Our Series on Proffie Fear Continues, And In This One, Paula from Passaic Worries For Her Fella.

My deepest fear as a proffie has nothing to do with me. I'm also married to a proffie and my biggest fears are with him.

The self-inflated, "never say I'm less than amazing," narcissism of the contemporary undergrad extends from their papers to their poon. I've seen a crop of little girls in my husband's office flashing him their panties, begging for a grade, sweating their plagiarism charges.

He tells me about awkward situations in classes and office hours and I find myself longing to put my hands around their little necks and choke their very lives out of them. Or at least make them brown out a little. They have no respect for any institution, any authority, any boundaries or lines that don't suit their momentary lust for something. And, my would I love to remind them that might, when applied to things that cannot think above their gonads, does make right.

I love my husband, I trust my husband, but I hold my breath during his office hours, terrified to knock or push open the door the full way, fearing that I'll find some grade-grubbing 18 year old whose IQ qualifies her only to be the bouncer at a strip joint, doing... something. I can't even gauge the full range of what these students will do for a grade. But I can assess how it makes me feel and violence is definitely on the table. So, I fear the oversexed or oversexualized undergraduate girl willing to do anything to anyone for a "better" grade. But I fear more my reaction to her.

Trudy From Texarkana Invites Us Inside Her Brain on Exam Day. (Oooh, It's Messy Up In Here!)

I sure hope Sam doesn’t get his phone out again today, after I told them no cell phones during lecture. I hate to confront them about things like that. I get a knot in the pit of stomach every time. I guess I am just not tough enough to keep control. They cooperate most of the time, but I never know what a day holds . . .

I’m giving a test in my next class . I hope I didn’t leave my locked keys in the office with it. I trust that I wrote the test ok . . . what if it is too easy and they all make As! That won’t work . . . if they all fail, I can curve grades up, but what do I do when I know they did too well on the test for it to be realistic?

Attendance is up today . . . the day I have to lecture on that topic I struggled with all the way through undergrad. Bob is here . . . gunning for me already, I can tell by his smirk. Just because someone is a good student doesn’t mean I like them. I like some of the bad students, too . . . Why are they laughing every time I turn my back today? Why do Jim and Fred keep grinning at me during class? Is my hair messed up? Is there lint stuck on my seat? I can’t do anything about it -- I’m in the middle of a lecture! Oh please Don – don’t ask me that question! I DON’T KNOW! I should know, yes . . . but today I just can’t remember and can’t seem to get it thought through. I don’t have any business teaching if I can’t answer question!

Where are my keys! The test is in four minutes and I can’t get in my office for my keys! The secretary is gone to lunch, the chair is at a meeting, no one within four minutes of me can get me in! Oh good – here they are. Where are the tests! Did I leave them at home! Oh, here they are . . . in my hand, all along.

I hope I made enough copies of the test, the stack looks too small. Oh well, I guess I’ll find out in a minute. Oh great, Pete and Pam and copying from each other again. I hate to start that whole “academic dishonesty” mess going, so maybe I’ll just stand near them during the test. Not that it is going to help their grades any to cheat – when neither of them knows the material. Two empty heads ARE NOT better than one! Oh great, 10 minutes into the test and half of the class if finished. This is not a good sign . . . I’ll have to toughen up the test next time . . . wait! This is the LAST EXAM!

Jen from Jonesboro Just Says No To Grading.

My biggest fear is that they (students, colleagues, my department chair) will learn I never grade anything. Well almost nothing, I do grade exams, but not much else. Sometimes I read papers if I make them write one, which is not often.

Here is how I figure my system works. I teach around 250 students a semester, 4 classes, usually 2 preps but sometimes 3. So I figure, just showing up for class and knowing 20 kids names I am doing pretty good.

But my colleagues all bitch and moan about grading! I keep my mouth shut because, WTF do I care if they waste their time grading. I think grading just means you want them to see the world the way you do and most people don’t like it when students see the world differently. I am here to tell you students see the world totally differently than we do.

So I like to focus my energy on what I bring into the class. I spend a lot of time on prep – even for classes I have taught for years; new stuff, new topics, new ideas, new technology. I figure if the students know I am on top of my game, they will think I am grading everything. I also figure that they are either going to sink or swim with or without me.

I hope that I can motivate students to do their best, whatever that best is. For some it may be a C and others an A. All learning is self driven, so if I have add to their motivation by making class interesting, they will learn.

All the extra work I give has one purpose, for them to be prepared for class. They think they are doing all these cool projects and I am getting them into the text book and notes long before the night of the exam. I figure that way, all assignments that are not exams are given full points and those assignments serve as the curve for the class. All idiots love a curve, so I give them one and they just don’t know it.

"So, Who Wants To Be Department Head? Wait, Not So Fast. Where Are You Going?" Mike from Monroe Is Morose.

I’m afraid that I am going to rot in my current position as a “department head” at a CC. I love to teach and I love what I teach, but the resentment I have for the current administration and for the majority of students I come across is palpable.

I have found that the mentality in my workplace reminds me too much of high school, and I’m not talking about the students here. No, amongst the administration and the faculty there are the same sort of cliques that I came across those many years ago. The only difference is that in high school, at least, I felt like my hard work was rewarded (to a degree) whereas in my current position it seems like it is more who you know, rather than what you know or what you are capable of.

Then there are the students. I’m not that old and I constantly find myself wondering at what point did the majority of students turn into these demanding, whining, lazy individuals who think it is ok to do whatever the hell they want in the classroom or act anyway they want to towards the instructor. It’s not just the millennials, either, these behaviors span the generations. Of course there are the students who make it all worth while, but they are getting fewer and farther between as each term passes.

I keep telling myself that as long as I can hang on for about five more years, until the house is paid of and until I am vested with the state then I can quit and go back and get my PhD. Nothing would please me more than to walk in and tell the big boss to shove it up his ass and tell him how fucked up the hiring practices and salary practices are at the institution where I used to love to work. Unfortunately, these days, I find myself wondering if that is such a good idea. I’m thankful to have a job, and it is a pretty good job at that, but I cannot deny the fact that I am miserable. My greatest fear is that I will remain in a job that makes me miserable the majority of the time because of the lack of other options out there.

The Bitchy Bear from Boston on Office Rannygazoo!

My uni requires at least 3 office hours a week per class. You teach two classes, you're meant to have six hours. So I do. I carefully arrange my schedule so that I have writing days and meeting days/class/ office hour days; I stagger the office hours so that I don't preclude students with TTh or MWF classes being able to come.

And I never have anybody show up. I know: my classes aren't hard enough. But when I do have difficult assignments or a midterm coming, I just get peppered with emails that say "Can u xpln Wlter Benjamin 2 me? Cuz I dnt get it." When I respond with "Benjamin was a complex thinker. It's best we talk in person. Why not stop by my office Monday?" I get either no response or "Ok thx" in return, and on Monday, I will be in my office, with moss growing all over me, and nobody showing up to talk about Walter Benjamin or anything else.

Alternatively, the answer will be "I cnt cum on Monday, gt clss." Me: "How about Thursday's office hours?" Them: "Nocndo. I need appt." Then my assistant will go through 70 emails trying to schedule this person, between his apparently 4,000 classes a week, his 1,400 hours of work, his volleyball game, and his bunion-prevention exercises, and I will show up, on one of my normal, at-home writing days no less, during the only 30 minutes he has available in the next 72 years....only to have moss grow on me again while nobody shows up.

If my dean is reading this, you should know that I put those hours to extremely good use and the high score I have on Breakquest is entirely coincidental.

The only thing that seems to vitiate the nobody-showing-up rule is if **I** don't show up or even step out for minute to get my mail or a cup of coffee. Then we seem to enter a parallel office-hour universe where simply hordes of people show up just to see me, and I'm not there. If I have to be gone and miss office hours, I will announce it two weeks ahead of time, again a week ahead of time, and post it on Blackboard. Inevitably, like the sun rising in the east, I will receive email after email saying: "I needed help and you weren't theerrrrrrre. I waited and waited and waited." Then, of course, the same comment goes on my evaluation along with a emphatically blackened spot under "poor" for "This instructor was available for questions outside of class."

My office hours only ever have a rush during one time: when I catch some little shithead cheating and it's time for him to tell me his life story as a misunderstood genius whose parents didn't potty train him right/grandma died/abusive piano teacher killed his desire to learn, or at the end of the semester when it's time to badger and grub. Someday I will tell you the story about the student who, impatient at having to wait while another student grubbed, stood in my door and snapped his fingers for five solid minutes to let us know we were displeasing him.

Len from Las Cruces on His Worst Fear. (He Wins the Free Mug, and We Hope He Fills It With Something that Will Help.)

The "winner" of the RYS Mug Contest is someone who's not appeared on the page before, Len from Las Cruces. We went into this endeavour with high hopes, and the RYS readership didn't let us down. We received 147 entries, and the three current moderators split the entries up, sharing with the others their top 5. At that point, however, Len's ended up being an easy pick.

One of the things that makes RYS moderatorship so difficult (and we're not including the wild animals that live just outside the compound fence), is hearing these stories. But we hope that in some way sharing these things, these fears, these struggles, we can all recognize the problems in the profession, and one day - oh, we know it's crazy - fix them.

[*]

I can't think of many things within the profession that don't cripple me with fear. So your query is not some fresh-as-a-baby concept upon which I'm stumbling for the first time.

Instead, it's driven and pummeled me throughout my career, grad school to 10 years in.

But the thing that scares me the most, the thing that keeps me up at night in my cups rather than snoring beside Lady Len, is that I've wasted my entire life on a profession, a calling, and a career that isn't worth a drop of my energy or blood.

Is it too strong to say that I simply don't think college works?

I'm one of those humanities proffies who seem to fill RYS's pages, always confused and heartbroken over those students who can't read, write, or think. And of course the same proffies who seem to take a licking on the page whenever they pop their fair skinned domes into target range. ("Humanities? Don't you know we're swimming in ducats over here in the Biz School / Chem Department?")

I fear that my romantic notion (really "Romantic," in that sense) of being a college professor was fueled by all the same silly novels and films that get mentioned on the page. I thought I'd be doing something, making a difference, helping young minds grow rapturous and fat on the vine. But it's all bullshit, as anyone can tell you. I fear that what I thought would be my life's work is no more gallant or noble or useful than if I'd just decided to tattoo people or style hair for a living.

What good comes of it? What good comes for the 18 out of 20 students who sorrowfully spend 16 weeks with me each term? Those 18 kill my spirit, make me want to set myself (or them) on fire. And they fight me from day one to day last. They don't want to be in college, and have 999 reasons for it that I can't even begin to defeat or answer.

Those 18 come in dumb, go out dumb, too. And they've been sold a bill of goods by their parents, the culture, the media, their high school counselors, etc. The way college has devolved is into a sort of grade 13/14 mess of bullshit remediation, caretaking, and babysitting. We don't challenge them because - my god - the customer in them won't stand for it. And after 10 years of fighting this - modestly, I'm no hero - I have fallen into the groove dug for me by my colleagues.

I fear that most of the students I see are not helped one bit by my part in their college "experience." I buy into the bullshit like they do. They must go to college. Someone must teach them.

And so I fear I do nothing for 18 out of 20 students every term. They do nothing for me. It's a sweet deal. It's a wash. Money has changed hands. Sometimes degrees are printed and framed, and it was all just a financial exercise.

Oh, the other 2 in each class. Well, they're in college for the right reasons, on their own, because they want to find out where it takes them. They buy their ticket just the same, but they make use of it. They talk and engage, and in those moments when it's me and them, I'm doing what I thought I would spend my life doing.

But I fear that the ratio is not enough. If it were not for those 2, I'd be looking for consulting work, or a nice shiny revolver to eat. (Don't tell, Mrs. Len, because she's still proud her husband is a teacher.)

Is there anything worse to think? Is there anything more dispiriting than this?

I fear it's all been for nothing.

Scranton Suzanne Offers Advice to Nila. A Response For Those Suffering With a Male Student Egomaniac.

I don't know what your field is, but I urge you to, among other things, take a look at some of the social psychology research on the intersections of race, gender, appearance, etc and college professing. It's well documented that (tall) apparently white, apparently hetero men speaking unaccented English embody many students' image of 'college professor.' It's who they imagine when they're thinking about the role/occupation. Such characters are much more easily accorded respect and authority and the studies show, have to actively do things to lose students' respect and to lose authority. Others - the short, the female, the "of color," the international, those with accented English (but not Anglo-accented English) - start from a one-down position, where we must work to earn authority and respect. We are not seen to embody it automatically just by virtue of who we are. Looking at some of the research on this (see particularly an article by Gabe or Gabriel Smith about faculty of color and syllabi) might give you insights and may encourage you to know you are NOT alone.

So what can we do? First, I always teach in professional dress, which appears to me to be best exemplified by a blazer, slacks, a shoe with a heel, minimal jewelry. I wear makeup because I look a little younger without it. I've found very comfortable shoes that have (non-stiletto) heels - height conveys authority. Slacks convey masculinity in a sense. Costuming is vital.

Second, my syllabus is groaning under its own weight - 8+ pages and growing every year. I've found different ways to convey the idea that I mean business, from Day One. (My students now complete a syllabus contract to attest that they have read and understand everything in the syllabus.) Some of what's in the syllabus: I don't discuss grades on papers, tests, etc until the student has had the grade for at least 24 hrs and I don't discuss them by email, only in person in office hours (e.g., my turf, both of us sitting down). I am direct in the language and have grown terser and terser, eg, "6 absences? You will be withdrawn from the course." It is easier to begin with some seriousness and an all-business attitude and migrate to something more jocular or loose later in the term.

Third, I read teaching and pedagogy guides, books, and websites with frequency; I bone up during breaks and in the summer. They give me techniques and tools for clarity, order, logic, assessment, etc that have become the backbone of my teaching. I have seen that the more order, logic, and organization I have employed, the more student complaints of all sorts have diminished, and the more this kind of sexist (and racist) posturing has decreased. The work on dealing with difficult students has helped me gain insights into their posturing and conduct as well; though they aren't bringing much more than knee-jerk behaviors supported by a stratified culture, I can at least bring an analysis to the situation (and it helps).

Another thing is that, depending on your subject and the other students in the course, chances are that other students see the Egomaniac for what he is. Employ their help in effect. Egomaniac goes on tangent in class discussion and attempts to puff up his insignificant chest? Flip his comment or question to other students. Open it up to the other students. If a student rolls his eyes when EgoBoy hijacks the class, say, 'I just saw a reaction - you had a look on your face - please comment,' and Eye Roller will take some of EgoBoy's energy out of the room by disagreeing.

I have begun to teach critical thinking in such a way that whenever I have a tool like this, I can always go back to critical thinking and say, "What's your evidence for that claim?" Or "where in the reading is the evidence in support of the claim you just made?" Or "That sounds like your point of view." And then I ask the class, "Why is that his point of view and not an evidence-based argument?" Then they help out - because opinions are blah blah, or evidence enables us to.... This goes back to the whole 'logical, ordered, presenting ideas bigger than mine' approach I referenced above.

I have to be honest and say that I rarely (any longer) get the sort of student you describe, mainly because he is not at all drawn to the subjects I teach, so I am a little out of practice in dealing with the Male Student Egomaniac. But I used to get him and his cousins all the time, when I was younger and felt less of my own authority (nothing like earning tenure). They whipped out everything on me: standing while in my office so that he towered over me, clearly a dominance move, complete with pounding on my desk; threatening me with reports to the dean, the chair, the president of the college; email whines and rants; nasty course evals about me being a "feminazi" (highly original); making sexual comments about me to other students, covertly, during class, as a way to demean me and try to put me in my place, and on and on.

The other thing you should do, if you haven't already, is find a faculty mentor (dept or not) whom you can trust. You need to know that someone in power has your back and that they understand the context in which students evaluate, perceive, and judge us. Profs teaching sensitive or controversial courses (or required courses that are seen as drudgery) need to know that context will be factored into upper-level reviews of their work as they progress toward tenure. If I am a Black woman teaching courses on race where half my students are gen ed requirement-fillers, then chances are that I will have negativity based on my students' racism and sexism. It can be hard to parse out sometimes but I know that someone with more power than I have does have my back and will contextualize my student evals based on knowledge of these unfortunate structural and cultural dynamics.

Newest Syndrome To Afflict Some: Lawn Mower Moms.

I have heard horror stories of helicopter mom's from coworkers in the academic field, from mom's who call professors requesting extensions on assignments to flat out demanding that their little darling get better grades. Very rarely do I come across anything that even shocks me anymore, I before today I would have even ventured to say I was unflappable. However after meeting with Career Services today I have to say that even my jaded self is shocked.

Apparently helicopter moms have brought it one step further and have become lawn mower moms, taking out everything in their path. They are now contacting the potential employers of their little darlings to ask about pay and benefits for jobs their children have interviewed for. These are large companies, such as GM, or corporate banks, that they are contacting without a moment’s hesitation. Even more baffling is the fact that many of these companies are sending out pay and benefit information to the parents of the potential employees they are interviewing! Do they even realize what they are setting themselves up for?

Has the world gone mad? I work in the professional field as well as teach, if a potential employees mother EVER called me and asked what benefit package I was prepared to offer little Timmy I would promptly tell her, “None, we do not hire fetuses incapable of living independently from their mommies here.” I would then cross them off the list! Furthermore if MY mother ever called my potential boss I cannot even form words to describe what I would do, other than perhaps tell said potential boss that she is off her medication and to please ignore her ranting. Are these mothers going to call HR if little Timmy doesn’t get his raise and demand his performance review be sent to her so she can review it? Is she going to go to work with Timmy to make sure he “settles in” alright and no one is mean to him by setting boundaries and expectations?

What the hell is going on? I feel like I am taking crazy pills!

Where We Make Sure Some Grad Kids - One Named BOOBIE - Get Their Share of the Smackdown!

It is the time of year in my broad shouldered state when the snow starts to melt and the thesis students began to come apart in delightful ways. After years of competing for advisors, fellowships, and recognition, this year's lumbering pack is beginning to stumble. Of course it is now the time for grad student smackdowns:

• Oooooh! A whole summer in Paris, all expenses paid, to market a new beverage in 20-something expat bars IS OBVIOUSLY the to-die-for culmination of your lifetime of education. Yes, of course you may take a leave of absence, and when you return, yes you may submit your Paris journal, in place of the required research thesis, for a degree. But I get to pick the degree, and it is looking like Master of Delusion. C'est la vie.
  


• Welcome back Dizzy! I know it was rude of me to leave your scheduled thesis defense for the airport, just four hours after you were a no-show. Yes, I did hear that you entered the building exactly when all the examiners were also leaving. No, I didn't get your 22 e-mails while I was on the big big airplane, or in the big city far far away. Really. It is because we crossed the international date line and your e-mails couldn't go back in time and reach me there yet. No no, I don't think the external examiners will want to fly back for a "do-over." Yes, yes, you are certainly still in graduate school. The captain has turned off the seatbelt sign. Please get comfortable for a very long flight.
  


• No, THANK YOU! Meathead, for failing to give a clear answer for any of the questions the examiners asked at your thesis defense. Yes, it is rigorous that you did not come to any meetings, respond to any emails, or even live in the same city for the last semester, because you wanted to try to do a thesis "on your own." No, I don't think the external examiner meant it when he asked "how did he ever get into graduate school?" He is not familiar with our cash-based graduate admissions process. Yes, I'm sure he was impressed when you mindlessly read off unrelated citations, like a tone-poem, including one from another students' thesis in place of the expected thesis statement. No, I don't know why people giggle when you tell them your presentation went well. Yes, you too are certainly still in graduate school. No, I will not be approving your thesis proposal, but you may have some lovely cookies for your efforts. And please do drink the complimentary Kool-Aid.
  


• That was a gutsy move Boobie, appearing completely immobile for two years and then lightning-fast submitting your horrific incomplete and incoherent first draft directly to the grad school, and then trying to schedule a thesis defense without informing your advisor. Did you think I wouldn't be notified of this, or even be invited to the defense? Fortunately when they called me to confirm, I got to try out all the convoluted obscenities you have muttered under your breath before me. They hung up on me, so I think I pronounced them correctly. Oh, you want to know what to do now? Repeat many times after me: "Do you want fries with that ma'am?"

Nila From New Orleans Needs Our Help. On the "MSE" Archetype.

Every year, in every class, I come across an archetype: The Male Student Egomaniac. The MSE has the following characteristics:

• smugness
• overconfident body language
• verbal diarrhea
• inability to curb opinions
• inability to parse relevant facts
• desire to upstage authority figure (me)
• desire to prove intelligence
• tendency to reduce discussion to trivial pursuit game
• reactionary response to attempt to curb tangential discussion
• overly willing to argue inconsequential points or factoids

As someone new to teaching, a woman, a minority and being short-ish, I feel like I’m under attack. I have not yet developed an adequate approach to this kind of individual. I am getting very sick of having to deal with these types. Initially, I treated them with kindness and indulgence.

Then I realized that kindness is mistaken for weakness and indulgence is taken for permission. So, now I have taken to cutting off the individual and simply taking the bad evaluation for the sake of my peace of mind and class discipline.

It would be most wonderful to know how others have dealt with such a personality.