To Be or not to Be an Academic?

Your dream comes true and you are offered a tenured position at a university. To secure your position, you should be on the go- that publish or perish stuff- until you retire. As an academic, you have always been on the go- from cradle to grave. Yes, literally and genuinely from cradle to grave. You do everything to secure your position- even marrying the chancellor’s daughter! Yes, literally and genuinely marrying the Chancellor’s daughter. Happy beginning. Next, sweet challenges come your way.

Scenario 1:

You are required to prepare a list of your on-probation students and consider each case ten days to Sunday. As an academic adviser, you should, by fair means or by foul, schedule as many meetings as necessary with the low-achievers to inject motivation into them- just choose the appropriate syringe from a dispensary!

-       “You have missed several lectures, but the Support Center can help you catch up.”

-       “Can you teach me the lessons I missed? In your office hours.”

It’s time to promote autonomous learning:

-       “Use the lecture notes and course materials to study the topics you missed, then come to me for questions.”

-       “Could you provide me with chapter summaries?”

-       “Summaries help you review the materials. I advise you to first study the full chapters using the reading strategies I suggested earlier this semester.”

-       “The course materials are difficult to understand. I need to pass the course. It’s the third time I repeat it.”

Okay! The best policy now is patience.

Scenario 2:

You have uploaded the course materials and assessment plan for a graduate course on Moodle, held your introductory session to explain the syllabus, course learning outcomes, and assessment components. Now what happens in Week 3:

-       “Professor, this is just too much for a part-time grad program. We request some adjustments to the syllabus.”

-       “I’m afraid the course syllabus is the same for full-time and part-time programs.”

-       “At least omit the presentations.”

-       “It’s part of your performance assessment.”

-       “We are working students. You should consider our situation.”

You stick to your principles and you end up in Dean’s Office to address students’ complaints. You are ultimately requested to “consider the students’ situation”- in homespun language, reduce the syllabus!

Academic life is not an easy one to live. The scenarios above are just snippets of interactions likely to happen in educational settings. You make concerted efforts to put a fallen-behind student back on track, but they take it as power imposition. Many a time the consultations have been to no avail. Following some dramatic gestures on both sides, the adviser’s meetings with the students are largely lachrymose on the students’ part and sullen on the adviser’s. Who is accountable for this communication breakdown? You, the academic adviser? The on-probation student? Or the authority who put you on their payroll?

In depicting the tip of the iceberg in academia’s life, Edward Albee’s Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf? and David Mamet’s Oleanna are cases in point. I reviewed Oleanna in my earlier post War of Words: The Handicapped Andragogy, and I thought a comparative review could reveal more of academics’ personal and professional life.

In Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?,  George, a History professor, is married to Martha, the Chancellor’s daughter, and this features the Machiavellian theme of “end justifies the means.” The couple care for each other, of course, and their invention of an imaginary son testifies to their love.  But it’s also obvious that this marriage could cherish George’s ambitions. The play begins when the couple are back home at 2 a.m. from a faculty party at Martha’s father’s house while Martha sings “Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?” as a replacement to the childhood song “Who is afraid of the big bad wolf?” A parenthetical note is worth mentioning here. Virginia Woolf is known for getting inside her characters’ minds to reveal what it’s like to be in their shoes.

Martha tells George that the new Biology professor Nick and his wife Honey whom they met at the party are coming over. George doesn’t like the idea of late-night visitors, teases Martha about her being old and loud, and they argue even after the guests arrive. Martha’s humiliating words about George’s unsuccessful performance at the History Department and her praise of Nick intensifies the conflict. George’s qualifications are questioned by his wife, and his academic reputation is marred before the new comers. George goes mad, breaks a bottle against the wall, and sings, “Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to target Martha’s inner thoughts.

The fights and sarcastic arguments continue, Nick and his wife are also involved against their will, and the most private secrets about both couples such as having a child are revealed. In the end, Nick and Honey leave and Martha and George try to settle their conflicts.

The most prominent themes that Albee’s and Mamet’s plays have in common include the academics’ threatened power position and their humiliation.  In Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George’s power position is smashed into pieces when Martha starts humiliating him and praising the handsome Nick.

In Oleanna (see War of Words: The Handicapped Andragogy), John, the professor, struggles to maintain his power position against Carol’s (the student) threatening complaints, which are humiliating to an academic who always had the last say.  Both plays reflect the vulnerable persona of the academics who appear rigid and conceited to the public. In Oleanna, Carol gets on the professor’s nerves and, despite his efforts to maintain an academic dialog with her, he loses his temper and throws the stool at Carol, who is now in power position. John’s status at home as the breadwinner is also threatened by his housing issues.

George’s situation in Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is even worse. His home and work are integrated. It was his father-in-law who was the means for him to get this academic position, but paradoxically, this power position is such a vulnerable one that is threatened by the slightest domestic fight.

Albee and Mamet portrayed the threats to an academic’s life. Are they fiction? Likely so. Plays are meant to be performed on stage, but in my book, there are real-life instances of what is considered fiction here.  On top of that, I would like to argue that Albee’s Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is far from absurd. There is much to argue for this claim, and I’d rather elaborate on it in a separate post. Suffice it to say that simply because the couple has built their twenty-something years of marriage on an imaginary son cannot make it a theater of absurd. I would say their conflict is as real as Mamet’s Oleanna as a realistic play.

Regarding the problems mentioned in the scenarios above, and similar cases for that matter, I had recourse to exploiting fiction. I tried different strategies except asking my students who is afraid of Virginia Woolf, or getting them to know Carol.

I eventually decided to substitute dramatic arts for the boring consultation meetings: on-probation students wrote their experiences in the form of stories or plays to act out in class. It was nice for a change of mood, effective in helping them have their voice without getting defensive, and impressive to me to see a balance in power relations.

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