Ms. Mentor's New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia by Toth Emily;

Author:Toth, Emily;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

The Plague Spreads

Q: I notice that most of the people inveighing against cheating nowadays fail to spell “plagiarism” correctly. How does this bode?

A: Ill.

The Smell of Misplaced Priorities

Q (from “Henry”): I’m an assistant professor at Midsized U., where my best M.A. student (“Stella”) wants to apply to top Ph.D. programs. Stella is very bright and capable, with great potential—but she also has a substantial case of body odor. If she’s in my office for five minutes, there will be a lingering unpleasant smell for half an hour.

I’m on good terms with professors where she will be applying and would like to alert them to Stella’s application, but her pungency is no small matter to visit upon my peers for the next five to seven years. I am, therefore, reluctant to sing Stella’s praises too strongly, lest colleagues treat future recommendations from me warily.

If I’m forced to choose, my relationship with my colleagues will count more than my desire to help Stella. Is it appropriate for me to alert her to the professional implications of a casual approach to hygiene? If so, how?

A: Ms. Mentor is reminded of “Margaret,” an enormously talented student teacher whose third graders loved her laugh and her lilting voice. They flocked about her after school, had to be shooed away and sent home, and wept for days when she finished practice teaching and left them.

But “you’re much too fat to be a good teacher,” her supervisor told her. Margaret was a big, round woman who had been plush and pillowy all her life. “You have to get skinny,” her supervisor ordered. “Join Weight Watchers and get it off, or I won’t write you a recommendation.” Knowing she was naturally fat and could never be a twiggy, Margaret quit teaching. That was the end of her lifelong dream.

Her supervisor was irresponsible and cruel—as is any adviser who destroys a student’s career because he doesn’t like her looks, or her race, or her hygiene.

Any third grader knows how to handle Stella’s case badly: deodorants dropped on her desk, anonymous lampoons and e-mails, and graffiti about “Stinky.” If Stella has had this difficulty all her life, she has endured all that abuse.

There are also adult cowards—people who think that since odors are a delicate subject, Henry ought to enlist the nearest female professor, or the department administrator, or the director of women’s studies, to chat with Stella about her “issue.” Woman-to-woman, goes the thinking, the conversation might be less awkward—a point of view that Ms. Mentor finds sexist as well as irresponsible.

It is Henry’s job, not his colleagues’, and women should not be dragooned into handling situations because men feel uncomfortable. Henry needs to take it like a man—and talk to Stella.

What to say?

For his homework, Henry might read Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. He might also peruse Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People for ways to use a positive spin while delivering bad news.

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