Something strange in the neighborhood

Wut happened? Universities are such nice quiet places all summer, and then bam!  Something happens! It's noisy, it's crowded, it's a longer line at the coffee shop, it's hard to find parking (if you drive to campus).  Oh, yes, the students have returned for the fall semester, an event TPP avoided last year by taking a  sabbatical in Tuscany from life as usual. It hasn't changed. Students can be seen wandering around looking lost. iZombies wander the sidewalks. TPP is still concerned about the preparedness of today's students, what has been called the infantization of college students, the idea that students should be protected from discomforting and disturbing ideas or concepts. Nothing whatever should challenge their carefully crafted parochial world views. It never dawns on people that this severely limits learning.  Memos from deans suggest how to include "trigger warnings" in your syllabus as a precaution. Yes, probably a good thing TPP has retired with his record to having been accused of being a sexist, a racist, and a religious proselytizer all in the same semester while teaching botany. Some records you just have to be proud of and TPP wasn't even trying to slay any sacred cows or even advocate any cultural changes. It was however a non-majors class, and that semester prompted the move to change the class to an upper division majors class.  The thing about this is that some of these new students will not just do fine, they will do great, prosper, and take advantage of all the neat things you can do at university, like research, but it's impossible to tell ahead which ones. Finding those who wanted to learn was one of the great things about being a university professor. So from the sidelines, TPP wishes his colleagues and all the new students well. The formula for success is pretty easy: go to class, take time to think, and make an honest effort. As for the students, well, the same advice applies to you too.

The hotness of being a botanist

Middle aged men who think they are more attractive to women than they actually are may be afflicted by a "hotness delusion syndrome". You think? Firstly, the Phactor is well beyond middle age, and never had any illusions of being "a gift to women." Having spent the last 40+ years working on college campuses, surrounded with young women, it hit me right around the age of 40 that as a sex object the Phactor had become invisible to young women. Curiously, young women pay more attention to me now than then, perhaps a manifestation of the "harmless grandfather syndrome". When you say botanist, the bar isn't set real high on the expectations of being your being hot, especially on the male side because remember as a profession a great many of my colleagues are female, a higher proportion than any other scientific field, and nearly all of them good looking (covering my bases here), especially the lovely Suzanne. Without question though the best looking botanist is a paleobotanist, and he's so good looking you could get a gay flash from his flowing, perfectly-coiffed platinum hair, his Gallic profile, adorned in a cream colored blazer over a plum colored shirt, and so on. He's so perfect he could be a werewolf from London. So with this obvious exception, most of us are geeks, some less, some more. This became quite obvious when after hearing a lecture from a noted science educator who extolled us to make science "cooler", thereby deflating her case because nothing is less cool than saying "cool", to attract more kids into careers in science. Now in high school, how many of the cool kids were actually top achievers in life? Based on my experience, one or two; the rest were a flash in the pan who topped out in grade 12. At the end of the lecture the Phactor asked for a show of hands from those 200-300 people in the audience who were actually "cool" in high school, and exactly one person professed to being cool, and yes, she still exhibits some of those cheerleader hallmarks at times, clearly an exceptional exception, oh, but she married a chemist, a dead geek giveaway. The rest of us were geeks. So in a way you must pity these poor people who were terribly impressed by their own hotness in their youth because it wanes, it lessens, and then what have you got besides some old pictures? This is how formerly hot people get their lives in a mess; they can't face reality. But you take a guy like Al Franken and you can be pretty certain he knows how he looks and figures it's way better to get ahead by being smart and clever than to be a has been high school hunk. So clearly what people should look for in their botanists, in their leaders, in all walks of life, are geeks who know who they are. So everyone can be quite certain that the Phactor has no sleazy phallic photos phloating around on the internet, unless perhaps we be talking about aroids, titan aroids! Talk about hot!

An academic tragedy

A young former colleague of mine was found dead in his apartment a couple of weeks ago. I just found out because his apartment is a couple of thousand miles from Lincolnland in California. It's been at least a decade since he left our institution, and I know what resulted in his dismissal. I rarely saw him in recent years, and I cannot say how he was getting along in life lately. But my guess is that the villain in this tragedy is addiction to that most common and socially acceptable substance, ethanol.

It kept a bright young fellow from having a successful academic career. I cost him his drivers license and for awhile his freedom. It cost him his only tenure track academic position. It cost my profession a promising young botanist, and you have to love someone who was just cuckoo for floral polymorphisms. And now it has cost him his life.

Jeff was not yet highly accomplished as his career was just starting, but everyone who had ever worked with him was impressed by his intellect. And biologists are a pretty capable bunch of people, so it takes a really bright and creative person to impress so many. And he was a likable enough fellow. Our faculty were extremely pleased when we hired him; he seemed like a good addition. The tragedy is that Jeff could have accomplished so much but for this fatal flaw.

This serves as yet another reminder that us average fellows, whose academic success is the result of just keeping at it, have a lot to be thankful for, but still Jeff's death saddens me greatly. Bright candles burn way too quickly.

Does the candle burn too brightly?

This morning brought the news that David Foster Wallace had died at the age of 46 by his own hand. Wallace was a member of our faculty for 8 years, and it was clear to almost everyone that he was an exceptional talent. The author of Infinite Jest and the winner of a McArthur genius fellowship, his efforts had won him critical literary acclaim and he would seem to be the very picture of success. And yet dead at 46.

Now that I am in the September of my academic career, I can look back on my earlier years with a bit more perspective. Years ago I was a bride's maid for three different jobs and in each case the person hired was "brilliant", "an up and coming talent", "a future super star", and while I have certain talents and abilities in good measure, no one has ever called me brilliant or a potential super star. And no question about it, I had a bit of academic envy for the abilities of the two I knew best. I ended up taking a much tougher route to where I am, and so it has been with some measure of interest that I have tracked the careers of my talented contemporaries. All three self-destructed in one way or another, and as modest as it has been, my academic career and record has easily eclipsed theirs.

It makes me wonder if for some of these exceptionallly talented people the candle burns too brightly. It's too bad that they did not achieve what they might have. As tragic as these people are, some of us merely above average pluggers achieve a measure of success in the long run with a decent work ethic, a bit of curiosity and drive, and a dedication to our professions. It does take a bit of fire in the belly to be successful in this business, and it can not come from wanting to best someone else, it must emanate from your own desire to pursue your profession.

I don't expect McArthur to come knocking on my door, but I have achieved something that David Foster Wallace did not. I have been pretty happy with my life and career, and clearly he was not. Sad. Very sad. So very sad, for him.