diversity in the workplace part III: supersize me!
A true story
Once upon a time, I worked at a University in a cold, cold land on a storied river. A bad Dean was replaced by a good Dean, beginning a time of hopefulness and expansion in the College of Liberal Arts, a sprawling unruly division of the University where the most highly ranked department was Psychology. The Dean seemed ambitious and even sympathetic to the demands of his professors, his subjects. Among the initiatives spawned under his reign was the Humanities Institute, the Center for German and European Studies. Increasingly, however, it became clear that the way in which this University as most Universities are governed is this: at the lowest levels, the demand for transparency and accountability is the most stringent, and breaches of democratic process and bureaucratic procedure the most stringently punished.
(We learned this from corporate America; CEO's could order $60,000 porcelain umbrella stands, but woe to the secretary who took an extra sick day, that could be cause for discipline.)
It became more and more evident that the Dean treated his faculty like prize pigs at the State Fair, parading us before Chancellors and parents. Those of whom won the biggest grants and fattened the coffers of the University were granted the places of honor at his side. Those of us who seemed the most to resemble him in facial hair and general air of bureaucratic self-complacency were promoted to positions of power and influence. Mustaches were in. Those of us who complained, who were incapable of growing facial hair, who had a different idea of faculty sovereignty were increasingly marginalized.
He surrounded himself with pale and chubby yes-men and the token minority female associate dean, his own Condoleeza Rice, but in this case she was put in charge of classrooms or something like that.
His rigidity and his lack of appreciation for his faculty was in turn reproduced by his faculty and influenced the way in which people treated each other with the utmost contempt. Like victims of abuse, we abused each other, seeing in our colleague's relative powerlessness and delusions of grandiosity uncomfortable expressions of our own abjection. As under any totalitarian state where dissent is ignored or punished, the victim of abuse was invariably blamed for being too "uppity" like a house Negro on the plantation of the ante-bellum South. The most amazing thing about this system was that mutual censure was the most effective form of top down control. We were like eunuchs at the court of a particularly brutal emperor -- filled with intrigue and ready to accuse the least liked concubine of treachery at any moment -- conformity was the very elixir of our existence.
Point of fact was the way in which the Dean handled the Directorship of the Humanities Institute, to which, at the date of writing he has yet to name an official director, preferring to keep it under the stewardship of an acting director, promoted from the office manager, a perfectly anodyne and nice fellow who has utterly no authority. The former Director resigned because of workload issues and conflicts with the Dean. Those pesky professors! The Director before that refused a second term.
Gradually, we began to realize that we were all totally instrumentalized at different salary levels albeit, in a system in which any kind of autonomy or dissent on the part of a faculty member was seen as insurrection. He responded to our innumerable complaints with the New Age answer, "Thank you for sharing." Code for "I've just erased you from my memory bank." Utterly indifferent to intellectual content or critical evaluation of his faculty and our morale or working conditions, he made it apparent that his decisions were based upon expediency and managerial concerns -- and that there would be nothing like transparency or democracy to legitimize what would be his decisions only.
Suddenly, during a year when I and my husband were both interviewing for jobs at different universities (most of which were more highly ranked than my underfinanced, but ambitious department), he announced that the College of Liberal Arts was about to embark upon SUPER SEARCHES -- for the BEST Humanities Professors in the country. This was code for "We have a budget to compete with NYU and USC to hire 'stars' and instantly raise our fundraising profile to potential donors hot and heavy to get in bed with the already over solicited heavy hitters like who knows? Cornel West? Judith Butler? The famous Andrew Ross? Stephen Greenblatt? Homi Bhaba? Why value your own faculty by giving them more support when you can pump up the salaries of big names.
In the absence of any call for retaining me since I hadn't scored a concrete offer and was therefore a loser in the gladiatorial battle called the Modern Languages Association, I could only assume that I was being left to toil in the shadow of the SUPER professors who would be brought in at many times my pitiful salary. "Am I not Super?" I wanted to ask, but the answer was quite evident in the Dean's demeanor.
With adrenaline flowing through my veins, I railed that I would rather work at McDonald's. At least I would know from the outset that I was going to be treated like dirt and forced to wear double ply polyester.
Weekend Update for the Administrators of the University:
If you want to SUPERSIZE the reputation of the University's College of Liberal Arts, it will take more than a few brand names to change the rank atmosphere of mutual contempt that reigns between professors and the quality of education the students receive.
I have been trying to see in this whole parable an allegory of the disease that eats away at our souls when we work in overmanaged vast bureaucracies with no democratic processes, but much rationalized 'accountability' in the form of paperwork. A newly formed Forum for a Democratic University deserves mention here: forged in the crucible of the clerical workers strike, it forces the issue of democracy in a place where bureaucracy has replaced all other forms of rationale.
In my fantasies. I said to the Dean and his many mustachioed minions, "Supersize This!" pointing to my still polyester free behind as I headed for the nearest door.
Once upon a time, I worked at a University in a cold, cold land on a storied river. A bad Dean was replaced by a good Dean, beginning a time of hopefulness and expansion in the College of Liberal Arts, a sprawling unruly division of the University where the most highly ranked department was Psychology. The Dean seemed ambitious and even sympathetic to the demands of his professors, his subjects. Among the initiatives spawned under his reign was the Humanities Institute, the Center for German and European Studies. Increasingly, however, it became clear that the way in which this University as most Universities are governed is this: at the lowest levels, the demand for transparency and accountability is the most stringent, and breaches of democratic process and bureaucratic procedure the most stringently punished.
(We learned this from corporate America; CEO's could order $60,000 porcelain umbrella stands, but woe to the secretary who took an extra sick day, that could be cause for discipline.)
It became more and more evident that the Dean treated his faculty like prize pigs at the State Fair, parading us before Chancellors and parents. Those of whom won the biggest grants and fattened the coffers of the University were granted the places of honor at his side. Those of us who seemed the most to resemble him in facial hair and general air of bureaucratic self-complacency were promoted to positions of power and influence. Mustaches were in. Those of us who complained, who were incapable of growing facial hair, who had a different idea of faculty sovereignty were increasingly marginalized.
He surrounded himself with pale and chubby yes-men and the token minority female associate dean, his own Condoleeza Rice, but in this case she was put in charge of classrooms or something like that.
His rigidity and his lack of appreciation for his faculty was in turn reproduced by his faculty and influenced the way in which people treated each other with the utmost contempt. Like victims of abuse, we abused each other, seeing in our colleague's relative powerlessness and delusions of grandiosity uncomfortable expressions of our own abjection. As under any totalitarian state where dissent is ignored or punished, the victim of abuse was invariably blamed for being too "uppity" like a house Negro on the plantation of the ante-bellum South. The most amazing thing about this system was that mutual censure was the most effective form of top down control. We were like eunuchs at the court of a particularly brutal emperor -- filled with intrigue and ready to accuse the least liked concubine of treachery at any moment -- conformity was the very elixir of our existence.
Point of fact was the way in which the Dean handled the Directorship of the Humanities Institute, to which, at the date of writing he has yet to name an official director, preferring to keep it under the stewardship of an acting director, promoted from the office manager, a perfectly anodyne and nice fellow who has utterly no authority. The former Director resigned because of workload issues and conflicts with the Dean. Those pesky professors! The Director before that refused a second term.
Gradually, we began to realize that we were all totally instrumentalized at different salary levels albeit, in a system in which any kind of autonomy or dissent on the part of a faculty member was seen as insurrection. He responded to our innumerable complaints with the New Age answer, "Thank you for sharing." Code for "I've just erased you from my memory bank." Utterly indifferent to intellectual content or critical evaluation of his faculty and our morale or working conditions, he made it apparent that his decisions were based upon expediency and managerial concerns -- and that there would be nothing like transparency or democracy to legitimize what would be his decisions only.
Suddenly, during a year when I and my husband were both interviewing for jobs at different universities (most of which were more highly ranked than my underfinanced, but ambitious department), he announced that the College of Liberal Arts was about to embark upon SUPER SEARCHES -- for the BEST Humanities Professors in the country. This was code for "We have a budget to compete with NYU and USC to hire 'stars' and instantly raise our fundraising profile to potential donors hot and heavy to get in bed with the already over solicited heavy hitters like who knows? Cornel West? Judith Butler? The famous Andrew Ross? Stephen Greenblatt? Homi Bhaba? Why value your own faculty by giving them more support when you can pump up the salaries of big names.
In the absence of any call for retaining me since I hadn't scored a concrete offer and was therefore a loser in the gladiatorial battle called the Modern Languages Association, I could only assume that I was being left to toil in the shadow of the SUPER professors who would be brought in at many times my pitiful salary. "Am I not Super?" I wanted to ask, but the answer was quite evident in the Dean's demeanor.
With adrenaline flowing through my veins, I railed that I would rather work at McDonald's. At least I would know from the outset that I was going to be treated like dirt and forced to wear double ply polyester.
Weekend Update for the Administrators of the University:
If you want to SUPERSIZE the reputation of the University's College of Liberal Arts, it will take more than a few brand names to change the rank atmosphere of mutual contempt that reigns between professors and the quality of education the students receive.
I have been trying to see in this whole parable an allegory of the disease that eats away at our souls when we work in overmanaged vast bureaucracies with no democratic processes, but much rationalized 'accountability' in the form of paperwork. A newly formed Forum for a Democratic University deserves mention here: forged in the crucible of the clerical workers strike, it forces the issue of democracy in a place where bureaucracy has replaced all other forms of rationale.
In my fantasies. I said to the Dean and his many mustachioed minions, "Supersize This!" pointing to my still polyester free behind as I headed for the nearest door.
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