first efforts

I am.....(not) Superman

Over the past year I have learned a lot about myself. I discovered that my inner superhero is Spiderman, that my inner pop princess is Hilary Duff, and that I belong in Dublin. My literary personality is a classic novel. If I were a screen siren I would be Katharine Hepburn (though a different quiz said I would be Grace Kelly). And if I were a work of art I would be this.

All this stuff is fun, but for meaning and accuracy it pales in comparison to the very real "science" of Myers-Briggs. (I'm also a fan of astrology, but only because I'm a Scorpio and I once read that Scorpio is "the sign of sex in its purest form." I have no idea what that means but it sounds good.) 

My Myers-Briggs profile is ENFJ; to be more specific, I am a "moderately expressed" extrovert, I am moderately intuitive as opposed to sensing, just a little bit more feeling than thinking and I have a "distinctively expressed judging personality." (I think that means I am very, very judgey.) Over the years I have found this profile to be quite accurate. ENFs also run in my family. I'm not sure what my brothers or parents are, but both of my sisters are ENFs. Sissy 2 is an ENFP (which means she's nicer than I am but her desk is messier). Sissy 1 is an ENFJ like me, which might explain why, when my beloved met Sissy 1 for the first time, he declared that she is *exactly* like me, even though we are nothing alike.

But all of this self-discovery seems wasted on e-mail forwards, blogs and lunchtime diversions on the Internets. We should advertise these things about ourselves more widely. We could, for example, rewrite our faculty profiles so that they are more informative; instead of listing publications and research interests, we could let people know which superhero we are and what European city we belong in. I for one would love to know which of my colleagues is Superman and who longs for Rome. And grad students could be matched with advisors based on the Myers-Briggs or at least they should be made aware what a prospective advisor's type is. My advisees might be interested in knowing, for example, that ENFJs can be "smothering," "critical," "controlling," and "overly talkative." (Or maybe they knew that already.) Students preparing for dissertation defenses could consult this web site to see how they would interact with other temperaments in the context of negotiations. The web site was designed to address how people might interact in divorce negotiations. Which makes it quite useful for analyzing dissertation committee dynamics.

A Saturday of realizations

If you are an older lady who needs to draw her eyebrows on, there is a job for you at Macy's.

There is nothing (nothing!) cuter than a Bassett hound puppy. Especially one named Madeline whom you meet on a neighborhood walk and who likes the laces of your running shoes very, very much.

Stacy and Clinton of TV's "What Not To Wear" pretend to like their clients but they really don't; especially Stacy, who clearly was the bossy, backstabbing girl in high school.

The second best thing to the sound of leaves crunching under your feet in the fall is the smell of leaves crunching under your feet in the fall.

The sixty-year-old divorced guys who drive BMWs and live in the townhouse section of the GAC are very friendly. But people that friendly should at least try to be more charming.

Silly season

Hang in there, folks. What my mom calls "silly season" is almost over. The lawn signs will come down and Al Gore and Stephen King will stop harassing us with e-mails. A good sign: my absentee ballot arrived in the mail today.

As for the now famous Tennessee senate race attack ad supposedly pulled by the RNC early yesterday, well, I saw it on local Nashville TV last night. TWICE. I am sure that was a mistake. Yep.

Today's BAGnewsNotes has its own take on a very different and phenomenally compelling issue ad running in Missouri. Body politic, indeed.

What is an associate professor, anyway?

Over the past week I have had several conversations with friends and colleagues about what exactly it is that associate professors are supposed to do. Considering that I am one, this is a pressing question. So how come I don't really know the answer? The role is unclear, that's why. Associate professorland seems to be the epitome of the liminal space. Associate professors are most often defined by what they are not. My trusty Webster's dictionary defines an associate professor as "a member of a college or university faculty who ranks above an assistant professor and below a professor." Wikipedia's entry on "associate professor" isn't much better; it emphasizes only how one gets to be an associate professor, observing that the title is "usually awarded (in the humanities and social sciences) after the second book" (second book? good thing my college Executive Committee didn't know about that).

Given these definitions, and what I've been told by senior colleagues and inferred from others, the main thing I am supposed to be doing as an associate professor is trying to become a full professor. Which seems to entail at least some of the following:

Research. Finish that second book. Definitely start a third. However, I have also been told that full professors are not created on books alone. Apparently I must achieve some additional research greatness, though I'm not exactly clear what form that might take. But I am pretty sure it involves grant money.

Teaching. This one's easy: Don't suck.

Service. The biggie. Once you're tenured you're supposed to do more service, of all kinds, and I definitely embrace the importance of service. I actually did a lot of service as an assistant professor, especially for a department that protected untenured people quite well, but nevertheless the message seems to be: step it up. National associations, editorial boards, graduate advising, disciplinary organizations, grant reviewing, campus committees, public engagement, you must serve, serve, serve them all. But how do you know when and where to put your energies? How do you decide among seemingly limitless alternatives?

There's a very real Catch-22 in all of this: what if the very things that I do to prove I'm worthy of becoming a full professor are the very things that ultimately keep me from advancing? My friends and I talked a lot about this last week, and one thing we concluded is that in an ideal world, there would be more effort to mentor associate professors -- to talk about the role, explore what is necessary for promotion to full, encourage newly tenured folks to really think about where they want to direct their energies. Granted, our most senior colleagues are rightly focusing their energies on bringing along untenured folks, but I think it's incumbent on those of us in the liminal space to be proactive about these kinds of questions.

Still life with beasties

Robert's Western Wear, Thursday, 11:08 pm

Tim Gunn, mentoring guru

After watching last night's finale of Project Runway (Uli was robbed, by the way), I realized that Tim Gunn is everything that I want to be as a graduate advisor. He genuinely cares about the designers and is their best cheerleader. He checks in on them regularly and follows their progress. He reminds them of the rules, applies policies fairly, and tells them when time's up. With his ubiquitous "make it work" and "carry on" he encourages them to be both cheerful and diligent. He can be a ruthless critic, especially when he's trying to save them from their own worst tendencies. When it's time for them to show their work in public, he steps aside and lets them take the stage to shine (or sink) all on their own. And when it's all over but the crying, he's there for one last hug, an encouraging word, or a kick in the pants.

Bigfoot

Today I stopped at the local running store because I need new shoes -- specifically, I need new size 10 Mizuno Wave Alchemy shoes. Although they were out of the latest version of this model (which retails for a low, low price of $84.95), I was in luck: they had not one but TWO pairs of last year's model, in my size, on sale for $39.95 a pair. Glorious!

I must have been a little TOO excited, because I started babbling to the saleswoman about how I am not from here, how in Illinois I usually have to order this shoe because my local running store is always out, it's a popular size so it's never on clearance, blah, blah, blah. When I finished this blathering the saleswoman said very quietly, "Well, no one wears a size this big around here so we always have them on clearance."

With that, Bigfoot paid for her shoes, still excited about the bargain but feeling slightly less petite.

10 (+1) Great Things about Sabbatical So Far

1. Fabulous colleagues at the Warren Center.

2. Friendly, smart people in the seminar.

3. Free lunch *at least* once a week, especially when it comes with fruit tea from Bread & Co.

4. Being so disconnected from the campus calendar that I didn't even know fall break is today and tomorrow until I showed up on campus and wondered where all the students were.

5. Getting to know Nashville's distinctive neighborhoods.

6. Drafting one book chapter and being nearly finished with revisions on another.

7. Walking home from the office and having my head so into the research thing that I actually had to stop and pull out paper and pencil in order to get down some thoughts before they escaped me.

8. Enjoying the ongoing wonders of the GAC, such as The Big Dog Who Never Obeys His Person, the Little Boy Who Freaks Me Out, and, just yesterday, the Mysterious Explosion of Purple Fuzz outside my apartment door, which looked like the fluffy remnants of a muppet homicide.

9. Adjusting my usual weekday wakeup time from 5:30 am to 6:30 and (gulp) sometimes even 7:30. Decadent!

10. Visitors! Especially this week's much-anticipated visit of the Curly-Haired Chick Professors, who have promised to bring along hair products, campus gossip, and bail money (you never know).

+ 1 (a VERY EXCELLENT + 1): More frequent trips -- and driving instead of flying -- for my beloved and me.

Sounds of Oktoberfest, Nashville style