Remarkably unmotivated today. (Grading 35 exams, then 22 student research proposals, then 22 more exams in a couple days can do that to you). Thank goodness I have a bit of a break in grading now.

I do have things I have to get done. The chapter review, for one thing. And finishing the grant proposal and walking it around. And typing up the AAUW minutes and re-writing the arglebargle bylaws because the National Leadership has decided that It Must Be So.

(Being one of a small-ish number of computer literate folks in a group is not good. You get stuff handed to you: "Could you type this up, and keep it on your computer...you know, just in case it needs to be updated? Oh, and e-mail a copy into the National leadership by the 23rd.")

***

The issue of reputation as a professor is an odd one. I don't really know exactly what mine is. (I will NEVER, NOT EVER visit "Rate your professors," which is a website that is essentially a student slam-book for their profs. It's anonymous, for one thing. And for another, they have "hotness" ratings. Now I ask you. If I were "hot," I'd actually deliberately tone it down in the classroom as much as I could, simply because the thought of where some of the young men's minds might go in the presence of a "hot" female professor....well, it's a distinctly icky idea to me. But even with that - the whole idea that there is this celebrity-fueled expectation of "hotness" makes me cranky. The culture of celebrity in this nation has wrought many bad things, and the idea that some students have, that profs should be "entertaining" or "attractive" rather than "intelligent" or "good at explaining things" is just one of them.)

I suspect my rep is not as bad as I think it is (at least some days). I think I do have a bit of a reputation for being a tough grader on writing. And for being hard-nosed when it comes to plagiarism.

(When I caught that plagiarized paper last year, I went into class the next day, and in what I thought was a very calm and controlled way, explained that I was not handing papers back just then even though they were graded because there was an incident of plagiarism I was having to investigate. I did observe that I was "very disappointed." The next semester it came back to me (via students) that I walked into class and everyone could tell how angry I was.

Well, maybe. Maybe because I didn't have my "normal" classroom demeanor (just one tick less bouncy and goofily enthusiastic than Abby Sciuto). I was VERY quiet and spoke with very little emotion - which is usually what I do when I get very angry; I get quiet and don't talk much, because I'm using every bit of self control to avoid losing my temper (I used to have a very hair-trigger temper and used to be good at blowing up, but lots of work has got that under control)

I do know there's another faculty member here has attained the enviable position of being known for giving incredibly tough and hard tests, being really hard on students - and yet, he is almost universally loved.

I am not quite sure how that works. Perhaps part of it is simply his personality; he is viewed as "one of the guys." (Also, he teaches the classes that are the favorite topics. Botany is generally a harder sell; the theory-and-math-laden ecology is an even harder sell)

I can't do that, nor am I quite sure I want to. I've always been a bit stand-offish by nature (I need one of those XKCD t-shirts that says, "JUST SHY. Not antisocial. (You can talk to me)." And, oh hey, they have one of my all-time favorite comics on a shirt. I need that to wear the first day of Biostats, next time I teach it...(I'm not brave/foolhardy enough to wear the one that says, "SCIENCE. It works, b*tches." Though some of my colleagues probably would.).

I'm not very comfortable in big groups - never have been. I think there's the fear, a residuum of grade-school days, that the group may turn on me. (Well, I did have one GenBio class a few semesters ago that kind of did).

Really, I think with most profs, the classroom demeanor is partly an act - partly something put on a bit to deal with the stress of being in a large group of people (most profs, I think, are actually kind of shy people, and are not that good at the sort of hale-fellow-well-met human interaction that other careers - say, a salesperson or politician - requires).

(One of my dad's former grad students used to tease him about his "classroom voice" - "You're using the 'classroom voice,' again, Dr. Corbett." The funny thing is, I catch myself using my "classroom voice" at times. I mean, when I'm not in the classroom.)

I know in the classroom I am (generally) more "on" and enthusiastic than I am in real life. A big part of it is nerves; I tend to get more gabby and be a bit of a Golden Retriever when I want people to "like" me.

(A lot of my problems might be solved by getting over the need to be liked. But again, I blame my Miserable Childhood for that; not having a lot of friends and fearing that playground groups are plotting against you (because in at least several occasions, they were) will do that to a person).

I'm not really a "different" person outside of the classroom; I am just quieter and more subdued and generally not as prone to the bizarre misunderstandings that sometimes happen in class (Where a student asks a question and I am all, "oh my gosh what the heck?" and I interpret the question as some deep metaphysical thing and I wind up talking about cosmology or the limitations of ecological models or the calculus or something, and it turns out the student is confused because I made a typo in the handout. I suppose my tendency to go off the deep end there is because I want to "look smart," but really, a lot of the times, questions don't come across as simple questions to me).

But I do wonder (and sometimes fear) what the students think of me.

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us. To see oursel's as others see us!"

Though then again, maybe like so many things we might wish for, we really wouldn't want it once we got it.

Edited to add: because the second part of that Burns quotation is: "It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion."

Though maybe being freed from one's "foolish notions" would not be so great. What if a singer read one bad review of him or herself, and decided to stop singing? Or what if someone who thought she dressed well overheard a "friend" talking about how dowdy she looked? (Another's thoughts on this passage from Burns)