 7:15 am
Difficult questions. I guess I would drop a line about the adressing-question while having coffee together – maybe “Mr. McGillicuddy” was really unware of it.
Regarding the “And would I put in a good word with the Big Cheese?” – no idea how to react properly.
Posted by Lucky Jane on November 16, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Thank you all so much for giving me perspective on this. I was worried that I’ve been spending too much time away from campus, and that prolonged periods of time in the exclusive company of books and my albatrossic MS had depleted what feeble social skills I had. (Although: such may well be the case.)
Thanks to my internet access being on the fritz, I haven’t replied to Mr. McGillicuddy, but I will do so when I have to be on campus tomorrow. I will “write like a man” when I do, though, That Anonymous Commentator. And I don’t think doing so is necessarily frosty, Flavia. Waterkant, I agree with Flavia that his reference to the Big Cheese was in bad taste (good lord, enough with the puns), so I was already planning to ignore it.
IIRC, Flavia also works on a large campus, where there can be a crazy quilt of cultures that manifest their differences in their conventions for address. One of the most alienating first impressions I had of JPU was of a downright hostile correspondence with a human resources liaison to the dean’s office, before I even arrived on campus. Yup, “condescending and peremptory” describes it perfectly. I looooooved (um, no) how she began all her misspelled, ungrammatical messages to me with “Jane,” not prefaced with “dear” or “hello” or anything, and signed all of them with “Ms.” followed by her full name, with middle initial, followed by a sig file some twenty lines long.
And Fretful, I totally get what you’re talking about, and I am grateful for your perspective. In grad school I was so uncomfortable calling my professors by their first names—especially when they signed their emails with just their first names, oddly—that I never addressed them at all. I tell myself I’m finally beginning to regard them as just (very influential) senior colleagues. Still, although students occasionally addressed me as “Professor” in addition to my first name, when I was TAing, I had a hard time getting used to being addressed as “Professor” at my first job. During the first few weeks there, I didn’t respond when thus addressed.
However, in contexts that don’t involve HR or parking or facilities management, my university is extremely uptight about titles. In my fourth year, I’m still not used to being addressed as “Dr.,” which is the convention here, because we’re far outnumbered, alas, by adjuncts without that credential.
Of course, the far larger issue in this post is that the meeting didn’t accomplish what it was supposed to do. As I said, he already acknowledged as much, and a cursory check of my email indicates that these students are conFOOZed, and that’s not their fault. As I also said, he’s worked with my students (albeit students I was actually formally teaching) before, so either he was way off his game, or he was, however unconsciously, wasting our time. Whether or not it was intended, the belittling or undermining may have come about when I intervened about getting on with it. The students don’t need to be led through their computer menus: they can read, ya know.