If you’re writing a book and you want people to read it, watch this. Dr. Jane Jones invited me to talk about how to share your book on social media for academic authors.
Who is your reader? Who’s interested in reading your monograph, edited collection, or academic book? How do you get a bigger audience for your book as an academic? You deserve a stronger online presence for your book. Let’s talk about finding your book’s audience on social media.
I’m sitting in my office with a cup of tea thinking about how many of the academics I work with experience anxiety when it comes to talking about themselves. When I sat down to write this episode, I realized I was having some of that anxiety myself.
Today’s episode of The Social Academic is all about me, Jennifer van Alstyne. But, it almost didn’t get recorded.
I thought talking about myself and why I started my business, The Academic Designer LLC, was something you wouldn’t want to hear. I don’t know why I felt that way. I’m always asked about my origin story when I go on podcasts as a guest. I tell most of my clients how I got started.
I had a lot of hesitancy when it came publishing on The Social Academic about myself.
You probably noticed that most of my content is focused on educational how-to’s about how to have an online presence as a professor. When I went back to my very 1st blog post, called Welcome to The Social Academic, I realized that I don’t share a lot about myself with you.
When I told a friend I was going to record this episode, she said, “I’ve always been curious about you!” Getting that kind of response made me feel warm, and helped me get ready to record my story for you. My friend is probably excited that this episode will finally come out. Thank you for encouraging me!
Have you ever worried about bragging or self promotion? Professors tell me that it brings them anxiety to talk about themselves. They don’t want other people to feel like they’re bragging. They don’t want to come across as narcissistic.
But telling your story, sharing why you do the research you do, will make a difference to the people in your life. And the people who care about your research. The people you want to help most.
It’s been 5 years since I started my business The Academic Designer LLC working with professors to build personal websites and social media so you have a strong online presence you can feel confident about.
5 years into my business, I realize I am personally struggling with the same thing that stops my clients from talking about themselves online.
It’s a great reminder that our feelings about what we share, how we share it, and why change over time. I knew that it was time for me to push past my comfort zone and share this episode, my story, with you.
I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to The Social Academic blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. Before we dive into today’s episode please subscribe to The Social Academic. Stick around for the whole episode because I’m going to share about my online presence program for professors where we work together 1:1 to create the digital footprint you need. Get support from me on your personal website,social media, and a new bio that shares who you are with the world.
I remember the moment I had the idea for my business so clearly. I was sitting in my professor’s office at the university, her desk with an old desktop computer and even older books. My bag on the floor was leaning against my leg. My professor and I finished up a meeting about the online course we designed together. I packed up my things, placing the cap back on my pen. I slipped it into my bag and stood to leave.
My professor asked me, “Do you know anyone who would be great for this role? We really want someone who wants to grow and learn for their future career.”
You see, my academic department was hiring a graduate student assistant to do professional writing and communication. They were putting together a team to handle things like the website and social media.
I sat back down. “You want me for this job. I’m perfect.”
I already knew I wasn’t interested in moving on to a PhD, despite all the encouragement of my mentors and peers. This? This role would give me an opportunity to gain valuable skills and experience. But I only had one semester left before I was done. My professor was looking for a person on behalf of the supervisor of this role. And they had discussed someone who could stay on for a year or more.
So I argued for myself. And told her why I was the best. It was the first time I felt so sure I was the right person for a project.
I pitched myself then because I knew I was the best person to help. My professor’s disappointment that I didn’t want to continue in academia didn’t deter me from sticking up for myself. It didn’t lessen the excitement I felt when talking because I knew in that moment I had a path forward perfect for me.
I didn’t know at the time that my business, The Academic Designer LLC would help professors increase their confidence talking about themselves. That I would love empowering academics to build an online presence so they can help more people with their research and teaching. That specificity about my business came later.
It was in my professor’s office that I discovered that spark, and knew that I would own my own business after graduate school.
Thinking back on it, my professor impacted my feelings about working with academics. You see, she didn’t have a strong online presence. The 1st thing that came up when you Googled my professor’s name was her faculty profile. But her faculty profile hadn’t been updated in years! It didn’t reflect her promotion or current research interests.
You may have noticed that your faculty profile on your university website doesn’t really reflect who you are now. Maybe it hasn’t been updated in a while. Oftentimes it’s limited. Many faculty members, just like my professor, weren’t sure what information made the most sense to include on their faculty profile.
Universities often put the responsibility on professors to write their own faculty profiles. Universities don’t offer the kind of support professors need to keep your profile updated as your research and teaching interests change over time. Universities also don’t offer the kind of staff that is needed to support the technical side of updates, actually making those changes on the website. And if your university does provide staff support, they’re likely overworked and might not get to update your faculty profile because of the many responsibilities they have.
Writing a new faculty profile for my professor was the most impactful thing I could do. Before I graduated, my professor had a new faculty profile that reflected who she was and the research and teaching that were important to her.
I knew then that even small changes to your online presence could make a big impact for professors. A new faculty profile can bring you new opportunities.
Imagine what a personal website could do. A space online that you control. Something separate from the university. A website of your own where you can share your research in creative ways. Where you can invite people around the world at any time to explore what you care about.
A couple weeks after graduating with my 2nd master’s degree, I became a small business owner.
I’ve been interviewing people here on The Social Academic and talking with them about their online presence. It’s fun because we get to talk about their research and also about social media.
Today I’m going to tell you a bit about my experience with social media. I’m going to talk about some of the things I like to ask my guests.
My name is Jennifer van Alstyne. I am a Latina woman. I’m an immigrant. I’m the owner of The Academic Designer LLC.
I’m also a poet. One of my very 1st interview guests here on The Social Academic asked me how poetry impacted my work today, and I said, “It’s so much like social media.” I told him that I love form and constraint, the kind of rules that help you be more creative. That gives you a box to focus your energy.
Social media is the same way for me. Each platform whether it’s Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube which I’ve been experimenting more with recently, has its own rules. Its own constraints. I love that!
In grad school, my research focused on representations of nature in poetry. When I think about it now…Looking back, I dedicated a lot of my time studying the writing of old white men. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my research. It just didn’t help people the way I wanted. I knew I couldn’t make the kind of impact I wanted for professors if I stayed in the academy. Especially as a woman of color.
I feel much more aligned with the work I do in my company, The Academic Designer LLC, helping professors around the world share their research online. As a latina woman, I love that I get to work with professors who are making massive impact in their respective fields. And that I get to work with professors at all types of universities whether you’re at an ivy league school or a community college. I’m not limited to any single campus, which means I get to help you too!
There is one story about grad school I want to share with you. I wanted to share it with you because it’s about an award I got, one that made me feel seen. It’s something I’m so proud of. The award was from the grad student association for my academic department. 6 years ago they got together and organized personalized awards for each grad student in the program.
What was my award you ask?
I got the award for Person You Most Want To Stick Up For You In A Meeting.
I love that. That’s so meaningful to me. My graduate student association saw me as someone who will support you, stand up for you, protect you if I am able. It makes me smile, because that’s how I see myself too.
Being named Person You Most Want To Stick Up For You In A Meeting by my fellow grad students is more meaningful to me than academic and research awards. It matters more to me now than my publications. My peers saw me as someone who will stick up for you. Someone you want to stick up for you.
I feel like that’s what I do for my clients when we work together 1:1. I know we can build an amazing online presence for you together.
Actually, this was a good story to share with you because some of that anxiety when it comes to talking about yourself? I experienced that then too. And it stopped me from saying anything on social media.
I should have posted about my award then, because it made me smile.
But I was too anxious to post about myself all the time on social media. I didn’t want to come across as narcissistic. I didn’t want to make anyone feel bad.
I remember writing a post and then feeling like I had to apologize, and be like “Don’t worry – EVERYONE got an award.” Which was true. Yes.
But what mattered was how much being a Person You Most Want To Stick Up For You In A Meeting mattered to me. How warm it made me feel to be seen. To want my voice in support of yours. I counted the posts I shared that semester that might seem like bragging…I decided to delete my post.
Don’t do that. If you’re in academia, celebrate the things you care about. Share what you’ve worked hard for. Don’t hit delete like I did.
Being open to sharing your accomplishments can be easier than being open about your struggles. Or about the things in your life that aren’t so positive. I’ve definitely dealt with that before.
I was sitting in a farm-to-table Italian restaurant in Cold Spring, New York over Thanksgiving with one of my mom’s best friends Barbara and her husband Peter. We spoke about the death of my mom, when I was 13, and her struggle with prescription pill addiction and bi-polar disorder. It had been almost 15 years since I had seen Barbara and Peter.
In that time, my father had died of pneumonia after a long battle with cancer. I had escaped a physically abusive ex-husband. I found myself a young undergraduate student alone in the world struggling to find a reason to live.
Barbara was totally engrossed as I talked about my life over an endive and pomegranate salad. She had questions about what I went through, about how I survived.
She was so curious without judgment, I even told her a dark secret about my mom, Kitty, her close friend. Kitty adopted me from Peru as an infant, told me, “I never should have adopted you. It was a horrible mistake.” Twice. I was 13 when she died.
Barbara leaned in to talk more, but Peter had a solemn look on his face, now well wrinkled in his 80s. He said, “Let’s change the subject. This is the saddest story I’ve ever heard.”
The saddest story he ever heard.
He actually repeated it because Barbara asked, “What?” in surprise. The saddest story he ever heard.
That was a whole new level of seen for me. I’ve heard sadder stories than mine, now. I mean it’s never a competition. But I did often feel like I was carrying around a heavy tapestry of sad. This weight I got used to, that’s become a part of me.
I’m grateful for the therapy that got me to a place where I can talk openly about my past, without overwhelm.
But I don’t want to overwhelm anyone else. It’s probably why I’ve given you a whole lot of sad in just a few sentences. When people ask me why don’t I talk about my past, I often say because it’s too sad. I don’t want to upset people. And that has kept me from opening up with the people I care about.
Yes, there was anxiety about what people would think. Fear of judgment. Fear of what you might say about me.
But that doesn’t change that it happened to me. That it’s my life. And I can’t change it. No amount of “not telling you” will make my sad history disappear.
Not telling you relieves my anxiety. But it doesn’t help me, or you.
What I went through helps me help you better. I’ve had fear about being online. Paralyzing fear. I deleted my social media accounts after leaving a physically abusive marriage. The idea of being seen by the person I feared most kept me awake each night. I was scared to sleep. I jumped every time the phone rang. Eventually, I moved on campus where I could feel safer.
As I began to heal, I started to recognize how small I’d let my world get. I missed the friendships and larger network I’d stopped communicating with. Staying off social media altogether was no longer right for me. So I started a new Facebook account and sent out friend requests one at a time. Baby steps.
I kept being surprised when people connected. I looked deeper into my past, reaching out to childhood friends. Having so many people connect in a short timeframe made me feel good about myself because they were real people that I knew.
I started connecting with my professors, visiting writers, or people I met at events. When I presented at my 1st conference in undergrad, I connected with my fellow panelists. I moved past my fear and allowed myself to be more connected with the world.
Now I help professors build deeper connections with people online in ways that impact their research. I help them feel less isolated in the academy.
Telling my story is powerful. It may help you, or others feel seen too. Even if you judge it. Even if you judge me.
I was adopted by people who regretted adopting me.
I am a survivor of domestic violence.
I am an orphan, who had no family.
Except that I did have family. And social media became so important in connecting with them. That’s what I want to share with you next.
Having an online presence has impacted my life in many ways. I’ve been invited to speak, publish, lead workshops. My poetry has been read by more people than I’d ever imagined. My blog The Social Academic has reached you in over 191 countries around the world so far in 2023.
What’s the weirdest thing to happen to me? I was invited to audition for a reality tv show!
But the most impactful thing that has happened to me since taking my social media profiles public was being found.
Both my adoptive parents died before I went to college. It was so easy to fall out of touch with friends when you moved around like I had.
I couldn’t even afford a phone in college. Seriously. I signed up for Google Voice because I felt like I was missing out. Each person who said, “Oh, I would have texted you to meet at the dining hall, I didn’t have your number,” weighed on me.
I often feel like people forget about me. Like if I’m not there talking with you, if we haven’t seen each other in a while, I’ve dropped off the face of the earth. Like I don’t exist to you anymore.
Social media was the easiest solution for me to communicate with my friends. To keep in touch with people so they wouldn’t forget about me. So as a person alone in the world, I could still have connection.
I’m someone who needs to remind myself that “people care more about you than you think.”
It was actually through social media that my birth sister, Patssy reached out to me. I have a sister. One who has been missing me and thinking about me much of her life.
I have lots of siblings: Patssy, Veronica, Andrea, Isabella, and Leonardo.
When my sister Patssy found me, I was scared. I was still in that space of fear, with anxiety about being seen. I remember literally saying, “How did you find me?” And not knowing what to say.
Sometimes Patssy sends me videos on Facebook of her with my nieces. I get to see my little brother Leonardo on Instagram stories. And my sister Andrea and I share a love for singing. I got to hear her perform at a concert at her college in Peru when the video was posted online.
What a gift it was to connect with my family. Imagine if I hadn’t had the strength to build my online presence. Imagine if I hadn’t taken the chance to be public again on social media. My family in Peru might not have found me. The feeling Patssy had, the timing of her search for me. I had moved 11 times across 3 states since I’d been adopted as an infant. But Patssy reached out through social media and found me 27 years later.
Social media has changed my life. I know it can change yours too.
OK so maybe a long lost sister isn’t going to reach out to you from across the world. But more people are going to care about you.
When you’re more open about yourself, you invite people to engage with what you care about too (like your teaching and research).
Having an online presence can help you connect with people around the world. More people care about you and your research than you think.
Help them by having an online presence that invites them to connect with you. When people Google your name, you want them to find a bit about you. Things like your bio, a photo of you. Can they learn about your research? Do you have a website that helps them explore it further?
I’m here to help you with your online presence. I have lots of free resources on The Social Academic blog to help you get started.
I’m here to help you, so don’t hesitate to reach out at [email protected] or on social media @HigherEdPR.
If this episode touched you, send me a direct message. Share The Social Academic on social media with your friends. Getting an email or DM from you just makes my day, so I would absolutely love a message. I’d love to hear from you.
When you’re a professor, you may feel unsure what path to take for your online presence.
Do you need a website? A LinkedIn profile (even when you’re not job searching)? A new bio for your faculty profile? Maybe you’ve been wanting to build your social media skills. But is that where you should start?
Let’s chat on Zoom if a stronger online presence is a goal you in 2024. I’m happy to see how we might work together. Professors, you deserve an online presence you’re confident in.
Here are my top picks for professors, researchers, and grad students like you. I hope these gift ideas inspire you.
Map of readers of The Social Academic blog in 2022
Get my top recommendations for professional development and wellbeing.
Thanks so much for visiting The Social Academic blog. People from 175 countries around the world took time to read this year. I am so grateful for you.
Echo Rivera, PhD brings you a 2 hour masterclass that helps you take your presentation slides from mediocre to memorable. I’ve benefited from Echo’s training myself. I highly recommend it.
How to Design an Award-Winning Scientific Poster course
I got to chat with Tullio Rossi, PhD of Animate Your Science last month about his scientific poster course. I knew I just had to share it with you. Have an engaging poster for your next conference.
Teach the Geek to Speak Society
Neil Thompson knows public speaking is hard. If you’re in STEM, you need to know how to communicate effectively about your research. Get the Teach the Geek to Speak course program with live monthly coaching calls.
Academic and Scientific Writing
Scholarship Success Collective
Lisa Munro, PhD says, “How would you like to have the community support, structure, accountability, and actual writing instruction you need to get your article written and published so you can start helping us think about the world in new ways even if you’re full of crippling self-doubt about your writing and ideas?” Join the Scholarship Success Collective. This workshop runs January 16/17-April 16/17.
The Researchers’ Writing Academy course
Anna Clemens, PhD has a course to help you write clear scientific papers for high-ranking STEM journals. If you’re in the physical, health, life, and earth sciences, this step-by-step system is the only course in scientific writing you’ll ever need.
Write your book with Dr. Jane Jones
A program for women in academia to write your book. Stop staring at a blank page wondering what you’re supposed to write. Build your writing skills and practice with support. Dr. Jane Jones of Up In Consulting is here to help you push through the doubt and uncertainty so you get your book written. Join Elevate because you don’t have to write your book alone.
Teaching
Teaching College Ultimate Bundle Access
Get Norman Eng, EdD’s top resources for engaging students online and offline. This bundle pack of shows you the step-by-step methods you need.
Connecting with the Public and Media
Power Your Research program
Do you want major media coverage? Sheena Howard, PhD shares proven strategies to land features in the L.A. Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and more. Get more visibility for your research.
LinkedIn profile challenge
I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Join professors around the world in my training to Update Your LinkedIn Profile for Professors and Researchers.
This training helps you have an amazing LinkedIn profile!
Josie Ahlquist, PhD brings you a self-paced course on digital leadership for Higher Education executives. Learn social media strategy to connect with your campus community online.
Academic Careers and Leaving Academia
The Art of the Academic Cover Letter course
Are you applying for academic jobs? Learn how to write a cover letter for your academic job application. Showcase your record and stand out in the academic job market with this course from Karen Kelsky, PhD. If you don’t already have it, The Professor Is In book is a must read. You’ll need it for the course.
PhD Career Clarity Program
Confidently market yourself for the jobs you actually want with Jennifer Polk, PhD’s PhD Career Clarity Program. Dr. Polk has been a career coach for PhDs since 2013.
If you need help getting clarity on your post academic career, this is the program for you. My fiancé loved this program. It may be great for you too!
I’ve met so many professors and graduate students running a business. If you want to build a business on part-time hours Cheryl Lau has 1:1 and Group Coaching programs for you. Psst! Cheryl has been my business coach since December 2022.
Retreats and Conferences
The Grad School Success Summit replays (virtual) FREE
Are you in graduate school? Do you know someone heading to grad school in the new year? This virtual summit has great sessions on school-life balance, wellness, and more. Get ready with a boost of motivation brought to you by Allanté Whitmore of the Blk + In Grad School podcast. You’ll get free access to the replays (including my session on How to Manage Your Online Presence in Grad School).
Books
25 Ways to Say ‘No’ in A Professional Way
Having a difficult time saying ‘no’ in the workplace? Here’s how to communicate in a professional and confident way.
This digital download is from Dr. Monica Cox.
Stronger Than You Think: The 10 Blind Spots That Undermine Your Relationship and How to See Past Them
Whether you’re in grad school, teaching, or in the lab, relationships can be hard. Appreciate the love you have, or find the one you want and deserve. Dr. Gary Lewandowski Jr. is an expert on relationships. This is a book I read last year I think is great for academics. I learned a lot, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Laziness Does Not Exist
Dr. Devon Price used to believe that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Now they dive into the history and origins of the ‘laziness lie.’ It goes back to the Puritans! Most of us feel like we’re not doing enough even though people today do more work than other humans in history. My friends recommended this to me and now I’m sharing it with you!
Cate Adamson is working on her doctorate in New York under an impossible, sexist advisor. She struggles until she discovers a hidden painting. Is it a masterpiece? Join Cate’s journey to Spain as she uncovers an art mystery.
PhD Balance is a community creating space for graduate students to openly discuss mental health. Join the community for access to webinars, challenges, and conversation.
The Personal Finance for PhDs Community
Emily Roberts, PhD sets you up for success with your personal finances. From paying down debt to taxes, this community helps PhDs make the most of your money.
Game
Dead Theorists: A Card Game
A satirical card game for philosophers and aspiring academics for 2-4 players.
Other Gift Ideas for Academics
Professional memberships to associations and organizations
Support the academic in your life with an annual membership to a professional organization or association in their field. For graduate students especially, this is a valuable line on their CV that opens their world to new conferences and networking opportunities.
Money towards professional development activities
Help a professor, researcher, or graduate student gain professional development with money for
Conferences
Award submission
Research travel
Working with a coach
Joining a training or course
A spa day
Give the gift of relaxation with a day at the spa. A hot stone massage can help relieve those post-semester grading muscle aches.
A weekend away
Sometimes the best gift is a night away. Take a trip and leave the work behind for the ultimate weekend getaway.
To
understand my stories is useful to know that law faculties, like most others,
are assigned to committees. There are committees assigned to propose
candidates to be hired, committees to approve new courses, committees to review
candidates for tenure and promotion. Some committees make long range plans,
some study how to increase publications. The one I am on this year is called
Academic standards. We typically handle appeals from students when something
has been declined by an administrator. For example, a student can take a course
at another law school and transfer the credit as long as they got a C. Those
whoget a D or lower, which takes more
effort than making a B, invariable appeal to Academic Standards to have the
grade transferred.
Today
the committee metand had two appeals I
had never encountered before. One was from a student who had just finished the
first year of school and had received and A in Contract Law. She complained
that the A grade, the highest you could get, was unfairly granted. Her story
was that in the class she had become friendly with the teacher Ed Freddy, who
we all refer to a Mr. Freddy. The friendliness led to lunch which led to dinner
(all without the knowledge of Mrs. Freddy) and well you can guess where this is
going.
They had falling out somewhere near the end of the semester and their fling was
over.Then the final exam came. In law
school in most courses the final exam determines the grade for the entire
semester. She took the exam and received her grade which, as I mentioned was an
A. Her petition to us was that she only got and A because of the “services” she
supplied to Mr. Freddy and that rather be treated like a prostitute she wanted
a grade no higher than a B. We tabled this case until our next meeting to give
a chance to evaluate her final exam ourselves.
Our
second appeal today was equally bizarre. First you have to understand that law
schools and other University department hire visitors who teach for a semester
or ayear are not on the permanent
faculty. Last year we hired Mary McCan to teach for a
semester. She was young, an average teacher, ambitious, frumpy-looking, andlonely in our small college town.According to the petition on the last night
of finals she when out with a few students including the petitioner and she
broughtone of them home with her. They
were evidently quite drunk. According to the student, when he got ready to leave she
blocked the door. In his words he then “obliged her as a courtesy”. The student
got a B in the course and complained he did not deserve a B. In his words he did
not know if he had “he’d fucked himself up from a C or down from an A.” He said
that neither was acceptable and he wanted us to read his paper to determine if
he deserved either and A or a C, which he was willing to accept.
In his classic 1967 article on rent-seeking (which does not actually use the term because it had not been coined at that time) Gordon Tullock explained that the cost of theft was not that one person’s property was taken by another. In fact, that transaction in isolation may increase welfare. The social costs were the reactions of those attempting to avoid theft and those refining their skills. Richard Posner extended the analysis when he wrote about the costs of monopoly. Again, it was not that some became richer at the expense of others but that enormous sums were invested in bringing about the redistribution. In neither case do the rent seeking, social-cost-producing efforts create new wealth.
Still, in the case of Tullock and Posner the social costs were at least about something. There was a “there” there in the form of a chunk of wealth to bicker over. But now we come to law professors and law schools.
Law professor efforts to self-promote have exploded. Included are repeated visits to the Dean asking for one thing or another, resume padding, massive mailings of reprints, posting SSRN download rankings, or, even better, emailing 200 friends asking them to download a recently posted article, churning out small symposia articles because deans often want to see lines on resumes as opposed to substance, playing the law review placement game, and just plain old smoozing ranging from name dropping to butt kissing. Very little of this seems designed to produce new wealth. If fact, think of the actual welfare-producing activities that could be undertaken with the same levels of energy — smaller classes, more sections of needed courses, possibly even research into areas that are risky in terms of self promotion but could pay off big if something new or insightful were discovered or said. But this is the part that puzzles me. Whether the thief in Tullock’s case or monopolist in Posner’s, the prize is clear. What is the prize for law professors? Are these social costs expended to acquire rents that really do not exist or are only imagined? What are the rents law professors seek?
Law schools make the professors look like small potatoes when it comes to social costs. Aside from hiring their own graduates to up the employment level, they all employ squads of people whose jobs are to create social costs (of course, most lawyers do the same thing), produce huge glossy magazines that go straight to the trash, weasel around with who is a first year student as opposed to a transfer student or a part time student, select students with an eye to increasing one rating or another, and obsess over which stone is yet unturned in an effort to move up a notch. I don’t need to go through the whole list but the point is that there is no production — nothing socially beneficial happens. That’s fine. The same is true of Tullock’s thief and Posner’s monopolist. But again, and here is the rub. What is the rent the law schools seek? Where is the pie that they are less interested in making bigger than in just assuring they get the biggest slice possible? What is it made of?
At least thieves and monopolists fight over something that exists. And they often internalize the cost of that effort. Law professors and law schools, on the other hand, may be worse. They do not know what the prize actually is; they just know they should want more; and the costs are internalized by others.
For most law professors
I have known, life is an extended negotiation to advance one’s self interest. They
are their own clients. Their constant obsession about where they rank means a
complete lack of humility and the use of certain devices. The most common device
is to show no weakness. This leads to a number of things. One is to never seen to care very much about something, at least publicly. To show you really want
something is to reveal a weakness. For example, when I was chair of the appointments
committee, I asked members of
the committee who wanted to go to the meat market. This duty is something that
is usually coveted by mid or early career professors. No one said he or she wanted to go in the meeting. In a few hours after
that, every member of the committee called me privately to say they were
“willing to go.”
This leads to the
volunteer scam. Law professors never want to demand to do something — — they
volunteer. When you volunteer it is not like you wanted something but you were willing
to help out. Helping out, in this life long negotiation, means you are owed.
For example, one of the plums of my teaching career was to be appointed to
summer abroad teaching program. One year the person who was set to go could not
go at the last minute. I called the person running the program to see if I
could go instead. I was informed it would not be necessary because the head of
the program had “volunteered” to take on the assignment himself.
Another part of not
showing weakness is to try to get others to do work that might expose your own
weakness. This means office to office visits and indirection. Let’s say you
think someone who has been appointed to chair a committee is an awful choice.
You would go office to offices saying something like “what did you think of
those committee assignments.” In other words, you throw out the bait and see if
anyone bites. Eventually, you might find some people saying they were
disappointed and then you roam the halls saying to others “I heard that
several people are upset with that committee assignment.” You say “several” even if it is one. Note, you do not say
you are upset but that others are. You, of course, just want to be fair.
There are also ways of
disagreeing. Suppose Jack at a faculty meeting proposes that teachers have more
office hours than currently required. You hate the idea but you do not raise
your hand and say so. Instead you say something like “It’s wonderful to be
available to students but I have “concerns” about Jack’s proposal or “if gives
me pause.” These are ways of saying “that is the dumbest thing I have every
heard”
No matter what, you
are too busy. You have students, exams to write, phone calls to return, and
papers to grade. In reality you may be on Amazon looking for a new toaster or
frying pan. You may take a nap. But you never admit to anything other than
being overwhelmed with how much work you have.
Being sneaky is
important. You do not write down what you could say. If it is written down you
have accountability. If you say it, then if it is passed along you can claim you were misunderstood or taken out of
context.
Working the students
for high teaching evaluations. You can do this by being funny or radiating your
deep concern for their well-being. It does not hurt to bring cookies when their
evaluations of you are distributed. One neat ploy a colleague freely admitted
was designed to help is evaluations was passing out his own evaluation form
before the official. This communicate that you value the opinion of the
students and more or less lets them vent if they are inclined to as a way of
lowering the chance they will unload on you on the official evaluations.
Information among law
faculty is power. If you have it, you can dispense it in the way that best
serves your ends. It may be rumor, it maybe something that has very little
foundation. Important things are generally bad news about someone else – their
article got rejected, they failed an interview at another school, the Provost
is angry with the Dean. You can use the information as currency and you spend it
to get what you want – usually that is a reaction that advances whatever is in
your self interest.
Law professors call
what they do “scholarship.” It almost never is. You could count on one had the
number of times a law professor actually tries to find the answer to an
important question. Instead, consistent with their training they are advocates
for their own notions of what should be. Their research skills are limited and
the idea of putting anything to an empirical test is frightening to them. You might compare this with seeing a doctor. Usually you tell the doctor the symptoms and he or she tries to match with with a cause, Suppose instead you walked into the doctor and he or she said “you have typhoid fever” and then ignored every thing you said except those things that were consistent with typhoid fever. That’s legal scholarship.
