Not much to say, but

I am working (in my head) on a longer, more substantive post.

Bun didn't nap, but was quiet long enough for me to get through the thesis. I don't understand why, not that everything is electronic including the archival copies, we still have to have a defense date in the middle of the semester, but I guess no one asked me.

I have some grading and planning to do today. I think, all in all, I will be working about 12 hours this weekend on work stuff. But that will only move me from extremely behind to very behind.

We got arm twisted in to going somewhere over Spring Break (not being completely fair - we came up with the idea first and were shot down. So we made other plans, that allowed for some work catch up opportunities. Then they, last minute, wanted to do it.) that will not be conducive to getting work done. I have a HUGE deadline the week after, plus my grad student is defending, so the next few weeks are super important for me to magically become caught up.

This all relates to the post in my head.

Saturday stinks a little when

So it is 6 a.m. on Saturday, and I am supposed to be reading a draft of my student's thesis that I need to get back to him this weekend. Sadly, my brain has not booted up quite yet and I can't have a cup of coffee to help it along.

We have Offspring's last basketball game this morning, following a really disappointing season in what has been a great quality program for the last 4 years. Spouse has something to do at work, so I am taking Bun by myself. I think we are going to go see the Princess and the Frog at the dollar theatre, then Spouse and Offspring have their weekend long training run, while *hopefully* Bun takes a nap and I make a cheesecake for tomorrow's dinner show thingie at church in which I have to sing. By myself. In public.

Somewhere in here, I have to get paper revisions done. Not entirely sure when that is going to happen. Oh, and the thesis.

I'm going to see if a shower will wake me up.

Tell me what you really think...

So I had the grad student I am mentoring as a teacher sit in on one of my undergrad classes yesterday and take some notes about what was and wasn't effective. I was hoping he'd pick up some ideas for his own classes, and I always appreciate feedback about mine.

Well, I didn't have a lot of time to meet with him afterwards, so I send him some thought questions, and contained in one of the responses was this:

So during my time here I've heard from maybe five or six students, graduate and undergrad, who say you are "intimidating" or "scary" or "scary-smart" or, once, "terrifying."

This was followed by an explanation that since apparently I am some kind of super-genius, I can't relate to the mere mortals in my classes.

I so want to argue this point, but didn't with him, except to point out that intelligent and well-educated are two very different things.

But I'm not a super-genius. I have several students (particularly graduate students), who are at least as intellectually capable as I am, and the rest are pretty darned bright, too (one of the advantages of working at a PrettyGood U). So how do I explain this? Maybe because I teach the difficult, but foundational course in both the undergraduate and the graduate degrees I seem more intimidating? Maybe because I read a lot as a kid, so I use bigger words than a lot of people do. Maybe because when I started teaching, I looked really young, so I think I have a relatively formal demeanor in the classroom at times which was an attempt to compensate. Maybe I need to dress down more.

Whatever way, this is clearly something I need to address, since it is going to be hard for my students to learn effectively from a terrifying instructor.

Lent update

I am fresh off of lunch, followed by a cup of "Restore" tea by Tazo, and let me tell you, mint and tarragon do not have caffeine, and are not an adequate substitute. So I am past the caffeine headache stage, but I still miss it. Just the smell of coffee in the morning (or the afternoon, or whenever, really) is still very tempting. I guess being tempted is the whole idea.

The other thing, I am not doing well on AT ALL. It's not something tangible that I can avoid, so that makes it hard to just stop thinking about something. Very discouraging.

Gack

So I had my grad faculty meeting today, which included discussion on policy for who gets dept-funded GAs, awarding credit in the form of co-authorship to students and what kind of work you can ask graduate students to do. The first two were relatively uncontroversial. We're going to have a written policy that basically carries out what we are doing already. We're going to use the statement on co-authorship that the research committee for the umbrella basketweaving organization developed (that was kind of no-brainer, but it does give a little ammunition when I might have to advocate for students.

The third was much more contentious, and I ended up having to give the details about what was going on, which was not really what I wanted. It did lead to a really good discussion about the values we want to have as a department when it comes to using graduate student time in a way that benefits the department as a whole AND benefits the students. Nothing was really decided, except that I should encourage the student who is "volunteering" on the dissertation to consider allocating his effort to higher-priority items and that we are going to develop a list of appropriate and inappropriate activities.

Then one of the tenured faculty members said, in front of everyone, "Well you know, MommyProf, when ThisGuy does finish up and move to tenure track, he'll be able to vote to fire you."

This was followed by a discussion of how I should let Chair deliver any bad news.

I know it's true, but it's not exactly what I wanted to hear at this point.

Come in to my parlor

There is an interesting post today at Rate Your Students about professors' offices and office hours. I was raised in that good Puritan work ethic kind of way that suggests that you meet your obligations and that showing up is part of those obligations. So I log more desk time than most other people in the department do. I'm in most mornings by 8:30 (today Offspring has a snow delay, so I'm not in until 10, but I did reschedule my 9-10 office hour), work through lunch most days, and go home at around 4.

Honestly, I know this is a bad decision, because there are so many distractions in my office (loud secretary whose desk is right outside my door, students wandering through, high-speed Internet, etc.) and because my compulsion to be seen at work means I have a hard time taking time for things like going to the doctor or getting my hair cut. I would get a lot more work done if I could go sit in the library, or, probably, even at home.

That's not my point though, my main point is that a lot of the students they posted from today were complaining about the fact that proffie offices have a "creepy" atmosphere. I would call mine a combination between cluttered and vacant. I started packing when I didn't get tenure, and pretty much all of the personality stuff remains packed away. I have a large collection of empty boxes at the ready for that magic day when I achieve enough escape velocity to bring Spouse with me.*

The other day, I let one of the grad students use my computer to print something, and sat in my guest chair for the first time in long while. I learned that my office really is somewhat off-putting. I have file cabinets, but I hate filing, so I mostly have the pile file system, in which Seussian stacks of paper are found in several locations. I have personal stuff like a coffee cup, scented candle and other things in pretty random locations, and I have yet to find bookends that actually keep my books up straight. I did some straightening that afternoon, and I want to have everything cleared out/in some kind of order by the end of the semester.

*We have a perky undergrad who is redoing our department web site to make it more snowflake friendly, and sent us this questionnaire. I declined to answer the part about what I like most about PrettyGood. I am grateful to still be employed, and I work hard. But I am not helping to advertise at this point.

Half a snow day

We had snow today here in Mid-Sized City, but for once they didn't call off public school (we live a bit south of the zone where everyone has a snow plow on the front of their pickup). Instead, they let the kids out at noon and PrettyGood even got out early, which meant I missed my third class. As a professor, this is more of a curse than a blessing, especially since I teach two sections of the same thing, and now they are off by one. Honestly, although I think the topic for today is important, it's not on the department final, so I may just let it go for the other group.

We made a family of snowpeople in the front yard, but Bun is definitely not the rugged, outdoorsy type, so we had to bring her in early because her toes were cold and she was crying so much her face was all snotty.

Hopefully I can get some work done tomorrow.

Two updates

1. So my grad student who is teaching e-mailed me and said he is behind on his grading because he has been so busy volunteering on the dissertation. I am biting my tongue so very hard.

2. I just heard from that school I interviewed out and I'm not off the list yet. They want some more info. So that's good, right?

Responses to the responses

I appreciate everyone's comments on the cases I presented (and the exposure on Scienceblogs), but I did want to clarify a few things about the issues.

PrettyGood U is not an R1 school. It is an R2, R1 wannabe, with areas of strength that are not basketweaving. Because of the R1 aspirations, everyone is kind of evaluated on research more, although this seems to be flexible. Regardless, I don't think anyone in my department is likely to get tenure without a decent amount of reasonably significant research.

I do not teach in a hard-core science department. We have professional practice as the goal for most of our students (and faculty), but whatever research is done is typically done with either social scientific or humanities-type methods. I do the social scientific myself, but that is not a stated requirement.

So we don't have established, grant-funded labs with lab staff.

The faculty member in case 1 was hired ABD, meaning all but dissertation in this case. In fact, I think he finished his coursework and comps in the summer before joining us at PrettyGood U. (I completely agree about this being a bad idea for this person, but no one asked me in the hiring).

He was hired as a lecturer, with an expectation that the position would convert to T-T when he completed the diss (supposed to be at the end of year in which he was hired). He has, in fact, been given support from the department in the form of both a course reduction and a GA to help him for the past two years. Still, no dissertation. So this semester was the first one in which I was not told to assign him a GA. We do try to assign GAs preferentially to tenure-track folks. (This led to case #2.) Our general policy was that priority for GA help (we don't have much) is first to activities that benefit the graduate student, second to tenure-track folks, third to tenured folks and fourth to full-time lecturers.

Honestly, though, the machinations of his hiring and his performance are beyond my ability to influence or care about. I just want to protect our students and act in their best interests. Since the work he is seeking doesn't reflect positively on the department or on the students, I have a hard time justifying student time in that way. Their work is only on his dissertation, and I am not sure that even if the students get a sentence acknowledgment in said document, that it is worth their opportunity cost in participating.

I may be wrong. So we are going to have a graduate faculty meeting this week to discuss if we need written policy in this area. I think we do - to make things clear and to protect me.

But I am willing to be wrong, which is why I sought the comments.

It's Sunday

so technically I can have coffee today. I stopped having caffeine headaches yesterday, and I am fairly confident that if I had coffee today, I would just get to do that part of caffeine withdrawal over again. But, isn't missing something a lot part of the whole Lent denial deal? So maybe I should...I already have a to-do list as long as my arm and a brain filled with pudding.

I think I would need a big cup of coffee prior to settling this matter.

But wait...

I haz favorites

Hi, I'm MommyProf, and I have favorites. I was reminded of this by having contact with two students who would be among the top 10 I have taught in my career. Not just because they were (and still are) gifted basketweavers, but because they were decent people. The kind who, were they not my students, and were they my age, I'd probably be friends with.

One, the one in Afghanistan, is a friend of sorts (e-mail) now, although he still calls me Dr. Prof. The other, who I saw today, went on an engaged learning trip to another continent that I did a bunch of years ago. She's been graduated for 4 years, and I have kept up with her through Facebook. She has done so well as a basketweaver.

I have one student this semester who is probably going to go on the list. If I had known her socially, I don't think I would have liked her that much. But academically, not only is she a terrific basketweaver, but she likes to read. Hard stuff. For fun. She's really well read, so her papers are fun to read, and she's also fun to talk to because she gets it.

I don't really know why I am posting this, but maybe in the sea of negativity that has been my posts lately, I need to remember some of the top 10 reasons I am so blessed to do this for a living.

Ethics

Maybe I am too uptight. Maybe coffee-lack has addled my brain. Maybe some of my colleagues are unethical. What do you think?

Case 1: Faculty member was hired ABD, with understanding that he would move to tenure track after first year, once he defends his dissertation. This is his third year, no dissertation, and he's in trouble. Faculty member comes to me in the fall and wants me to assign students in the graduate basket methodology class to collect data for him. I say no. The students need to work on things that will benefit the students. This spring, he asks me to assign graduate assistants to him that the department pays to work on his dissertation data collection. I tell him no. The university gives us money to pay graduate student to develop those students and to meet needs at this university, not the one where he is doing his doctorate. He contacts all the graduate students and asks them to volunteer to collect his data for him. One agrees. He goes to another faculty member behind my back and asks that faculty member to lend a university-paid graduate student to collect his data.

Case 2: Faculty member is tenure-track and he and I have collaborated on a paper. He was supposed to work on the literature, and sends me a literature review. It reads a little strangely to me, and I check the properties and find that it was actually written by an undergraduate in one of his classes. I write back to him and ask if that undergrad should be an author on the paper, since it would be a fairly major contribution, and he says yes, he forgot. This faculty member is assigned a graduate student each semester. This semester, the faculty member's graduate student comes to me and said his work has included collecting and analyzing all the data and writing substantial portions of the lit review, but the student is not being credited on the final paper.

Are these ethical issues? I am considering asking all of the graduate faculty to approve written policies about this that apply to our department, although Basketweaving as a guild does have written ethical standards that I believe address these issues quite clearly. That way it seems less like it is just me whining.

Boy update

We are getting into super-hot standardized testing season here in Central State, so they are doing "benchmark" testing, which means that the kiddos take an old version of the test under the same conditions as the real one, I guess so they can tell which students need extra coaching to get up to state standards.

It also messes up the lunch schedule, so Valentine Boy had a lunch period at the same time as Offspring, and came and sat next to her. According to Offspring, this led to a group of mean girls repeatedly coming over and teasing Valentine Boy about sitting with his "girlfriend." But he stayed. He's either really brave or really stupid.

Sadly, Offspring doesn't like him that much. But we have talked about how we need to be kind to people, so that's what she is doing, although she described the conversation as "strained."

Lent and other bummer things

So I gave up two things for Lent. My public one is caffeine, and here I sit at 8:30 a.m. on Ash Wednesday and it is already not a good thing.

The other I am not telling anyone about, but it is definitely something that needs to go from my life, as much as I don't want it to.

It is a beautiful, sunny day outside for once, but my inner mood is dark and stormy. I don't even think there is a particular reason. The kids are doing great. Spouse's illness seems to be slowly resolving itself. I'm "noteworthy," whatever that means.

I know I most likely didn't get either of the jobs on the East Coast (I would have heard by now, if I were the top choice), but I didn't really expect that I would, so it's not a surprise. I looked it up, and PrettyGood would have notified me in December if I wasn't getting another contract, so that's good.

My classes are going ok, I should have some scholarship time opening up this week, and I knock out a bunch of service obligations by the end of the weekend.

So why the long face? It's a little bit the other thing I'm letting go of, a little bit the feeling of not moving forward with life and just a lot of other little bits of stuff.

Also, no caffeine. Humbug.

What would you tell a first time teacher?

Our graduate program is small master's program, and, as such, we don't usually have students teaching. But they can, once they finish their 18 grad hours in the discipline.

We have a student who has some professional experience as a basketweaver, and since the basket market is kind of bombing with the recession, I wanted to give him some teaching experience so he can adjunct to supplement his income while he tries to weather the economy.

So the department gave him a section to teach. It's a non-major class (strike 1) and meets once a week, at night (strike 2). And he's having a really hard time. Some of it is excessive optimism on his part about how interested the students would be in inculcation into the professional arena of baskets.

Some of it is that having all those beady little eyes staring at him and having to be the one "in charge" is pretty un-nerving. He's qualified, but not polished, and he looks pretty young, and that doesn't help.

Then he's having the basic issues of figuring out how to get kids to discuss, how to manage time in the classroom, what to do with late work, etc.

I've had to do a bit of damage control (like you can't test them over homework you haven't graded and returned), and he's feeling pretty low right now.

What advice would you give him?

Such mixed feelings

So my favorite student ever® didn't go into basketweaving, but joined the Navy instead and is presently in one of our war zones. Now to be perfectly honest, I have very mixed feelings about what is going on there. Well, FSE can't share specifics, but has very mixed feelings, too. I feel so badly for him, but I just didn't know what to say besides that we are praying for him and he can write to us any time.

I've been evaluated

So we have yet another new evaluation scheme this year where you are evaluated on teaching, research, administrative responsibilities and service. However, you do not get credit for service. I also do not get credit for research, although I have to do it to keep my administrative responsibilities (running our graduate program). Each area is ranked on a scale as follows:

Unsatisfactory
Marginal
Met professional standards
Noteworthy
Outstanding

There the math gets kind of shaky.

I have an official effort allocation of 75% teaching, 25% administration. I got met professional standards for both. I have 0% for research, but my 3 papers at our international conference, one of which won an award, got me a noteworthy. I also have 0% for service, but my advising, being the person with ovaries who organizes stuff like the awards banquet, membership in two foundation boards and community service got me a meets professional standards. Apparently this all averages out to noteworthy.

Must be the new math.

There's a 2-percent raise pool this year (we don't get cost of living increases), so I guess it doesn't matter much anyway. It might buy us a few pizzas next year. Then again, I'm not cut, frozen or furloughed, so I'm really not complaining. At least about that : D

Valentine's DayHer

Spouse and I got an actual babysitter and went out for fun on Friday night, so that was most of our celebration this weekend. The last time we did that was last July, so, as you can see, it's been a long time.

Here was my Valentine's Day:

We went to Starbucks for breakfast - coffee for Spouse, green tea latte for me, "kid coffee" aka hot chocolate for the kids and scones all around. We like to do the Starbucks breakfast on minor holidays like Mother's Day, but don't usually other times because it is too expensive.

We went to church, where in our young families (ha!) class, one of the psych profs in our group did a session on research on love and relationships that was really interesting. I had nursery duty during the service, so I taught a 4 year old the song about the vowels that I learned when I was in kinder.

After church we got Subway and took it to a local park without power lines, so we could try out Offspring and Bun's valentine - a space shuttle kite. Unfortunately, we had a cold front come through while we were in church, so it was cold, windy and miserable at the park, so we only stayed about an hour.



A little housework, and it was time for handbell practice at church. We came home and I made lobster ravioli with pesto, edamame and served a 3-berry cake for dinner. It was really good.

Now it is 11 p.m. and Spouse is in bed. I found time to kiss him goodnight, but I just knocked out a pile of grading (depressing!) and submitted an IRB proposal I have been working to Chair.

I have another block of work, but I might just try to get it done tomorrow, although Offspring is off school, and will be up at PrettyGood with Spouse and me. I looked at the schedule for the upcoming week, and I won't have another evening at home until a week from Tuesday.

Now for something really important

Offspring had her Valentine party at school yesterday and came home with a handmade valentine. From a boy. Who isn't even in her class and had to get his teacher to let him out to go bring it to her.

And she's 10.

Trying to decide how I feel about this...

Status report

So my friend who got tenure in ceramics had this exchange on Facebook last night

My Friend: is sitting on the runway at DFW waiting in line for the plane to be de-iced and is reflecting on two things: (1) I wonder how much ice we're accumulating while we sit in line (moving into the second hour in line, by the way); and (2) tenure, while a powerful gift, really doesn't help me here (though I AM tempted to stand up and say, "I have tenure, so let's get this bucket of bolts off the ground!").

Commenter: At least you have your iPhone.

My Friend: Don't forget the inflight magazine.
Today at 10:01am via Email Reply

Commenter: lol - glad it's not going to your head.
Today at 10:24am

My Friend: It will eventually.
Today at 10:29am

Commenter: MyFriend, can I shorten it to TPGPF instead of addressing you as Tenured PrettyGood Professor Friend every time? It's really exhausting...
Today at 10:57am

My Friend: Permission granted.
Today at 10:58am via Email Reply

My Friend's Wife: Oh, brother, Jill (I mean sister)!!! You know I have to live with him and the ego you're overinflating, right? And, yes, MyFriend, I do know that "overinflating" shows up as an error on FB. Deal!
Today at 11:14am

My Friend: I need to enjoy this somehow. If not by lording it over people, then how?


Urg.

Holding

I feel like I am on hold, so I don't have much to say. I feel like I'm just bumming people out right now.

Let's see. It's raining. It might snow. I am bringing my students doughnuts in class today, but it is actually related to instruction because of the basket in which I am bringing them (for real!) No news from either school, which I take to be bad news in one case and neutral in the other, since I was the first to interview there and there have been 3 major snowstorms since, which probably screwed up their interview schedules. My students turn in a major project today. It's the worst of the semester, which is why I get it out of the way early. They hate me now, but will love me in April. That's why I schedule the doughnut basket for today : )

Unkind

So the tenure decisions for this year came out today, and a good friend of my was tenured. I am very happy for him, really I am. He was really worried because his field, ceramics, is closely related to my basketweaving, and his work has been in the artistic end, rather than the academic, which is fine in the field, but is dicey at PrettyGood as the merry-go-round administrations try to figure out what they want and whether they are going to ignore the wishes of the department.

But of course I unkindly feel that this is not at all fair. I'm keeping those thoughts to myself IRL.

It follows on the heels of a conversation I had with a colleague of Spouse's about how when I was denied, I was moved into this position that has two-year contracts, and that contract is up in May. His attitude of "well, everything worked out ok for you" made me so angry. On what planet is this ok? Would it have been ok if it had happened to you?

I see both things pushing forward what I knew was inevitable...the rewriting of my history in other people's heads such that they start to believe that what did happen was what was supposed to have happened. I am very sad.

Bleh

So Offpring, Bun and Spouse are all sick, apparently with different things. Bun was up most of the night, coughing, and I'd love to keep her home today, but 1/2 of my students have a major project due tomorrow, and I promised them extra services during office hours. Also, my grad student whose thesis I am advising has a major deadline next week, and I am supposed to meet with him today. Plus, I missed all of last week. Spouse teaches today, and he missed all of last week, too. Sick as he is, he'll be teaching.

Bun feels kind of crappy, but technically, since she doesn't have a fever, she's good to go for school. But that doesn't mean I feel all that good about it.

Things to know

Four classes, three preps, one new, is a bitch of a schedule.

Offspring went to school with dirty teeth and unbrushed hair today because she didn't do those things before she left. When I told her we were going to have to reverse the morning schedule again, with no breakfast until she has her morning jobs done, she wanted to argue with me that that probably wouldn't work. At that point I told her I was pretty sure that I could up the consequences to a point that it would work. Her response - "Wow. You ARE in a bad mood this morning."

Spouse is at the doc as we speak getting some more blood work done. He seems back to normal to me, but we need the test to tell.

Two more classes today. And I AM in a bad mood.

**Update: Poor Spouse has that phobia of contamination that makes getting shots, etc., very hard. He passed out at the Doc's today.

Cracks, and the things that fall through them

So I got 8 hours of sleep last night and have gotten about 30 percent less sludgy headed, and I am counting on this venti Starbucks in my hand to get me another 20.

Today is grade-a-thon day, since I have been out and assigned a lot of work while I was gone.

And I took my noise cancelling headphones on the trip and forgot to bring them back into school today.

It's going to be a golden day.

**Update: I was sludgy headed, Starbucks be d@mned, but I did almost all of the grading. I am also experiencing the mind wanderings that often accompany exhaustion, and they are not wandering in a good way for me. How soon can I go to bed?

I'm back

I should not be up - it is 3 a.m. on Sunday, and I am pretty sleepless thanks to jet lag. After 22 hours of travel, I made it back to Central state at about 10 last night. Spouse and I were both at the conference/workshop thingie, so my in-laws were here with the girls. I am having a tough time reading what they thought about the experience. I know Offspring especially can be wearing on people who don't know her.

I have a major grade-a-thon coming up today/tomorrow/Monday (what day its it again), because I assigned quite a bit of work to be due while I was away, but since I could check my e-mail, I think things went pretty smoothly without me.

I was also able to take two grad students to China with me, one of whom had never been out of the US before. It would be an understatement to say I was pleasantly surprised at how they did. I was blown away. Amazed. Had no idea.

So although 49 hours of air travel in a week, missing my girls and enough bad Chinese catering to last me a lifetime was a bummer, that was a real bright spot.