I don't usually feel that I have been penalized by being a female in my profession. There are very few women in my field -- there is only one other woman of senior rank in my professional society. My way up the ranks has therefore tended to be facilitated by my senior male colleagues, rather than hindered, in their desperate attempts not to appear sexist.
However, there are some things that fall to me to do because I am the only woman. These are things that I must do because my male colleagues, bless their little Y-chromosomes, simply can't see that they must be done. Today's case in point: a struggling graduate student.
This student's primary advisor is not in our department. Therefore it has been easy for her to do nothing at all without anyone taking notice. She is, after several long years of doing nothing at all, on probation, and she must submit a draft of her thesis within a few weeks or leave the program. She has been avoiding everyone, including her advisor, all summer long. We all thought that she was working on her thesis.
She came in last week from out of town. She made lots of noise in the hallway around our offices, talking about how she was in town for the sole purpose of meeting with her advisor to get the last details of her thesis ironed out. "No, I can't go to lunch with you all," she said when asked, "I have to go meet with Dr. Advisor about my thesis." She packed a huge bookbag with notes and papers and her draft. "I'm going now to meet with Dr. Advisor," she announced, and disappeared.
Well, she didn't meet with Dr. Advisor. She didn't even have an appointment with Dr. Advisor, who is pissed as hell and threatening to pull himself from her committee. She drove several hundred miles for the sole purpose of putting on a show. The rest of my colleagues are not worried at all about this behavior, chalking it up to laziness or procrastination. After all, this is not their problem, she is not their student. They are happy to boot her out of the program, weeks before she is to defend her thesis, knowing that they are doing the "right thing," that she had plenty of chances and ample warning.
All these things are true. However, no one has ever talked to her to find out if she's okay or to ask if she needs any help from us. Yes, she's a procrastinator, but she's also a sweet, smart woman, and the lying and posturing are so out of character that she must be seriously ill. So this is my task for tomorrow: I have to call her and find out what the hell is going on. I am dreading this conversation, and wishing I had a big, hard penis that could relieve me of this responsibility.
Update 9/7: I called. It wasn't so bad, so I don't know why I was dreading it. I didn't get too much information from her except that she is working very hard, and she seemed very grateful that I was concerned. If she's sick, she's hiding it well.
I expressed to her the importance of being visible and communicative, and explained how these deadlines we impose are usually meaningless when we have the impression (no matter how faulty) that progress is being made. She promised me she would call Dr. Advisor today. I hope Dr. Advisor will give her one last chance.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Well, you may not have a big, hard penis that relieves you of the responsibility, but you are demonstrating that you have much bigger balls than any one of your male colleagues. It takes a lot of strength to confront someone else in a manner meant to truly discuss their human struggles and failings. Just booting someone out without even making an attempt to find out what is going on is really the easy way out of the situation. (not saying that concessions should be made, but isn't it worth knowing WHY after years of investment have been made?)
FWIW, I have known women professors who clearly had a penis, because they haven't taken the time to do what you're doing. Good luck with the conversation; I'm glad you're doing this. I wish someone had done something like this for me (on occasion; I was never this bad, mind you!), rather than assuming they understood what was going on.
I hit submit too soon. I wanted to add that the reasons for finding out what is going on with this student aren't just for the sake of helping her finish (if that is even possible at this point). You also have the potential to learn about where the system is or may be failing students. That's valuable information for program improvement.
My program has had two trouble students in the last year, and while I don't know if we're going to get them through or not (one for sure not, the other depends on the student's next move) but we've instituted new policies and developed new checkpoints based on where these students went wrong. They're still learning. They need mentoring. And we're still learning how to do that mentoring better. (And, by the way, we're not at all a touchy-feely field. People keep their distance and like personal space, and for a long time it was male-dom although that is starting to even out a little bit)
Thanks, girls. Now that it's over (I think), I don't know why I was so worked up over it. Isn't that always the way? I guess I was just pissed off that it fell to me to do it by default. My colleagues have their heads so high in the clouds that they don't even know this student exists, except for the few moments they are required to discuss her progress at evaluation meetings. Her "file" was just dumped in my lap a few days ago for administrative reasons.
I just wish I could have learned more. We've already instituted a few changes to insure that no one like this falls through the cracks again, but I have misgivings about how effective our new measures will be.
While working on my undergrad degree at a huge state school, I was struggling with severe depression and went through a number of periods where I just couldn't bring myself to go to class, meet with professors, turn in assignments, etc. Only one professor ever indicated that she'd noticed a problem with my attendance despite doing well in her class at first, and asked if everything was okay. Regretfully, I didn't take the chance to tell her what was going on with me and work out a plan of sorts for finishing her class, but years later, I am endlessly grateful for the kindness in that one email.
I'm so glad to know there are other professors like her.
I stumbled across your blog and so far have read all of the archives up to this post. I can honestly say that, until reading about you trying to give this woman a second chance, I didn't think you had a soul. Your comments related to students are always so negative that I wonder why you chose a profession that requires regular interaction with them.
I'm going to continue reading your other posts now, and I really hope I find more like this one. In my opinion, people should only become teachers/professors if they truly enjoy being around young people and helping them learn. Excluding this post, you seem to prefer highlighting their moments of stupidity, apparently ignoring the fact that you were, by your own admission, once in their shoes.
Post a Comment