When your reputation precedes you

Once you get a reputation as a bad teacher, is there any way to change it?  Or are students always going to write you off from the beginning?

I have a colleague who has quite the reputation for being rude to students, unapproachable during office hours, and disorganized in the classroom. Students complain to me about him all the time (I just put on my I-support-my-colleagues face).  His ratemyprofessor is full of student rants and, truth be told, some fairly logical, well-supported complaints.  Students start the semester knowing his reputation, and I wonder if that fact alone is the biggest contributor to their low opinion of him-- not his actual actions in the classroom.

So is a frowny face on ratemyprofessor too much to overcome?  Are there any strategies that professors can employ to turn around a reputation?

Wanna know my secret?

I live a lie each day at work.

We're in the last few days of summer, and everyone in my department is bemoaning the start of the semester. "I can't believe how much I have to do," my colleagues complain. I nod in agreement, but I don't quite meet their eyes.

I type away at my computer, occasionally interrupted by a coworker popping in to say hi. "I'm so behind! I don't know how I'll get my syllabi done!" My coworker doesn't wait for a response, so I can just smile and try to look sympathetic (or is it empathetic?).

The truth is, I'm living a lie.

I'm not overwhelmed by the start of school. I'm not behind at all. I have three syllabi written, and slides for my lecture classes prepped through Labor Day. I have multiple problem sets and their corresponding keys written. I've even written the first exam for one of my classes.

What's the trick? I finished my summer class, took a four day weekend, and then needed a break from research. When I actually WANT to do class prep, I can do it pretty damn efficiently. And I'm much faster than when I first started teaching. I mean, holy shit.

The other thing that motivated me? FEAR. I hate the feeling of never quite being caught up, and the last two fall semesters I've had new-to-me classes to prep. Back then, I never got ahead on my class prep, and many mornings I was prepping slides or notes right up to the bell. That is NOT how I like to operate.

I know I can't be the only one already prepped for the fall (Dr. Pion, for example, admitted being ahead of schedule in the comments on this recent post), but I sure do seem to be the only one in my department (maybe institution) who is ahead on the semester. For now, I think I'll let my coworkers go on thinking that I am just as behind as they are.

Why flighttracker was my best friend in grad school

Professor in Training recently posted about how the mice react at the prospect of the cat going away.

I was in the first group of graduates of The Boss. The Boss was very hands-on (which was great at times, annoying at others, and occasionally prevented me from getting ANYTHING productive done).

When other PIs left town, their graduate students breathed a sigh of relief. Work hours were more relaxed. Group meetings weren't held. Kegs appeared in the cold room (that was only a one-time event, I'm told).

In our group, it was a HUUUUUUGE relief when The Boss went out of town.... at least while the plane was in the air. Once electronic devices could go back on, the barrage of email requests began. Is the manuscript draft ready? Make this figure for my talk. What is wrong with you?

Since the only time The Boss unplugged (and therefore left us alone) was when a flight was in progress, we all became fans of flight tracking programs. Other graduate students thought we were total freaks (true) for knowing the flight details of The Boss, let alone would track the actual flight for precise landing times.... but we relished our freedom. Flight delays were celebrated....with impromptu happy hours. We savored our beers all the more with the knowledge that we weren't missing emails or calls from The Boss.

A few months ago I received the saddest email from a former group member who is still in graduate school with The Boss:

Hi Unbalanced,

The Boss has wi-fi on the flight. Our safe time is no more.

~Coworker



On the plus side, now coworker won't need to panic when the flight tracker fails.

If I hear the bing! from one more text....

...I am going to shove this pipet into my eye socket. After removing my safety glasses, of course.

All day long I have the "opportunity" to hear the distinct trilling of cell phones when a text is received. Students receive them during lab. I hear them going off in other classrooms. Even my colleagues are in on the texting action-- I can hear one faculty's phone from 8 doors down!

My research students learned by the second text to keep their phone away while in lab. Unfortunately, I can't run around, grabbing cell phones out of hands and pockets. That would be weird. And assault, probably.



Why do people need to be notified of text messages all damn day? And why are the notification sounds so annoying? When did email stop being instant enough?

Is it fair to meet outside of scheduled class times?

For the first time this fall, I'm co-teaching a course. Recently, the other prof and I met to sketch out our course objectives. We both agreed that we wanted students to present results from a group project, and we settled on the optimal week to schedule them.

I typed the presentations into the class lecture schedule.

"Wait, what are you doing?" She inquired. "We should schedule them in the evening so we have enough time."

"Okay," I agreed. "So will we meet for about two hours then? Which two class meetings should we cancel to balance it out?"

My colleague stared at me like I had just announced that I was the new Dean.

Siiiiiiiigh.

I explained that I didn't like holding class meetings outside of the scheduled class time....UNLESS I cancel an equal amount of class time. I don't think it is fair to require students to meet both in class and at a set time outside of what the registrar has designated.

Obviously the coursework requires that they spend many, many hours outside of lecture reading, writing, and 'rithmatic-ing. But to take away that study time-- which could be used on another class-- is not fair to the student or to other professors.

I'm pretty sure my fellow prof thinks I just don't want to have to stay on campus beyond work hours (true). But I've taught at institutions that actually had this policy on their books. Of course, many faculty ignored the rule-- as so often happens-- but I think, in this case, it actually is a pretty logical practice to follow.

Another of my favorite things

Sometimes I sub in for other profs. I've guest lectured. I've monitored labs. I've even filled in for office hours (okay, that's just because the prof was no where to be found, and I couldn't handle the hysterical sobbing in the hallway).

One of my favorite things (rolling my eyes here, mmmkay?) is when I sub in for a prof who has absolutely no control over his class or lab. I especially enjoy telling someone else's student "no, really. Cell phone away. Now." And then be informed by the reprimanded student that "Prof. X, like, totally lets us text in class."

Oh, and I really like subbing for someone else who informs me, "good luck. They're really awful." Riiiiight.

But seriously, my favorite thing is spending an hour with someone else's supposedly out-of-control students, setting limits for the students, refusing to take any crap, and ultimately receive their respect and attention.

Suck it, suckers.

The World Cup is Wack

Every four years, they come out of the woodwork: fair weather football fans.

It's just like when your regional baseball team makes it to the playoffs and suddenly everyone is a fan... only fair weather soccer fans are 204 times more annoying, mostly because the Cup goes on for so damn long.

Stop quoting scores and bitching about unfair penalties. Stop trying to convince others that you are the BIGGEST SOCCER FAN EVAH!! Please stop complaining about the effin' vuvuzelas.

Seriously, just STFU and get back to work already.

summer classes: sublime or stupid?

Our second summer term starts in two weeks. For the first time, I'll be teaching a summer class.

I'm not particularly concerned about balancing my research students with my class requirements. This is not a new prep for me, and the summer class size (20) is considerably smaller than during the regular semesters. The lecture time is a little over two hours a day. I've lectured for back-to-back classes during the regular semester, so I'm not worried about getting off-track, tired, or bored.

Some of my colleagues complained nearly nonstop through the first summer term. I wonder, is summer teaching REALLY that bad? Should I heed the warnings of my coworkers and brace myself for an overwhelming second half of the summer?

To review or not to review...

....is not really a question, at least for me.

I don't do review sessions.


I am thorough enough the *first* time I go over material, and I continuously review throughout lecture. I even take the first few minutes of the lecture period to review the material from the previous lecture.

So yeah. I don't do review sessions.

Many of my colleagues do, however, and several of them are quite vocal about my refusal to hold multi-hour review sessions the night before an exam.


What do I tell them?* That if they did it right the first time, they wouldn't need to give a review session. If you make it your mission to always help your students see the big picture and make connections between topics, then you don't need a review session to tie it all together.


*Obviously I don't say any of this out loud. But I do say it quite loudly in my head, particularly when they imply that *I* am the crappy professor for not spending my evenings reviewing for my students.

"Always be nice to secretaries. They are the real gatekeepers in the world." ~Anthony D'Angelo

I'm not accustomed to having a departmental secretary at my disposal. Our departmental secretary is supposed to save me time. I should be giving her address labels to type up or photocopying handouts for class.

The primary problem with this setup is that in the time I have to take to explain the required task, I could just complete it myself. Nevermind the fact that on many days, I would rather collate my own worksheets than get stuck in a seemingly unending conversation.

Is there a way for me to balance my need to avoid time sucking busy working with my desire to avoid time sucking, re-explanations of tasks?

Finishing up

Part of my family is in town to help me move to TempCollege Village. It's a little strange; I haven't had their moving assistance since my boarding school days. Of course, the added manpower is more than welcome.

Today I conscripted my little brother into Unbalanced Reaction's Laboratory Forces. We invaded the lab and tag-teamed glassware cleaning. We were undeterred by the fact that former Coworker snuck quite a lot of his dirty glassware onto my bench. Whatever.

"Wow, Coworker sure has posted a lot of passive aggressive notes around the lab," my brother noted. "They'd be great for that website. Ohhh...that's my favorite: 'Put things in the bleach bath or I will SCREAM!!!!' "

Too bad I couldn't have had more coworkers (or Coworkers) like my brother!!

growing pains

I have less than two weeks remaining at LargeU. I feel behind on everything. Although N.A. took a lot of my stuff to Tenure Track state, I still have lots of odd 'n' ends, books, and clothes that need to get packed. I haven't touched my desk at work (at which I spend at least 10 hours a day as my wet lab work has been nonexistent for the last nine months or so). And don't even get me started on how much stuff I have to clean in the wet lab, including at least 50 buffer bottles left behind by Undergrad (which is a story in and of itself).

Coworker (actually, all of them) are in total freakout mode due to a combination of several of us leaving as well as The Boss being out of town for several weeks. This means that I had to go in all day Saturday and Sunday (not that uncommon though) in order to get caught up. Forget getting a paper written this summer; I'll be lucky just to get through the data.

And to top it all off, N.A. and I can't seem to get back to Normal Communication. Instead, we both overreact to everything the other says. I can hear myself getting shrill, and it even annoys me, but I can't seem to stop. I know that part of it is due to complete exhaustion from sleep deprivation and the other is reacting to his sudden announcement that he is leaving this weekend (THIS weekend!). I'm freaking out because I don't want him to leave while we're having all these spats.

In reality, I shouldn't be freaking out about packing, my work, or N.A. I should be enjoying my last time as a grad student / post doc. I should be getting ready for my first faculty position. I should be playing around with my new camera (Nikon D80! Woot, woot, as my students would say).

Instead, I feel myself slipping. Sure, The Boss is happy with my results, and N.A. and I will get through this. But come three weeks from now, when I'm at TempCollege all by myself, I know I'm going to regret how we're leaving things.

A conversation with N.A.

I didn't have any corrections for my thesis. This can be attributed less to my brilliant writing and more to the fact that I send The Boss chapters as I finished them....and likely the indifference of the rest of my committee (although to be fair, four of the chapters were previously published so they didn't really need to look at those).

One of N.A.'s committee members is notorious for his attention to detail. N.A. came back from his defense with a copy dripping in red ink. Today he came by my office to make use of our extra large monitors (multiple windows of the same Word doc is my favorite. feature. ever.)

"There's corrections on every page!" He complained to Coworker.

I thumbed through his copy, interested to see if that was true.

"There!" Here's a clean page!" I triumphantly jabbed the unmarred page with my pointer finger.

N.A. blinked and calmly replied, "Yes, but that's because it's my references."

Poor N.A. I hope he can get through the corrections soon! Then there will be two doctors in this house!

Movin' on up

As you may have guessed from previous posts, I don't like change. I like to be in control. Consequently, moving is one of my least favorite things to do.

Of course, this likely stems from the fact that I moved around a bit as a kid (four places before I was 10), followed by boarding school, and then moving each year in college (and then to a new research locale for each summer). Moving sucks.

Obviously, I am eagerly anticipating moving to TempCollegetown in 5 weeks. Not.

In order to minimize the suckiness of the move, I'm trying to get my packing done gradually, in a very calm and organized manner. To facilitate this, I participated in Coworker's neighborhood's very large, bazillion-family yard sale. I spent 8 hours broiling outside, but it was worth it: got rid of a few furniture items and three boxes of random crap. Well worth the slight sunburn.

So. Any moving tips that might help ease my pain? And does *anyone* actually like moving?