Following advice

I had a student in the very first class I taught, Introduction to Comparative Politics in Spring 2012 who had an interest in getting a government job. He was a freshman and came to me for advice. After speaking to him, it became apparent that he was interested in studying Arabic. I suggested that he go to ALIF for the summer to get a jump start on language study and get this, he did. He spent the summer of 2012 studying Arabic in Morocco. And then he kept studying Arabic, while a student at UF.

This year he took another one of my classes, Politics of the Arab Spring, in Fall 2012. It was a difficult class. I designed it with seniors in mind hoping to provide them with a writing sample good enough to get into graduate school. The final paper assignment required evaluating the fit of a scholarly theory to a particular case. He brought me several drafts of the paper and asked for comments. I hope he won't mind me saying so, but the first draft was not very good. Neither was the second or the third, but he kept coming back. I will look at a paper as many times as a student brings me an updated draft and he took full advantage of that. By the end of it, he had a pretty damn good paper and was one of the only students to effectively integrate "data" gathered through social media. Plus he had a clever title.

During this time, I helped him apply for a grant to study abroad for a year. It was a long shot, since he is only a sophomore and in the end he didn't get it. We met for coffee a few weeks ago to discuss what to do next. And that's when he told me he was going to get a job in retail for the summer.

"Retail!? What?"​

​I was unhappy. A student who wanted a job working for the government, living in Tampa for the summer (location of US Central Command) and working in retail. I just couldn't stand it. I told him to send a resume and cover letter to every government contractor in Tampa.

​I give a lot of advice, so I didn't necessarily expect him to do what I said. But yesterday I received a great text from him, saying that he had found an internship with a contractor and was really learning a lot.

This student really impresses me for a number of reasons, but his path especially highlights one thing: if you are persistent, and you follow advice, something will come together. Why? Because he takes himself seriously, and because he kept putting himself out there.

The other lesson is for professors, and I don't have time to elaborate on it now. Just remember students are taking our advice!

Women in the academy: an Introduction

​I hereby declare Wednesdays to be "Women in the Academy" post days.

Those who know me are aware of my obsession with this topic. It all started in early 2011 when I was in the field in Morocco. I can even identify my first conversation on the subject. Another researcher and I were in a bar frequented by the East European mafia and their prostitutes in Rabat. Over the first decent gin and tonic I'd had in a while, I turned to my friend and asked her "Can women even be academics?" The moment I said it I regretted it. It was such a politically incorrect question. And yet there were times when I really wondered if it was possible to be a woman in the academy. To my surprise, she looked me dead in the eyes and said "good question." I will always be grateful to her for not chiding me.

​Of course there are women in the academy, but how did they get there? And what did they sacrifice? Stats cited by Connelly and Ghodsee in the book Professor Mommy (to be reviewed in a future post), claim that fewer women in the academy have children than in any other high powered profession, including among doctors and lawyers. They argue this is partially due to the demands of the tenure system, which ask for your most productive time to be the first 5-7 years after completing the PhD, a time that, for many women, corresponds with their last years of fertility. Some women wait until they're tenured to have kids, and then discover they are no longer able to do so. Others have kids anyway, when they want to, but there are all sorts of consequences, professional and personal.

I don't really want to get into this issue now. I just want to mention it to underscore the importance and scope of the subject. I'm looking forward to collecting my thoughts on the matter and posting them here, on Wednesdays.

A teaching nightmare and the rights of students and professors

I’ll admit it. I had a teaching nightmare. This is odd because I have had very positive teaching experiences with my students and, as I say in the acknowledgements of my dissertation, “Writing all of their letters of recommendation is a small price to pay for all that I learn from them.”
 
Nevertheless, I had a teaching nightmare last night. I'm going to assume it was that iced Americano I had at about 3pm, but there's no way to know. It was the first day of classes in a large auditorium and I really blew it. Usually, on the first day, I have a draft syllabus that I introduce to the students but I don’t give them a copy. I edit it slightly based on our conversation during the first class to take into account students’ interests. In the nightmare, the students were disruptive, there was no meaningful conversation to help direct the syllabus, we kept changing classrooms for various reasons and I (obviously) did a poor job managing the chaos.
 
Even though the students at the University of Florida have been polite, engaging and proactive, the dream got me to start thinking about the rights of students and the professor. You may notice they are similar.
 
Students' Rights:

1. Students deserve to be treated with respect by the professor and all other students.
2. Students deserve a well-prepared, enthusiastic, informed professor.
3. Students deserve assignments that challenge their abilities and meaningfully evaluate course material.
4. Students deserve a professor who makes herself available to assist with issues within the course, career counseling and long-term assignments.
5. Students deserve grace when unexpected circumstances influence their ability to perform at the best of their ability.
6. Excellent students deserve on-time letters of recommendation.

Professors' Rights:

1. Professors deserve to be treated with respect by all students.
2. Professors deserve well-prepared and enthusiastic students. This includes arriving on time, having had enough sleep to participate, and keeping up with current events that may be relevant to course discussion.
3. Professors deserve to grade materials that students have attempted to the best of their ability.  This includes working slowly over time on large assignments rather than in bursts of activity the night before the deadline.
4. Professors deserve to be well informed of anything that may influence student performance.
5. Professors deserve all assignments on time unless there is a previous arrangement.
6. Professors deserve one month’s notice on all letters of recommendation.