Elevator trouble in academia

First reported in The Washington Post. Now also in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed.

The trouble stems from a quip made in an elevator during the conference of the International Studies Association: when a passenger (male in one account, female in another) asked which buttons to press, another passenger, a male academic, requested “Ladies’ Lingerie” or “Women’s Lingerie” (it’s not clear which). A female academic riding in the elevator made a formal complaint to the ISA. An e-mailed non-apology from the offender to the offended has created further trouble. The ISA has asked the offender to make an “unequivocal apology.” And news of this incident has led to vicious comments and threats posted to the offended party’s webpage.

The joke is old and silly, recalling the days when elevator operators announced department-store departments floor by floor. In 2018, the joke is unmistakably inappropriate. “Haberdashery” or “Linens, please” might be a better joke, if one must make a joke in an elevator full of strangers. And — if one must make a joke that assumes knowledge of a long-past elevator custom, a custom that some of those strangers may not know about.

This sentence from the offended party’s complaint stands out: “It took me a while to figure out that this man thought it was funny to make a reference to men shopping for lingerie while attending an academic conference.” But he wasn’t making a reference to shopping for lingerie while attending an academic conference; he was doing so while riding in an elevator. The academic who filed the complaint was raised abroad and came to the United States in 1989 — which makes me wonder whether she knew about department-store elevator announcements. If she did, a request for “Ladies’ Lingerie” (or “Women’s Lingerie”) would still be unmistakably inappropriate. If she didn’t, a request for “Ladies’ Lingerie” (or “Women’s Lingerie”) would seem bizarre, frightening, unfathomable.

A possible response, spoken in the moment: “Don’t be a sexist jerk.” Or stronger words to that effect. But I don’t think this quip — or even a refusal to apologize for it — should become the stuff of an ISA inquiry. Not every social misfire or misjudgment should lead to sanctions.

A related post
Imaginary elevator (The offender and the offended meet again)

[If the offended party didn’t know about the convention of floor requests, she does now. The offender’s e-mailed non-apology says that in the 1950s, asking for the hardware or lingerie department was “a standard gag line” for elevator passengers. Yes, in the 1950s. Not now.]

*

November 15, 2018: The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the ISA has rejected the offender’s appeal and has asked, again, that the offender make an “unequivocal apology.” If he doesn’t, he will receive a letter of reprimand. The offender has announced that he will sue for defamation. Not clear who’ll be sued.

[Note the academic pace of events here: six months for the ISA to come to a decision.]

Pareidolic parking

[Photograph by Michael Leddy.]

Barnes & Noble & the future

David Leonhardt, writing in The New York Times about saving Barnes & Noble, quotes Owen Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, an association of independent bookstores:

Once the country emerges from the Trump presidency, I hope we will have a government that takes monopolies seriously. Until then, I’ll be rooting for Barnes & Noble. So, it turns out, are some people who once viewed it as the enemy. “It’s in the interest of the book business,” Teicher says, “for Barnes & Noble not just to survive but to thrive.”

In a 2011 post about Barnes & Noble, I wrote that “Bookstore survival-strategy seems to be premised on everything but books.” At my nearby Barnes & Noble that’s still the case, with larger sections of the store given over to toys and games and collectibles. Leonhardt mentions that the chain is planning “smaller, more appealing stores focused on books.” But his link goes to an article about a Barnes & Noble store whose main attractions are a bar and a restaurant. And oh, there are books, seeming like an afterthought: “No Barnes & Noble would be complete without its books.”

Recently updated

One space, two spaces The Washington Post reports on the one-space-or-two research study.

Dowdy finals

Dowdy-world final exams at the University of California at Berkeley:

In those days, before ballpoint pens, we filled our fountain pens, emptied them, and refilled them just to make sure. We self-addressed postcards to enclose in our blue books so readers could send us our grades before official grades came out. Then, as was the Cal custom the first day of finals, the Campanile tolled “An’ they’re hangin’ Danny Deever in the morn’.”

Beverly Cleary, My Own Two Feet: A Memoir (New York: William Morrow, 1995).

As a college student in the 1970s, I routinely turned in postcards with my finals. Students were still doing so when I started on the tenure track in 1985.

Related reading
All OCA Beverly Cleary posts (Pinboard)

[“Readers”: graduate students.]

One more way to do well on an exam

It’s midterm time in Stebbins Hall, University of California at Berkeley. But this trick should work even better with finals, when it’s more difficult to track down exam takers:

Stebbins circulated a myth that it was possible to outwit a reader by writing “Second Blue Book” on the front and writing one brilliant last sentence inside. This was supposed to make the reader believe he had lost the first blue book, which would fill him with such guilt that, rather than admit to carelessness, he would give the student an A.

Beverly Cleary, My Own Two Feet: A Memoir (New York: William Morrow, 1995).

Related reading
All OCA Beverly Cleary posts (Pinboard)

[“The reader”: a graduate student.]

“You got this”

There’s nothing wrong about trying to instill in college students a non-panicky attitude toward final exams. But there is, I believe, something wrong about the reassurance that’s become ubiquitous before finals: “You got this.”

“You got this” presents an exam as a measure not of knowledge but of trust in one’s ability. The reassurance is glib and condescending, and it’s likely to feed inflated self-confidence. Yeah, I got this, says every victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Better than empty reassurance: practical advice. Many years ago I worked out such advice for my students, and I later wrote it up in a post: How to do well on a final exam. My students tended to do exceedingly well on final exams. But for anyone intent on going in the other direction: How to do horribly on a final exam.

Imaginary Derby

I watched the Kentucky Derby and began to think about assembling a field of twenty horses. Those horses are now approaching the starting gate:

Reflux : Hashtag : Ampersand : Metatarsal : Cohen’s Choice : Dear Landlord : Uncle Petrie : Occam’s Razor : Mister Rogers : Memphis Minnie : Strawberry Fields : Comey’s Dilemma : Waterloo Sunset : Sunset Boulevard : Gluten Intolerant : Montezuma’s Revenge : Mothership Connection : Ineluctable Modality : Kranmar’s Mystery Appetizer : All You Can Drink

This field is in memory of my friend Rob Zseleczky, who always exhorted his friends to watch the Kentucky Derby. I finally have. Rob would have appreciated the silliness of this list.

[Elaine’s horses: Hashtag, Cohen’s Choice, Mister Rogers, Strawberry Fields.]

From the Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Lester Ruff, is not too difficult, not too easy. As Goldilocks would say, it is just right. And it taught me a couple of things:

2-Down, six letters: “Genericized totwear trademark.” It’s trademarked? I had no idea.

20-Across, seven letters: “Easy undertaking.” At the risk of repeating myself, I had no idea.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

ICYMI

The latest xkcd, “IMHO.” With the two-space, one-space debate.