Dr. Shellie

I am writing the section of a proposal on PI qualifications right now. This is the part where I say I am great, in as many different ways and using as many different specific supporting examples as I can think of. Curiously, this has started to become quite easy. (I always found it rather embarrassing in the past– as if I was being quite the egotist). I guess I am getting used to this job.

This has been my first semester teaching. I have learned a lot. Here is the main thing I learned: there are students who do poor work, and I will be giving them C’s. This is painful.

When I planned my class, I included a lot of interactive activities, student-directed learning, and student presentations. In my mind, I was imagining that only A students would populate my class. It would be a good time. We would happily discuss scientific issues and explore the relevant scientific issues. I would use the class to help develop new research ideas.

I have several very good students. However, I also ended up with a sub-population of weak students in my class. Some of these students had been warned that they were not making sufficient academic progress, and needed to improve their grades. My class did not have any formal prerequisites, and it must have looked relatively fun and easy. I was a new professor; maybe the class seemed exciting. So they signed up, but they could not do the work… at least, not at an A or B level. By the time I figured out the extent of the problem, it was too late to screen them out or prevent them from registering.

All semester, several of the weaker students have been asking for extra credit opportunities, make-up assignments, grade forgiveness, etc. The students who were doing poorly have generally improved, but not to the B level. Meanwhile, the quality of class presentations and discussions have been watered down by the weaker performers, to the detriment of the whole class. My idea of using the class to develop research project ideas now looks somewhat naive.

There are now only a few weeks of classes left in the semester. I have kept the students regularly updated on their grades. Some of them may not graduate this semester, because their grade in my class will bring them below the minimum GPA. I am steeling myself now against any anticipated begging, pleading, and complaints that the grade I am giving them will bring shame on them and their family. Next year I will be far more careful about who is allowed to register for my class. But for this year, I am trying to get used to my role as a Tough Professor.

A colleague was talking about a humanities professor at our university, and the activist/blogging/art expression/organizing that the professor was doing. "Her work is totally integrated with her identity," she said. "She studies the construction of online communities formed around intersections of ethnic and gender activism with interpretative music, and she herself choreographs and performs symphonic pieces for Korean transgender drum groups."

Or something like that. I don’t remember the details, so I made up the transgendered Korean part.

But what I was thinking was, "gee, my work is not integrated with my identity. Not at all. In fact, the study of (my topic) has exactly nothing to do with my gender, ethnicity, upbringing, social or political interests, or taste in art."

I kind of like it this way. I think it would be completely overwhelming if my work was all about my identity. I enjoy the fact that my identity doesn’t really matter. On the other hand, I envy somewhat the personal connection to the subject matter that must entail.

I have started doing outings with my research group, every few months. We go for dinner or drinks, with significant others welcome to come along. They seem to like it, and hopefully do not find it too weird to hang out with their professor once in a while. (For whatever reason, they have taken to calling me "Professor" rather than "Shellie," and I am too amused by it to correct them. Maybe after they pass their qualifying exams?) One of my students, who is from China, particularly likes learning the names of new foods and is always full of questions. He usually asks whether the food we are eating is "typically American," and then seems slightly disappointed when I say it is not, but is actually far better than typical. Today, for example, we had a long conversation about American cheese and how it came in two types, orange and white, and how it was different from the aged Gouda, manchego, and blue cheese we were actually eating. One day I will invite them over for Domino’s Pizza, mac ‘n cheese, and Bud Light, and we will see if they enjoy typical American food.

Before I started here, I wondered whether it would be weird or even possible to "hang out" with my PhD students. I have a good mix of students in my small group (male and female, American and international), and this helps a lot. We also don’t "hang out" every day… I don’t want to be one of those professors that appears to have no friends, except for their own PhD students, who they go drinking with at the pub every night after work. But doing something together every month or two seems good, and if they all hang out together without me more than that, all the better.

Today, I am tired.

Tired of the fact that my heat doesn’t work, and the apartment manager told me it could take two days to get it fixed. Tired of the fact that I will probably have to call him back three times between now and then to make it happen. Tired of having a cold for two weeks which just won’t go away, particularly now that the house is freezing cold at night. Tired of stepping over the phone cord running all the way across my apartment, which connects the desktop to the only working phone jack/DSL line. Tired of the fact that since landlords are not required to give you more than one working phone jack, the manager refuses to fix the broken phone jack right next to the computer. Tired of the fact that he does not see my non-functioning oven (no temperature knob) as anything that needs to be repaired in the next year.

Tired of the students in my class who can’t do the work, and will probably never be able to do the work, but ask for lots of extra office hours so I can help them improve from a terrible grade to a very bad grade. Tired of the fact that they refuse to drop the class, even though it is inevitable, and so I still have to grade their papers.

Tired of figuring out how to go over, under, around, and behind people to get things done. 

Tired of the fact that my benefits card has still not arrived and I need to pay doctor’s visits out of pocket and get reimbursed.

Too tired to set aside time to think about research strategy and grant writing.

Tired of the fact that I can’t swim (have a cold) or go to the gym (because there was a recent outbreak of a highly contagious virus that left a lot of undergrads vomiting for two days straight, and it seems kind of soon to go sweat in the middle of a bunch of potentially disease-carrying undergrads).

I’m sure I will figure out solutions to all these things. But I need to regain some energy.