Back in the Middle (Again): Working in the Midst of Professors and Graduate Students

Abstract

This chapter focuses on issues that arise when certain professors invoke the age-old hierarchy of position their terminal degrees bestow on them and interact in elevated ways with graduate students and sometimes with faculty members as well. Lack of relationship with peers/students, absence of appreciation for others' contributions and resistance to change, coupled with academic positions that allow them to aggrandize themselves (and get away with it) sit at the core of some male behaviors I have experienced. In this work, Lugones' notions of “arrogant perception” and “loving acceptance” are used as the central conceptual lens through which three in situ, betwixt-and-between career experiences are presented, unpacked and traced to their roots. While position, gender and power play out excessively in the three featured scenarios in this work, this does not mean that all males claim and act on the dominant plotline that history has bestowed on them. Neither does it mean that all females reject that plot as well. The shifting positioning of both males and females are sample topics for potential follow-up research.

Citation

Craig, C.J. (2021), "Back in the Middle (Again): Working in the Midst of Professors and Graduate Students", Ratnam, T. and Craig, C.J. (Ed.) Understanding Excessive Teacher and Faculty Entitlement (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 38), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 165-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720210000038011