tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77622595102791596562024-03-08T00:58:48.947-05:00Diary of a First Year Grad Studentby Jonathan ViningDiary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-4746155076152064222011-11-02T10:05:00.001-04:002013-06-02T11:36:20.648-04:00Welcome!Diary of a First Year Grad Student has now been posted in its entirety. I have been amazed at the large readership it has developed with over 16,000 visits and over 21,000 page views so far from people in many countries--especially the United States, Mexico, Canada, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and the Philippines. <br /><br />If you’re new to this blog, please start at the beginning in August 2009 and read forward. <br /><br />I hope that you’ll also read another blog novel that I have posted—Unwanted!—which can be found here:<br /><br />http://unwanted-a-novel.blogspot.com/Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-649555342697812010-09-30T09:30:00.000-04:002010-10-02T09:09:50.892-04:00September 30I thought I was done with this diary last May when I was about to leave Charles, but I find that one last entry is necessary to describe what happened with Angie’s “secret plan” against Briggs. Although Angie thought that it might not work at all, we have just seen in the last few days how it turned out to be far more effective than she had ever dreamed was possible. Before describing what happened, though, I want to say something about what we’ve been doing since we moved here.<br /><br />Through another friend of hers, Angie got in contact with a head hunting firm in Rosslyn, Virginia that specializes in placing recent college graduates in entry level professional positions around here. Angie ended up getting a job at a corporation which owns electric power generation projects in some twenty different countries. The company has a neat philosophy: for every acre of trees it cuts down to build a plant, it buys an acre of land somewhere else and plants trees on it. I remember that I was incredulous when Shivvy told me there were corporations like this last year. It turns out they really do exist.<br /><br />Angie is the assistant to the head of the corporate division responsible for Central America and the Caribbean. She’s being paid a very generous salary plus full benefits—including stock options! She may get to do some traveling, and the corporation will pay for her to take evening graduate courses toward a master’s degree in a field of interest to it. Angie’s looking into business school programs with courses in international finance at the various universities around here.<br /><br />It took me a little longer to find a job, but with Ilya’s help, I got one as a meeting planner at the Carnegie Endowment, where he’s now working. My job doesn’t pay as well as Angie’s, but it also provides good benefits (except, of course, that foundations don’t give out stock options). The job is basically administrative. It keeps me very busy, since the Carnegie puts on an incredible number of meetings on foreign policy issues. Fortunately, though, I get to attend them as well as the receptions associated with them. I’ve been able to meet a lot of interesting people from the State Department, Capitol Hill, foreign embassies, the media, and academia.<br /><br />One thing I’ve learned is that neither neo-radicalism nor international relations theory in general is particularly useful to the foreign policy community in Washington. It’s simply too broad for helping understand what’s going on right now in Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever. Ilya has persuaded me that if I really want a career in international relations, I’m going to have to acquire some sort of regional or functional expertise. I’ll definitely apply to the various IR graduate programs around here this fall. I’m not sure if I really want to go into another Ph.D. program, though. Except for becoming a professor, a master’s degree in international relations from a good school seems to be the ticket in this field.<br /><br />Ilya and Danielle got married in July. It was a simple but lovely ceremony. Craig and Lee were there too, of course. They returned to Cambridge for the new school year, but they think they’ll be back next summer—which is when (now that her divorce has come through) Angie and I plan to get married. In the meantime, we moved to our own apartment near the Virginia Square Metro at the end of August. We’re each repaying loans for our cars as well as all the clothes we had to buy for going to work. Dressing nicely to the office is expected here.<br /><br />That about brings us up to date. Now I’ll describe how Angie’s secret plan unfolded. The International Relations Association’s annual conference took place here in Washington last week. Angie insisted that I attend even if it meant using up some of the precious few vacation days that I had accumulated. Luckily, my boss was cool about just letting me go without taking any leave; we weren’t putting on any meetings while this big conference was in town anyway.<br /><br />Angie herself refused to attend. She told me to get there on the Wednesday afternoon to register even before the panels began the next day. That evening, we went through the thick conference program together and saw that the special session at which Briggs’s new book would be released was scheduled for late Friday afternoon in one of the ballrooms. I noted that the moderator for the session was listed as, “Brendan Cohen, Charles University.”<br /><br />Angie asked me to attend this session and let her know what all happened. “And don’t forget to buy a copy of the book.” I tried to do that on Thursday, but I was told at his publisher’s booth that the book would not be released until tomorrow at the special session (which the pretty young woman at the booth earnestly recommended that I attend).<br /><br />Later that day, I ran into Professor Saltz from Harvard. I was gratified that he remembered me and was friendly. He expressed surprise that my name tag listed my affiliation as the Carnegie Endowment instead of Charles University. I told him simply that I’d had a falling out with Briggs, and so had left Charles.<br /><br />“You didn’t show him that paper you wrote for me, did you?” Saltz asked.<br /><br />“He read it,” I replied, avoiding an explanation of precisely how Briggs had obtained a copy. “And he didn’t like it.”<br /><br />“Well, that was predictable!” said Saltz. He then went on to say how this sort of pettiness was typical of Briggs, how I was probably better off out from under him, and best of all, how he would be glad to write letters of recommendation for me. I thanked him profusely, and he gave me his card. With letters from him and Trizenko, I think I have a good shot at getting into either the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies or the Georgetown School of Foreign Service—the two most difficult IR masters programs to get into around here, or anywhere else for that matter.<br /><br />The next day, I was a little nervous going to the ballroom where Brigg’s special session was going to be held, since I didn’t really want to run into either him or Cohen. I needn’t have worried, though. The room was huge and there was already a crowd there even though I arrived several minutes before the session was due to start. I was surprised to see that C-SPAN was here with its cameras, and that the front of the room was flooded with light. Briggs and Cohen were already up on the stage, talking earnestly with a crowd of people who had gathered in front of them. I noticed Michael in this group. I knew that they wouldn’t spot me if I stayed behind the flood lights.<br /><br />The publisher had set up a table at the back of the room which, as Angie would say, was doing a land office business selling Briggs’s new book at the 20% conference discount. I got in the long line to buy a copy and barely had time to do so from the pretty young woman I had met at the booth yesterday before the session began. I took a seat in the very last row.<br /><br />Speaking in an excited voice, Brendan Cohen began the proceedings by introducing himself as a visiting scholar at Charles University (he made no mention of Cal State Barstow). “It is my great, great pleasure to be the moderator at this great, great session for my great, great friend, Barry Briggs.” It was obviously Brendan’s first time on camera. He was extremely nervous and excited. Little did he know what I had already learned this past summer at the Carnegie Endowment: C-SPAN does not air everything it tapes. Far from it.<br /><br />When it was his turn to speak, Briggs began by saying how this was the very first time he’d seen the book himself. “I like the front cover,” he said, holding the book up for the camera. “But I like the back one even more.” He turned it around, and there was a photo of himself. The audience laughed at this.<br /><br />He then went on to talk about how neo-radicalism was now more important than ever for understanding international relations, and castigated the “Washington foreign policy elite” for not being willing or able to understand this basic truth. As always, he put on a great performance.<br /><br />After going on in this vain for awhile, Briggs said that he really didn’t want to listen to himself blather on, but to “engage in a dialogue with my colleagues in the audience about some of the issues I’ve raised about neo-radicalism here in my talk as well as my new book.” Brendan indicated that the floor was now open. Several C-SPAN minions moved to various strategic locations so that a remote microphone could be taken to anyone called upon anywhere in the large ballroom.<br /><br />“Yes, Arch,” Brendan said, indicating Professor Faircloth from Gates University. It sounded to me like Brendan called him by his first name so that everyone would think that they knew each other well. I doubted, though, that Faircloth had ever even heard of Brendan (whom, I remembered, had seen him for the first time along with Briggs and Saltz at last year’s IRA conference).<br /><br />Faircloth rose from his seat and waited for the remote mike to reach him before speaking. “Arch Faircloth, Gates University,” he began, in a somewhat annoyed tone. (I had learned this summer that people used to being on camera always stated their name and affiliation when speaking from the floor at a conference like this. Doing so would enable C-SPAN, or whoever, to display this information at their appearance in the edited version—something which was unlikely to occur for those who didn’t identify themselves.)<br /><br />“I was looking through your index,” Faircloth continued, “and was very surprised to find that there is no entry for one of the leading international relations theorists of the past few years—your neighbor there at Harvard, Tim Saltz. Can you explain why?”<br /><br />I could see Briggs and Cohen quickly open their copies of the book to the index. So was everyone else in the audience who had a copy, including me. No, there was no entry for Saltz there.<br /><br />“This was clearly an oversight,” Briggs stammered. “I don’t quite know what happened here. I certainly meant to list Tim in the index—even if he is from Harvard.”<br /><br />A few people laughed, but not many. Saltz then raised his hand and was called upon by Brendan. “Yes, Tim?” he inquired.<br /><br />After waiting for the remote mike and introducing himself, Saltz said, “I’d like to reassure everyone that I don’t really mind not being listed in Barry’s index.” There was much more laughter at this.<br /><br />“Seriously, though,” he continued, “I too was surprised by the index. Whether or not I should be listed there aside, I don’t see entries for any currently active international relations theorists, including one for our esteemed colleague, Professor Faircloth. Will you please explain why?”<br /><br />There was a general stir among the audience. It was evident that a number of people were searching through the index and were displeased at not finding either their own or their friends’ names. I realized that this was Angie’s work. So did Briggs.<br /><br />“I’m afraid I had a particularly inept research assistant this past spring,” he said in an exasperated tone. “Despite my very careful instructions about the need for the most inclusive index possible, she clearly screwed things up.”<br /><br />There was another stir in the room. I heard several people ask the obvious question: “Hadn’t he checked the index himself before sending it back to the publisher?”<br /><br />Brendan tried to get the session headed back in a positive direction. “There is much more to this book than the index!” he stated pompously. “Can we talk about its other parts? You there!”<br /><br />I couldn’t see who had been called upon, but I recognized the voice immediately. And it was angry. “Doug Terenti, formerly of Charles University, now of Gates University! I have a question about another part of the book—the acknowledgements! I wonder why I don’t see my name there, since I worked long and hard on this book as Professor Briggs’s research assistant last fall.<br /><br />“You do remember me, don’t you, Professor Briggs?” he continued. “It was my wife you seduced while I was doing your shit work in the library!”<br /><br />There was a general uproar at this. Briggs looked taken aback, but Brendan was even more so. If he remembered Doug at all from meeting him at last year’s IRA conference, he probably assumed that he was still Briggs’s student at Charles, and that he would be a friendly questioner. He had no idea what had happened last December with Angie.<br /><br />I found the acknowledgements myself. I was not surprised that neither Doug nor I were mentioned. I noticed, though, that Angie wasn’t either.<br /><br />Brendan tried to restore order, but failed. Someone else down front got hold of a mike. Without introducing himself, he addressed himself not to Briggs, but to Doug. “What’s your wife’s name son?” he asked in a Texas drawl. “Was it Shivvy?”<br /><br />I was shocked to hear her name here, and so was Briggs.<br /><br />“Her name’s Angie,” Doug replied. “And she’s my ex-wife now.”<br /><br />“Well then, who's Shivvy?” asked the Texan. “That’s who the book is dedicated to!’<br /><br />I quickly turned to the dedication page and was shocked to find, “To Shivvy, with love,” printed there. Along with everyone else in the room, I stared intently at Briggs. Unlike everyone else, though, I knew what was going through his head.<br /><br />He had been slower than me in turning to the dedication page. I could see that he was confused by what he read there. But suddenly confusion was replaced with a look of dawning realization. Up until then, he might have seen the screw up with the index as a result of some gross error on Angie’s part. But not this. Someone had to have deliberately put Shivvy’s name in the dedication. It hadn’t been him. Therefore it must have been Angie. And if she had deliberately tampered with the dedication, it was clear that she had deliberately tampered with the index too.<br /><br />“That bitch wants to ruin me!” Briggs thundered.<br /><br />“Would that be Angie or Shivvy?” asked the Texan, still with the mike.<br /><br />“Shivvy’s not who I dedicated the book to! It has to be reprinted!” Briggs shouted. “No copy can leave this room! The publisher has to take it back!”<br /><br />I turned around and looked at the publisher’s table. The young woman there had been steadily selling copies of the book throughout the session, and had sold out by now.<br /><br />She looked stricken at hearing Briggs’s command. I don’t know if they could hear her at the front of the room without a mike, but all of us in the back clearly heard her declare, “All sales at the 20% conference discount are final! The books cannot be returned!” She then literally ran out of the room with her cash box and receipt book.<br /><br />Everything was in chaos. “Stop the cameras! Stop the cameras!” shouted Brendan. The poor sap probably thought this was being broadcast live. A few moments later, though, the flood lights went off and the C-SPAN crew began to pack up and leave. They had apparently seen enough of Barrington Briggs.<br /><br />It was Tim Saltz who managed to restore order. “Let’s continue with the session!” he called out in an authoritative voice. Truly great professors do not need microphones. They know how to project their voices. More importantly, people stop and listen when they start to speak.<br /><br />Brendan thanked Saltz, and then recognized him to ask another question. “Let’s leave personal details and technical matters such as the index aside, and just talk about substance,” he commanded us. “The question I have for Barry is this: both in your presentation and in what I’ve seen glancing at the book so far, it seems to me that all you’ve really done here is rehash your last book with its critics. Am I right, Barry? Or is there anything new here?”<br /><br />This set the tone for the kind of questioning Briggs received for the rest of the session. Thoroughly rattled by this time, though, Briggs did not respond well. His answers were defensive and unsatisfactory. The audience became increasingly hostile—at least, those who remained.<br /><br />What was supposed to have been the triumphal presentation of his new book had turned into a complete disaster. As I left the room along with others, I heard people comment that “Briggs has lost it,” and that “He’ll never live this down.” I knew that word about what had happened would spread quickly. What Angie had done had gotten the ball rolling. And once it started, Briggs couldn’t stop it.<br /><br />I went home to Angie and told her all about what I had seen. She seemed genuinely surprised that things could turn so sour for Briggs so quickly. She had doubted that the index would be noticed at the IRA conference itself, and had only expected some negative reviews later when it was. This alone, she knew, would bruise his inflated ego. <br /><br />“How’d you alter the index without him knowing?” I asked.<br /><br />She said it was simple. She knew that he wouldn’t want to go to the post office himself with the galleys and the index, but would ask her to do it for him. With that in mind, she noticed that the publisher’s instructions said that the index would not be sent back to the author for proofreading; the publisher would do this to save time at this very final stage. She had worked diligently with Barry to see to it that everyone who might review the book was listed in the index—and then she simply deleted these entries right before mailing the index back with the galleys. In case he even checked, though, she left the longer original index in Barry’s files.<br /><br />The editors, she reasoned, would just check to see if what was in the index was okay. They would not be on the lookout for what wasn’t in it—especially since even the shortened version she sent them exceeded its “word budget.” The editors might have checked with Barry if Angie had altered the text, so she didn’t try doing that—except for taking her name out of the acknowledgements and “revising” the dedication.<br /><br />I asked her to explain what had happened with these. As for the acknowledgements, she said that she simply didn’t want to be mentioned there, and deleted it on the galleys right before going to the post office. She figured that the editors wouldn’t question him about making a change like this.<br /><br />Angie figured the same would be true with regard to the dedication. It was just before she went to the post office that she crossed out the name Barry had put there and inserted Shivvy’s. Angie said that she really hadn’t even thought about doing this, but had just done so on the spur of the moment.<br /><br />“So whose name did you cross out?” I asked.<br /><br />Angie’s face colored. She didn’t want to say.<br /><br />“Come on! Who did he really dedicate the book to?”<br /><br />“Me,” she responded.<br /><br />“You?” Once again, I was amazed. “You took your own name out and put Shivvy’s in? Why?”<br /><br />“I never confronted him directly about his cheating on me with Shivvy,” she said. “I was afraid that if I did, he’d either hit me or just admit it and laugh at me. Or worse still, he’d just tell me that I had misunderstood the nature of our relationship altogether. He would have said that he’d never intended to marry me, but had just taken me in to help me back on my feet after Doug and I broke up. He might have even said that he’d only screwed me in the first place because he knew I was lonely and unhappy, because he had felt sorry for me—nothing more.<br /><br />“I wanted to find a way to confront him without his being able to say anything back,” she continued. “I wanted to show him that I knew about that girl and that he’d hurt me—not so much because I thought she meant anything to him but because their affair made me understand how little I meant to him. And I wanted to hurt him publicly because that’s the way he himself hurts people.<br /><br />“I thought and thought about what to do, but couldn’t think of a thing. I was desperate that day before I went to the post office. I knew that altering the index would annoy him, but it wasn’t enough for me. And then suddenly it dawned on me that altering the dedication would send the message I wanted to send, and that he wouldn’t be able to respond.”<br /><br />“And was the ‘with love’ in his original dedication?” I asked. “Was, ‘To Angie, with love,’ what he really wanted to say?”<br /><br />“No,” she said mischievously. “It was just, `To Angie.’ I added that last part myself!<br /><br />“I only wish,” she continued, “that I could have just been there for a few seconds, just to see what his face looked like when he realized what I had done.”<br /><br />Much to our surprise, Angie got her wish the very next day when we were watching the ABC News. It was almost the end of the broadcast which, probably because it was Saturday, hadn’t contained much real news. I was just about to switch the TV off when I heard the anchorwoman (I can never remember the names of the people who do it on the weekend) say, “We’ll leave you this evening with a reminder that the world of academia is not necessarily as dull and dry as many people imagine it to be. It has its scandals, too. And sometimes they’re even captured on film, as occurred during a session of the International Relations Association annual conference currently being held in Washington, D.C.”<br /><br />Angie and I stared dumbfounded as the anchorwoman’s image was suddenly replaced by those of Briggs and Cohen, both looking uncomfortable, on the stage of the hotel ballroom where I had seen them yesterday. Although not on the screen, the clip began with Doug’s angry voice asking, “You do remember me, don’t you, Professor Briggs? It was my wife you seduced while I was doing your shit work in the library!” Then came the voice of the Texan asking if his wife was named Shivvy, Doug’s denial, and the Texan again announcing that Shivvy was the one the book was dedicated to.<br /><br />The camera had stayed focused on Briggs and Cohen, capturing all the contortions their faces had gone through during this. The most dramatic scene, though, was Briggs shouting, “That bitch is trying to ruin me!” followed by the Texan’s flippant query whether he meant Angie or Shivvy, and then Briggs shouting, “Shivvy’s not who I dedicated the book to!” as well as by how the book had to be reprinted and no copy could leave the room. The clip ended with Cohen, clearly in a panic, yelling, “Stop the cameras! Stop the cameras!”<br /><br />“Okay! Okay!” said the anchorwoman, suddenly back on the screen. Then she shook her pretty head slightly and said, “Sorry, Shivvy. I guess this book wasn’t dedicated to you after all—no matter what it actually says!” After that, she signed off.<br /><br />Angie whooped for joy. “Thank God my cell phone number is unlisted!” she said to me. “I don’t want that man to find me!” The phone, though, rang almost immediately. Angie insisted I answer it. It was Danielle calling to congratulate her. Craig and Lee phoned from Cambridge a few minutes later. She admonished them all not to give out her number.<br /><br />I don’t know whether C-SPAN had aired the tape of the entire session. Clearly, though, ABC had somehow obtained this clip from it. Maybe others had too.<br /><br />Nor did the story end there. The same anchorwoman came back on the next day, Sunday. At the end of the broadcast, she asked, “Remember the little academic contretemps we aired last night concerning whom a book was really supposed to have been dedicated to?”<br /><br />This was followed by a very short clip just of Briggs shouting, “Shivvy’s not who I dedicated the book to!”<br /><br />“Well, as you can imagine,” said the anchorwoman, suddenly reappearing, “Shivvy is very displeased. Not, though, from learning that the book’s dedication wasn’t really intended for her. She’s angry instead that her name appeared in it at all.<br /><br />“For it turns out,” said the anchorwoman’s voice as a scene of Charles University appeared on the screen, “that there is only one person called Shivvy at Charles University, where the book’s author, Barrington Briggs, is a professor. And Shivvy is his student.”<br /><br />The scene on the screen suddenly switched to what I recognized as the front lawn of the house where Shivvy’s parents live. There was Shivvy sobbing in the arms of her father on the left and her mother in front of a microphone bank on the right.<br /><br />Then it was just her mother’s image that filled the screen. “My daughter has told me how this man has taken advantage of her!” she declared indignantly. “What’s worse, he appears to be bragging about it publicly! Well, we’re not going to take this! We’re suing him, and Charles University for allowing this to happen!”<br /><br />The anchorwoman then reappeared. “Someone’s in trouble!” she said mischivously before signing off.<br /><br />Angie and I were taken aback. Knowing Shivvy as I do, I doubted that it was remorse over having had sex with Briggs or, considering the deal that she had struck with him, indignation over being “used” by him that motivated her to turn on him publicly. Instead, she was angry that a book by him dedicated (intentionally or not) to her had publicized what had been their secret relationship. She would have been humiliated by the knowledge that Briggs would (of course) assign this new book as a text for his classes and that “everyone” she knew at Charles would see the dedication and understand what it implied, whether they’d seen the ABC News story about it or not. And all those who did see it, of course, would know that something illicit had been going on between her and Briggs.<br /><br />She may even have feared (unreasonably but understandably in her state of panic) that the “A’s” from Briggs’s classes on her transcript as well as the glowing letters of recommendation from him (that she’d help write) would all be rendered worthless if the admissions officers in the business schools she was applying to even suspected that there had been a sexual relationship between them. Not talking about it all, she probably calculated, would not stop “everyone” from gossiping about her relationship with him, or worse, thinking she was maintaining silence in order to protect the man she loved. She may have even feared that I would pop up out of the blue and tell “everyone” what she had told me about the two of them last spring.<br /><br />The bottom line for her was probably this: as long as “everyone” believed that she had had sex with Briggs, the “A’s” and letters of recommendation from him were no longer of value to her. This being the case, she may as well admit to what happened and at least get the benefit of claiming to be the victim of sexual misconduct. Maybe she could even turn the whole experience into a compelling theme for the essay she had to write for her business school applications.<br /><br />Nothing about this story appeared on ABC after that Sunday evening. The next night, though, we got another call from Lee, saying she had heard there had been a demonstration against Briggs that day in front of Case Hall. Just afterward, she e-mailed us the link to the story from the campus newspaper’s website.<br /><br />The story didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, but the photograph accompanying it revealed much. There, with their fists in the air, were Shivvy, Professor DeKlerk, and Lisa Dudwick. Shivvy had cut her hair short like theirs. And there along with them was Michael Radkowski. The fact that “the Rat,” as Shivvy dubbed him, had deserted Briggs was a sure sign that his ship was sinking.<br /><br />This made sense too. Michael had been at Briggs’s disastrous session at the IRA conference. He probably calculated that, with Briggs’s reputation shot, being seen as his student would no longer be an asset but a liability. It was time, then, for Michael to attach himself to someone else. And Michael, of course, could never resist kicking anyone who was down anyway. <br /><br />Whether this was true or not, I knew that Briggs was going to have to fight hard just to save his job. Even if he succeeded, his reputation was already lost.<br /><br />Angie was frightened that Briggs was going to come after her somehow, but she herself had made that virtually impossible. Not only, as I mentioned before, was her phone number unlisted (as was mine), but Angie had not bothered to ask the Postal Service to forward her mail when she left Briggs’s house. She just let the few parties whom she wanted or needed to continue contact with know her new address instead.<br /><br />Furthermore, since Angie had moved up to Massachusetts shortly after marrying Doug last year, she hadn’t had time to change her name on all her records in Virginia. Although she’d used Doug’s last name up north, she went back to using her father’s last name when we moved. “Barry never even knew what it was,” she commented. “He didn’t know much about me at all, and wasn’t interested enough to ask.”<br /><br />No, he didn’t know much about her. But he ended up learning a lot more about her true characcter than he wished!<br /><br />But while this episode is certainly not over for him, it is for us. So this is where I will end this diary.<br /><br />I know now that there will be no future biographers or intellectual historians who will ever peruse this. I feel embarrassed remembering that I ever thought there would be. But if nothing else, the diary will serve to remind Angie and me in the years ahead about how we met and how we fell in love.<br /><br />[There’s a few things we might want to delete, though, before we let our children see it.]<br /><br />THE ENDDiary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-15069318020357611082010-05-13T06:49:00.003-04:002010-05-21T09:30:06.689-04:00May 13When I got back to my apartment last Friday, carrying the few things from what had been my office in a cardboard box, I found that Angie had already arrived. As I came in the door, she got up from the couch where she had been sitting. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and, it seemed ironic to me, a Charles University T-shirt. It looked like she might have been crying.<br /><br />Suddenly she was in my arms, and very definitely crying. I led her back over to the couch, where we both sat and cried together. All the pain we had been feeling just welled up out of us both, refusing to be denied or suppressed any longer. I would never have wept like this if she hadn’t been there and started first. But once begun, I surrendered myself completely to all my sorrows and regrets.<br /><br />I cried for so needlessly losing Shivvy’s love. I cried for my wrecked friendship with Brendan Cohen. I cried for having been falsely accused of racism. I cried for having let down Danielle when this happened to her last fall. I cried for my shattered illusions about Professor Briggs. I cried for my shattered illusions about myself, which Briggs’s reading of that letter from Brendan in front of the honor code committee did more than anything else to destroy. And I cried because I am now fully aware that there will be no future biographers or intellectual historians who are going to read this diary and write anything about me--and that even expecting this was ridiculous. <br /><br />Angie cried for her broken marriage to Doug, her shattered illusions about her future with Barry, and his exploitation of her as an unpaid research assistant while he was simultaneously screwing Shivvy “and God knows who else.” And she cried for the fact that, despite everything, she still had some feelings for him because he had valued her intellect in a way that neither Doug nor any other man ever had. Finally, we both cried over the knowledge that we had each wasted a year of our young lives with absolutely nothing to show for it and with no plans at all for even the immediate future.<br /><br />I asked her what she had meant when she had told me before that she would “get” Briggs. “It probably won’t work at all,” she said sniffling. “It was silly of me to think it would. I should have just moved out the day I found that damn girl’s scrunchy in his office instead of dreaming up some hare-brained scheme for revenge.”<br /><br />This “scheme” was clearly something she had already put into effect. I asked her to tell me what it was she had done.<br /><br />“It’s so dumb that it can’t possibly work,” she responded. “We won’t even begin to know until September anyway.” She said she wasn’t going to say anything more about this subject, “So don’t ask!”<br /><br />Soon thereafter, we moved from commiserating to caressing, and from the couch to the bed. I felt nothing but gratitude toward this kind, beautiful woman for insisting that there was much worth in me when I myself saw none. She took away my despair, and she filled me with hope. I had never, ever experienced love-making like this before.<br /><br />I realized that I was in love with Angie, that I had been ever since we had worked together on Briggs’s manuscript during spring break, and I told her so. She surprised me by admitting that she had felt the same way since then, too. She said she was impressed then that I remained loyal to Shivvy even though I had let Briggs convince me to break off relations with her temporarily (“to avoid any conflict of interest,” said Angie scornfully). Further, she was touched by my innocence in thinking that Shivvy would wait for me (“You really brought out my protective instincts!” she said). She was further touched by my innocence and loyalty that day in Briggs’s office when I refused to believe that he and Shivvy were having an affair (“despite the evidence”).<br /><br />“Since my so-called boyfriend was fucking your so-called girlfriend,” she continued, “I thought it would have been poetic justice if you and I had made love right there in his office, just like they had.” She really would have, she insisted, if I had suggested it, but she realized that my mind didn’t work like hers. “Besides, I knew you were more to me than a quick way to get revenge on Barry.” <br /><br />She had initially contemplated just up and leaving Barry, and the entire Boston area (“which really sucks if you’re not a student”) that very weekend. She decided to stay, though, not only because the plan for revenge she settled on (which she still wouldn’t describe) called for it, but also to check out the possibility of hooking up with me! “Maybe we can even plan some sort of future together,” she said, staring at me intently. “Just as long as it’s away from here.”<br /><br />That sounded fine to me. She later told me that although she had now left Barry, she had not actually told him so. That might hurt her plan, at least if she did so now. Instead, she had told him that she had to go visit her mother in Southwest Virginia, and that she would let him know later when she’d be coming back. In addition to her old suitcase, which I recognized from when she moved out of here last December, she had brought another nice new one which she had “borrowed” from Briggs for her trip. Between them, they held all the possessions she wanted to take with her. “He even lent me $500,” she said, “which he’ll never see again!”<br /><br />I guess my face must have expressed surprise without my realizing it. “He exploited me, Jonathan!” she declared. “Why shouldn’t I exploit him?” When we later counted up how much money we had between us, we were both grateful for Briggs’s contribution.<br /><br />“I told Barry that I was catching a flight this morning,” she told me. “I was worried that he would insist on driving me all the way to the airport, like I had done for him. But he was only willing to take me as far as the Central Square T station, here near the university.” Once he’d dropped her off, she took a cab to my apartment building, tipping the driver extra to help her with her luggage.<br /><br />Angie was afraid to go outside the apartment building in case Briggs happened to see her before we left here at the end of finals week. She had already quit her job as a waitress, and arranged for me to pick up her last pay check as well as to take it to her bank with one of her deposit slips. She also had me go out to do all the shopping with lists supplied by her.<br /><br />On Saturday morning, I got a phone call from Professor Trizenko informing me that I had been inducted as a member of an organization known as CUR—Charles University Rejects. The only other full members besides himself, so far, were Danielle and Craig. Craig’s wife Lee only counted as an honorary member since she would remain a law student here. He wanted to know if I could attend a special initiation dinner at his home that very night.<br /><br />This was so very kind! I said I’d be delighted to attend and, even though Angie was shaking her head “no” at me, I asked whether I could bring a guest whom I thought might also qualify for membership of some sort. Trizenko readily agreed. He arranged to come by and pick us up that evening. Angie was very annoyed with me until I explained what we had been invited to and who all would be there.<br /><br />After we got to Trizenko’s house that evening, I had a very emotional reunion with Danielle. I apologized to her profusely for letting her down last December. We compared notes on what it felt like to be the object of a demonstration. She looked radiantly happy, and bubbled on about their upcoming move to Washington and wedding, which would take place there. Craig and Lee would also be in Washington this summer: he had gotten an unpaid internship on Capitol Hill while she had gotten (“a very highly paid,” as Craig put it) summer associateship at one of the big Washington law firms.<br /><br />Angie and I told them how we had been thinking of moving down to Washington too, and they all encouraged us to do so. Ilya (as he insisted we call him) and Danielle said they hoped we’d come to their wedding, and all four offered to do what they could to help us find interesting jobs. Angie and I agreed then and there that we would also move to Washington.<br /><br />(I had originally thought of reviving my application to Gates University where I had also been admitted with a fellowship, like Doug had done. But Angie said she didn’t want to go there; she would feel uncomfortable around Doug. It surprised me that I dropped this plan as soon as Angie expressed any objection to it. I really am in love!)<br /><br />The four of them listened sympathetically as Angie and I related what all had happened to us. Craig livened the atmosphere back up by telling us how he had seen Michael yesterday, who is truly angry with me since Briggs did indeed ask him to grade those final exams in my place—an offer from his lord and master which Michael apparently dared not refuse. “`Couldn’t Jonathan have waited until after finals to fuck everything up?’” Craig imitated Michael thundering.<br /><br />We all laughed at this. Danielle then moved that Angie also be inducted as a full member of CUR. The rest of us agreed unanimously. Angie said that this was an honor she hadn’t sought, but felt that she had no choice but to accept.<br /><br />The conversation went on in this vein. I felt profoundly fortunate to be surrounded by so much love and friendship that I so little deserved. At the end of the evening, Craig and Lee drove us back to my apartment.<br /><br />Finals week this semester was less frenetic than I had ever experienced either here or at Barstow. I had already finished my work for Asquith earlier in the semester. I didn’t have to see Briggs at all since he had given us a take-home final. All I had to do was put what I’d written in his departmental mail box. (“Don’t worry about the grade,” said Angie. “Since he thinks he’s defeated you, he’ll want to appear generous in victory.”)<br /><br />I only had two in-class finals. One was in Prof. Stavros’s class on Wednesday. I did not feel at all embarrassed at seeing him, even though he, as department chair, had signed the letter to me announcing that my funding would not be renewed. He, on the other hand, did seem rather embarrassed to see me.<br /><br />The other was in Prof. Wang’s class today (Thursday). Being only a tenure track assistant professor himself, I don’t think he had any say about my funding. I’m not even sure he knew that it had been cut.<br /><br />While I leisurely studied for finals, Angie has been making arrangements for us. After a few phone calls, she found a girlfriend of hers from New Dominion University who wants to sublet her apartment for the summer. It’s located near the Vienna Metro—which is somewhere in the Northern Virginia suburbs. Angie thinks we’ll definitely need a car there, but that we should be able to get a used one fairly cheaply through Craigslist. I guess that’s what that $500 from Barry will be going for.<br /><br />Angie’s taken care of all the other loose ends here. She’s incredibly well organized. She also got us a couple of cheap tickets on a flight from Boston to Washington Dulles airport tomorrow afternoon. We’ll take a cab from there to her friend’s house, and then start looking around for work. I’m sure I’ll be able to hit my parents up for a little money. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to tell them yet about why I’m leaving here.<br /><br />I no longer care whether Angie’s secret plan against Briggs works or not. I’m just glad to be leaving here to begin a new life with her.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-21379627636095432922010-05-07T06:49:00.003-04:002010-05-13T06:49:10.970-04:00May 7Briggs struck again the very next day. I didn’t want to attend his Tuesday morning lecture to the undergrads, but I really had no choice since I am the TA for the course. I needed to hear what Briggs would tell the students about their final exam.<br /><br />Although I usually sat in the front of the classroom, today I sat in the back so that I could leave as soon as class was over, thus avoiding any conversation with Briggs. But he sought me out just before class began. “Oh, Jonathan,” he said, as if nothing had happened yesterday, “I forgot to bring the course evaluation forms that the students always fill out during the last class session. Could you run back and get them for me? I think they’re in my departmental mail box. And get one of the secretaries to lend you a bunch of pencils for students to fill in the answer grids. They always prepare batches of them for these occasions. I’ll get started with the lecture, but won’t talk about the final until after you get back.”<br /><br />I had to do it, of course. It took longer than expected because the envelope with the evaluation forms was not in his mail box. After handing me a batch of small pencils bound together by a rubber band, one of the secretaries grudgingly agreed to accompany me to Briggs’s office with the department master key to see if the evaluation forms were there. A fat elderly woman, she walked very slowly. When we finally got to his office, we found that Angie was there working in it. “You could have saved me a trip if you had just checked here first!” the secretary said accusingly.<br /><br />We quickly found the envelope with the course evaluations on the corner of his desk. “That’s strange,” said Angie. “I thought I reminded him to take these to class this morning.” As the secretary began her slow trek back to the department office, Angie told me that she and Briggs were almost finished with the index. It had taken them longer than it should have, she said, because Barry kept thinking of more things to add, which meant, of course, that they had to find them.<br /><br />“I heard about what happened yesterday, Jonathan,” said Angie when the secretary was out of earshot. “I’m really sorry.”<br /><br />I was so upset still that I felt tears well up in my eyes and a lump form in my throat. I was afraid I’d burst out crying if I tried to say anything.<br /><br />Apparently sensing my distress, Angie stood up from her chair and came over to me. “Just hang on, Jonathan,” she said quietly. “We’re going to hit back at him. And by the way, I’ll probably move into your place either Thursday or Friday.”<br /><br />“That’s great,” I managed to say. “But I’ve got to get back to class.” I practically ran from her. I don’t know why, but I felt more emotional about everything that was happening to me around her.<br /><br />“There he is!” Briggs said sarcastically as I came back into the classroom. “I was beginning to think that you had gotten lost, Jonathan!” The undergrads all laughed at this. There were a lot more of them here than usual. I guess all those who didn’t like the grades they had received on either the midterm or the book review decided it might be worth their while to learn about the final.<br /><br />After handing the envelope with the evaluations along with the pencils to Briggs, I took a seat down front after all. Briggs carried on with his lecture. This he ended earlier than usual to first discuss the final exam and then allow time for the students to fill out the course evaluations. After doing the former, he called upon a student volunteer to administer the evaluations (since neither the professor nor the TA were supposed to be in the room when students were filling them out). From the half dozen or so students who raised their hands, Briggs chose the African-American student who had been the defendant at yesterday’s honor code committee hearing.<br /><br />“You will be evaluating both my performance as a professor and Jonathan’s performance as a TA,” Briggs explained to the class. “As per university regulations, both of us will leave the room before the evaluations are passed out. Someone seems to think our being here might intimidate you!” Although not a particularly amusing observation, half the students laughed anyway.<br /><br />Briggs then reminded the African-American student (whose name I am still protecting, even after what happened yesterday) to seal all the evaluations back up in the envelope, take it to the designated repository in the Student Union, and return the pencils to the department office. When the young man’s expression indicated that this was more work than he had bargained for, Shivvy volunteered to share one of these errands.<br /><br />“I’ll see you all—and those that weren’t here today, hopefully—at the final,” said Briggs to the class. “But Jonathan, of course, will be holding both his discussion section and his office hours as usual this afternoon.” The two of us then left the room, and I parted company with him almost immediately thereafter.<br /><br />That afternoon, I went to the classroom where I held my discussion section. Although attendance had been extremely low these past few weeks, I was surprised to find that absolutely nobody had showed up today. I waited twenty minutes, but no one came. There was no point in staying, so I decided I may as well go back to my office. I had to go there anyway for my office hours.<br /><br />As I approached Case Hall, I noticed that there was an unusually large number of people milling around near the entrance. “There he is!” I heard someone shout as I drew closer.<br /><br />The milling crowd quickly formed into a line. “Down with racist TA’s! Down with racist TA’s!” they chanted.<br /><br />I couldn’t believe this was happening. I wanted to proclaim that I was no racist, that I was innocent. But I knew that there was no point. I could see from the expressions on their faces that most of the demonstrators really believed that I was a racist and that what they were doing was absolutely right.<br /><br />Briggs was there in the middle of the crowd. Right beside him was the African-American student whom I had caught cheating as well as Professor Asquith. Shivvy and Michael were also there; they seemed to have worked themselves up into an especially rabid frenzy. I also recognized many of the undergrads who had complained about the grades I had given them on the midterm or the book review. The chair of the honor code committee and several of its members were also there.<br /><br />I understood now what had happened. Briggs made use of the time I was away from his lecture section to organize this little demonstration. He deliberately misled me as to where the evaluations were so that he would have more time to do so. Knowing him, though, he didn’t actually do it himself. Instead, he had probably arranged in advance to yield the floor as soon as I had left the room to a student (probably the African-American male I had caught cheating) who announced the purpose of the demonstration to the class and invited it to participate. Briggs himself may have indicated that he himself would attend.<br /><br />Not everyone who had been in class that day came to the demonstration. Nobody, though, had had the decency to warn me about what was going to happen. Nobody.<br /><br />After listening to the crowd spew its venom at me for a short while, I realized that I had probably better move away. I started to go into Case Hall, the entrance to which was being kept clear by some campus police officers. Before I could get to the door, however, Professor Trizenko came out through it. “I see that you and Danielle have the same friends!” he said brightly. “Isn’t that nice?”<br /><br />“Come on,” he said, taking me by the arm. “This isn’t going to end if you go into this building. You’ve got to move away from it.” As we moved quickly past the demonstrators, they stopped chanting and began cheering. As far as they were concerned, they had won a great victory against racism.<br /><br />If only I had been his TA, I told him, none of this would have ever happened. I told him the whole story about Shivvy, Briggs, and me.<br /><br />I suddenly remembered how I had participated in the demonstration against Danielle last fall. I asked Professor Trizenko to tell her how sorry I was and that I now knew how awful she must have felt. I also asked him whether it was true that the two of them would soon be married, and conveyed my congratulations when he confirmed this.<br /><br />He walked me back to my apartment building. He insisted that I take his cell phone number in case I needed any help from him, and that I give him mine so that he could check up on me. I thanked him for everything and went inside.<br /><br />But Briggs’s campaign against me had not ended. The rest of it, though, was anti-climactic.<br /><br />On Wednesday, there was an e-mail from Briggs to all the undergraduates in his class saying that, due to the depth of unhappiness that they had expressed during Tuesday’s demonstration about my fairness in grading as well as sensitivity toward students from “diverse backgrounds,” Briggs himself would grade their final exams. “Let me assure you that Mr. Jonathan Vining will not even see them.”<br /><br />I got this message because Briggs had put my address on the “cc” line—along with that of the department chair, Professor Stavros.<br /><br />I was actually quite relieved not to have to grade any finals. I laughed upon seeing his statement that he would grade the finals himself. I was certain that he’d get somebody else to do it for him, like Michael or even Angie.<br /><br />On Thursday afternoon, I found an official looking envelope in my departmental mail box. It was a letter from Prof. Stavros stating that the faculty had decided not to renew my funding next semester.<br /><br />This morning (Friday), I handed a letter I wrote for Prof. Stavros to his secretary announcing my withdrawal from Charles University after finishing up my work for the semester next week. I certainly wasn’t going to go into debt to stay here.<br />I’m writing this in my office where I have come to clear out my few possessions and take them home. Since Briggs has relieved me of my duties as a TA, there is no reason for me to return here during finals next week.<br /><br />Briggs has vanquished me completely. There is nothing at all I can do about it. And despite what she told me, Angie can’t either.<br /><br />If she’s really going to move in to my apartment, she had better do so soon. Now that I’m withdrawing from the university, I’ll have to move out myself shortly after the end of finals.<br /><br />I hope she comes soon. I feel truly alone. It would be nice just to have her company.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-11728212188772258452010-05-03T06:55:00.003-04:002010-05-07T06:49:43.608-04:00May 3I am writing this on Monday afternoon at the start of the last week of classes. Angie’s prediction has come true. Today Briggs struck back at me—-hard.<br /><br />I knew that I would have to see him today since I was in his graduate international political economy class which met Monday mornings, and I had to go to class to pick up the take-home final exam he would be passing out. I dreaded seeing him, but nothing untoward happened in class. He was very witty and even highly solicitous of me—going out of his way to ask me my viewpoint and complementing me on my thoughtfulness. I assumed that he was trying to flatter me so that I wouldn’t file a sexual misconduct charge against him. I felt reassured that I had him at a disadvantage, and that he was too afraid to try causing trouble for me. I would soon be disabused of these comforting notions.<br /><br />Shortly before 11:30 a.m., I arrived at the student judicial affairs office for the honor code committee hearing on the African-American male student whom I had caught cheating. The student was already there. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, and looked remarkably calm. I looked sort of shabby in comparison, dressed just in jeans and a T-shirt, but I knew that wouldn’t make any difference as to the facts. The hearing was late getting started since we had to wait for all the committee members to arrive. I was surprised when Prof. Briggs suddenly appeared. “The professor of the class always has to attend these things,” he said in response to my obvious puzzlement. That, of course, did make sense.<br /><br />The hearing soon got started. The chair of the committee (a short, overweight white male who was taking this hearing—as well as himself—extremely seriously) outlined the procedure, indicating that we would begin with the complainant (me) outlining my charge against the defendant. I basically read the statement which I had submitted to the student judicial affairs office, and referred to the photocopies of both the student’s paper as well as the published book review it was identical to. I finished by saying that it particularly pained me to have to make such charges against an African-American student, but that the rules against plagiarism applied to everyone.<br /><br />The chair of the committee then asked the defendant how he responded to these charges. Instead of doing so directly, the African-American student declared that what he had done was not really cheating (he didn’t elaborate what it really was), and that it didn’t justify this formal hearing (which was only taking place because he had not pleaded guilty). He also said that the charges I had made against him were racially motivated, that “this entire thing” would have been handled very differently if he had been white, and that he could prove it.<br /><br />Everyone sat up a little straighter when he said this. “Please proceed,” said the chair of the committee.<br /><br />“Professor Briggs,” the defendant began, “are you aware if Mr. Vining here suspected any other students of plagiarism on this assignment?”<br /><br />Briggs looked thoughtful for a moment. “I recall him saying that there were a couple of other students whose papers he was suspicious of, yes.”<br /><br />“Is this correct, Mr. Vining?” the defendant asked.<br /><br />I acknowledged that it was.<br /><br />“And did the students who wrote these two papers happen to be white?” he asked accusingly.<br /><br />I acknowledged that they were, but that I had not singled him out. I had tried to find the original sources for these two papers also. I had failed altogether to find it for one, and had only found it for the other after the honor code committee’s deadline (which I had not been aware of) for filing a cheating charge against a student from the date he or she had submitted an assignment.<br /><br />The defendant then declared that I had just proved myself to be a racist. “Why else would you move so fast to concoct a case against an African-American student before the passage of the deadline for doing so on the one hand, and so slowly in the case of one white student that you missed the deadline for on the other, and didn’t move at all in the case of another white student on a third hand?”<br /><br />I indignantly denied that I had singled him out because he was black and repeated what I had said before.<br /><br />“Why didn’t you have any difficulty finding the original source for my paper? Why did you focus so much attention on me, the African-American, before the deadline for filing a complaint had passed and not on the white students?”<br /><br />I reiterated that I didn’t focus on him because he was African-American. It just so happened that I had quickly been able to find the review he had copied from on Google. And besides, I was intimately familiar with Prof. Briggs’s book, which the defendant had done his book review for the class on, due to my own previous research. The books that the white students wrote on were ones that I had read, of course, but was not as familiar with the scholarly response to as I was with Briggs’s book. <br /><br />It was at this point that Briggs made his move. “May I interject something here?” he asked the committee chair.<br /><br />“Please do,” was the response.<br /><br />“You mention, Jonathan, that you are familiar with my book through your previous research. Are you referring here to the senior thesis you wrote last year at Cal State Barstow and the paper you wrote for Prof. Saltz at Harvard last semester?”<br /><br />“Yes,” I answered hesitantly.<br /><br />“Then I’m sorry to say, Mr. Chairman, that irrespective of whether or not the defendant committed plagiarism, for Jonathan Vining to accuse him of doing so is truly an example of the pot calling the kettle black.”<br /><br />I was stunned by this statement, as were the members of the honor code committee. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” Briggs said to the defendant. “I meant no offense by that expression.”<br /><br />“None taken, sir, none taken.”<br /><br />Briggs continued: “It just so happens that Brendan Cohen (Jonathan’s former professor at Cal State Barstow whom he wrote his senior thesis for) gave a talk here at Charles earlier this spring. I had occasion to read Jonathan’s senior thesis some time later, and also the paper he did for Professor Saltz. I was dismayed to find that the ideas expressed in Jonathan’s two papers were virtually identical to those expressed by Professor Cohen.”<br /><br />My God! This Brendan Cohen business was still haunting me! “I did not lift anything from him!” I declared indignantly. “He was the one who plagiarized from me!”<br /><br />Briggs shook his head and smiled. “A tenured professor plagiarizing the work of an undergraduate?” he asked rhetorically. “Although some students may entertain pretensions about the quality of their writing, I have never read anything by an undergraduate that a professor would consider worth plagiarizing!”<br /><br />Several members of the honor code committee as well as the defendant snickered at this. “But Jonathan, I understand, was a particularly gifted undergraduate, at least by the standards of Cal State Barstow,” Briggs continued. There was more laughter at this.<br /><br />“I considered that it was possible that his former professor may have plagiarized from him,” he went on, “since both of Jonathan’s papers were written before the presentation made by Professor Cohen here this spring. Indeed, I was forced to consider this possibility since Professor Cohen has applied to be a guest scholar in my department next year. We are seriously considering extending him an invitation. But we obviously wouldn’t want him if he was the sort of professor who plagiarized from his students.<br /><br />“I felt I had no choice but to ask Professor Cohen to explain the similarity between the presentation he made here on the one hand, and the papers written by Jonathan on the other. I am truly sorry to say this, Jonathan, but Professor Cohen was able to satisfy my colleagues and me that he did not lift anything from you. He sent me an enormous quantity of his lecture notes, draft articles which had never been published, and even old diskettes with files from years ago showing that the ideas he expressed at his presentation here at Charles were ones he had been talking about long before you wrote your senior thesis.”<br /><br />I was dumbstruck. But there was more. “Professor Cohen also sent me a letter concerning all this. May I read from it?”<br /><br />I started to object, but the committee chairman nodded for Briggs to go ahead.<br /><br />“`I was truly dismayed,’ Professor Cohen wrote, ‘when Jonathan viciously accused me of plagiarizing his work shortly after I made my presentation at Charles. But I believe that the enclosed material demonstrates that these were ideas I have been expressing for many years. Although he himself might not realize it, Jonathan actually got these ideas from me.<br /><br />“`In retrospect, I can see that I was at fault for mistaking Jonathan’s repeating my own ideas back to me as a sign of brilliance. I doubt, though, that I am the only professor who has ever done this.<br /><br />“`Surrounded mainly by low quality students who cannot understand the simplest argument presented in a lecture or textbook, and who cannot write a coherent sentence, I endowed Jonathan with superlative qualities he does not actually possess.<br /><br />“`Let me make one thing clear: Jonathan is not responsible for misleading me about his abilities. I succeeded in deluding myself on this score. Worse still: I succeeded in deluding Jonathan about himself too.’”<br /><br />Briggs paused. The room was dead silent. I was devastated. “There’s more,” Briggs said, “but I think I’ve read enough. I did, though, make a copy for you, Jonathan. I think it’s only fair that you should have one.” I took the sheets of paper he handed to me and folded them in half so I couldn’t read them.<br /><br />“Any response, Mr. Vining?” the honor code committee asked.<br /><br />I wanted to shout out how Briggs had stolen my girlfriend from me, how he had obtained my two papers surreptitiously, and how he had deliberately set out to malign me for threatening to file a sexual misconduct charge against him. But I knew that none of these things would be believed or seen as relevant. I could barely even talk anyway. “None of what Professor Briggs has said about me has any bearing on the case at hand,” was all I could manage to say.<br /><br />There was a stir among the committee members. It was clear that they didn’t agree with me. “The committee will decide that!” snapped the chairman. “Does the defendant have anything further to say?”<br /><br />“Except for noting that Professor Briggs has shown that Mr. Vining seems to think that plagiarism is okay for whites—including himself—but not for blacks, no.”<br /><br />The chairman then asked the three of us to wait outside while the committee deliberated. “It shouldn’t take long,” he promised.<br /><br />Ten minutes later, we were called back into the room. The chairman said that although there was strong evidence against the defendant, it had voted unanimously to find him not guilty due to “extreme mitigating circumstances.” It recommended that the student be given the chance to write the book review over again, and that only Prof. Briggs—not me—grade it and any other course assignments which the defendant had yet to complete.<br /><br />“Further, the committee unanimously recommends,” said the chairman, “that an investigation of Mr. Jonathan Vining’s unprofessional behavior be initiated.”<br /><br />The defendant nodded in approval. “I didn’t come here to cause problems for Jonathan,” Briggs said piously, “but only to prevent him from causing problems for others.”<br /><br />At that point, I practically ran out of the room. Despite his final statement, I knew that word would soon spread about how Briggs and the letter from Cohen had convinced the honor code committee that I was nothing but a loser who should never have been admitted here. He had convinced me of it too.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-10327529516678891322010-05-02T07:09:00.003-04:002010-05-03T06:55:38.571-04:00May 2I lay awake all that night after my horrible conversation with Briggs trying to think about how I should proceed. I wanted to file a sexual misconduct complaint against him. But I knew that if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be able to work with Briggs any more. I probably won’t be able to do so after our confrontation anyway. And if I did file such a complaint, how was I going to word it without making a fool of myself? How could I prove the charge if they both denied it?<br /><br />I slept much later into the next morning than usual, and only woke up then because the phone rang. It was Angie. “Jonathan,” she said, “I’ve got to talk to you right away! Can I come over there to your apartment now?”<br /><br />“Of course,” I replied. “What’s wrong?”—as if I didn’t know! <br /><br />“I’ll be there in ten minutes!” she said, and hung up.<br /><br />I quickly got dressed and ate some breakfast. Soon thereafter, she arrived.<br /><br />She came in looking grim and determined. Without any preliminaries, she said, “Barry came home last night yelling about how you had turned out to be a traitor and ordering me not to let you see any part of his new book before we send the galleys and the index to the publisher next week. What happened between you two yesterday?”<br /><br />I didn’t really want to tell her what I had found out about Shivvy and Briggs being lovers, but she forestalled me. “I already know all about Barry and that so-called girlfriend of yours,” she said matter-of-factly. Considering how upset she had been that day she discovered Shivvy’s scrunchy and just suspected Briggs was cheating on her, I was surprised at how business-like she was being about it all now that she seemed to know for sure. “Just tell me what happened yesterday.”<br /><br />I related to her my conversation first with Shivvy and then with Briggs—a task made much easier by being able to refer to my accounts of them in this diary.<br /><br />Angie listened to me calmly. When I had finished, she said, “You are not going to file any sexual misconduct complaint against Barry. You’ll look like an idiot if you do.”<br /><br />“Why do you say that?”<br /><br />She then related to me what she found out last night. After denouncing me to her all through dinner, he went to his study and left her to clean up the kitchen (“as usual,” she noted). She had just picked up the kitchen phone to call me right at the point when someone else—a woman—was answering a phone call that Briggs was making from the study. Angie realized that the voice belonged to Shivvy, and so she decided to listen in.<br /><br />Briggs, Angie recounted, started berating Shivvy for telling me about their affair. “`He’s going to file a sexual misconduct charge against me!’” he told her. “`This guy could really cause me a lot of problems, especially if the press gets hold of the story!’” He was practically hysterical, Angie said.<br /><br />Shivvy, though, kept cool. She pretended to pout, asking Barry why either of them shouldn’t tell me, or the whole world, about their relationship. “`Are you ashamed of me, Barry dear?’” she asked sarcastically. Then she told him that she saw no reason why she shouldn’t admit that they had had sex “`right there in your office even’” if asked by anyone, including whatever office I filed my sexual misconduct complaint with.<br /><br />This unnerved Briggs. He begged her not to do this, telling her that his career would be ruined if she did. Shivvy played with him a little more, saying how she had thought he loved her and would make any sacrifice for her. Briggs seemed just on the verge of breaking down altogether when Shivvy informed him that she hadn’t told anybody but me about them, and that she would completely deny that they had ever had sex, but only if: he gave her an “A” in the class she had with him now, he wrote extraordinarily positive letters of recommendation for her (“`which I’ll help you compose’”) when she applied to business schools in the fall, he permitted her to enroll in his graduate seminar this coming semester, and he gave her an “A” in that as well even though she would neither attend class nor do any assignments.<br /><br />Briggs agreed to all her conditions. He seemed completely relieved. He even suggested that they spend another weekend together as they had this past one. “`Thanks, but no thanks!’” Shivvy had replied. She then warned him that if he didn’t comply with all of her conditions, she would file a sexual misconduct complaint against him herself and call me as a witness. He assured her that he’d keep his end of the bargain. He was still worried, though, about the possibility of me causing trouble for him. “`Jonathan can’t prove anything,’” Shivvy had responded, “`unless I cooperate. Just keep that in mind, Barry dear.’” Their conversation ended there.<br /><br />I was stunned by this, as well as how calmly Angie related it to me. “What did you say to him afterward?” I asked.<br /><br />“Nothing,” she responded.<br /><br />“Why not?”<br /><br />“It wasn’t news to me,” she said. “I knew that day I found the scrunchy in his office that he’d been cheating on me, but not with who. You were the one who let me know that. But with the way you insisted that nothing was going on between them, it was clear you couldn’t get yourself to put two and two together.<br /><br />“Besides,” she added, “I already knew how attached you were to this silly notion that she would come running back to you after you had broken things off with her at the beginning of the semester because Barry said you had to. I didn’t want to be the one to shatter your illusions.”<br /><br />There had, in fact, been doubt in mind about why Shivvy’s scrunchy was in Briggs’s office, considering the usual circumstances I remembered her taking it off last fall in my apartment. At the time, though, I had told Angie that I doubted anything was going on between Briggs and Shivvy in order to soothe Angie’s feelings. Now it was clear that she had only pretended to believe me in order to protect mine. What an amazing woman!<br /><br />But all this was irrelevant now. “What you heard them say is outrageous!” I declared. “It goes way beyond sexual misconduct! Both of us have got to inform the university authorities!”<br /><br />“No!” said Angie firmly. “I won’t do that.”<br /><br />“But why?” I asked.<br /><br />“Two reasons,” she responded. “First: it wouldn’t work. The two of them would deny it all. And second: I’m not hanging around long enough to do anything like that. I just want to get away from Barry and from this place. You should too, Jonathan. You have no future here. Barry’s going to see to that, no matter what you do.”<br /><br />“But we can’t let them get away with this!” I insisted.<br /><br />“Oh, I intend to fix him,” Angie said, “but in my own way.”<br /><br />She then asked me if she could come and stay with me for a few days while she figured out what she was going to do next. She didn’t know anybody else she could stay with, and she really couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel even for a short while.<br />I told her that she was most welcome, and that I was flattered she would turn to me for help. “You can have the bed and I’ll sleep on the couch,” I told her.<br /><br />She smiled and said we’d work all that out once she’d moved in.<br /><br />“And when will that be?” I asked.<br /><br />“Some time next week. I’m not exactly sure when. There’s something I have to take care of first.” She then asked me for the spare key to my apartment, saying that she’d move in when she could, maybe without even warning me. “Just as soon as I take care of something.”<br /><br />I asked her what she was going to do, but she wouldn’t elaborate. “Thanks for taking me in, Jonathan,” she said as she got up to leave. She gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek.<br /><br />“Oh, by the way,” she said, just before opening the door to the hallway. “Your name won’t be appearing in Barry’s acknowledgements after all. He had me delete it last night after he finished talking to Shivvy.”<br /><br />I wasn’t surprised to hear this. Still, I felt sad. I had put a lot of work in on this book with Angie. Oh well.<br /><br />Angie then admonished me not to say anything about her impending move or about Briggs and Shivvy. “Let me take care of him!” she insisted.<br /><br />I promised her I would.<br /> <br />She shook her head sadly. “Don’t be surprised if Barry strikes back at you, Jonathan. You really scared him. You made him feel weak and vulnerable. He’ll never forgive you for that.”<br /><br />“But I’m the one who’s been injured here…” I started to say.<br /><br />“We both have!” she insisted. “But we’re not going to get anywhere by tattling on him and his little sweetheart.<br /><br />“No matter what happens over the next few days,” she continued, “you keep your cool. Don’t say anything that he and that little girl will only deny and make you look like a cheap liar for having said! You might spoil all my plans!”<br /><br />“Yes, Captain!” I assured her.<br /><br />“Good boy!” she said. She gave me one more kiss on the cheek and left.<br /><br />That was Wednesday morning. It’s Sunday evening now. I haven’t heard from Angie since then. Nor have I encountered Briggs since our blowup last Tuesday.<br /><br />In fact nothing at all has happened. Still, I have the feeling that something is about to. I’ve noticed that people in the department stop talking when they see me. They don’t seem comfortable in my presence. I have the feeling that I have become the object of department gossip.<br /><br />There’s only one more week of classes left, and then finals. The first year grad students should be hearing some time next week about whether we’ll be funded next fall. Before this past week, I hadn’t even thought to worry about this. Now, I’m feeling very anxious about it.<br /><br />Despite these distractions, I’m trying to concentrate on finishing up my own work. In addition to everything else, I have to attend the honor code committee hearing for that African-American student tomorrow at 11:30. I feel sorry for him, but it’s a clear case. I wish he had just admitted his guilt, though, so I wouldn’t have to waste my time proving it. I’ve got more important things to deal with.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-70240933623384023762010-04-27T08:53:00.003-04:002010-05-02T07:09:04.229-04:00April 27This has been one truly hellish week so far. I say “so far” because I am writing this on Tuesday evening, just four days after my last entry. I just have to write down what has happened.<br /><br />In short: my world has turned upside down. All I can say is that, unlike others, I have behaved in a highly principled manner. I will be vindicated by my future biographers—if, that is, there are any. I guess it shows just how badly things are going that I’m actually expressing any doubt about this.<br /><br />I shall describe everything in the order it occurred. It was fun seeing Angie again this past weekend. As before, we worked together in Briggs’s office. We divided the galleys between us to read through. We were able to do this quickly since we were just reading for glitches, of which there were very few. We then started working on the index, which was indeed a slow process. By Sunday afternoon when I had to quit and go do some of my own work, we had just gotten through the first chapter. This alone, though, was useful for getting her started in setting up the index entries—including, of course, the all-important listings of other scholars.<br /><br />After I left Angie, one of the things I was able to accomplish Sunday afternoon was to find the original source for another of the three book reviews that I suspected were plagiarized (even though I handed the two reviews that I thought were plagiarized back to the students with “A’s,” I kept copies so I could continue my investigation of them). I was very glad to make this discovery, since the student who wrote it happened to be a white male. Filing a cheating charge against him would prove that I wasn’t treating the African-American male I had already accused of cheating any differently from how I treated a white student.<br /><br />But things started to go badly on Monday. When I went to the student judicial affairs office to file the cheating charge against this second student (whose name, in fairness, I won’t mention either), the secretary glanced over the paper work and told me I was too late. Suspected violations of the honor code, she said, had to be made within ten days of their occurrence—which in this case was the date the student turned in the paper. I couldn’t believe it! I asked her to please check on this. With great annoyance, she called her supervisor out to talk to me. He confirmed that this was indeed honor code committee policy. He wasn’t quite sure why (the policy was set before he started working there), but he thought it had something to do with student honor code committees in the past regarding any delay in reporting honor code violations as being somehow suspicious.<br /><br />I was shocked! It never occurred to me that the honor code committee would even think of questioning the motives of a professor or TA who could prove that a student had cheated. So all that time I had spent finding the original source used by this particular white male student had been a waste!<br /><br />But things really went bad on Tuesday. I saw Shivvy the next morning in Briggs’s lecture class. Just afterward, I asked her if she could please give me back my two papers. She said she’d come by and see me during my office hours later today; there was something she wanted to talk to me about anyway, but was too busy just right now. It was a warm spring day, and she was wearing one of those short skirts I remembered first seeing her in last September before the weather turned cool.<br /><br />I waited and waited for Shivvy in my office that afternoon. My office hours came to an end and I was about to leave when she finally arrived.<br /><br />“Hello, Mr. Vining,” she said with mock seriousness. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”<br /><br />“Did you bring my two papers?” I asked.<br /><br />“I’m afraid I don’t have them any more,” she responded. “I gave them to Barry.”<br /><br />I froze. “Why?” I asked, still not believing what I’d heard. Maybe she was joking. “And since when did you start calling him by his first name?”<br /><br />“Since we became lovers,” she responded, without any hint of embarrassment. “It is customary for lovers to be on a first name basis, you know.”<br /><br />I was astounded. “You’re joking!” I exclaimed.<br /><br />“Not at all,” she said.<br /><br />“So that’s why your scrunchy was in his office!” I blurted out. “Angie was right about you!”<br /><br />“Oh, so you two are still seeing each other?” she asked sarcastically. “How romantic! It also makes this much easier for me. For if you can have an affair with Barry’s girlfriend, then you can hardly object if I have one with Barry, can you?”<br /><br />I insisted hotly that I was not having an affair with Angie, that I had gone to Briggs’s office at her request, and that I had spent much of the weekend there with her working on Briggs’s galleys and index.<br /><br />“Working on his index with her, my ass!” Shivvy said derisively. “I’m sure it would be more accurate to say that you were working on her with your index finger!”<br /><br />“Don’t talk about Angie like that!” I told her.<br /><br />“Oh, just shut up, you asshole!” she shouted angrily. “I’m tired of you and all your sanctimonious subterfuges. What I came here to tell you, in case you haven’t guessed already, is that there’s no way in hell that I’m getting back together with you at the end of the semester. Even if you aren’t having an affair with Angie or anybody else (which I doubt), you can’t just dump me at the beginning of the semester and expect I’ll come running back to you when your precious qualms are satisfied!”<br /><br />Suddenly, she seemed to pull herself together. “You treated me like some sort of inconvenient stock position you had to put in a blind trust while you served as a temporary presidential appointee,” she said, much more quietly but no less angrily. “You really hurt me! And I hope that what I’ve done hurts you just as much!”<br /><br />I was stunned. There was no use trying to talk to her any further. She was beyond my reach. I thought I had explained my principles to her. She obviously hadn’t understood. Nor was she willing to. And now she had betrayed me.<br /><br />Shivvy got up to leave. “Oh, by the way,” she said, with the familiar note of sarcasm back in her voice, “I’m afraid that Barry is none to pleased with either your senior thesis or with the paper you wrote for Saltz. I think he’d like to have a word or two with you about them.”<br /><br />All of a sudden, my stomach felt very queasy.<br /><br />“He’s in his office now. I just came from there,” she said with a lewd smile. “When I told him I was going to see you, he asked me to send you over to him afterward. I’d tell you to give him my love, but I’ve already done that myself!” And then, finally, she left.<br /><br />It took me a few minutes to compose myself after all this. I finally got up and went over to Briggs’s office. The door was open and he was sitting at his desk, concentrating on his computer screen. I knocked lightly and he looked up.<br /><br />“I have a few things I want to say to you,” he said grimly. “Come in here and sit down.”<br /><br />I did as I was told. “I am really very disappointed in you, Jonathan,” he continued, handing me my two papers. “I’ve done an awful lot for you. I pushed to have you admitted here with funding. I voted to continue your funding this semester. I made you my TA. I even let you help out with my new book. And how do you repay me? By stabbing me in the back!”<br /><br />I started to protest, but he cut me off. “I don’t really care about the senior thesis,” he said. “You wrote that before you came here. But to say what you said about me in this paper for Saltz last semester. . . that’s unforgivable. And Saltz knew you were my student, didn’t he? I’m sure it really amused him to know what I’ve only just learned: that one of my students is a traitor!”<br /><br />I insisted on rebutting this. I told him that I had absolutely the greatest respect for him. I was not a traitor, but a disciple. I only critiqued his work in order to extend it, not denounce it. He himself, I pointed out, had made many of the same criticisms of his earlier work in his new book that would soon be coming out.<br /><br />“Yes, now I understand why you were so willing to ‘help out’ with it,” he said malevolently. “I’m sure you’ve made a full report to Saltz on its contents so he won’t have to go to the bother of actually reading it in order to write a scathing review when the book comes out in September. Has he arranged for you to transfer over to his program at Harvard in exchange for this little service? Is that why you did it?”<br /><br />I hotly denied all this. I told him that I hadn’t had any contact with Prof. Saltz since his class ended, that it had never even crossed my mind to transfer over to his program, and that I wanted nothing else but to work here at Charles with him since I too was a neo-radical. I further reminded him of the critique of Saltz that I had written for his class in the fall.<br /><br />“Oh, yes, I remember that.” Then he laughed grimly. “You appear to be something of an equal opportunity traitor. Or maybe you wrote that paper so that I would think you were a committed neo-radical and trust you enough to let you see my new manuscript.”<br /><br />I couldn’t believe I was hearing this sort of conspiracy theory from him. This was a side of him that I hadn’t seen before. I realized that there was nothing I could say now to convince him that I wasn’t acting in bad faith.<br /><br />“Yes, that’s what happened!” he said, pleased with what he seemed to think was a real discovery. “I’m very, very disappointed in you, Jonathan.”<br /><br />Suddenly, I got angry myself. “How dare you make all these false accusations against me when you’ve betrayed me by screwing my girlfriend? Did you tell me that I had to break off my relationship with her because I was her TA just so you would have the chance to fuck her yourself, even though she’s your student too?”<br /><br />“How dare you talk to me like this!” he thundered.<br /><br />“Oh, come off it, Barry!” I responded. “Shivvy just told me all about it in my office a few minutes ago!”<br /><br />“She told you?” A look of genuine confusion came over his face, but then he recovered. “What happened between her and me is our business, not yours or anybody else’s. And you’d better keep your mouth shut about it, if you know what’s good for you!”<br /><br />I couldn’t believe this! He was threatening me! “I won’t let you intimidate me!” I said. “The rules against sexual misconduct apply to you along with everyone else! And I believe I have no choice but to report your violation of them to the proper authorities here!”<br /><br />His face radiated both fear and hatred. In a voice thick with rage, he said, “Is it a fight you want, boy? Then I’ll give you a fight! Now get out of here!”<br /><br />Which I did. I just don’t know what to do or who to talk to. I’m in real turmoil.<br /><br />Shivvy said she had wanted to hurt me. Well, she succeeded—-more than she could have possibly hoped for.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-83660319468993713712010-04-23T07:05:00.003-04:002010-04-27T08:53:28.537-04:00April 23As I suspected, this has been a grim week. Just like when I handed back midterms a few weeks ago, all kinds of irate students have come to complain about the grades they received on the book reviews which I handed back this past Tuesday. Their various efforts to convince me to raise their grade on the book review were basically the same as those they had tried with the midterm. There is no need to repeat all the various arguments made, and all the various strategies used to advance them. I’d seen it all before. There are some aspects of teaching, I have come to realize, that are highly predictable.<br /><br />There were some slight variations from last time, however. Those who had received a “low grade” (anything below an “A-,” according to the undergrads) on both the midterm and the book review tended to plead with me for a better grade, painting a grim picture of their future if their GPA wasn’t high enough to get them into this or that law school, or whatever. A few (all female) were even bold enough to sincerely advise me, for my own sake, to raise their grades so that I wouldn’t feel horrible pangs of guilt for having ruined their entire future!<br /><br />On the other hand, students who had done well on the midterm (“A-“ or better) but not so well on the book review (“B+” or below) were incensed. The fact that they had done well on the midterm, as far as they were concerned, “proved” that they deserved a higher grade on the book review. Ugh!<br /><br />The most difficult person of all to deal with, though, was the African-American student whom I had to report for cheating. He wasn’t in class Tuesday when I handed back the book reviews, but was apparently notified by mail of the charge against him that day. He came by during my office hours that afternoon, highly irate. He started shouting about how he hadn’t cheated at all, and that I was persecuting him because he was black.<br /><br />I tried to calm him down by reassuring him of my racial sensitivity. I had to point out, though, that the book review he turned in was exactly the same as one that had been published in a journal. I told him that I was very disappointed in him, but that I saw this unfortunate event as an opportunity for him to confront a serious problem that he appeared to have. I tried to reassure him that I would urge the honor code committee to deal with him compassionately since he was from a minority group that had experienced much injustice historically.<br /><br />“Don’t give me that white liberal condescension crap!” he shouted. I had never heard this phrase before. It certainly didn’t describe me. “If I had been white, this all would have been handled very, very differently!”<br /><br />I tried to persuade him that this was not true at all, but he stormed out of the room, shouting that “this whole thing” was just a plot to discredit him, his family, and black leadership in general. I’m not sure who he meant by “black leadership.” Not himself, surely.<br /><br />Later in the week, I was notified by the student judicial affairs office that the African-American student (whose name I still will not mention, despite how much his scurrilous accusations have provoked me) whom I charged with cheating has entered a plea of innocent. A hearing, then, must be held, before the honor code committee, which has been scheduled for the week after next, which is the last week of classes.<br /><br />What a pain this is! He’s bound to be found guilty since the evidence against him is so clear. Why couldn’t he have just admitted to the obvious and pleaded for mercy? I doubt that anyone at this university wants to see a minority student punished too harshly. I certainly don’t.<br /><br />Besides all this, however, the week did have one very interesting distraction—which many see as a scandal. I heard at the beginning of the week from Michael that it is now official: Trizenko has been denied tenure by the president of the university himself. The process is now over for this academic year. He can stay for just one more year and appeal the decision. But if he loses, he’s history.<br /><br />I felt sorry for Trizenko. I thought that even if he won on appeal next year, the stigma of being turned down for tenure would be with him for the rest of his career. And if he lost his appeal, his career in academia would undoubtedly come to an inglorious end.<br /><br />If I were in his shoes, I would feel miserable. But Trizenko, it turns out, does not feel this way himself. For later in the week, he did it again: he appeared on ABC, CNN, and NPR, and was quoted in several major newspapers. It all had to do with the publication of an article about what the U.S. should do about our troubled relationship with Russia which he wrote for one of those non-academic Washington “policy” journals.<br /><br />Briggs and Asquith were furious. “What the hell is wrong with the news media?” Briggs said to me. “Don’t they know that somebody turned down for tenure is a loser, not a winner? Don’t they realize that this journal he has his little article in is descriptive and non-academic?”<br /><br />Maybe they hadn’t heard the news about his tenure case, I suggested.<br /><br />“I really don’t think these media people would even care,” Briggs responded. “They’re that stupid.”<br /><br />Michael thinks that the gaucherie of being featured in the national news right after being denied tenure will be more than enough to “destroy his appeal before he can even file it.”<br /><br />Trizenko himself, though, doesn’t appear to care. According to the rumor that spread at the end of the week, he has accepted a job at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington starting this summer! He intends to leave Charles altogether at the end of the semester without even bothering to appeal his tenure case! What arrogance!<br /><br />Furthermore, it is widely rumored that Trizenko is about to marry Danielle, who has apparently been living with him since the end of last semester. She will go with him to Washington, where she has been admitted into a Ph.D. program at Georgetown University—which apparently has a lot of well-known Russia specialists on its faculty.<br /><br />If this is true about them getting married, it’s probably just as well that Trizenko is leaving Charles. Their getting married would inevitably raise the question of whether their sexual relationship began while she was still a student here, and working as his TA at that. This would have been one more factor weighing against his appeal next year if he’d stayed. But with Danielle having already left the university and Trizenko just about to, there’s nothing that can be done about it now.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />I wrote all of the above earlier today at my office computer and was just about to go back to my apartment when I got a phone call from Angie. She said she was up in “Barry’s” office and asked if I could please come and talk to her. She sounded like she had been crying.<br /><br />Angie was there alone, sitting behind Briggs’s desk. “Close the door and lock it!” she told me in a whispered voice.<br /><br />“What’s wrong, Angie?” I asked.<br /><br />“I think Barry’s been cheating on me!” she hissed. “Look what I found!”<br /><br />She took something out of a desk drawer and set it down in front of me. It was a blue scrunchy.<br /><br />My head swam. “It’s Shivvy’s!” I blurted out. “Remember her? She’s my girlfriend—but just not this semester.”<br /><br />Angie looked at me incredulously. “Are you sure it’s hers?” she asked.<br /><br />“Well, I can’t be completely certain,” I responded, “but it certainly looks like one of hers. She was always leaving them over at my place last semester.”<br /><br />I started to think a little more clearly. “They couldn’t be having an affair,” I said. “Briggs would never do a thing like that with a student.”<br /><br />Angie snorted at this. “Besides,” I continued, “Shivvy doesn’t even like him.” I summarized for Angie all the negative things Shivvy had said about Briggs last fall, adding that she had postponed taking the class she had with him now as long as possible.<br /><br />“Let’s not think the worst,” I concluded. “She’s always playing with her hair. She probably took the scrunchy off while talking to him, set it down somewhere, and forgot about it--like she always does.”<br /><br />Angie sighed. “You’ve made me feel better, Jonathan,” she said. “He’s just got the galleys for his new book, and I’ve agreed to go over them with him plus do the index. It’s going to be a lot of work, and I sure wouldn’t do it all if I thought he was cheating on me!”<br /><br />The galleys were right there on his desk. She flipped through the top few pages and took one out to show me. “This is from the acknowledgements,” she said, pointing. There was my name! Hers was also there, of course.<br /><br />I told her how delighted I was that he would think to mention me.<br /><br />“It was actually me who put your name in at the end of the copy-editing phase,” she said. “You helped a lot, so you deserve to be recognized.”<br /><br />She told me that the galleys had only just arrived yesterday, and that she and Barry hadn’t started work on them yet. The galleys themselves shouldn’t take much work since they basically reproduced the manuscript from the edited version of the Word file she had worked on. “There should be no problem here unless Barry wants to make any substantive changes.” The index, though, would be a lot of work.<br /><br />According to her, Briggs’s highest priority for the index was to make sure that all scholars mentioned in the text were listed in it. He had made sure that he had something positive to say in the text about everyone whom he thought might be asked to review the book. This would put them in a good humor when they went to write the review. But they probably would not see these favorable mentions of them that he had made unless there were references to them in the index. “`The first thing most of these bastards will do,’” Angie imitated Briggs telling her, “`is check to see if they’re listed in the index. Just being mentioned in the bibliography is not enough. If they see themselves in the index, they might write a good review. If they don’t see themselves in the index, they’ll definitely write a bad review—probably without even reading the text at all.’”<br /><br />We both laughed at this. “I guess Barry knows,” Angie added, “because the first thing he does when he gets a book to review is check the index to see if he’s listed there. And if he’s not, stand back! Hell hath no fury like a professor not listed in an index!”<br /><br />I hadn’t heard this before. I wondered if it was true.<br /><br />After awhile, we both noticed that it was getting late and that we each had to get going.<br /><br />“Better put that back where you found it,” I told her, indicating the scrunchy.<br /><br />She did so, and then looked at me shyly. “Barry’s away at a conference this weekend, but I want to get started on the galleys right away. You wouldn’t be able to help me over the weekend, would you?”<br /><br />“I think I’d better,” I responded, “now that I know I’m in the acknowledgements!”<br /><br />She laughed at this. Since Briggs was away, I asked her if she’d care to have dinner with me this evening. She thanked me, but said she had to go waitress.<br /><br />We said good-bye to each other in front of Case Hall. Back at my apartment, I began to wonder just what Shivvy had been doing in Briggs’s office. I called over to her dorm room, but her roommate said she was away for the weekend. I’ll just have to wait until either Monday or (more likely) Tuesday after my discussion section to talk to her.<br /><br />It’s funny, but she didn’t come to my discussion section this past Tuesday, like she usually does. She didn’t come to my office hours either. Well, since I gave her an “A” on her paper, she didn’t need to complain about the grade.<br /><br />I must not forget to ask her to give me back my senior thesis and the paper I wrote for Saltz.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-7019765313397195262010-04-16T07:46:00.003-04:002010-04-23T07:05:13.315-04:00April 16This has been yet another grueling week of grading. The dire warnings Briggs made against missing the deadline for turning in the book reviews this past Tuesday worked pretty well. All but five students turned in their papers that day either during Briggs’s lecture in the morning or during my office hours that afternoon. Of those five, three came in on the Wednesday with different excuses (“My computer went bust and I had to write the paper all over again on a friend’s,” “My printer wouldn’t work,” and “I was sick). None of these problems would have delayed these papers if the students had written them ahead of time instead of right before the deadline, of course. I checked with Briggs about them, and he told me just to accept them without penalty.<br /><br />The fourth late paper came in on Thursday with a form from the Charles University athletic department saying that the student was a member of the basketball team who had been at an away game. Briggs had told me in advance that, annoying as they may be, these forms are meant to encourage exempting student athletes from any penalties for lateness. The fifth late paper still hasn’t come in yet. I have no idea why.<br /><br />Grading these papers was easier than grading the midterms. The midterms were all written by hand, and so I had to struggle through a lot of truly dreadful handwriting. By contrast, the papers were all prepared on computers, and so reading them was no problem.<br /><br />That said, however, the papers turned out to be far more disappointing than the midterms. Since the midterms were written in class and by hand, it was understandable that many of them contained spelling mistakes and poor grammar. That the papers were filled with similar errors, though, was not. Unlike an in-class exam, the students presumably had the time to reread and revise their papers. The spell check feature that comes with word processing programs make spelling mistakes particularly easy to avoid, but most students apparently don’t bother to use them. Perhaps it doesn’t occur to them that they are capable of making such mistakes.<br /><br />The content of most papers was pretty disappointing too. Although Briggs had repeatedly warned students against just describing what was in the book they chose to review, this is exactly what most of them did. Those who did this, I assume, were those who didn’t come to class to hear Briggs repeatedly say, “Don’t describe! Analyze!” I had no choice but to give these papers low grades. I fully expect that once they get them back, a lot of these students will come to complain, saying, “Nobody told me this wasn’t what I was supposed to do!” The behavior of undergrads, I am learning, is highly predictable.<br /><br />As with the midterms, there were some students who wrote really good papers. These were a pleasure to read. Three of the papers, though, seemed too good. The students who wrote them, I suspected, had each plagiarized somebody else’s work. They just didn’t read like something an undergrad would write. My suspicions increased when I noted that all three had done poorly on the midterm. One of them, I am sorry to say, was the African-American male who had had differences with Danielle last fall.<br /><br />As everyone reading this already knows, I am incredibly sensitive to racial issues. Thus, I fully realized that I had to tread very carefully here. Not knowing how to proceed, I went to Briggs to ask for guidance. He shook his head in dismay when I told him about my suspicions. “This is a problem, Jonathan. Unfortunately, it is all too common a problem.”<br /><br />He then outlined the university’s procedure for dealing with cheating. The person who made the discovery (in these three cases, me) must fill out a set of forms (which Briggs had several copies of right there) and file them with the student judicial affairs office as soon as possible. This office would then convene the honor code committee, which was composed entirely of students, to consider the matter. If the committee deemed the evidence to be sufficient, notice would then be sent to the student that he or she was being accused of cheating.<br /><br />The student would then be called upon to respond to the charge. If the student pleaded guilty, and if he or she had no previous record of an honor code violation, then the committee would usually hand down a relatively minor punishment such as an “F” for the assignment, or even just order the student to redo the assignment honestly. If the student pleaded not guilty, however, then the committee would hold a hearing at which the accuser (me) and the student must each present their side of the story. Each could call witnesses, “just like a real trial.” A student who pleaded innocent but was found guilty would, at minimum, receive an “F” for the class, and might even be suspended for a semester. And if he or she had a previous record of honor code violations, the student could even be expelled altogether.<br /><br />“But, Jonathan,” Briggs warned, “the burden of proof is on the accuser. It is not good enough to suspect that a student plagiarized. You’ve got to find the original source from which he or she copied from. Often, you can do so by typing just one sentence into Google. But if that doesn’t come up with anything, then it’s usually pretty hard to find the original source.”<br /><br />I told him that I was prepared to hunt around on the internet to see if I could find the original sources for the papers I suspected were plagiarized. I also handed him copies of the three papers in question in case he recognized or wished to do any searching for the original sources himself.<br /><br />It appeared to me that Briggs blanched when he saw who had written the papers. “There are very sensitive issues involved here, as you well know,” he said, clearly with regard to the paper by the African-American student. “You can’t afford to make any mistakes here. If you can’t find the words written here already in print somewhere else, then you can’t file a plagiarism charge.<br /><br />“And in any case that you can’t do this,” he continued, “you must grade the paper as if the student really did write it even though you suspect otherwise. Do you understand?”<br /><br />I assured him that I was aware of the complicated issues involved, and that I wouldn’t file a plagiarism charge unless I could prove it. I expressed my hope that the honor code committee would be especially sensitive in dealing with a student of color found guilty of plagiarism. I insisted, though, that it was my duty to report to the committee any student whom I could prove had cheated, regardless of his or her race, religion, or sexual orientation.<br /><br />“Quite right, Jonathan, quite right!” Briggs commented. “I’ll take a look at these papers myself, of course, but it just so happens that I’m incredibly busy over the next week. I’m afraid you’re going to have to bear the burden of searching for proof of plagiarism.”<br /><br />He then let me know that it was time for me to leave by thanking me for bringing this matter to his attention. I don’t think, however, that he was really thankful that I had done so.<br /><br />So in addition to hours and hours of grading this past week, I also spent time entering various sentences from the three suspicious papers into Google. I wasn’t able (so far) to find a matching source in two of the suspicious cases, but I did find one in the case of the African-American student almost immediately.<br /><br />I clearly had no choice but to go ahead and file the plagiarism charge against him, complete with a copy of his exam and of the review he copied from, with the student judicial affairs office yesterday (Thursday). It really, really pained me to have to do this to a minority student, but I had no choice.<br /><br />I told the secretary in the student judicial affairs office that this matter needed to be dealt with very sensitively because the student accused was African-American. But the secretary, who was black herself, didn’t seem to care. “We treat everyone equally here,” she said, and then abruptly returned to her work. I thought she would appreciate my racial sensitivity, but somehow she didn’t. Maybe she was just busy.<br /><br />I haven’t been able to find original sources for the other two suspicious papers yet, but I will work on this over the weekend. I hope I succeed since I will otherwise have to give each of these papers an “A.”<br /><br />There’s one other thing I should mention: Shivvy did something amazing on her paper. She too chose to review Briggs’s old book. What she did, though, was cite the most critical things I had said about it in both my senior thesis and paper for Saltz, and then present an argument as to how my argument was wrong while Briggs’s was right. Very clever, but very annoying.<br /><br />I was just going to give her a “B+” at first. That’s certainly all she deserved. But then I remembered how she showed the midterm I gave her a “B+” on to Briggs, who then raised her grade. I didn’t want her showing this paper to Briggs, since he would then see my critical remarks about him (some of which she blew way out of proportion in her commentary). So I decided I’d better give her an “A.” That way, she’d have no reason to show it to him. [I’d better delete this entire paragraph before allowing anyone else to read this.]<br /><br />Before I forget: although Shivvy handed in her book review, she hasn’t yet given me back either my senior thesis or the paper I wrote for Saltz. I must remind her to do so.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-58296381914697582012010-04-09T07:19:00.003-04:002010-04-16T07:46:02.577-04:00April 9Another week, another scandal! And this one I witnessed myself!<br /><br />It all happened on Monday afternoon. Craig, Lisa, and I had come back to the office together from Asquith’s graduate methodology class, as usual. Lisa had just given her presentation about how to design a research project for testing various feminist theories of international relations. It had been a tough session since Asquith clearly didn’t like the project. Lisa was really bummed out, and we were trying to cheer her up with some light-hearted suggestions. Craig proposed that Asquith would have been more receptive to a research project that sought to test the validity of various gay theories of international relations—provided that his was the one she concluded was right. I suggested that if nothing else, she could write a paper for Prof. DeKlerk’s feminist theory class on how making the presentation in Prof. Asquith’s class made her feel alienated. Although we didn’t succeed in cheering up Lisa (who really doesn’t have a sense of humor), we did amuse ourselves.<br /><br />Lisa was in the midst of ranting to us about how feminists like her were discriminated against just as much by homosexual males as by heterosexual ones, when in through our door walked a truly good looking lady with shoulder-length auburn hair whom I had never seen before. It is not at all unusual, of course, to encounter beautiful women on college campuses. But unlike most such creatures who usually wear pretty casual (if not downright ratty) clothes, this one was wearing what was obviously a very well tailored suit and lots of jewelry, including a substantial diamond ring along with a wedding ring.<br /><br />“You did it, babe!” she said, addressing Craig. “You’re in!” She then pulled a manila envelope out of her pocketbook, walked over to Craig’s desk, and handed it to him. Craig appeared as surprised as Lisa and I were. He pulled the contents of the envelope half way out and then pushed them back in. Craig stood up, and the two of them threw themselves into each other’s arms with a mutual cry of joy. They then began a long, intense kiss which gave every indication that Craig and this married woman were already very, very familiar with each other.<br /><br />It was just at this point that Professor Asquith walked into the room. I don’t know why he chose this particular moment. Maybe he wanted to say something to Lisa about her presentation. Or maybe he wanted to hit on Craig again. Or maybe he had heard the noise in the hall and was just curious about what was going on. Whatever it was, he never told us. He probably forgot himself.<br /><br />“What the hell is going on here?” Asquith roared.<br /><br />This quickly put a stop to Craig and the red-head. “We were kissing!” the woman said pertly. “What’s it to you?”<br /><br />Asquith spluttered in anger at this. “I wasn’t talking to you, young lady. You obviously don’t know who I am. What is the meaning of this, Craig?”<br /><br />“We were indeed kissing,” Craig answered blithely. He wasn’t cowed by Asquith at all.<br /><br />“But I thought you were gay!” exclaimed Asquith, his voice revealing a deep sense of betrayal.<br /><br />“Did you?” Craig asked flippantly. “Well…you were wrong!”<br /><br />“Very wrong!” the red-head added suggestively, and then laughed.<br /><br />Asquith paused for a moment. There was real anger in his voice when he next spoke. “You’ve been passing yourself off as gay, haven’t you?” he demanded. “You did it when you interviewed here last year so that I would push to get you admitted and funded, didn’t you?”<br /><br />“Now, Professor Asquith,” said Craig in a more serious tone. “I never once said I was gay. If that’s what you thought, then that was an erroneous assumption on your part.”<br /><br />“Besides,” said the woman, “I’m sure a potential student’s sexual orientation would never influence you as to whether or not he or she should be admitted.”<br /><br />“You’ve made a fool of me!” Asquith cried.<br /><br />“It seems to me that you’ve made one of yourself,” said the red-head demurely.<br /><br />“I don’t know who you are, young woman,” said Asquith, regaining control of himself, “but let me tell you, Craig, that what is obviously a sexual relationship between a male TA and a female student is a very serious matter.”<br /><br />“Oh, I think it’s okay,” said the red-head. “I’m his wife.”<br /><br />Asquith was dumbfounded by this. “I think it’s time I introduced you, dear” said Craig. “Professor Asquith, Lisa, Jonathan: this is my wife, Lee.”<br /><br />So this was the person who wrote that poem I found in Craig’s desk! Since I also thought that Craig was gay, it never occurred to me that Lee could be a woman’s name.<br /><br />“Well, imitating a gay person is a serious offense, as far as I’m concerned. And, I think it’s only fair to say,” Asquith said in an evil tone, “that your doing so is highly likely to affect the faculty’s decision about whether to continue your funding next year.”<br /><br />“Oh, the funding won’t be necessary,” responded Craig. “I won’t be coming back. Lee had just come here to tell me that I’ve just been admitted to the Kennedy School at Harvard.”<br /><br />“I don’t believe this!” Asquith spluttered. He finally left, defeated.<br /><br />Once he was out of the room, Craig and Lee burst out laughing. “From now on, my dear,” Lee said to Craig, “you are going to wear that wedding ring!”<br /><br />“Yes, ma’am!” Craig and Lee then invited Lisa and me to join them for a drink to celebrate Craig’s good fortune. Lisa declined (she probably wanted to go tell Prof. DeKlerk all about what had just happened here—as well as suggest my idea for a paper to her), but I went along.<br /><br />When we were seated quite comfortably with drinks, Craig and Lee both told me the whole story. They had been in the same class together at the University of Pennsylvania, where they both graduated from last spring, and then gotten married last summer. Lee had gotten accepted into the Charles University Law School last spring, and was just finishing up the first year there now. Craig had not been certain whether he wanted to get a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) or a Ph.D. in political science. He had applied to both types of program. But since Lee had gotten into law school here at Charles, and since they were about to get married and, obviously, wanted to live together, this narrowed down the grad schools that Craig could attend to those in the greater Boston area. He had gotten into several public policy programs in other parts of the country, but was turned down by the one at Harvard—the only one he really wanted to go to in this region.<br /><br />By this time, Craig had decided he really was more interested in an M.P.P. than a Ph.D. He could have, of course, just moved to Cambridge with Lee, applied to the Kennedy School this past fall, and simply worked before starting (assuming he’d been admitted) this coming fall. He had a strong financial incentive, though, for getting into a grad program this past fall: he owed a large amount in student loans which he would have had to start repaying if he did not go to grad school, but could postpone if he did.<br /><br />He still had not heard from the program here at Charles after he was turned down by Harvard last year. So he asked if he could come up for an interview last spring. It was just a fluke that the department office sent him to Prof. Asquith to be interviewed. Almost as soon as he sat down in his office, Craig said, Asquith started bemoaning the fact that the program lacked diversity since it didn’t have many gay students any more. It dawned on Craig that Asquith might well help him get admitted and funded if Asquith thought he was gay. So Craig played along. And it worked!<br /><br />Once he’d started here last fall, Craig wanted to keep Asquith at arms length, but had to continue this little charade since he needed to keep on his good side to keep his funding. Besides, he didn’t know if he’d get into the Kennedy School until today.<br /><br />Staying away from Asquith wasn’t so difficult last fall when all the incoming grad students were on fellowship. Craig, as I recalled, just didn’t come to campus all that much. It turns out he was working 30 hours a week in addition to collecting his fellowship stipend. This semester, though, being a TA kept him on campus—and close to Asquith—much more than he cared for.<br /><br />He was glad to be leaving Charles, but being here was not a total loss. Indeed, he thought applying to the Kennedy School program as a grad student from Charles may have made the difference in getting him in. He was certain that he would get a high paying job coming out of this particular master’s program at Harvard—much higher paying, he assured me, than any job he’d get with a Ph.D. in political science from anywhere.<br /><br />This surprised me. How could someone with a master’s degree earn more than someone with a doctorate? Could he possibly be right? I just assumed it would be the other way around.<br /><br />Lee told me that the two of them would now both be finished in two years. Until then, they would take out more student loans during the school year. She had lined up a high paying job for this coming summer, and (with Craig in the Kennedy School) they would both probably have good jobs the following summer, so they wouldn’t be too strapped.<br /><br />All I could say was that I was shocked that Craig could have started one grad program with the intention of applying to another one immediately.<br /><br />He, in turn, expressed surprise at learning that I had not done likewise. He thought that everyone did, and that everyone should—just for their own protection in case things didn’t work out in the program they were in, as it hadn’t for him here at Charles.<br /><br />The whole episode just amazed me, and everybody else who heard about it—which, of course, was everybody. Almost everyone, including me, agreed with Asquith: it’s highly unethical to pass yourself off as gay just for your own personal material benefit. I have to admit, though, that I was glad the scandal broke when it did since it distracted everyone from the Brendan Cohen fiasco as well as my connection to him. Michael was so eager to hear my first hand account of the conversation among Asquith, Craig, and Lee that even he stopped being nasty toward me.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-36550930239759832462010-04-02T12:07:00.003-04:002010-04-09T07:19:46.895-04:00April 2This has been yet another annoying week. It has not been nearly as bad as the previous one, mercifully enough, but it has been annoying nonetheless.<br /><br />First, there was a long, ranting e-mail message from Brendan Cohen on Monday. He denounced me for repaying everything he had supposedly done for me with sheer ingratitude. He even had the nerve to blame me for how badly his talk at Charles went! He said that if only I had told him what was in Briggs’s new book, he could have adjusted his presentation accordingly. How pathetic! I just deleted the message without bothering to reply to it. I also deleted him from my list of e-mail contact list since I have no reason to contact him again.<br /><br />Second, Michael has been openly hostile to me ever since Brendan’s ill-fated presentation. “So that was the best of Barstow?” he asked sarcastically the first time I saw him afterward. And whenever he’s seen me since then, he asks, “And how’s our boy from Barstow doing?” I’m not sure if he means Cohen or me. Once he said, “Jeez! You really didn’t have much of an education there at Barstow, did you? You were quite lucky to get in to Charles, weren’t you?” I couldn’t really respond in kind by disparaging where he had done his undergraduate work since he had done it right here at Charles. Michael’s open hostility is an ominous sign. It shows that he doesn’t see me as important enough to bother with being polite to.<br /><br />Third, this African-American student (whose name I am not mentioning) is really proving to be something of a trial. Let me explain. During his lecture section this past Tuesday, Briggs reminded the undergrads that the 5-10 page critical book review they were to write for his course was due in two weeks and gave dire warnings about how papers would be marked down by one letter grade for each day late. He then reminded them that the list they were to choose a book from to review was on the syllabus. “And remember,” Briggs thundered, “I want analysis, not description. Don’t tell me what the book said. I’ve read it already myself. Tell me why the book’s argument is right or wrong. And I’ll give you a little hint: it’s probably wrong! Except, of course, for my book.” I knew that Briggs was joking, but I think the students (the third of them or so that were there) took him seriously.<br /><br />Anyway, this one African-American male student comes to my office hours that same afternoon all in a stew over the critical book review, saying that he’s never written one before and demanding to know how he’s supposed to read an entire book and write a paper about it all in just two weeks. I reminded him that this requirement and its due date were listed on the syllabus he received at the beginning of the semester, and that he should have selected a book to review long before now. He responded angrily, declaring that my saying this implied that he was somehow an inferior student because he was black. I calmed him down by saying that he surely wasn’t the only one who hadn’t begun this project yet; procrastination was an equal opportunity problem among students.<br /><br />He asked me what book he should choose and what he should say about it. This was up to him, I responded. He kept asking what sort of arguments Briggs would like to hear about the different books on the list. I replied that I doubted Briggs would be reading many of these reviews, if any; I was the one who graded them. So then, of course, he wanted to know what I wanted him to say. Finally, I told him that a good way to start thinking of what to say about a book was to see what others had said about it in previously published reviews. This idea appealed to him and he finally went away—after taking up over 45 minutes of my time!<br /><br />But just as he left, in walked the week’s fourth annoyance: Shivvy. At first she railed against me for having treated such an obvious loser as the person who just left with such kid gloves, making her wait so long to see me in the process. “You wouldn’t have treated him so gently if he’d been white! Admit it!” she said. I told her to lower her voice before the black student or anybody else overheard her uttering something so provocative. She just doesn’t know any limits.<br /><br />“Well actually, Mr. Vining,” she said with mock respect, “I came here to talk about the book review myself. What with that interesting presentation we had last week by that gentleman from Cal State Barstow (I think you know who I mean?)I thought I might do one on the Briggs book myself.” Briggs had indeed put his previous book on the list for students to choose from.<br /><br />I told her that she was free to choose that or any other book on the list to review. “Yes, I’m aware of that, Mr. Vining,” she responded. “What I came to ask you is this: could I borrow that senior thesis you wrote last year, and also the paper you did for Professor Saltz at Harvard last semester? It would really help me organize my thoughts if I could.”<br /><br />At first I said no, but she finally talked me into it with the argument that she really missed our intellectual intercourse (“as well as other types”) from last semester, and that if I really wanted her to believe that I hadn’t thrown her over but was serious about getting back with her at the end of the semester, I wouldn’t deny her this small request. We agreed that she would come over to my apartment on Thursday evening to pick up the two papers to save her the trouble of printing them out if I e-mailed them to her.<br /><br />She looked at her watch. “Only ten minutes!” she said. “You were very efficient with me, Mr. Vining.” I let this pass without comment. She made as if to leave, but then said (in a way I was certain afterward she had rehearsed), “Oh, by the way: I went to see Professor Briggs about the midterm you gave me the “B+” on. He’s agreed to raise it to an “A-.”<br /><br />This really pissed me off. “Why?” I practically shouted.<br /><br />Shivvy shrugged. “You’ll just have to ask him, I guess. But don’t feel bad. This was the first time you've graded anything. It’s understandable that you made a mistake. I don’t hold it against you.”<br /><br />And this leads me to the week’s fifth annoyance: Briggs. As soon as she had left, I called him up and asked if it was true that he had raised her grade. He said it was. I asked him why.<br /><br />“This is the young lady,” he responded, “whom you had to put your relationship with on hold this semester to avoid a conflict of interest, right?”<br /><br />After I confirmed this, he said, “Look, Jonathan. She explained to me that you were unhappy about her going out with other guys, and that this might have affected your judgment in grading her exam. She just thought it should be read by someone she had not been personally involved with. So I read it myself and had to agree that maybe your personal feelings about her didn’t allow you to appreciate the merit in what she had written.”<br /><br />I told him how I had graded all the exams blind, without knowing who had written them. “There’s no point in arguing about this, Jonathan. I’m the one who’s ultimately responsible for the grades in this class. Although I agreed with your judgment in all the other cases where students appealed to me, I didn’t in this one case.<br /><br />“I can understand why you might be so upset by this girl,” he continued. “She’s very, very charming. But the semester will soon be over, and you’ll have the opportunity to win her back, okay? And with that, I’m afraid I have to go.”<br /><br />What a bitch! She just made that entire story up! I confronted her about it when she came over to borrow my senior thesis and paper for Saltz. She just acted as if it was all a big joke. “Are you jealous?” she kept asking—while looking all around the room for evidence of a female presence (all she found was another one of her own damn scrunchies).<br /><br />When I asked her to please be serious, she responded, “Well, how else do you explain your giving me a “B+”? It had to be for some personal reason since it clearly wasn’t what I deserved.”<br /><br />We argued inconclusively for awhile until she declared that it was all a misunderstanding and that she was ready to kiss and make up. I said I wanted to do that too—when the semester ended next month.<br /><br />After denouncing me as a “fucking bore,” she got up to leave. But just before she went out the door, I asked her whether she was really going out with other guys.<br /><br />“Oh, Mr. Vining!” she responded. “Such a personal question! How unprofessional of you to ask it!” And then she left.<br /><br />God, what a bitch! But I have to admit: I admire her for her sheer brazenness with Briggs. And I really am looking forward to the end of the semester.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-61389401793288842492010-03-23T14:30:00.004-04:002010-04-02T12:07:35.496-04:00March 26I am writing this on Friday evening. This week just after spring break has been pure hell. It seemed like it would never end. But with the departure of Brendan Cohen back to Barstow, it finally has.<br /><br />It started well enough when I met him at the airport last Saturday. We had a nice talk coming in on the T and during dinner at a cheap restaurant we went to which we found near his budget hotel (as always, he was low on funds). I had to admire his energy: not only was he giving the talk at Charles on Tuesday afternoon that I had arranged, but he had succeeded in having himself invited to give two talks at Harvard (one at the Center for International Affairs, the other at the Center for Science and International Affairs) as well as one each at the M.I.T. Center of International Studies, Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and somewhere or other at Boston University, Boston College, and even Northeastern University (which is truly the low man on the academic totem pole around here). He had also arranged some appointments with whomever he could in all these various places to talk about the possibility of his spending his sabbatical as a guest scholar. He hoped to make more such appointments over the course of the week.<br />He told me all about the financial arrangements he had made: a few were covering his hotel bill for a night while others (including Harvard) were not paying anything. “I don’t mind with Harvard,” he said, “since I consider myself lucky to wangle two invitations to speak there at all.” Cal State Barstow was not providing anything either since he’d spent his annual $500 travel allowance coming out to the IRA conference last September. He had flown in on the Saturday to get a lower fare, and would fly out the following Friday (today) since he really couldn’t afford to stay here for two weekends.<br /><br />It soon became clear that he had assumed that I would spend the next day, Sunday, showing him around and that I would be going with him to his other talks. Our conversation started to grow a little testy when I informed him that I could do neither since I had so much work to do. Luckily, though, he seemed to realize that he was imposing on me and backed down. Feeling a little awkward, I invited him to come by my place Sunday evening for a little grad student fare, which he accepted.<br /><br />I spent all Sunday catching up on my own work and was taken a bit by surprise when Brendan came by earlier than I had invited him for. I hadn’t had time to go to the store, so we dined on what I had: frozen fish sticks and ketchup. At least he brought a six-pack of some light beer with him; not my favorite, but I had none left myself.<br /><br />The conversation was desultory. He told me how cool the weather was here compared to Barstow. I told him that it seemed warm compared to what it had been like only a few weeks ago. He told me about where all he had gone site-seeing today (as if I cared). I told him how I had fallen behind on my own work helping out with Briggs’s manuscript last week. He got really excited at this and pleaded with me to tell him all about it. I said that I’d really like to, but couldn’t due to professional ethics. He seemed shocked at my saying this, but all I could tell him was that the book should be out by the IRA conference this coming September, and that he could see it then along with everyone else.<br /><br />He left soon afterward, obviously miffed. He even took the two bottles of beer we hadn’t drunk with him. He called me late the next evening, though, all full of enthusiasm over how well his talk had gone at Harvard CSIA in the morning and at M.I.T. in the afternoon. He had even had lunch with somebody-or-other from the former and dinner with somebody-else from the latter (neither of whose name rang a bell with me). He said he had a shot at being a guest scholar at both next year, but still had to talk to a few more people at each. I wished him luck and said that I was looking forward to seeing him tomorrow at Charles.<br /><br />The next day, Briggs dutifully announced in class that “Jonathan’s old professor” would be giving a talk today during my discussion section. He urged everyone to show up, saying “something just might be on the final about it.” I knew he was joking, but the undergrads must have taken him seriously since they turned out in force that afternoon. I was a little surprised since I had never had so many show up in the discussion section just for me. In addition to the undergrads (among whom, of course, was Shivvy), there were several others, including Prof. Asquith, Michael, Lisa, and even Angie. Angie sat next to me in one of the student desks. I felt odd sitting in one instead of standing up front, but Briggs said he’d introduce Brendan and would moderate the session—which turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.<br /><br />I don’t know what got into him, but Brendan’s talk was basically a critique of Briggs’s old book. Nobody else in the room knew it, but his presentation was essentially a summarization of the senior thesis that I had written for him! I couldn’t believe he would do something so stupid and unprofessional! And how could he be so rude as to critique Briggs after Briggs had, at my request, arranged for him to speak here?<br /><br />I was too upset to make any comment when Brendan finally shut up and the Q&A session began. Michael, though, tore into him like a rotwiler, pointing out where his critique had “failed to grasp the complexity of Briggs’s argument” in his old book as well as where it was “outmoded” since Briggs had already dealt with similar critiques in his new book. Michael, it was clear, was very familiar with the new book.<br /><br />A few others joined Michael’s bandwagon and made scathing remarks, but Michael, who had worked himself up into a righteous fury, was the star of the show. Brendan was completely taken aback and did not know how to respond. He tried to lighten the mood with the sort of witticisms that went over well with students back at Barstow, but they fell completely flat here. He kept looking over at me in what appeared to be an appeal for help, but I looked away each time.<br /><br />Briggs himself just sat back and smiled throughout the entire session, especially during the Q&A part. He didn’t say one word in defense of his ideas; he didn’t have to, since Michael was doing it for him. Briggs finally spoke up to say that the session had to end now. He said that Brendan had raised some very interesting points (“No, he really did,” said Briggs in response to derisive laughter from Michael and others), but that he had already dealt with them all in his new book.<br /><br />“You might want to have a look at it first in case you’re thinking of trying to publish what you said here,” Briggs said condescendingly to Brendan. This was followed by more derisive laughter. “And let me just end,” he added, “by thanking Jonathan here for arranging for you to come and talk.” Much to my embarrassment, the derisive laughter was then aimed at me. Michael sneered at me openly. Even Shivvy looked at me with open disgust.<br /><br />Afterward, I really wanted to give Brendan a piece of my mind for having lifted what I had written in my senior thesis for his talk here, but didn’t want to do so in front of Briggs, Michael, and everybody else since that would have been an admission that all his arguments—which had just been punctured here—were really mine. Brendan himself was clearly embarrassed. “I guess that didn’t go over too well, did it, Jonathan?” he asked sheepishly.<br /><br />Before I could answer, he said, “I’m afraid I can’t stay and talk. I’ve got to rush over to M.I.T. and meet somebody. I’ll get in touch with you later.” He was gone before I could tell him not to bother.<br /><br />The room then emptied out quickly. Briggs, Asquith, Michael and a few others all went out together, laughing. Nobody said anything to me except Angie. “This was no reflection on you, Jonathan. I know Barry thinks highly of your work. Don’t give it another thought.” I thanked her and then practically ran out of the room myself. I was afraid I might break down and cry on her shoulder otherwise. I certainly wanted to.<br /><br />Luckily, nobody came to see me during my office hours afterward—except Shivvy. She was in high spirits, rubbing it in about Brendan. “Wasn’t that the great Professor Cohen—the best of Barstow—whom you told me so much about? What a total loser! And I used to believe it when you told me how terrific he was!”<br /><br />After getting tired of this line of attack, her voice turned cold as she said, “I know who it is you’re fucking now. It’s that little Southern simp, Angie, isn’t it?”<br /><br />I told her that she was being outrageous. “I saw how you two were talking just now!” she shot back. “And a lot of people have told me that you and she seem to have spent the entire spring break together in the library and Briggs’s office. Jesus, Jonathan! Were you two so hot for each other that you couldn’t even go over to your apartment? You had to do it right there in his office? What if you’d been caught?”<br /><br />I told her that we had been working together on Briggs’s manuscript at Briggs’s request, but she was incredulous. “Just be careful, Jonathan,” she said as she finally left. “Briggs will castrate you if he thinks you’re poaching on his private preserve.” God, what a bitch!<br /><br />I got a phone call from Brendan last night. He started cheerily telling me, as if nothing at all had happened, how well his talks had gone elsewhere and that he thought he really had a shot at becoming a guest scholar at the Fletcher School. They might even pay him for teaching a class as an adjunct, but had asked for him to have, among others, a former student write a letter of recommendation for him. He said that, of course, he thought of me for this.<br /><br />That’s when I let him have it. I chewed him out royally for having embarrassed the hell out of me by giving such a lousy presentation at Charles. I also said that I’d never thought he would have stooped to plagiarizing material from my senior thesis—and then to present this stolen material in a presentation that I myself attended. Did he think I wouldn’t notice?<br /><br />He was stunned by this. At first, he started apologizing for embarrassing me. But then he started to go on about how much of what I wrote in my senior thesis were really ideas I had gotten from him both in class and our private discussions.<br /><br />This made me so furious that I cut him off, saying, “Look, you asshole, I can’t carry you any more! I tried to help you as much as I could, and you embarrassed the hell out of me! You did enough damage this past week! I’m certainly not going to write any letter of recommendation for you so you can come back and do even more next year!”<br /><br />I then slammed down the phone and turned off the ringer in case he tried to call back. In fact, the next morning I discovered that there was a voice mail message from him expressing shock at what I’d said after everything he’d done for me. I deleted it before the end.<br /><br />To paraphrase a saying that I think was made up about somebody else from somewhere else: “You can take the boy out of Barstow, but you can’t take Barstow out of the boy.” That about sums up Brendan. It’s his own damn fault that I had to get rid of him like that. However useful he may have once been to me, I’ve clearly moved way beyond his league. Someone in my position just can’t afford to be dragged down by a loser like that. I had to do what I had to do.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-43753707537496290252010-03-05T15:43:00.003-05:002010-03-19T17:15:10.444-04:00March 20I am writing this on a Saturday afternoon, for a change. Spring break is almost over, though it has not been much of a break for me, but a lot of work instead. And not so much of it my own work either. Still, I’m not complaining. Let me explain.<br /><br />A week ago today, I got an early morning phone call from Briggs. He said he was flying off in the evening to London for a conference, but that there was still a lot of work to be done on his copy-edited manuscript which was due back to the publisher on Friday. “Angie’s been doing a great job with it, but there’s a little too much left for her to finish by herself. She told me that you two had spoken and that you had offered to help with it. I was wondering if I could take you up on that.”<br /><br />I was incredibly flattered, as anyone would be, that Briggs had finally asked me to help him out with this book. I accepted immediately, but he seemed to think I still needed convincing. “Angie’s not as knowledgeable about the field as you are. It would really help me to have you look it over.”<br /><br />I accepted again. He asked me to come out to his place for lunch. He would go over what had to be done with Angie and me. We could then go in his car to the airport later in the afternoon and Angie could drop me back at Charles.<br /><br />When I finally got to Briggs’s house (which took quite awhile on public transport since it was a Saturday), Angie opened the door. She was unabashedly relieved to see me. “Thanks so much for helping out, Jonathan! I’d never be able to get all this work done by myself!” she told me.<br /><br />Briggs was upstairs finishing his packing. He came down and we all ate the black bean soup and BLT sandwiches that Angie had prepared for us. Angie was in high spirits, chiding “Barry” good-naturedly for not taking her to London with him but leaving her here to work on his book. He responded in kind, saying that he’d be sure to take her to his next conference—unless he had another manuscript which he needed her to take care of for him.<br /><br />After lunch, we got down to business. Briggs and Angie had already reviewed the changes made by the copy-editor. Briggs, though, had apparently thought of a lot more changes he wanted to make. There had been some to-ing and fro-ing between him and his editor over this, with the latter calling for him not to make too many changes or to exceed his “word budget” any further. Angie had also marked up all these changes—as well as “changes to the changes,” as she put it, that Briggs had made. It was doing this, plus answering most of the copy editor’s questions, that had taken up all their spare time last week.<br /><br />What remained to be done was to verify the accuracy of all quoted material and bibliographic references, as well as to find the necessary information for any of the latter which were not yet complete—of which there were a surprising number, I thought (I would never say so to Briggs, though). “You know how it is, Jonathan,” he said. “I’m sure I read something somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find it since.” This, of course, was a problem I had encountered many times myself. It was gratifying to see that someone such as Briggs was not immune to it either. “You may have to be a little creative in hunting down some of these.”<br /><br />We agreed that the best place for Angie and I to have our base of operations was Briggs’s office on campus. A lot of the books and journals he cited were right there, as were photocopies of things he had accumulated while writing the book. Most anything that we couldn’t find in his office, he told us, could probably be found downstairs in the political science library (like Harvard and M.I.T., Charles University maintained a large number of small, specialized libraries). But there might be a few things, he warned, that we wouldn’t be able to find either in his office or in the political science library. For these, he advised, we either search the internet or try to find them over at Harvard. Since I had taken the class with Saltz last semester over there, I had become reasonably familiar with the Harvard library system. Angie, of course, didn’t even know her way around the political science library at Charles, much less anything at Harvard.<br /><br />The time came for Briggs to get going over to Logan airport. Angie drove, Briggs sat beside her up front, and I was in the back. On the way, I learned that Michael would be presenting a paper at the conference in London that Briggs was also presenting at. “I would have asked him to help you two with this,” Briggs said apologetically, “but he’s going to be with me over there.”<br /><br />I was just as glad that he wouldn’t be with us, but was too polite to say so. Angie, though, was not: “He’s a creep!” she declared. This led to a minor dispute between them in which they each appealed to me for support. I knew Angie was right, but I said I agreed with Briggs. Briggs said that Michael would take the T to Logan, and that they would meet up there. When Angie said she felt sorry for Barry having to sit next to him all those hours on the flight over and probably on the way back, Briggs responded that her concern was misplaced: Michael had an economy class ticket while Briggs had traded some frequent flier miles for an upgrade to business class. Nor would they be staying in the same hotel since Briggs was being put up somewhere nice while Michael would be at a hostel. In fact, he said, they probably wouldn’t see much of each other outside the conference. “Lucky you!” exclaimed Angie. Briggs chided her for saying so, but I suddenly realized that he wasn’t particularly fond of Michael either. He respected Michael’s intellect, I knew that, but I could see that Michael wasn’t Briggs’s idea of good company.<br /><br />We finally got to the airport after an annoying delay in traffic (not unusual for Boston). When we stopped in front of Briggs’s departure terminal, I got out to help him with his luggage, and then got in the front seat for the trip back. Angie thanked me once again for being willing to help out. “I hope that nice girlfriend of yours won’t be too angry about me taking you away from her this week.”<br /><br />I explained to her how we couldn’t see each other this semester to avoid any conflict of interest since I was her TA. She expressed complete disbelief that we would actually comply with such “silly rules.” When I told her that I was the one who had called for the separation and that Briggs had insisted upon it, she just laughed. “Barry would never have followed any such rule himself,” she insisted, “even if he said he would.” This I couldn’t believe, and told her so. “But just look at how him and me got started!” she responded. “I was married to Doug when we took up with each other!” I told her that that was different because she was not his student while Shivvy was mine. “That’s just splittin’ hairs!” she exclaimed. “Surely it’s worse to take up with a married woman than to take up with a single girl who happens to be your student.”<br /><br />She was obviously wrong, but I didn’t want to argue with her. So I told her instead that the separation was just temporary, and that Shivvy and I would probably be getting back together when the semester ended in just a couple of months. “Well, all I can say,” she responded, “is that if you want her to come back to you then, you’d better be prepared to buy her lots of flowers, lots of dinners, and lots of jewelry. I’d try my hand at writing her some sentimental poetry too, if I were you.”<br /><br />Interesting advice. I’ll keep it in mind.<br /><br />Over the course of spring break, I got to know more about Angie than I had before. First and foremost, she is an incredibly hard worker. She and I quickly organized all the tasks that had to be accomplished, and we completed them all by the end of the week. (“It was probably easier,” she noted, “without Barry here interfering and changing everything around.) She was actually quicker at finding and checking references than me. She just lacked self-confidence.<br /><br />I also learned that she is from a small town in southwest Virginia. Her parents were divorced long ago, and she hasn’t seen much of her father since. Her mother works as a hairdresser, and had long made it clear that she didn’t want Angie moving back in with her after graduating from college. “So when Doug and I split up,” she said, “I knew I wasn’t welcome back there.” Fortunately for her, Barry had been willing to take her in and make a “mostly honest woman” out of her, as she put it. She could not have stayed in the grad student apartment even if Doug had been willing to let her take up the lease since he had to give it back to the university once he withdrew and left for Gates. She couldn’t have afforded to rent a decent place (assuming she could have found one) on what she earned as a waitress, and she didn’t know anybody she was willing to room with.<br /><br />Briggs let her stay for free at his house, she told me, in exchange for her doing the cooking as well as serving as his research assistant. She still did some waitressing, though, to earn a little pocket money.<br /><br />“We haven’t really talked about it,” she said, “but I’m sure Barry and I will be getting married after my divorce comes through.” Nor did she expect any problems on that front: Doug was cooperating with her on this. He had found another girl out at Gates, Angie suspected, who was undoubtedly encouraging him to get the divorce. “We never should have gotten married in the first place,” she said. “I think we both know that now.”<br /><br />One thing she told me really surprised me: Briggs, she says, is extremely nervous about how this new book is going to be received. Considering how he exudes self-confidence, I would never have guessed this. But she insists that it is true.<br /><br />The new book, by the way, seems to be an extended discussion with the critics of his previous book. Interestingly enough, Briggs actually dealt with a lot of the critiques that I had made about his earlier book in my senior thesis and the paper I wrote for Saltz. I’m glad I didn’t show them to him after all since the points I made wouldn’t have seemed all that new to him. As everyone reading this will recall, Briggs’s great book written all those years ago was entitled, International Relations: A Neo-Radical Perspective. This new one is entitled, Neo-Radical Relations: An International Perspective. I like that.<br /><br />Angie and I finished everything up yesterday afternoon. We didn’t send the manuscript back to the publisher since Briggs would want to look it over first. He should be able to do so on Monday or Tuesday. I think he’ll be pleased with what we did.<br /><br />Oh, here’s one other example of how well Angie organizes things: although I had completely forgotten about it, Angie remembered that Brendan Cohen would be speaking here at Charles next week. After Briggs had told her about it, she had worked with the department office to schedule his talk for Tuesday at two o’clock in my discussion section (which is fine with me), make travel arrangements, and even put up fliers in Case Hall (which we did together yesterday).<br /><br />It turns out that Brendan’s plane from California will come in at about the same time today as Briggs’s from Britain. Since Angie is going to drive to Logan to pick Briggs up, she called to say she would swing by and take me to Logan to meet Brendan so I can take him on the T to his hotel in Central Square. She thinks of everything!<br /><br />I’m really glad she called. It was fun working with her and I felt sad when we were all done. It’ll be nice to have one more conversation with her on the way to the airport.<br /><br />Next Entry: March 26Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-74540263985985535792010-03-05T15:28:00.004-05:002010-03-19T17:14:20.584-04:00March 12It’s one week later--the Friday afternoon of the seventh week of classes. Next week is spring break. I am so glad, because this past week has been no fun at all.<br /><br />I met with Briggs on Tuesday morning before class. He said that he’d looked over my grading, and that it seemed fine. Given what Angie had told me, I doubted that he had spent much time on this at all, but I certainly wasn’t going to say anything. Besides, I felt proud that he trusted my grading ability so much that he didn’t feel the need to scrutinize or question it.<br /><br />We then went to class. Only about 25 students were there at first. More, though, trickled in while Briggs gave his lecture, as usual. Toward the end of the session, he said that the TA would now pass back the exams. If the students had any questions about it, he said, they were to see me first; he wouldn’t discuss it with anyone who had not done so. He then walked out, leaving me with the unenviable task of calling out the names of all the students who had taken the exam.<br /><br />By the time I did this, there were about 40 students in the room and so a lot of time was wasted calling out the names of students who weren’t there. Many of those who were there, though, expressed their indignation over the grade they received as soon as they got their exams back. Things got noisy enough that I had to call for quiet three times so that students could hear me continue to call out names.<br /><br />Once I had finished this task and made sure that everyone there had gotten an exam back, I ended the session. Several students came up to me immediately afterward, angrily claiming that I had given them “the wrong grade” and demanding an immediate upward revision. I told them that they had hardly had time to read—and none at all to digest—the comments I had written explaining each of their grades. I told them all to go and do so and then come and talk to me this afternoon during my office hours if they still had any questions.<br /><br />The students who came to the lecture session in the morning apparently spread the word that the midterms had been graded (and graded hard at that) because when I went to my discussion section that afternoon, there were over thirty students waiting—both for me and the exams. A similar scene ensued there. Those who were satisfied with their grade left the room immediately after receiving their midterms back. Those who weren’t stayed behind to argue. I repeated to them what I had said in the morning. What this meant now, though, was that they simply followed me back to my office—where there was a line of students already waiting to see me.<br /><br />I first called for all those who had not yet picked up their exams to come in and get them. There were several of these—many of whom wanted to start arguing with me right then and there. I told them to at least go back outside and read carefully through my comments. I then told those outside to organize themselves in a line and to come in to talk to me one at a time.<br /><br />Then things really became unpleasant. I’m not sure how many conversations I had over the next few hours; it seemed like 40 or so. All the conversations, though, had certain common features. Each student was certain that I had erred somehow in grading them. Each asked me if this was the first time I had served as a TA and had actually graded anything (my affirmative answer, of course, only served to confirm the conviction that I had somehow screwed up). Each asked me if Prof. Briggs had checked the grades (I assured them that he had—even though I was not all that sure about this). And each expressed the firm belief that they deserved a higher grade.<br /><br />I remember when I was an undergraduate how we all viewed TA’s as uniformly biased, unfair, incompetent, and generally stupid. Of course, most of the ones at Cal State Barstow really were. I mean, who but a loser who couldn’t get in anywhere else would go there for grad school? (There’s nothing wrong with being an undergrad at Barstow, though, as my coming from there to a prestigious school like Charles demonstrates).<br /><br />But now that I am a TA myself, I see things differently. Each undergrad wrote one exam, but I was the one who read them all and so could see them in comparative perspective. Most of them displayed serious misunderstandings about the subject matter. Few students, though, were willing to recognize them as such, arguing instead that what I pointed to were minor mistakes which were irrelevant to their argument. Many of them also showed that they didn’t know how to write a decent essay. But instead of being embarrassed at having this pointed out to them, most responded hotly that since this wasn’t an English class, they didn’t have to write the way composition professors demanded. Good God!<br /><br />These conversations, of course, were not absolutely all alike. There were some variations in them, which soon became predictable. Most men, for example, tended to get angry about their grade. This didn’t bother me at all. In fact, it was a good excuse for getting angry back at them. It felt good! Most women, by contrast, got all tearful and pathetic, claiming that the grade I gave showed I didn’t like them. This I found a lot harder to deal with. I usually told them that I felt the midterm wasn’t reflective of their true potential, that I was confident they would do better if they worked harder, and that it might be a really, really good idea to actually attend class regularly as well as do the assigned readings. Some reacted as if this was the first time they had ever heard such advice, thanking me profusely for it and promising to follow it faithfully.<br /><br />Shivvy, I’m sure, would have said they were all putting on an act. All I can say is: if that’s what they were doing, they were quite good at it. Not all women, though, acted like this. Some got angry like the men—including Shivvy herself. “Who the fuck do you think you are, giving me a `B+?’” she shouted during her turn in the office. As with everyone else, I explained how I carefully concealed the students’ identities from myself when I read their exams, but this made no impression on her.<br /><br />As with Shivvy, the most difficult students to deal with were those who had earned a “B+.” I didn’t think a “B+” was such a bad grade. There are a lot worse ones, after all. But all those who got a “B+” were adamant that they deserved “at least” an “A-.” If I didn’t raise their grade, they told me, they would never get into Phi Beta Kappa, a decent law school, or whatever. I told them all that this was just the first assignment, and that if they did better on the book review and the final, they could still get an “A-,” or maybe even an “A,” for the course. None, though, seemed terribly reassured.<br /><br />There were a few other interesting variations to these conversations. Some students on scholarship tended to view this fact both as proof of their brilliance as well as sufficient justification for an “A.” On the other hand, many of those whose parents were paying full tuition also seemed to think that this entitled them to an “A” since, after all, they had paid for it.<br /><br />Several students argued vociferously that I had graded them down because I was prejudiced against them because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or whatever. This, of course, was ridiculous: as everyone reading this knows, I’m incredibly sensitive to these matters. My response to them all was that I did not know the identities of the students when I read their exams, and that I graded everyone on exactly the same basis. Many of the students who accused me of bias against them did so, I am convinced, not because they believed this but merely in the hope of intimidating me into raising their grade. They did not succeed. There were some, though, who really seemed to believe that I was prejudiced against one or more groups they belonged to.<br /><br />One of these, unfortunately, was the African-American male who had had the contretemps with Danielle last fall. As I mentioned before, I had originally given him a “D” but raised this to a “C” in compensation for past inequities experienced by African-Americans.<br /><br />It turns out that he (once again, I maintain my principled policy of not identifying him by name) thought that I had crossed out a “B” instead of a “D.” (Because of the way I crossed out the “D,” I could see how he might have thought it was a “B.”) Thus, instead of seeing his grade raised from a “D” as a result of my racial sensitivity, he mistakenly thought it was being lowered from a “B” as a result of racial prejudice. He was incredulous at first when I told him what the true situation was. He realized that I was not prejudiced, though, when I reminded him that I had marched in the demonstration on his behalf last December (I was a little miffed that he did not remember me), informed him of my progressive views regarding racial sensitivity, pointed out the (many) weaknesses in his exam, and offered to provide him with individual tutoring.<br /><br />I felt proud of myself for salvaging what could have deteriorated into an ugly situation, like with Danielle. I wonder why she didn’t think to do what I did. She would undoubtedly still be here if she had.<br /><br />There were two other similarities in these conversations worth mentioning. One was that virtually every student—including Shivvy—told me that they were going to take the matter of their grade up with Professor Briggs—as if I had done something wrong and, since I wouldn’t mend my ways, they must reluctantly tattle on me. To all of them, I responded that they were free to do so, but that I doubted he would change their grade. And I was right: when I met with him today to go over the exams which students had submitted to him for review (he would not meet with them individually since he was so busy), he agreed with me in every case that the grade should not be raised. “If anything,” he said, “you’ve been too lenient with them.” Naturally, I was pleased that Briggs was backing me up. I noted, though, that not everyone (including Shivvy) who had said they would appeal had actually done so. “Some of them won’t get around to it until right before the final,” said Briggs, shaking his head.<br /><br />Another similarity in my conversations with the students was that not one of them thanked me for having helped them by pointing out the weaknesses in their exams, thereby affording them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and do better in future. Not one.<br /><br />Yes, it was a grueling week—especially since these conversations were not limited to my office hours on Tuesday. Students felt free to come by the office on the other days of the week also and even to call me at my apartment! This made it very difficult to maintain my concentration on my own work.<br /><br />Now I know why spring break was really created: not so that undergrads can have a holiday, but so that TA’s can catch up on their own work after dealing with undergrads on their midterms!Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-56529401101978142982010-03-05T06:56:00.003-05:002010-03-11T23:33:38.675-05:00March 5I am writing this on the Friday afternoon of the sixth week of classes. I didn’t write anything here last week because I didn’t have much to say. This past week, though, has been unbelievably busy with grading the midterm for Briggs’s class.<br /><br />First, though, I will say something briefly about the fifth week. I was really surprised that so few undergrads attended Briggs’s lecture that week even though it was the last one before the midterm in which he discussed what would be on it. Attendance was a little higher than usual—about 60—but still nowhere near the entire class. About 20 students came to my discussion section that day—mostly, it seemed to me, ones that had not attended Briggs’s lecture earlier in the day. I repeated what Briggs had said about the exam, including what general areas it would cover. What the students wanted from me, though, was to tell them what questions would actually appear on the exam. I told them that not only would I not tell them that, but that I couldn’t even if I wanted to since I hadn’t seen the exam (Briggs hadn’t even written it). Upon hearing this, most of them got up indignantly and left! I was amazed!<br /><br />A few, including Shivvy, did stay and ask me questions on the material—about which these particular students appeared remarkably confused. I ended up getting annoyed at Shivvy when she took it upon herself to point out where my explanations differed from Briggs’s. For the first time since the first week of class, the discussion section lasted the entire hour. I really felt like a professor.<br /><br />Shivvy walked back with me to my office, but she didn’t come in since there was a line of students waiting to see me. There were six altogether—none of whom had attended either Briggs’s lecture or my discussion section. What they all wanted, of course, was information about the midterm. I had them all come in at the same time so I would only have to repeat once more what Briggs had said about it that morning. After ascertaining that I could not tell them what was actually on the exam, five of them left.<br /><br />One girl, though, stayed behind and told me tearfully about how she was so confused by this course and didn’t know how to study for it. I tried to make some helpful suggestions about what to study as well as to reassure her that she could do well if she tried. She finally left after half an hour or so, at which point Shivvy came in.<br /><br />According to Shivvy, who had apparently been listening outside the entire time, the girl’s tears were all an act, and that she was actually trying to let me know that she was willing to trade sexual favors for an “A” from me. “And it seemed to me,” she added, “that you were pretty favorably disposed toward her. I wonder what you would have done if you hadn’t known that I was outside listening the entire time.”<br /><br />I told her that her theory was outrageous on three counts. First of all, I hadn’t known she was outside listening; I never thought she would have been silly enough to do something like that. Second, the girl was genuinely upset. And third, I wasn’t attracted to the girl.<br /><br />“Oh no?” she asked. “Well, there’s one way to find out: let me feel your crotch to see if your dick is hard or not.”<br /><br />I really got mad then. I told her that she was completely out of line, and that I wanted her to leave my office now before she made an even bigger fool of herself.<br /><br />She stood up slowly. “If I find out you’ve been fooling around with this girl,” she said, “you can bet that you and I won’t be getting back together at the end of the semester or any other time.” Then she finally left. I checked outside to see if there was anyone there who might have overheard her. Luckily there wasn’t. God, what a bitch she can be!<br /><br />Well, I guess I had more to say about that previous week than I had anticipated. Anyway, let me move on to this past week. Briggs wrote up the exam on Monday. We met that day to go over what he thought would constitute an “A,” “B,” etc. He also gave me the exam to photocopy for the students, and told me where in the department office to find blue books to distribute (unlike public universities like Cal State Barstow where students must buy their own blue books, private universities like Charles buy them for the students).<br /><br />Briggs told me that he wouldn’t be coming to class for the midterm and that I was to administer it. I arrived in class a few minutes early on the day of the exam. There was a larger group of students than I had ever seen there before, all busily studying the text books or their notes. Promptly at nine o’clock, I told everyone that the exam was about to begin and that they should put away everything except their pens and whatever beverages they had brought in with them (nearly all of them had). Some students, of course, had forgotten to bring pens (amazing, considering that they knew they were going to be taking an exam), but I had anticipated this and by bringing six or so with me from the department office.<br /><br />I then passed out copies of the exam and the blue books—a process which took longer than I had expected. I reminded the students to write their names clearly on the front cover of the blue book. I also told them, at Briggs’s insistence, to write their names on the exam itself and turn it in with their blue books when they had finished. Briggs said this was important because a few students probably wouldn’t show up for the midterm when it was scheduled, and that he didn’t want them to be able to get it from anyone who had taken it. I would have thought that anyone who didn’t show up should automatically flunk it, but he said most of them would undoubtedly have some excuse and that I should arrange to administer it to them during my office hours without even consulting him. And, it turned out, there were four students in this category. Two of them showed up to take the exam during my office hours later that day. They didn’t bother to offer any sort of apology, but just said they had stayed up so late studying the previous night that they had slept through the exam.<br /><br />What surprised me during the exam itself is that so many students arrived late for it—some by as much as thirty or forty minutes. Maybe I’m old fashioned or something, but I never would have dreamed of showing up late for an exam, much less missing it altogether and just assuming that I could take it at a more convenient time. I guess the top dollar tuition that their parents are paying here buys their sons and daughters quite a bit of slack.<br /><br />As each student finished the exam, he or she gathered up his belongings and came over to where I was sitting to hand in both a blue book and the exam itself. This occasion was the first time I had a close look at those students who didn’t come to my discussion section—which was, of course, the vast majority. One of these, it turned out, was the African-American male who had had that contretemps with Danielle last semester. I hadn’t realized that he was in this class (could this have been the first time he attended?) I will continue here my policy of not mentioning his name for fear of causing any problems for him when this diary starts to be quoted from or is published. I can’t resist saying, though, that he is the son of a highly prominent African-American personage. If he were white, he would be what Michael would call an “upper classhole.”<br /><br />Remembering the charges of unfair grading he had made against Danielle last semester, I decided to adopt the totally fair grading procedure that Brendan Cohen employed back at Barstow: before reading any of them, I folded back the front cover of each blue book so I couldn’t see the name of the person written on it. As I read each exam, then, I had no idea who had written it, and so did not let any personal acquaintance—or lack of it—affect my grading.<br /><br />Students only had to pick one question out of five to write an essay on for the exam. Most of the essays I read, though, were not particularly impressive; some were downright stupid. Under my totally fair grading system, only a dozen students earned an “A” or “A-.” Shivvy only earned a “B+.” I didn’t give any “F’s,” but there were several “D’s”—including one for the African-American male student whose name I’m not mentioning. After I realized that I had given him a “D,” though, I raised his grade to a “C” in compensation for the past injustices experienced by African-Americans. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.<br /><br />I had to finish the grading today so that I could get the exams to Briggs because he wanted to have a chance to look at them over the weekend before passing them back to the students this coming Tuesday. (As a student I always appreciated professors who gave back exams quickly, but as a TA I’ve come to sympathize with those who don’t.) When I went over to his office this afternoon with the exams and a record of the grades, I was surprised to find Angie there instead of Briggs. It was the first time I had seen her since helping her move out back in December.<br /><br />“Hey, Jonathan!” she said cheerily. “I was expecting you. Just set those exams down here. I’ll take them to Barry.” Barry, she explained, was attending a seminar at Harvard but had asked her to drop by his office both to get the exams I had graded and, more importantly, the package with the copy-edited manuscript of his new book, which she had opened to see if she needed to bring anything else from his office back home with her.<br /><br />“I kind of doubt Barry’s going to spend much time reviewing those exams,” she told me. “He and I have got a lot of work to do on this manuscript.” She explained that he had to review all the changes made by the copy-editor on the manuscript, answer all last-minute questions, verify all quotations, and verify and complete all citations. “Barry hadn’t quite completed them all before,” she said with a mischievous smile.<br /><br />“He’s got to get everything back to the publisher in two weeks if the book is to be out for the International Relations Association conference this September in Washington. And he’s letting me help him! Isn’t it exciting?”<br /><br />First Doug, then Angie. It seemed like everybody has been working on Briggs’s new book except for me. “If you need any help with it, just let me know,” I told her.<br /><br />If in fact Briggs doesn’t review the exams this weekend, then I will have busted my ass for nothing to finish grading them today. Oh, well—at least it’s done. And now I have the weekend to catch up on my own course work—of which there is now one hell of a lot to do.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-44664589811502461622010-02-14T08:19:00.004-05:002010-03-05T06:56:26.208-05:00February 19I am writing this on the Friday of the fourth week of the spring semester. Things have now settled into something of a routine, including being a TA. And as I promised two weeks ago, I’ll describe what it’s like.<br /><br />So far, it’s not hard, but it is time consuming. The class I am a TA for is Briggs’s introductory international relations course. The lecture sections, which Briggs conducts and I attend, are on Tuesdays from 9 to 11. There are over 100 students enrolled in the class. Most attended the first lecture when I passed out the syllabus, but not all. Several asked me for an extra copy of the syllabus to take to a friend who was somehow unable to come to class. Attendance was down to only 40 or so subsequently. I was amazed that it dropped so dramatically. Briggs, though, didn’t seem to be concerned, saying that this was normal. They’d all be back, he said, for the midterm and final (both of which will be held in class). In addition to these exams, students must write a 5-10 page critical review of a book chosen from a list Briggs provided on the syllabus.<br /><br />When Briggs went over the syllabus with me before the beginning of the semester, I said that requiring only three assignments from the students seemed a little light. He reminded me, though, that not only would there be a lot of students in the class, but that I would be doing all the grading. “Are you sure you want me to assign anything else?” he asked. I quickly got the point.<br /><br />My discussion section meets Tuesdays from 2 to 3. Twenty or so students came to it the first week, but only five or six—-including Shivvy--have been showing up since then. I had originally thought that I would have to keep the session going for the entire hour, and I tried to do so the first time. Shivvy told me, though, that I should just answer whatever questions students had, and then end the session when they didn’t have any more. Good advice.<br /><br />One thing I haven’t quite gotten used to is students showing up late to my session, and more than this, leaving early. Of course, I’d seen this occurring in virtually every class I’ve ever taken both at Cal State Barstow as well as here and never thought anything of it. When it happened in my discussion section, though, I was annoyed. I asked Briggs if this didn’t annoy him, but he just laughed and said, “You’ll get used to it.”<br /><br />I then have my office hours on Tuesdays from 3 to 5. Absolutely nobody has come to see me yet—-except Shivvy, who has come back with me to my office after every session so far. She really doesn’t count, though, because she only wants to talk about personal matters and not the course material. I’ve told her each time that this embarrasses me. And each time she responds, “Am I keeping any other student from talking to you? I’ll wait outside if I am.” But she’s never had to do so yet.<br /><br />I gave her back her blue scrunchy when she came to my office last week. “I was wondering where this got to,” she commented. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep it?”<br /><br />I really did, but said that she should. “Afraid you’re new girlfriend will see it?” she asked accusingly. This led to yet another annoying inquisition about who this woman could be.<br /><br />This past week she told me that she’d been having lots of fun going out with her friends—-male as well as female. I ignored the implication, and said I was looking forward to going out again at the end of the semester.<br /><br />“We’ll just have to wait and see,” she responded. “Maybe I’ll have a new boyfriend by then.”<br /><br />Oh, Shivvy!<br /><br />When she finally leaves, I spend the rest of my office hours reading for the courses I am taking—-but also wishing she was still here with me.<br /><br />Our grad student office feels a lot emptier this semester with both Danielle and Doug gone. Since nobody is admitted to start the program in the spring term, it won’t be until the fall that we will get any new office mates.<br /><br />The office also feels emptier because Craig, Lisa, and I—-the three new TA’s-—all have our office hours on different days. Lisa holds hers on Wednesday afternoons. Craig holds his on Mondays from 11 to 1—-just after Asquith’s morning undergrad class for which Craig is a TA and before Asquith’s graduate methodology class (which all three of us are in) which begins at two o’clock.<br /><br />I see Craig in the office on Monday before Asquith’s afternoon class. He’s usually eating his lunch at his desk and so we chat. Once, though, Asquith himself brought a sandwich in and ate it at Craig’s desk. Asquith, I have to admit, makes me a little uncomfortable. What surprises me, though, is that he seems to make Craig uncomfortable too. Like me with regard to Shivvy, Craig obviously has scruples with regard to Asquith.<br /><br />Still, I’m positive now that Craig is gay. After Shivvy had left my office this past week and I was sitting in there alone until five o’clock, I noticed that my pen had run out of ink. Nobody else was there, so I decided to just check the other desks for one. While I was looking in Craig’s desk, I found a sheet of paper with a little poem written on it:<br /><br /><em>You said it was a game,<br />but you couldn’t keep it tame.<br />You said it was an act,<br />but he wants to make it fact.<br />You said it was a joke,<br />but now he wants his poke!<br />The time is near, I hope<br />when you’ll stop playing the dope.<br />The time is near, I say<br />when you can laugh it all away.<br />The time is near, I foresee<br />when you’ll come “out” with me!<br />Love, love,<br />Love, love,<br />Love, love,<br />Lee</em><br /><br />It’s obvious to me what it all means: this Lee is Craig’s actual lover boy. Craig, though, doesn’t want Asquith to find out about him. Lee is playing along for now, but he’s clearly becoming petulant about it all.<br /><br />Yuck! I have to admit that I wish I hadn’t found this. All I can say is that I hope this Lee person is not a student in the class Craig is a TA for. If he is, Craig will be in big trouble if and when Lee decides to “out” the relationship, as he clearly wants to do.<br /><br />[I’d better delete this passage with the poem and my commentary before letting anybody see my diary. I, of course, am not at all homophobic, but there may be some privacy issues here. On the other hand, my leaving the poem in might be doing this Lee a favor: his poem certainly isn’t going to be published anywhere else. What doggerel!]<br /><br />Michael, of course, isn’t a TA this semester, but is back on fellowship. I haven’t seen all that much of him. He says that he doesn’t want to be here when the three of us who are TA’s have our office hours because he really needs to concentrate not just on his classes but also on studying for the comprehensive exams this summer.<br /><br />Occasionally, though, we do run into each other. And he still always seems to know more than the rest of us grad students about what is going on. When I saw him this past week, for instance, he told me that the social science subcommittee of the college promotion and tenure committee was evenly split on Trizenko’s tenure application, and that the full committee voted against him. “That’s it for him this year!” Michael gloated. I felt sad when I heard this. Well, maybe he’ll get it next year.<br /><br />I wonder how Danielle is doing. I’d like to call her up; maybe she could give me some advice on being a TA. I have no idea where she is now, though. And I’m afraid she wouldn’t want to talk to me anyway. It’s very sad that friendship sometimes has to be sacrificed for the sake of principle.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-8553763811548567642010-02-05T10:47:00.003-05:002010-02-19T00:15:14.058-05:00February 5There is one advantage, it seems, to not being in a relationship with Shivvy any more: I have Friday evenings free to make entries into this diary. It is an advantage, however, I wish I could have foregone.<br /><br />Shivvy and I did meet for an early dinner last Saturday. I realized after agreeing to do this that it would probably be considered ethically compromising, but I at least refused to drink any alcohol with her. Shivvy, though, insisted on ordering a bottle of wine, and drank it all down herself.<br /><br />We repeated the same arguments that we had each made previously. When she realized that I couldn’t be moved from my principled position, she said some very ugly things to me. At first, she accused me of being “Briggs’s little faggot boy.” I kept my cool, though, and told her that her statement was both homophobic and untrue. Furthermore, she of all people was familiar with my heterosexual preferences, as I had demonstrated them repeatedly on her last semester and even the weekend before the start of spring classes. And as far as Briggs was concerned, I pointed out, he too had demonstrated his heterosexual preferences with Doug’s wife, Angie.<br /><br />“Why is it okay,” she asked me, “for Briggs to fuck Angie but not for you to fuck me?”<br /><br />The more she drank, the cruder she became. I remembered that when we went out last semester and I was drinking too that this would excite me. Now, though, I just felt embarrassed at the prospect that she might be overheard.<br /><br />I reminded her that while she was now my student, Angie was not a student at all, and therefore her relationship with Briggs wasn’t covered by the university’s code of conduct.<br /><br />“What about her being married to someone who was his student?” she asked.<br /><br />That, I told her, was irrelevant.<br /><br />“You’re sick!” she replied, shaking her head. She was obviously inebriated. Suddenly, though, she straightened up.<br /><br />“You’ve found some other girl, haven’t you?” she asked accusingly. “All this `professional code of conduct’ crap is just bullshit, isn’t it?”<br /><br />After pointing out that ‘crap’ and ‘bullshit’ were the same and that the university’s prohibitions against sexual misconduct were neither, I told her that, no, I wasn’t seeing anybody else.<br /><br />“You are!” she said angrily. “I know it! Nobody normal would end a relationship for the bogus reasons you’re giving me.”<br /><br />I tried to explain that I wasn’t ending the relationship, but just putting it on hold, but she would not be deterred from this line of thinking.<br /><br />“Who is she?” she demanded. “You hooked up with someone during the January intersession when I was in Barbados, didn’t you?” She then started asking me if it was any of the various girls she knew had stayed on campus during January.<br /><br />I tried to reassure her that there had been nobody else, but she wouldn’t buy it. “You can tell me if something happened,” she said reassuringly. “I would understand. Having a little fling during the January intersession is kind of a tradition at Charles. I had one myself in Barbados. It happens.”<br /><br />I didn’t say anything, but my face must have revealed the anger and hurt that I felt. Shivvy just smiled and said, “So, you do care after all? Look, Jonathan: January is over and we can get back to normal. You don’t have to feel guilty. I don’t.”<br /><br />I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or just trying to make me jealous. I told her it was time to go move her stuff out of my apartment. I rounded up the check and paid it. She didn’t offer to split it, and I was too embarrassed to ask her to (which was unprofessional of us both, I realize).<br /><br />Up at my place, she saw that I had already packed up her stuff in a cardboard boxes I had found. I even borrowed the same dolly that I had used to help Angie move out with. “My God! You really want me out of here!” said Shivvy when she saw what I had done.<br /><br />She went and sat on my bed, but I just loaded her stuff on the dolly and asked her to help me with the door. We went down the elevator and then the relatively short distance to her dorm in silence. Entering her room, her roommate just glared at me; Shivvy had obviously told her what was going on. I was about to leave, but Shivvy asked me to help set up her unpack, which I did. She then came with me back to the elevator in her building. As we waited for it to arrive, she said, “You’re lying to me, Jonathan. Nobody in his right mind would be so cowardly as to dump me because some university code of conduct said he should. You’ve got a new girlfriend, I just know it. And when I find out who it is, I’m going to have a few words with her.”<br /><br />I tried to reassure her that there was nobody else, and that we’d be back together in May if she wanted. As the elevator door finally opened, she said, “Don’t count on it!” and walked away.<br /><br />Rereading the last entry and this one so far, I realize that I have only described my personal life and not what future biographers and intellectual historians will undoubtedly consider far more interesting: the classes I am taking this semester. It’s just that I have been so upset by what has happened with Shivvy. And I want whoever reads this to know that sometimes even I allow my emotional life to come before my intellectual life.<br /><br />It is time, though, to say something about the latter. I am taking international political economy with Briggs, which meets Mondays from 9 to 11. I am also taking the second half of Asquith’s required political science methodology class. Just like last semester, it meets Mondays from 2 to 4. These two are open just for grad students. My third class is on the politics of American foreign policy making with Prof. Stavros, the chair of the department. Like the class with Trizenko last term, it is open to both undergrads and grad students. And as luck would have it, Shivvy is also in this class, which meets Wednesdays from 9 to 11.<br /><br />I had a hard time deciding what to take for my fourth class. I had originally hoped to take one over at M.I.T. The only one that fit into my schedule and which I was even somewhat interested in, though, was one on quantitative political analysis. I went to the first class, and that was enough for me. These people at M.I.T. really are heavy-duty number crunchers! I probably could have done it if I’d really concentrated, but what with being a TA for the first time and the hassle of having to commute to and from the class on the T, I decided I didn’t need the aggravation this semester. Besides, since M.I.T. is less prestigious than Harvard but its classes are harder, what would be the point of taking one there?<br /><br />I then decided to try DeKlerk’s feminist IR theory class. I quickly discovered, though, that I was the only male in the class, and that I was not exactly welcome. The first lecture consisted of DeKlerk showing us a bunch of slides of paintings or photographs from different times and countries, but all of women—all of whom looked quite pleased with themselves—breast feeding their babies. The point of it all seemed to be to show how men have tricked women into breast-feeding down through the ages by portraying it in these paintings and photographs as a pleasant process, which DeKlerk assured us, it is not. One woman in the class who had breast fed her baby disagreed with her strongly, saying that she had enjoyed it. The class talked about this issue, as well as about the clothes that the various women portrayed in the slides were wearing for some time.<br /><br />Finally, I raised my hand and asked, “What does all this have to do with international relations?”<br /><br />DeKlerk and the other students became indignant. “Up to now, it has been males who have decided what constitutes international relations,” she said disdainfully. “But feminists do not have to limit themselves to such patriarchic visions.<br /><br />“And surely it’s obvious,” she added, “that since men get women to breast feed their offspring in all countries, it is an international phenomenon and thus is a part of international relations—whether the patriarchy wants to admit it or not.” The women in the class all nodded knowingly at this and, like DeKlerk, all laughed through their noses at my ignorance.<br /><br />As to class assignments, students were allowed to choose from several options. One was for those who had been in Briggs’s IR theory class last semester to write about how alienated they had felt in it. Lisa Dudwick squealed with delight at the possibility of writing such a paper. I decided then and there that this class was not for me. Lisa, by the way, had cut her long hair short in the same style as Prof. DeKlerk’s, and has also taken to laughing through her nose like her.<br /><br />I finally ended up in Prof. Wang’s Chinese politics class, which meets Thursdays from 2 to 4. Like Trizenko’s class on Russia last semester, the class is not theoretical at all but just descriptive. Still, it looks interesting.<br /><br />I’m getting a little tired now, so next time I’ll describe what it’s like to be a TA.<br /><br />[Reminder: I found one of Shivvy’s scrunchies that I apparently overlooked when I packed her stuff up for her. I must remember to take it with me and give it back to her. It’s a blue one, which is appropriate because that’s how finding it made me feel.]Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-73714452618732535052010-01-29T07:29:00.003-05:002010-02-05T10:47:36.598-05:00January 29I am writing this on Friday afternoon at the end of the first week of spring semester classes. Well, I found out what Shivvy’s surprise for me was. Unfortunately, it was not a good one.<br /><br />Without telling me she was going to do so, she enrolled in Briggs’s introductory international relations class for which I am the TA. I didn’t notice her among the large number of undergrads attending the first lecture session (I was concentrating on listening to Briggs). I could not help but notice her, though, in my first discussion section where she was one of the (rather surprisingly to me) few students who showed up. It was very embarrassing because she kept making flippant remarks while I was trying to foster a serious intellectual dialogue. In this crucial first discussion session when it was essential for me to establish my credibility with the mainly freshmen and sophomores in the class, Shivvy seemed to be going out of her way to undermine my authority. She was treating my discussion section as one big joke!<br /><br />She approached me afterward saying that her enrolling in this class was her surprise and asked me how I liked it.<br /><br />“I’m afraid I don’t like it at all,” I responded. “You have put me in a very embarrassing situation!”<br /><br />“Just because I teased you a little?” she asked. “I was just trying to get you to relax. You seemed so uptight!”<br /><br />“I didn’t appreciate your disruptive behavior,” I told her, “but that’s not the main problem.”<br /><br />“Then what is?” she asked, finally sensing that I was genuinely upset.<br /><br />I explained to her that the university’s code of conduct strictly prohibited sexual relationships between students on the one hand and professors and TA’s on the other. “I can either be your boyfriend or your TA, but not both simultaneously.”<br /><br />She appeared shocked to hear this. “But we began our relationship before you became a TA!” she insisted. “It’s not like you’re using your position of authority to take advantage of me!”<br /><br />I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t just the reality of our specific relationship that was important here, but also its appearance to others as well as the principle that must be upheld.<br /><br />“What you and I do together is private! Our relationship is nobody else’s God damned business!” she practically shouted.<br /><br />I then explained to her that our relationship was, in fact, the university’s business since she was a student in a class for which I was a TA. The only way around the problem, I suggested, was for her to drop the class and take it again when somebody else was the TA for it.<br /><br />“I can’t drop it!” she responded. “I was supposed to take it a year ago, but I waited until somebody other than Michael the Rat was the TA! It’s a pre-requisite for a lot of other classes. You’re probably going to be the TA for it next fall too, and I can’t wait until spring semester of my senior year when somebody else will be the TA.<br /><br />“Besides,” she added, “Why should I drop it to stay with you? Why don’t you quit as TA to stay with me? Weren’t you going to be a TA for Trizenko anyway? You could switch!”<br /><br />I asked her to please be reasonable and consider my position. Briggs was the professor I wanted to write my dissertation with while Trizenko was not. After accepting Briggs’s offer to be his TA, it would severely damage my relationship with him to back out of it now that the semester had begun. “Besides,” I added, “I want to have the experience of being a TA for Briggs.”<br /><br />Shivvy suggested that since she was unwilling to drop the class and I was unwilling to step down as its TA, then maybe we should just try to keep our relationship secret both from Briggs and the other students in the class. “It would be exciting,” she said enthusiastically, “to be having a clandestine affair!”<br /><br />Much as I hated to, I had to nix this idea. “It wouldn’t work. Too many people know about us. And if the authorities found out that not only were we having a sexual relationship, but that we were trying to keep it secret, my career in academia would be ruined.”<br /><br />“So then we won’t try to keep it a secret!” she replied. “We’ll acknowledge our relationship openly! That’s what I’d rather do anyway, and I don’t see what would be wrong with that. The system has to have a little give in it that takes human relationships into account.”<br /><br />I told her that I wished she was right, really I did, but that unfortunately she was not. “Here’s the problem,” I said. “I’m going to be grading the work you do for Briggs’s class. There’s not a living soul who’s going to think that our having sex wouldn’t influence the way I grade you.”<br /><br />“So don’t grade me!” she said. “Explain the situation to Briggs and ask him to grade my work while you grade everyone else’s. It wouldn’t hurt him just to grade my stuff alone, would it?”<br /><br />This wasn’t a bad solution, I thought. I told her that I’d check with Briggs and get back to her. “You do that!” she said and walked off in something of a huff.<br />Later that day, I went to Briggs’s office where I presented the problem to him along with Shivvy’s proposal that he grade her work directly. I could tell right away, though, that he was not pleased.<br /><br />“It looks bad, Jonathan,” he told me, “for everyone to know that a professor or a TA has a girlfriend in class. Even if I graded her work—or someone else did entirely—the other students aren’t going to believe that she’s not getting special treatment.<br /><br />“No, Jonathan,” he continued, “I think you’re going to have to choose between being a TA and continuing your relationship with this girl. And I would certainly understand if you chose the latter. But I need to know now before we proceed any further into the semester.”<br /><br />For a second, it crossed my mind that he just didn’t want to go to the bother of grading Shivvy’s assignments himself. But then I realized that Briggs was too humane a guy to think anything like this—especially when he, like Shivvy, suggested that she just postpone taking the class until next spring when someone else would be his TA.<br /><br />I explained how she needed to take the class now, and how I really wanted to be the TA for it. He shook his head, and said, “Well, I really don’t see any way for you to avoid having a conflict of interest except to put your relationship with her on hold.” Then he winked and said, “At least until the end of the semester.”<br /><br />I told him I would remain his TA and that I would follow his advice. As I got up to leave, he said, “You know, I almost wish you hadn’t told me about this girl. Now that you have, though, I felt bound to give you this advice, even though I know it’s unpleasant. I just don’t want you to risk jeopardizing your career before it’s even begun.”<br /><br />As sad as I felt about Shivvy, it was comforting to know that Briggs was so concerned about me. I called Shivvy that night in her dorm room to tell her what Briggs had said and suggest that we follow his advice about putting our relationship on hold until the end of the semester.<br /><br />“I can’t believe this!” she practically shouted. “Did you ask his permission as to whether I could be your girlfriend? You were supposed to just tell him what the situation is, and that he would simply have to grade my assignments instead of you!”<br /><br />I told her that it was impossible to speak in such a manner to Briggs. Besides, it wasn’t like we were breaking up or anything. We were just putting things on hold until mid-May, and surely that wasn’t all that far away.<br /><br />“What makes you think I’ll wait until May for you to finish playing Mr. Simon Pure?” she asked sarcastically. “You’re not the only guy out there interested in me.”<br /><br />I told her that I still thought of her as my girlfriend and that I’d hope she’d wait, but that, clearly, the choice was hers.<br /><br />“This makes no sense!” she exclaimed. “If you think of me as your girlfriend, then how does our not having sex make you more objective about grading my assignments? If you are emotionally attached to me, then it seems to me that you cannot grade my assignments objectively even if we don’t have sex. And if that’s true, then we may as well have sex since the emotional attachment is still there!”<br /><br />This conversation, I told her, wasn’t getting us anywhere. I said that in order to protect both our professional reputations, I hoped she would join me in following Briggs’s advice. In the meantime, I thought that she should come over and collect all her stuff. She said she’d only do it if I agreed to take her to dinner tomorrow and have a serious discussion about the future of our relationship. That’s what I thought we had been doing, but I agreed to meet with her tomorrow—Saturday. What else could I do?<br /><br />All this has not only been extremely distracting, but also very, very distressing emotionally. But as painful as the decision I had to make about Shivvy was, I feel some consolation in knowing that my future biographers who read this will undoubtedly conclude that my behavior during this episode has met the very highest ethical and professional standards.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-20069721348145246052010-01-22T06:48:00.003-05:002010-01-29T07:29:40.885-05:00January 22I am writing this entry on the Friday before the start of spring semester classes here at Charles—exactly five weeks since my last entry. I realize that getting just a summary report on my intellectual development over such a long period will not be as useful to my future biographers as weekly or even biweekly ones. The truth of the matter, though, is that I don’t think I’ve experienced all that much intellectual development over this period. Well, that’s not really true, of course. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that not all that much has happened for me to report on in weekly installments. In any event, I fully intend to get back to making more regular entries during the upcoming semester.<br /><br />I went back to Barstow for a little less than two weeks right after fall semester finals. It was great to see Mom and Dad again, of course, but it was also a little hard. They’re just not in my intellectual league. Of course, they weren’t in it even when I was at Cal State Barstow. But things were different then: even though I lived in the dorms, I saw them fairly regularly and we were used to each other. Since coming to Charles, though, I hadn’t seen them for over four months. And now we really aren’t used to each other any more.<br /><br />I know they were really trying hard to communicate with me. They kept asking me questions like what I thought about American foreign policy toward China or how I assessed the latest developments in the Middle East. They didn’t understand that I wasn’t studying these sorts of issues or that I wasn’t interested in them. “So what are you studying?” they kept asking. I tried to explain neo-radicalism and its importance, but they just couldn’t get it. “What kind of job will that get you?” they kept asking.<br /><br />In discussing the classes I took last term, the one that appealed to them the most was the one I had with Trizenko. “Now that sounds interesting!” they said. They just didn’t understand how low on the political science totem poll are descriptivist courses like this one. I tried to explain, but they just couldn’t comprehend it. Yes, it really is tough when you’ve outdistanced your parents intellectually to the extent that I have with mine.<br /><br />The best part of being back in Barstow was hanging out with my old professor, Brendan Cohen. I remember being slightly embarrassed to be seen with him at the International Relations Association conference back in September. Seeing him here, though, was fine. Indeed, I was quite pleased that he made such a fuss over me this time—when Briggs and my fellow grad students weren’t around to witness it. I even had him come over to dinner with my folks. I think they felt reassured by his telling him that my focus on neo-radicalism was “cutting edge,” but even he couldn’t make them understand what it was all about.<br /><br />I noticed one thing funny in talking with him. I knew that Charles, like Harvard and M.I.T., was an incredibly prestigious university before I enrolled there. But when I was actually there last semester, it just seemed normal. In fact, even taking a class at Harvard seemed fairly ordinary to me after the first week or so. But to Brendan, my having done all this was really exalted. I think this was because while I had entered this elite world, Brendan could only look at it from the outside. Indeed, I was his closest link to the Cambridge world which I knew he wanted so much to be a part of.<br /><br />I felt sorry for him. As a result, I ended up agreeing to something that I later sort of wished I hadn’t. Brendan told me he had recently received word that he would be getting a sabbatical—his first one—from Cal State Barstow next year. The way it worked, he explained to me, at Barstow as well as most other colleges was that you could either take one semester off at full pay or two semesters at half pay. He, of course, would prefer to take two semesters off, but couldn’t afford to live on half salary for a year. The only way he could do it, then, is if he managed to get sufficient outside funding to cover the other half of his salary. But whether he could only take one semester off or two, he was hoping to come to Cambridge next year as a guest scholar at either Harvard, M.I.T., Charles, or wherever.<br /><br />These guest scholarships, he told me, were designed for people on sabbatical. They provided office space, library privileges, and an affiliation, but usually no money. Even so, getting one was highly competitive, since everyone in our field with a sabbatical wanted to spend it in Cambridge. In order to get one, he said, you had to have connections—and he didn’t. What he was hoping, then, was to visit Cambridge during Cal State Barstow's upcoming spring break to introduce himself around. But as usual, he was low on funds.<br /><br />What would really be great, he told me, is if he could be invited to give a lecture somewhere in Cambridge that week by an institution willing to give him an airline ticket and maybe even cover a couple of nights in a hotel. He was wondering, then, if I could ask Briggs to get him an invitation to speak at Charles that week. “But if doing this would be at all awkward for you,” Brendan added, “just tell me and I’ll try to figure something else out. I wouldn’t dream of putting you in an embarrassing situation.”<br /><br />It was a couple of nights before my flight back to Boston and Brendan was treating me to a dinner at the best Mexican restaurant in Barstow. I’d gone to a few Mexican restaurants in the Boston area with Shivvy, but they were not nearly as good as the ones in southern California. Maybe it was the effect of the excellent food and a couple of cervezas, or maybe it was because Brendan’s request made me feel important. In any event, I heard myself tell him, “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll bring it up with Barry when I see him.”<br /><br />Brendan thanked me profusely. At the time, I felt like a real big shot. Once I got back to Cambridge, though, I regretted having agreed to pass on Brendan’s request to Prof. Briggs. Why couldn’t Brendan just ask him directly? Perhaps sensing that I would get cold feet, Brendan sent me a couple of e-mail messages thanking me in advance for passing on his request to Briggs, commenting that Briggs was sure to accept my recommendation that he be invited to Charles as a guest speaker.<br /><br />I wasn’t so certain, but it turns out Brendan was right. I didn’t see Briggs until today when he had me meet with him about what all he wanted me to do as a TA for his introductory international relations class this coming semester. (Basically, I’m to attend his lectures so I know what he’s telling the students, hold a weekly discussion section for students wanting to discuss the material, keep my regularly posted office hours, and do all the grading—subject to his approval.)<br />When I put it to him about Brendan coming to speak in the Political Science Department’s lecture series, Briggs surprised me by responding, “Sure, Jonathan. I owe you one for stepping into the breach after Doug defected to Gates on me. And for helping with Angie’s move. I remember meeting Cohen at the IRA conference.”<br /><br />He said his one concern was that Cal State Barstow’s spring break would coincide with our own, when everyone would be away. But a quick check on the internet revealed that it did not. He took Brendan’s contact information from me and said that he’d have someone in the department office take care of it all. Later on this afternoon, I e-mailed Brendan with the good news that Briggs said he’d arrange an invitation for him, including airfare, two nights in a hotel, and even an honorarium! I got an e-mail back from him almost immediately, thanking me ecstatically. It felt good to be influential enough to help him out.<br /><br />There’s not much else to report about the break. It’s basically been cold and lonely since I got back from California—except for a couple of fun days I spent hanging out with Shivvy before she flew off to Barbados for her January intersession course. <br /><br />For the benefit of my future biographers, I should further describe the paper I was finishing up for Saltz at Harvard when I wrote my last entry. As I mentioned before, it was a critique of the Briggsian approach to international security. I was able to draw on part of the senior thesis I wrote at Barstow for it, but I also added a lot of fresh material since I didn’t really consider international security issues in the thesis. Saltz liked it, but I know Briggs wouldn’t. Fortunately, Briggs will never see it, as I have no intention of showing it to him. Cohen was right to caution me against showing him any critiques of his work before knowing him better. And now that I do, I know that it would definitely rub him the wrong way—which is something I want to avoid.<br /><br />Shivvy called a few minutes ago. She got back from Barbados today. She said she’d be coming back to campus tomorrow afternoon with, as she put it, “my brown, Barbados bod!” She also said that she had a little surprise for me coming up next week, but she wouldn’t tell me what it is just yet. God, I can’t wait to see her!Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-8543041317794887102009-12-18T11:42:00.003-05:002010-01-22T06:48:21.687-05:00December 18It’s Friday afternoon—the last day of finals week. I’m glad it’s all over with. Well, almost all over with. Saying how he knew how busy we must be right now, Saltz over at Harvard gave the grad students until Monday to turn in our papers. This is really a boon since, in addition to studying for finals, I was swamped with finishing papers for my classes here at Charles this past week. I am happy to report, though, that I got them all in except the one for Saltz. I'll finish that over the weekend.<br /><br />Spring semester here at Charles doesn’t begin until the end of January. After the two week Christmas break, there is a three week intersession which the undergrads are required to take a class in, but not the grad students.<br /><br />Shivvy explained to me that these January intersession classes are mainly just for fun: they have courses on detective novels, science fiction, and that sort of thing. There are also study tours—usually to places where there is either skiing or warm sunny weather—for students whose parents can afford it. Being in this category herself, Shivvy and two of her girlfriends have signed up to study the tourist industry in Barbados.<br /><br />I wish I could afford to go with her, but I can’t. I’ll just go out to California for the Christmas break and then come back here before Shivvy shoves off for points south. While sunning herself in Barbados, I’ll prepare myself for becoming a TA next semester.<br /><br />On this last point, I have some good news to report: I will be TA’ing for Briggs after all! The reason for this is that Doug has done something truly unbelievable. I knew that, like me, Doug had been admitted to Gates University (home of the neo-liberal, Arch Faircloth) with a fellowship. Well, Doug came in the office this morning and told me that he was leaving Charles altogether and would be starting up at Gates next semester!<br /><br />He told me that he was so incensed by what Briggs had done to him that he called Faircloth on Monday, told him that he couldn’t stand to work with Briggs any more (but not why this was so), and begged to be let in. Faircloth was apparently delighted to have a defector from the neo-radical camp. He said he’d see what he could do, and then called Doug yesterday to say that both his admission to and fellowship from Gates had been reinstated for spring. He could even get credit for all the courses he took at Charles—all, that is, except Briggs’s. Faircloth said he wanted Doug to take his own course on IR theory.<br /><br />“I told him that was fine with me,” Doug related, “since Briggs’s class was all bullshit anyway.”<br /><br />I was shocked! I couldn’t believe what Doug was saying, much less what he was doing! And I told him so too.<br /><br />“It wasn’t very pleasant, I’m sure, to come home and find Briggs in bed with Angie,” I told him. “But to renounce neo-radicalism and become a neo-liberal over it? You’re overreacting, Doug!”<br /><br />Doug chose not to take my comments in the helpful, constructive spirit in which I had offered them.<br /><br />“Are you out of your mind?” he asked me. “The bastard was fucking my wife behind my back! In fact, he’s still fucking her; it’s just that everybody knows about it now. I can’t stay here!”<br /><br />“But how can you go work with Faircloth?” I asked. “What about the great critique of neo-liberalism you’ve been expounding all semester? How can you trash neo-liberalism and praise neo-radicalism for Briggs all semester here, and then go to Gates and do the opposite for Faircloth next semester? That’s just incredibly unethical!”<br /><br />“You apparently assume,” replied Doug, “that Faircloth is like Briggs and just wants his students to parrot his own views. But he’s not like that. I had a long talk with him and told him all about my attraction to neo-radicalism and even about my critique of neo-liberalism. And you know what? He said that that was fine with him. He wants his students to develop their own views, not just repeat his. He said he likes it when grad students challenge him; he said it helps him keep his own ideas fresh and sharp!<br /><br />“What a healthy attitude!” Doug continued. “And so very different from the sick one prevailing around here with senior professors like Briggs and Asquith who just want students to be their clones. No, Jonathan: what I’m doing is not unethical. It’s what Briggs has been doing with my wife that is!”<br /><br />“I’m afraid you’re wrong there, Dougie,” interjected Michael. I’m not sure when he came in the room or how much of our conversation he had overheard. “If your wife was a student here, then a professor having an affair with her would be considered unethical. But your wife wasn’t a student here, was she? So she was fair game!”<br /><br />Doug looked at him in disbelief. “She was my wife!” (Yes, he definitely said it in the past tense.) “I never expected that my major professor—someone whom I thought the world of—would do anything like this.”<br /><br />Michael described how there were “progressive ethics” upheld by universities against discrimination and sexual misconduct and there were “reactionary ethics” which forbade all sex outside of marriage. What Doug was expounding, he explained patiently, was an example of reactionary ethics—which universities were not obliged to uphold. “They couldn’t even if they wanted to,” he told us. Nor could a neo-radical like Briggs be expected to abide by any such reactionary code of conduct.<br /><br />Doug, I’m sorry to say, responded to this by calling Michael all sorts of foul names. Michael just laughed. But I was mad.<br /><br />“You know, Doug,” I said, “You really can’t blame Briggs for your problems. Angie would never have let herself be seduced by him if you hadn’t been so nasty to her.”<br /><br />Doug turned toward me. “So you’re on their side too? Well, I’m not surprised. You’d never dare challenge anything Briggs said or did, would you? Why, if he took a shit on your dinner plate, you’d eat it up and ask for more, you ass kisser!”<br /><br />I started to object strenuously to this, but Doug interrupted by asking, “Why am I even arguing with you losers? As far as I’m concerned, you’re history!” He then proceeded to pack up his desk and leave.<br /><br />So now with Doug as well as Danielle gone, there are just four of us left in the office.<br /><br />I had a much more pleasant conversation later on with Professor Briggs when he came in and asked if I would be his TA. I was thrilled by the offer, of course, but told him that I had been assigned to Trizenko.<br /><br />“I think an assistant professor—especially one who’s likely to be turned down for tenure—can do his own grading,” he responded. He then told me that the choice was mine, and that he would even talk to Trizenko for me if I felt awkward doing so. I accepted immediately! And who can blame me: being Briggs’s TA will look far better on my cv than being Trizenko’s. And besides: it was what I really wanted to do anyway.<br /><br />I did see Trizenko in the hall later and told him myself that I would be TA’ing for Briggs. I started to explain how I was far more knowledgeable about Briggs’s field than his anyway when he interrupted me by saying, “You don’t have to explain anything, Jonathan. I understand perfectly.”<br /><br />That didn’t sound too friendly. I hope he doesn’t take it out on me when it comes to assigning grades for the course I’m taking with him this semester. Maybe he’s turned his grades in for that class already; I think he’s the type that would. I should be okay then.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-5635803690372450572009-12-13T09:32:00.003-05:002009-12-18T11:42:11.175-05:00December 13I am writing on the Sunday following the last week of classes. Final exam week starts tomorrow, but I feel great—although I’m a little ashamed to admit it. I was feeling a little jealous of Doug for much of the semester since Briggs seemed to favor him over me. It became clear this past week, though, that Briggs is far less interested in Doug than in Doug’s wife.<br /><br />It turns out that Briggs and Angie have been having an affair. I’m not sure how long it’s been going on, but Doug found out about it last week when he went back home earlier than he normally does. Doug told me later that when he went inside, he found two sets of clothes—male and female—on the couch. Realizing that he was there, Angie quickly threw on her robe and even gave Doug’s to “Barry!”<br /><br />Doug was furious, he told me, not just at discovering that both of them had betrayed him, but at how nonchalant they both appeared at being caught. “Now, Doug,” he told me how Briggs had said, “I know this is a bit of an awkward situation, but I think it’s important that we all keep calm.”<br /><br />Doug said that he was anything but calm, and that he called Angie a “worthless slut.”<br /><br />“Well, none of this would have happened, Dougie,” she told him, “if you had treated me decently instead of like shit.”<br /><br />Doug then told Angie that he wanted her out of his apartment (and him being the student, it was indeed his) as soon as possible. Briggs then said she could move in with him, at least for the time being. Instead of being ashamed of herself, Doug told me angrily, Angie appeared to be delighted by this turn of events.<br /><br />After retrieving his clothes and retreating to the bedroom to change back into them, Briggs came back out and announced that he’d come by with his car at the end of the working day to transport Angie and her stuff out to his place. Angie, Doug said, remained in her short, skimpy terry cloth robe which she had not bothered to tie very carefully. She seemed to really enjoy showing herself off before the two of them, said Doug, scandalized. I have to admit: I wish I’d been there to see her dressed like that!<br /><br />“Now Doug,” Briggs said just before leaving, “I’m sure you’re a little upset by all this, but I want you to know that I have great respect for your work, which I really do think is quite promising. From what I’ve seen of your work so far, I’m sure you’ll be earning an “A” in my seminar. And I really am looking forward to your being my TA next semester. If that would be uncomfortable for you, though, I’m sure I can arrange for you to TA for Trizenko and for Jonathan to take your place with me.”<br /><br />Doug was indignant as he told me this. I have to admit, though, that I was thrilled at the prospect of our trading professors to TA for. The issue, however, was not resolved since Doug then ordered Briggs to get out.<br /><br />Briggs continued in what Doug described as his patronizing tone of voice, telling Angie he’d pick her up around five o’clock and advising Doug that he had a great career ahead of him and that Briggs would hate to see him jeopardize it by doing or saying anything “rash” now. “This sort of thing happens all the time,” Briggs was saying as he stepped out into the hall and Doug slammed the door on him.<br /><br />After calling each other a few choice names, Doug related, he and Angie quickly got down to dividing their few possessions which, fortuitously, did not include either a car or any furniture (the grad student apartments we lived in came furnished). That settled, Doug told her she could pack up by herself. He then went to their bank and drew out the few hundred dollars they had in their checking account. After that, he came over to the office where he found me and told me all about it.<br /><br />I sympathized with Doug, but I didn’t want him to take up my entire afternoon talking about his personal problems. I was just about to get up and leave when Michael came into the room. Doug immediately stopped talking, and so I was able to get back to my writing. Michael didn’t say anything, but the supercilious way in which he asked Doug how Angie was doing these days indicated that he knew what was happening—indeed, that he had known for some time. Doug tried to act busy, not looking at him and only answering his questions with one or two syllables. Michael said he was glad everything was going so well, laughed derisively, and then made a show of getting to work himself.<br /><br />Lisa came in the room a little while later. She apparently sensed that something was wrong because she asked why we were all so quiet. “I guess we’re just busy!” I tried to say cheerily.<br /><br />Michael left the room a short while later, telling Doug to be sure and give Angie his best regards as he went out. Almost as soon as he was gone, Doug cried out in a hoarse whisper, “He knew! That bastard knew! He even intimated something was going on between them at Thanksgiving!” So that’s what they were really arguing about! Lisa, of course, was all curious and concerned, and so he told her the whole story. Lisa was indignant that Briggs had seduced Angie. She said that the university should not tolerate such unethical conduct.<br /><br />At four o’clock, I reminded Doug that Briggs would be coming by in his car for Angie and suggested that we go over and help her get her stuff down to the lobby.<br /><br />He thanked me for offering to help, and so we set off. Once we got to our apartment building, though, Doug said he didn’t want to even see her. He asked if he could wait in my apartment until she was gone. Since he wouldn’t even phone her from my place, I did. She said she’d appreciate my help. With him standing there in front of me and her on the line, I arranged to bring her half of their bank balance upstairs in exchange for her key to Doug’s apartment. She was quite business-like on the phone, while it was clear to me that Doug was becoming increasingly emotional.<br /><br />I popped him a beer, gave him the remaining half of a potato chip bag that Shivvy and I had opened on the weekend, and then went over to what would soon be just Doug’s apartment.<br /><br />I was amazed at the sight of her when she opened the door of the apartment to me. Although it was a cold December evening outside, she had on a short, revealing black dress and black stockings. The blackness of the dress vividly contrasted with her pale skin and blonde hair. But despite the self-confidence that being dressed so sexily implied and her business-like tone on the phone just a few minutes ago, she was crying quietly now.<br /><br />“He treated me like shit, Jonathan! You and your girlfriend saw how he acted that night you came for dinner. I was so embarrassed! He was always belittling me like that!”<br /><br />I tried to say something reassuring, but she wasn’t listening to me.<br /><br />“Ever since we got here,” she continued, “he’s just steadily lost interest in me. Every time I tried to talk to him about what he was studying, he’d just say that it was too hard to explain to someone not already in the class. I even tried talking to him about the news, but he’d just blow me off by saying that whatever situation I wanted to talk about was `trivial’ as far as theory was concerned.”<br /><br />I’m sure Doug was right about this, but I didn’t think that it was a good time to say so.<br /><br />“For the past month or so,” she went on, “he’s just ignored me altogether. Why, he wouldn’t even take the time away from his studies to stop and fuck me!”<br /><br />This was embarrassing. I didn’t know what to say. Luckily, the phone rang. It was the front desk calling to say that Briggs had arrived, and asking us to please hurry up and come down since cars were only supposed to be parked in front of the main door for just a few minutes.<br /><br />I remembered to give Angie her cash, and she gave me her key. All of her stuff fit into just one suitcase and four cardboard boxes which she had gotten from the custodial staff. They had also let her borrow a dolly, which was great, since that meant we could take all her stuff down to the lobby in just one trip.<br /><br />I reminded her to put on her coat and hat since it was pretty cold outside. She reminded me to lock the door since I now had the key.<br /><br />As we got off the elevator, Briggs was there waiting for us impatiently. I went out to the car with them and helped him load her stuff into it. “Thanks for helping out, Jonathan,” he said. “I won’t forget this.” Turning to Angie, he said, “Okay, sweetheart; if you’re all set, let’s get going.”<br /><br />Before getting in his car, though, Angie came over to me and kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks for being a friend, Jonathan,” she said, looking directly at me. “I won’t forget this either.”<br /><br />I said I hoped we’d keep in touch. She got in the car and as they started to drive off, I saw her take off her hat and release her long blonde hair to flow down her shoulders.<br /><br />I took the dolly back inside and left it by the elevator for the custodians to find. When I got back to my apartment, Shivvy was there with Doug. After I gave him Angie’s key, he thanked me for helping him out and left.<br /><br />“He looks like he’s in bad shape,” I said.<br /><br />“Yeah, he’s a mess,” responded Shivvy, shaking her head. “But you know what? I think he’s a lot less bothered by the fact that Angie was cheating on him than by the realization that he really wasn’t Briggs’s prize little pupil after all.”<br /><br />She laughed at her own observation and continued, “I’m afraid it’s the old story, Dougie! Briggsy didn’t love you for your brain, but for your body! Your wife’s body, that is!”Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-40390539597449431262009-12-06T08:12:00.003-05:002009-12-13T09:32:51.670-05:00December 6This has been a traumatic week. The professors all met just after Thanksgiving break to assess our progress and decide on funding for next semester. All of us first year students passed muster, and we got our TA assignments for next semester. Just as she had hoped, Lisa Dudwick will TA for Theda DeKlerk—the feminist professor. And just as, I’m sure, Craig Hatfield wanted, he will TA for Elton Asquith. But much to my chagrin, Briggs picked Doug to TA for him, and not me. I kind of expected this, given how well Doug gets on with Briggs, but it still hurt. Much worse for me, though, is that I was picked to TA for Trizenko.<br /><br />This is a disaster! It’s bad enough that he and I are not on the same intellectual wavelength. Worse, it won’t do my career any good to be associated with someone who is probably going to be denied tenure this year. Even if he successfully appeals the decision next year, the stigma of being turned down this year is going to stick with him—and me!<br /><br />I can just see it now: when I’m on the job market sending out my vita, people are going to look at it and say, “He TA’ed for Trizenko? Isn’t that the guy that got turned down for tenure at Charles?”<br /><br />Worse still, whatever is left of Trizenko’s reputation is going to be completely shot as a result of this whole incident with Danielle. People are going to say, “Wasn’t Trizenko the guy who led a demonstration in defense of a racist TA?” People may think that the TA in question is me! What the hell did I do to deserve all this? Being Trizenko’s TA is going to make the next semester sheer hell for me.<br /><br />Michael, of course, is getting fellowship support for next semester. And just as he predicted, Danielle is not. She has already announced her intention to withdraw from the Ph.D. program and leave Charles University altogether at the end of this semester.<br /><br />Michael thinks that this is the only appropriate course of action for her after being accused of racism. Lisa and Craig, though, are saying she has not received due process: it would be one thing to take away her funding if it had been proved she had been guilty of racism, but it was quite another to do so after only being accused of it. Doug and I aren’t as down on her as Michael, but we’re not with Craig and Lisa either. Taking away her funding as a result of an accusation of racism is harsh, but we can understand how the faculty doesn’t want to be seen protecting a racist. I personally think she should go on leave until the matter is settled one way or another. But maybe it’s best for her to just go away altogether: with Trizenko likely to leave next year at the latest, there’s probably nobody else here she would want to work with—or who would want to work with her—on a dissertation about Russian politics.<br /><br />In any event, she’s not being forced out. She could come up with the tuition herself through student loans or getting a job. It was Danielle herself who decided to leave before the charges against her were cleared up. So, in the end, I really can’t feel too sorry for her.<br /><br />It’s very clear, though, that she’s feeling rather sorry for herself. She sent me the following e-mail message, which I reproduce in full:<br /><br /><em>Jonathan:<br /><br />Being shoved by [once again, I omit his name—JV] was bad. Being then accused by him of racism for calling him an asshole—which he was—for shoving me was also bad. But neither was as bad as being betrayed by my so-called colleagues and see them trumpet their raw, naked hostility toward me at the top of their lungs. I wouldn’t have stayed here even if they had renewed my funding after that.<br /><br />It didn’t surprise me to see lickspittles like Michael and Doug join Briggs and Asquith in that vicious demonstration against me, but I expected you to give me the benefit of the doubt the way Craig and Lisa did.<br /><br />I used to think of you as a friend, but not any more. Still, I hope that you never experience what has happened to me—no matter how much you deserve to!<br /><br />Danielle</em><br /><br />Strong stuff! I sent her back what I thought was a diplomatic message saying that I participated in the demonstration not out of any feelings of personal hostility toward her, but from my desire to join Prof. Briggs in expressing my principled opposition to racism in general.<br /><br />She wrote back:<br /><br /><em>J: <br /><br />Briggs and Asquith acting as cheerleaders in that demonstration had nothing to do with any “principled opposition to racism.” And do you always write so ponderously? Through branding me a racist, they hoped to discredit Ilya and derail his application for tenure. And by coming to my defense the way he did, he fell right into their trap.<br /><br />Can’t you see through all their leftist mumbo-jumbo???<br /><br />D</em><br /><br />I didn’t even bother to respond; the poor woman is clearly hysterical. She’s lucky I didn’t forward her libelous message on to Professors Briggs and Asquith—like someone else might have done who wanted to curry favor with them.<br /><br />This past Friday afternoon (yes, I’m back to writing this diary on a Sunday), all of us incoming TA’s were called to a meeting with the professors we have been assigned to as well as the outgoing TA’s. Not only did Danielle not show up, but Trizenko didn’t either—yet one more black mark against him. The rest of us, I think, were just as happy that they didn’t. I’ll have to meet with him at some point, though, since I’ll be working with him.<br /><br />Anyway, after the chair, Prof. Stavros, said a few words, both Asquith and Briggs gave talks about the extreme importance of TA’s being sensitive in dealing with—and especially grading—minority students. Prof. DeKlerk then appealed to the new male TA’s in particular to be sensitive to students from “the other gender.” Asquith then got back up and urged us not to overlook the “special needs” of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students. We then had a general discussion in which everyone expressed their fealty to these important principles.<br /><br />[I would never admit it publicly, but I am not quite certain what “transgendered” means. I would, of course, never knowingly discriminate against such students. I only hope, though, that they will let me know if they are in this category so that I can treat them with the sensitivity they undoubtedly deserve.]<br /><br />Afterward, Michael, Doug, and I all went out for a beer (we invited Craig and Lisa, but they wouldn’t come with us). As we began drinking, Michael announced that he would now give us the “inside scoop” about racially sensitive grading—what nobody on the faculty would say out loud, but which we needed to know.<br /><br />“The whole point about being racially sensitive,” he informed us, “is to advance the progressive agenda and not the reactionary one.” What this meant, he explained, was that we should “encourage and reward” members of minority groups who did this and “correct” those who did not.<br /><br />Both African-Americans and Latinos were the most disadvantaged minority groups, he explained, and so they needed to be especially encouraged and rewarded. There were, however, “reactionary exceptions” within these two groups who needed correcting.<br /><br />“African-American males who have served in the military are all right-wingers, to a man!” said Michael. “Nor are they ashamed about it either.” It was necessary to be patient but firm in trying to re-educate them, he advised.<br /><br />“And while Latinos in general are progressive, one group—Cuban-Americans—are ultra-reactionary.” Michael suggested that students from this group were so stubbornly reactionary that attempting to speak with them politely was useless. “Just give them the “C minuses” they deserve,” he advised. They were in no position to complain, Michael observed, because other Latinos would not come to their defense. “They’re that unpopular,” he concluded.<br /><br />I, of course, had known that Cuban emigres were all right-wingers. I had never thought of them as Hispanics, but as Spanish-speaking whites instead. I was, though, a little uncomfortable with the idea that a whole segment of the African-American population—those who had served in the military—were reactionary. Michael’s depiction, though, made me wonder whether Prof. Saltz had been in the armed forces; this might explain a lot.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-69962387893880655652009-11-27T10:02:00.003-05:002009-12-06T08:12:33.223-05:00November 27It’s almost two weeks since my last entry, but at least I’m writing on a Friday. Today, in fact, is the day after Thanksgiving and I am here alone in my apartment.<br /><br />Well, Michael was right: there have been negative consequences indeed for Danielle over the incident with the black student. Danielle’s attempts to get him arrested, expelled, or suspended all failed due to lack of any witness to his allegedly shoving her. Furthermore, the student has filed charges of racial discrimination against her with the university, citing the two low grades she gave him as well as her calling him an “asshole”—which several people overheard, including Michael. The student claimed that since assholes are black, Danielle’s calling him an “asshole” was a racial slur. The Charles University Office of Equity and Diversity Services has launched an investigation.<br /><br />For once, I did not learn all this from Michael. Instead, I read about it, along with everybody else, in last Friday’s student newspaper. The article, which started on the front page, did not mention the black student’s name; the editors explained that they were not identifying him in order to protect him against racist reprisals that might be made against him. I was struck by the editors’ sensitivity. Even though I know the student’s name, I will follow the same practice here to protect him against the possibility of future reprisals either when my biographers quote from this diary or it is eventually published.<br /><br />The paper, though, did publish Danielle’s name. Things got even worse for her afterward. Word quickly spread that day that there would be a demonstration against “racist TA’s” in front of our building, Case Hall, on Monday morning. I saw some demonstrators, including Michael, when I was coming to the building for Briggs’s class that day.<br /><br />Briggs was a little late for class that morning. When he came in, he launched a diatribe against racism here at Charles University, citing what Danielle had done as only the latest instance of it. He really gave an impressive speech. It was too bad there were no black students in our seminar to hear it. They would have been deeply impressed, I am sure.<br /><br />Briggs then announced that he was canceling class in order to participate in the demonstration against racist TA’s. He said that we were all free to join him in making a statement against racism or not: it was up to us. Almost everyone, including Doug and me, went with him. I must admit, I felt a little bad about demonstrating against Danielle, who had always been nice to me. I decided, though, that making a statement against racism was far more important than feelings of personal friendship.<br /><br />(I can’t help but note that neither Craig Hatfield nor Lisa Dudwick came with the rest of us to the demonstration. I won’t speculate as to their motives.)<br /><br />Back outside, the cohort from our seminar served to double the size of the demonstration. We were certainly a diverse group of mainly white graduate students and black university employees, mainly from the Office of Equity and Diversity Services. In addition to Briggs, Prof. Asquith was also there from our department. There were also a couple of reporters there from the student newspaper. I thought it was a little strange that, apart from the student involved in the incident with Danielle, there were no black students there. Perhaps they hadn’t heard about the demonstration.<br /><br />The demonstration probably would have broken up after ten minutes or so except for two things that happened. First, Danielle herself happened to come by, apparently on her way into the building. Upon seeing her, Briggs, Michael, the black student involved in the incident with her, and the head of the Office of Equity and Diversity Services all got us chanting, “Down with racist TA’s! Down with racist TA’s!”<br /><br />Even while I was chanting, I felt very sorry for Danielle. She looked genuinely stunned. She, apparently, had not heard about this demonstration. She stared at us for several seconds. She tried to say something to us, but I couldn’t hear her because the chanting then grew louder. It looked like she was starting to cry as she turned around and started to go into Case Hall when something else happened.<br /><br />Just as she was opening the door, Prof. Trizenko was coming out at the head of what looked like his entire lower division comparative politics class (the one for which Danielle is his TA). (I guess it was to go to that class that she had been coming to Case Hall in the first place; obviously, she was running late.) Trizenko took her by the hand. It looked like he was speaking quite earnestly to her until all of his students were outside and he began leading them in a chant of “Justice for Danielle! Justice for Danielle!”<br /><br />Trizenko’s classroom apparently overlooked the front of Case Hall, and so he and his students undoubtedly saw and heard our demonstration. Danielle threw her arms around Trizenko and was openly weeping. She seemed even more surprised by Trizenko’s demonstration than by ours.<br /><br />We were quite surprised by his demonstration too—especially since it was a lot bigger than ours. Not only that, but it rapidly got bigger as several passers-by—including Shivvy—joined it.<br /><br />Briggs and Asquith were furious over what Trizenko had done. “How dare he?” demanded Asquith.<br /><br />“I don’t care what Stavros wrote in his favor,” said Briggs grimly. “Leading a demonstration in defense of a racist TA is going to sink his tenure application when it gets to the college promotion and tenure committee. The students at this university may be unprincipled right-wingers, but the people I know on that committee are not.’<br /><br />It was a sign of just how upset Briggs was that he would talk like this in front of Michael, Doug, and me. I remember Cohen back at Barstow telling me that professors were never supposed to talk about tenure decisions and other sensitive personnel issues with students.<br /><br />The “Justice for Danielle” crowd was growing intimidatingly large when the campus police arrived and positioned themselves between our two groups. I was glad they arrived, because who knows what the right-wingers might have done otherwise? The cops announced that it was time for everyone to cool down. After putting up a brief show of not wanting to leave, both groups dispersed shortly after Trizenko led Danielle away from the building.<br /><br />The fallout continued. The next day, a sign appeared on our office door saying that Danielle would no longer be holding office hours here, but in Prof. Trizenko’s office instead. She apparently didn’t want to be in the same office with Michael, Doug, or even me. Michael told me that she and Trizenko came and got all her stuff. Michael is absolutely positive that she will not get any fellowship support for the spring semester now. He even thinks that Lisa and Craig not joining our demonstration will be a black mark against them. At least they didn’t join Trizenko’s demonstration; that really would have cooked them with Briggs and Asquith!<br /><br />Before we parted company that morning, Briggs asked Michael, Doug, and me if we’d like to come over to his place for an “alternative Thanksgiving” on Thursday. Michael accepted immediately and so did Doug after making sure he could bring Angie. Much as I wanted to accept, I could not: I had already agreed to spend the day with Shivvy and her family. Damn!<br /><br />Shivvy and I had a furious argument Monday afternoon about Danielle and over the two of us being in opposing demonstrations. Fortunately, our relationship is strong enough that we were able to overcome our differences. Besides, neither of us could afford to spend time thinking about Danielle and her problems since we both had a lot of work to get done. The end of semester crunch has definitely arrived!<br /><br />Although I didn’t get to attend Brigg’s “alternative Thanksgiving,” I heard all about it earlier this evening from Doug and Angie, who were kind enough to invite me to their place for dinner (like most undergrads, Shivvy is spending the entire Thanksgiving break with her family; it is only impecunious grad students like Doug and me who have to stay on campus).<br /><br />It was mainly Angie who described what happened. “It was a good thing I was there,” she said laughingly, “otherwise these boys wouldn’t have had anything but beer and potato chips for their Thanksgiving dinner!” Briggs had apparently not prepared anything and was just going to order pizza for his guests. At Angie’s insistence, though, he and she went out and miraculously found a store that was open. “He bought and I cooked!” she explained. Since there were only four of them for dinner and cooking a whole turkey would take so long, she had him buy a chicken instead.<br /><br />“When we got back,” Angie told me, “Michael and Doug here were having a furious argument over whether the word `asshole’ is a racial slur. Michael was saying it was because assholes are black while Dougie was saying it wasn’t because they are brown.<br /><br />“After they each made their case to Barry,” she continued, “he told them that the only way they could settle the issue was to ask Professor Asquith, since he was more familiar with assholes than anyone else in the department!” Angie laughed uproariously at this, but Doug did not look pleased. I had a feeling that they were still not completely in harmony with each other.<br /><br />I have to admit, I was just a little taken aback to hear Angie talking dirty like that. I don’t know why, but I was.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-9948939239566369772009-11-15T08:22:00.003-05:002009-11-27T10:02:00.522-05:00November 15An ugly incident took place this past week. I mentioned earlier that Danielle had a run-in with a black student over the grade she gave him on a midterm for the Trizenko class she is the TA for, and that he accused her of racism. Well, she gave him a low grade on another assignment for the class. Angered by this, the student came to confront her about this during her office hours. As it happened, there was nobody else in the office (the rest of us were, as usual, somewhere else at the time).<br /><br />The situation quickly escalated: he allegedly shoved her against the wall (they were apparently standing) and she shouted, “Keep your hands off of me, you asshole!” Hearing the noise, people from neighboring offices and the hallway rushed in, including Michael. According to him, Danielle called the campus police. To his credit, the black student didn’t run away, but stayed there telling everyone how this “white bitch” was prejudiced against him because he was black. Danielle was in tears.<br /><br />What happened next was very interesting. If an incident like this occurred off-campus, the regular police would undoubtedly have carted the black male off to jail immediately. But, as Michael explained, university police are for more sensitive about racial matters. Since nobody else was in the office at the time, there were no witnesses present to say whether the black student shoved Danielle or not. She said he did, but he denied it. Since it was just his word against hers, the police didn’t arrest the student—much to Danielle’s fury.<br /><br />The black student also claimed that Danielle had called him an “asshole” just out of the blue. She, of course, said his actions had provoked her to say this, which many people outside the room (including Michael) had overheard her calling him. The student demanded that Danielle apologize and raise his grade, but she refused. The campus police then attempted to initiate a “healing” session, but according to Michael, Danielle would not cooperate. Instead, she insisted that a police officer escort her back to her campus apartment, which one did. The black student, the police, and everyone else who did not have a carrel there then left the office. It was all over by the time I arrived, but Michael was there to tell me all about it.<br /><br />After doing so, Michael said ominously, “This little episode is not over!”<br /><br />I expressed concern that the black student might experience negative consequences as a result of it.<br /><br />Michael snorted at this, saying that Danielle was the one likely to experience negative consequences—and that she might do so in just a few short weeks when the department faculty met at the end of the semester to decide upon whether grad students should receive continued funding.<br /><br />Michael, I’m sure, was exaggerating. He really seems to harbor an active dislike for Danielle. But if he went to one extreme with regard to this incident, Shivvy went to the other when I told her about it. According to her, Danielle would never have accused the black student of shoving her unless he had actually done so. Further, she claimed that Danielle would never have called him an “asshole” unless he deserved it. I almost wish I hadn’t told Shivvy about the incident (although she probably would have found out anyway) because it has only served to increase her irrational fear of black males. She’s going to have to get help for this problem, I think.<br /><br />As for me, I take a more balanced view of the situation. If indeed he did do so, it was clearly wrong for the black student to have shoved Danielle. But it was also clearly wrong for Danielle to call him an “asshole”—which she definitely did. But the underlying problem that led to this incident—the fact that Danielle gave low grades to this black student on two assignments—must not be overlooked.<br /><br />Now if she had given low grades to a white student on two successive assignments, it could be argued that the student may have actually deserved them. But giving low grades to a black student on two successive assignments does seem a little suspicious to me. More than this, it was insensitive. Surely Danielle should have realized that, given the history of injustice experienced by them, black students are far more likely than white students to react negatively to receiving low grades from white professors or TA’s.<br /><br />Yes, I think it is always important to exhibit the highest degree of racial sensitivity whenever the occasion arises. And this is something, I must say, that Danielle obviously did not do.<br /><br />Clearly, though, she is not alone. Another person who, most surprisingly, does not seem to exhibit much racial sensitivity is Prof. Saltz at Harvard. Although black himself, I have not yet heard him even once refer to an African or African-American perspective on international security. The one African-American whose views on international security he cites positively is Colin Powell. But being both a Republican and a former general, Powell is hardly representative of African-Americans, as far as I am concerned. And Saltz has frequently disparaged the views of Jesse Jackson on international security issues. This makes me very uncomfortable.<br /><br />It seems obvious to me that an African-American like Saltz would never have become a Harvard professor had it not been for the efforts of Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders. It also seems obvious that for Saltz to criticize Jackson is an instance of biting the hand that fed him. And by criticizing Jackson and ignoring the African-American perspective on international security, Saltz is being less than loyal to his race.<br /><br />Re-reading the last paragraph, I realize that some might see Colin Powell as an example of an African-American perspective on international security, but this is not true. Powell is a Republican. And as everyone knows, authentic African-American perspectives are always liberal.<br /><br />I find, then, that I profoundly disagree with Saltz on many issues. My own intense concern for racial sensitivity, however, prevents me from challenging him. Republican though he may be, I am afraid that openly disagreeing with an African-American professor would be interpreted—either by him or by others—as racially motivated.<br /><br />It never ceases to amaze me, though, that the white Harvard grad students do not hesitate to challenge Saltz, often quite fiercely. They, clearly, do not possess the same degree of racial sensitivity that I do. While Saltz gives no indication of being bothered by this, I am sure that he must be hurting inside.<br /><br />[I really have to congratulate myself: this entry will truly demonstrate to my future biographers just how racially sensitive I am. This will really go over well. Don’t delete anything I’ve written here—except, of course, for this paragraph.]<br /><br />The only other news I have to report this week is what Michael told me about the progress of Trizenko’s tenure application. I don’t know how he learned this, but according to him, the chair of the political science department, George Stavros, decided to recommend in favor of Trizenko receiving tenure despite the negative vote from the tenured faculty.<br /><br />I hadn’t realized before Michael explained it to me that that there are many stages in the tenure process. First, there is a vote by the tenured members of the candidate’s department. Second, the chair of the department makes his, or her, own recommendation. Third, a vote is taken (in this case) by the social science subcommittee of the Arts and Sciences College’s promotion and tenure committee. Fourth, a vote is taken by the college’s full promotion and tenure committee. Fifth, the dean of the college makes a recommendation. Sixth, the provost makes a recommendation. Seventh, the president of the university, reviewing all the earlier stages, makes a decision on the case. And eighth, if the president’s decision is positive, the university’s board of trustees then has to ratify it. Whew!<br /><br />Michael expressed sheer disgust that Stavros would recommend Trizenko for tenure after the tenured faculty of the department had voted him down. As for me, I hope that Trizenko does get tenure. He’s obviously not in the same league as Briggs. But he really is a pretty good professor—even if he did testify on Capitol Hill and appear on TV.Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762259510279159656.post-54604345612719534752009-11-08T09:22:00.003-05:002009-11-15T08:22:28.524-05:00November 8Well, I’m writing on a Sunday again, but this time only one week since the last entry. Something happened last night that I need to describe while the memory is still fresh in my mind.<br /><br />Last week, Doug invited Shivvy and me to have dinner with him and his wife, Angie, in their apartment.<br /><br />We didn’t have far to go. Doug and Angie live in the same building I do, but they have a one-bedroom since they’re married. I was going to bring a six-pack of beer, but Shivvy insisted I buy a bottle of nice white wine. She even went with me to the liquor store to make sure it was nice enough. When we got there, Doug and I had beer while Shivvy and Angie drank the wine.<br /><br />Angie seemed very pleased to see us. She said that life here was kind of dull for her between waitressing, Doug studying all the time, and her not knowing anybody since she wasn’t a student. It looked like she had gone to a lot of trouble making little appetizers (I know there’s some French term for them, but I can’t think of it). Shivvy commented that although their apartment was a lot larger than mine, it was also a lot neater.<br /><br />Doug and I mainly talked about neo-radicalism and how we each hoped to extend it, leaving the two girls to chat by themselves. I know that sounds kind of sexist, but it wasn’t our fault that they didn’t want to talk about neo-radicalism with us. It looked like Shivvy was helping Angie in the kitchen anyway.<br /><br />Dinner was excellent! Angie had made jambalaya for us, and we toasted her for it. For the vegetable, she had fried up okra. I’ve never liked okra before, but the way Angie cooked it was terrific.<br /><br />Angie said that since she and Doug really didn’t have a social life, she wanted to make this dinner special. Doug denied that they had no social life. Just last weekend, he reminded her, they had gone over to Barrington Briggs’s house for dinner.<br /><br />“You don’t mean Professor Briggs, do you?” asked Shivvy incredulously.<br /><br />“That’s the one!” said Doug, clearly quite pleased with himself. “He told us to just call him Barry.”<br /><br />I have to admit, I was not happy to hear this. To tell the truth, I was jealous that I hadn’t been invited too.<br /><br />“What was the occasion?” asked Shivvy. “Were there a lot of people there?”<br /><br />“It was just us,” said Doug, with what I thought was an artificial nonchalance. “No special occasion.”<br /><br />“Maybe he invites each of his students over in turn,” Angie added, apparently trying to soothe me. She didn’t succeed.<br /><br />“What’s his house like?” asked Shivvy.<br /><br />“Oh, it’s real nice,” said Angie enthusiastically. “He’s got a lot of interesting art work.”<br /><br />“He calls it `neo-radical art,’” chimed in Doug. “It’s all by artists from nations struggling for freedom from oppression.”<br /><br />“Is that what it was?” said Angie. “He should come by where I work. We’re all oppressed, and I’m sure we could draw him a picture too!”<br /><br />We all laughed at this. I don’t know why, but I was surprised that she could say something so clever.<br /><br />“Jeez!” exclaimed Shivvy. “I can’t believe Briggs actually lives in a house. We all thought he lived in the library or some place like that.”<br /><br />We all laughed at this too. Shivvy saying something clever was no surprise at all.<br /><br />“Actually,” said Doug in a more serious tone, “I think he invited us over because he’s interested in my critique of Faircloth and the neo-liberals. He’s wrestling over precisely what angle to take on them in his new book.”<br /><br />“Oh yes,” I said, trying to act knowing. “I remember he mentioned that at the International Relations Association conference.”<br /><br />“Right. I’m helping him with some of the finishing touches,” Doug added.<br /><br />I was getting increasingly jealous. “You’ve seen it?” I realized what a stupid question this was as soon as I had asked it.<br /><br />“I could hardly help him with the finishing touches if I hadn’t,” Doug responded, with more than a hint of condescension.<br /><br />Apparently sensing that this line of conversation was not promoting sociability, Angie tried to change its direction by saying, “Oh, Doug! Barry wasn’t just interested in hearing about your old critiques. He was interested in my ideas, too.”<br /><br />Doug stared at his wife for a moment, and then in a highly sarcastic tone, responded, “Of course, he was interested in your ideas, Angie. We all are, I’m sure.”<br /><br />Poor Angie. The sweet smile on her face of a moment ago was instantly replaced by a look of utter pain. It was clear she was about to cry, but she got up from her chair and ran into their bedroom before doing so.<br /><br />I was stunned by what had just happened. I didn’t know what to say. As usual, though, Shivvy did. “As a matter of fact, I am interested in her ideas,” she said. She then got up from her chair, went over to the bedroom, and closed the door behind her.<br /><br />“Oh, shit!” said Doug when we were alone. “These Southern girls are so damned sensitive.”<br /><br />“Maybe, but that really wasn’t a very nice thing to have said to her,” I responded. (I think I said that. If I didn’t, I should have.)<br /><br />“She started crying over something I said when we were at Briggs’s place, too. It was really embarrassing.”<br /><br />We talked desultorily for awhile about Trizenko’s situation, but both of us were really listening for any sound coming out of the bedroom. “Maybe you’d better go apologize,” I said after awhile. (I think I really did say that. I should have said it sooner. But then again, I shouldn’t have had to say it at all: he should have just gone and done it right away.)<br /><br />Just as he was getting up, the bedroom door opened. Angie came out with Shivvy behind her, with her hands on her shoulders. Doug hurried over, and said, “I’m really sorry, honey,” in a much quieter and meeker tone of voice than I was accustomed to hearing from him.<br /><br />“We have dessert!” she announced brightly, ignoring him. “I’ve made pecan pie!” She and Shivvy then went into the kitchen and made a show of bringing the pie out and serving it up.<br /><br />We all—especially Doug—told Angie how great it was, and she thanked us nicely. The strain, though, was still there. As soon as we’d finished our pie (which was awfully good), Shivvy and I left them to what we were sure was not a night of bliss.<br /><br />On the way back to my place, Shivvy told me about what transpired in the bedroom. Angie completely collapsed into tears, and complained bitterly about Doug. Before they came to Charles, he had treated her more or less as an equal, but ever since he had started the program here, he treated her disdainfully and generally took her for granted. She was also terribly lonely since she didn’t know anybody here except the people whom she met at work and through Doug. The former did not exactly share her interests in international relations, and the latter did not take her seriously. And with Doug talking to her in front of others the way he had in front of us, nobody was going to take her seriously either. Besides Shivvy and me at the party we had and again tonight, Angie related, Prof. Briggs was the only person here who had bothered to talk to her.<br /><br />How sad. Well, I’m sure Doug and Angie will work things out. Despite what happened last night, I know that Doug is a really humane guy. He’s a neo-rad, after all.<br />I am puzzled, though, as to why it is that Doug has managed to get so much closer to Briggs than I have. What am I doing wrong that Doug is obviously doing right? I’m going to write up that critique of Saltz and hand it in to Briggs as soon as possible. Maybe then he’ll invite me over for dinner too!Diary of a First Year Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00962105836849208431noreply@blogger.com0