Dr. Mongolia and the Ever-Expanding CV

As promised, I have much to report (mostly only tangentially related thoughts) from my first academic conference presentation. It was a bittersweet endeavor, though certainly a valuable one.

First of all, if you are ever told to give a 20-minute presentation, don't believe that you will actually have 20 minutes to deliver it. After 12 minutes, I was given the signal that I had only three minutes remaining, which caused me to panic, skip most of the meat and potatoes of my paper's argument, and leave the stage having completely butchered my own work. Thankfully, I wasn't the only person who encountered this problem, which softened the embarrassment a bit.

Second of all, and more importantly, the paper that I presented unexpectedly (to me, at least) won the conference's "outstanding achievement in student research" award! This was surprising, because I don't yet have much confidence in my work. As a result, on the rare occasion when somebody else thinks highly of it, I feel like a fraud. I sincerely believe that they must have missed the point, because if they understaood my work, then they would surely find it to be as flawed and inconsequential as I do (O.k., I don't find it exactly flawed and inconsequential, but in a field so pregnant with brilliant people, I find it hard to believe that anybody would see flashes of brilliance--or value--in my "little engine that could"-style work).

At any rate, this was my first conference presentation, and, it turned out, my first real academic award (yay for CV building!!). Before I was even called to speak on my paper, I was shockingly identified by the chancellor of the host university as one of 7 award winners and was asked to say a few words in acceptance. It was a wonderful moment, and I am most grateful to the host institution for their recogntition, undeserved as it may be.

I've found that the academic world is one in which the appearance of success is just as important as actual success. Departments are judged by the quality of their faculty, who are in turn judged by the quality of their research output, which in turn is judged by the number and frequency of publications/conferences/awards, which are then measured by the reputation of the publishing/hosting/awarding institution, and so on. The academic ego is complicated and fragile, and it is one trait of the successful professor that I hope to avoid, and yet I must still engage in the seemingly frantic "award collecting" that is necessary for a successful career in the academy.

This egotistical ballet unfolds in ways that are often surprisingly juvenile, and even within departments, much jockeying occurs for status and legitimacy in a given field. For instance, within a biology department, professors in the molecular biology specialty might be upset because the cell biology group is receiving more funding than they are, while the cell biology group might be bitter because the molecular biology specialty gets more journal ink, etc.

Flashing back to my master's program for a moment, there was an amusing war of words and ideologies between the Tibetan Studies program and the Mongolian Studies program. I kid you not--these programs do exist, and they do not play well together, at least at the university where I earned my master's (this is one of the many reasons why I lovingly refer to it as an Ivy League freakshow).

The Mongolian Studies "department" consisted of one fairly well-regarded professor, who nonetheless was bitter at the fact that he clearly must deal on a daily--or hourly--basis with people who, because of their political views or research interests or hair color, are not nearly as brilliant as he is, and so they cannot possibly grasp the gravity of the subject that he studies. He is a prolific author and political activist (heavily misguided, in my estimation, but it's his right), and he is angry, because the Mongolian Studies program does not secure nearly as much funding as the Tibetan Studies program. He is also angry because he believes that the world has generally sold Mongolia down the river, and he seems to blame certain ethnic groups in the U.S. (??) for aiding in that misfortune, but again, this is another story for another post.

Let's now take a stroll down the hall where--while Dr. Mongolia is stewing and brooding away in his office--the four-strong Tibetan Studies contingency is busy working the phones, the conferences, and the schmooze circuit to secure outside funding. They are presenting papers, publishing, and inviting such illustrious dignitaries to campus as the Dalai Lama (one of my biggest regrets: turning down for some insane reason/schedule conflict that I cannot even begin to remember now the opportunity for a semi-private [meaning me and 150 of my closest friends] audience with the Dalai Lama. I'm still kicking myself for that one two years after the fact, and if you are ever invited to an audience with the Dalai Lama, please do take advantage of the opportunity, because then I will at least feel that others are succeeding where I failed myself). As a result, the department is productive, growing, and successful in securing funding from outside sources, which in turn leads to increased funding from the university.

Their response to Dr. Mongolia? "Ha! Enjoy the solitude of your office, little man. Just don't come asking for our help when you finally figure out how to fundraise."

...and the beat goes on. Academia is a funny little field full of egos, petty conflict, jockeying for scraps of notariety, and compensating for personal insecurities. And yet, I'm intrigued by it, and I look forward to someday, perhaps, entering the fold.

This conference presentation was a good--if truncated--start. The "outstanding achievement in student research" award is gravy.

Changing Hats

Today, as usual, I will wear both the hat of the corporate drone and that of the ponderous academic (or, more accurately, academic-in-training).

With the title of "doctoral student" comes the privilege of teaching undergraduates in such riveting courses as "Communication 100: Public Speaking," or "Communication 101: Business Writing." As you can imagine, although there are certainly exceptions, the students who take these classes are far from glued to their seats with anticipation (even though the taxpayers just bought us a brand new smart classroom, complete with HD projection technology, internet hookups, DVD player, stereo surround sound, and a host of other bells and whistles that I attempt to use to the extent that my poor command of technology will allow). Most of them are bemused engineering and "movement science" students who are required to take these courses in order to graduate.

In fairness, this is my first semester in the program and my first attempt at teaching at the college level. I can only assume that this is clear to students and that it offers them extra incentive to feel as though my course is of no use to them, and therefore, that their attendance is optional (even though attendance is roughly 10% of the final grade in the Comm 100 course that I teach).

All of that being said, I feel as though I've developed a fairly strong rapport with my students, as I am closer to their age than most of their teachers (and am, in fact, younger than one of them), and this relieves some of the tension that often exists in the classroom. I would even say that I look forward to teaching and to seeing the smiling faces of those that do attend class, and I've even become "Facebook friends" with a number of them, which in hindsight might not be the wisest choice. Still, my ability to connect with my students in a way that will help them take some pearls of wisdom from the class is more important than upholding some antiquated sense of decorum.

I try to make class fun for them, and I like to think that they appreciate it. I joke around with my students, try not to place myself on the academic pedestal that even TA's tend to mount sometimes, and generally act more as a peer advisor than as a professor (obviously, I am by no means a professor, but as I am the sole and primary instructor for the course, my students will address me that way from time to time, as much as I protest against it).

In less than a full semester teaching Comm 100, I have been contacted by the police about a student receiving multiple death threats (and missing class because of it), have been propositioned by one of my students, and have had a student miss class because her boyfriend was suing her on a "People's Court"-style television show.

The course I teach is designed to help students improve their public speaking skills, and the primary means by which they are supposed to build these skills is by giving a series of speeches--one informative and two persuasive--in front of their peers, after which they are evaluated both by one of their classmates and by myself.

Today, however, the tables are turned, and it is I who is giving the speech--not in front of a class, but in front of a room full of academics, professors, and fellow students (the toughest of critics) at an academic conference in Indiana.

You may be familiar with the term "publish or perish," which essentially means that, in order to earn tenure, a professor must be prolific enough to justify spending precious department funds on his salary and research needs. Should a given professor's productivity decline before he or she secures tenure, then the department reserves the right to unceremoniously dump the person into the unemployment lines, where s/he then must try and find another academic job or give in and join the corporate ranks.

Thankfully, this phenomenon does not exist in earnest in the graduate school world. Assuming satisfactory coursework and a viable dissertation, one can earn a PhD without ever setting foot in an academic conference hall or publishing a drop of ink in an academic journal.

Still, the academic job market is brutal at best. In disciplines such as English and History, where universities are churning out far more PhD's than colleges can hire, the average applicant:position ratio for tenure-track professorships is 500:1 (!). In Communication, where we have it easy, the hiring ratio is a far more pedestrian 50:1. This means that, in the most employable of disciplines, each newly-minted PhD has a roughly 2% chance of being hired for a given position. And these are considered strong odds.

As a result, a candidate with zero publications and zero peer-reviewed conference presentations is overwhelmingly likely to be one of the unlucky 49 (of 50) applicants to, say, the Department of Communication at Clown State College who are not offered a given position for which they apply. Granted, if there are 50 openings in, say, political communication and 200 viable applicants nationwide, the overall odds are obviously not as dismal as the individual numbers would make them seem. Make no mistake, however--the competition is fierce, and the stakes are high.

So, today, I will begin building my case for why I, of all people, should, in 3 or 4 years, be offered a shot at a career in academia by presenting my very first peer-reviewed paper at a little-known conference at an even lesser-known university. Beggers can't be choosers, however, and to say that I am thrilled to have this opportunity is understating the matter.

Incidentally, I did not even write this paper in my current department, but instead, it was actually my master's thesis, which I have tweaked to involve implications in Communication, even though I wrote it while completing my Regional Studies: East Asia M.A. program at an Ivy League freakshow in a major East-Coast city (more on this experience in a later post).

For now, I will drive across the state line and stand in front of whatever audience has paid its $25/head to listen to me and roughly 30 other speakers, hoping against hope that they did not arrive with high expectations.