Do students know too much about their profs?
That is, from online sources like blogs, RateMyProfessors.com, and Facebook? Here’s an article of interest in the NY Times: “The Professor as Open Book” by Stephanie Rosenbloom. Here’s the beginning bit:
It is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor behind the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can’t get enough of Chaka Khan.
Yet professors of all ranks and disciplines are revealing such information on public, national platforms: blogs, Web pages, social networking sites, even campus television.
When scholars were recently given the chance to refute student criticism posted on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com, a cult-hit television series, “Professors Strike Back,” was born. The show, which has professors responding on camera to undergraduate gripes such as “boring beyond belief,” made its debut in October on mtvU, a 24-hour network broadcast to more than 7.5 million students on American college campuses.
“It’s our dominant show driving half of the traffic to mtvU now,” said Stephen Friedman, general manager of the network. “It gets more than our music premieres.”
Though it includes a few dissenting views, the article is overwhelmingly positive about professors sharing their lives online as a humanizing networking approach. Being one who blogs and is on Facebook, I think I’d say it’s a positive phenomenon. As long as no naked photos or the like are revealed, I think online chumminess goes a long way towards making connections in the classroom (connections that could lead to further learning!).
Black in Academe
Since Barack Obama’s refreshingly frank speech yesterday on the complexities of the black experience in America, I have seen some wonderful reflections on its implications–including NPR stories discussing black liberation theology (you know when the mainstream media is talking about James Cone, something interesting is happening) and sharing an interview with a bunch of older white guys in a small town restaurant in Pennsylvania. The On Faith blog has some interesting reflections about the issue, too.
Here’s one more reflection on race to add to the mix that does not explicitly reference the Obama situation (and was probably written before this whole controversy surfaced) but nevertheless offers a relevant application of the complex issue to academe: “Teaching, and Learning, Racial Sensitivity” by Jerald Walker (an article in Chronicle Careers).
Who doesn't want to be a "rich professor"?
One of the purposes of this blog is to reflect on the journey towards academia. I have been caught up in applying to my next step in that process, namely, doctoral programs. I am, of course, a bundle of nerves, excitement and bewilderment when I think about the fact that I will be somewhere else this fall. I probably won’t be relieved of that odd feeling until somewhere in the middle of the program, I say to myself, “Wait a minute. I’m here.” At that moment, the moment when I realize I really have become a doctoral student at Such and Such University, I imagine the next anxious moment in the academic journey will feel all the more tangible. That next step is, of course, getting a job.
There have been some interesting thoughts on academic jobs floating around. Just this past weekend, you may have heard the debates in New Hampshire. In the debate with the Democratic candidates, ABC’s Charlie Gibson made a false assumption about faculty salaries at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire (the host of the debate). Here’s the bit from the transcript:
GIBSON: If you take a family of two professors, here at Saint Anselm, they’re going to be in the $200,000 category that you’re talking about lifting the taxes on.
(LAUGHTER)
GIBSON: And…
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: That may be NYU, Charlie. I don’t think it’s St. Anselm.
The people at the event thought it was a humorous suggestion. After I came to the realization that my vocation was to be a professor, I talked to one of my professors from my undergraduate days about what salaries are like for new PhDs. He told me, “We’re not in it for the money!” Professors get way underpaid when one considers the amount of training that goes into it. In the article, “ABC Thinks You’re Rich; ‘U.S. News’ Says Your Job Is Cushy,” Inside Higher Ed had an interesting reflection on Gibson’s faux pas (he says a minute later, “Well, I shouldn’t have done that, apparently”) and one other bit from popular media. Here’s one correction from the article:
[Sherman] Dorn checked the annual data compiled by the American Association of University Professors and found that the average salary for a full professor at Saint Anselm is just over $77,000 while the average for assistant professors is under $50,000. Dorn said in an e-mail that the question showed “astounding ignorance” of faculty salaries. . . . He noted that the average salary for full-time professors nationally is about $73,000 in the AAUP survey, and that only about half of all professors nationwide have full-time faculty jobs.
This is all in line with what I’ve come to expect from speculative comments made by professors at both my undergrad and at Fuller. If a new PhD is lucky enough to land an Assistant Professorship, depending on the institution, they should probably expect somewhere in the 40 thousands. An adjunct instructor? Forget about it. That’s a whole other ball of wax.
The article also brought up a U.S. News and World Report feature which names the “31 best careers” for 2008. Along with investment banker and hairstylist/cosmetologists, also on the list were professor, higher education administrator, librarian, editor, and clergy. I think it’s worth taking a look at part of the brief report on professors:
If you can land a tenure-track position at a four-year institution, you’ll enjoy many advantages. You’ll get the pleasure of teaching—but only six to 15 hours a week, so you’re unlikely to burn out. Outside of class, you’re required to meet with students, but that too is just a few hours a week. Most of the time, you’ll do research or write on a scholarly topic that interests you. And in some specialties, you can pick up extra money by consulting. You also get to work in a delightful work environment: a college campus. Plus, after seven years, you get tenure—lifetime job security.
The downside? It’s tough to land a tenure-track job. It helps if you were a star in your Ph.D. program—and it helps more if that was at a prestigious university. It helps even more if you’re a woman or minority with the potential to bring in grant money. Obtaining a Ph.D. typically takes five to eight years once you’ve got a bachelor’s degree.
Also, the national average salary that they quote from PayScale.com is $85,300 (contrasted with the $73,000 in the AAUP survey). Interesting how they make it sound like after a blissful and relaxing seven years of wondrous life at your collegiate home . . . poof! You’ve got tenure. As if there is no question about it. Not to mention that not all institutions give you tenure for life, but some do a once every five year review or the like (I believe my alma mater does the latter). As the Inside Higher Ed article notes, the description omits the need to do class preparation and grading. They also point to a critique of the U.S. News feature by Karl Steel, an assistant professor of English at Brooklyn College, at his blog.
Another article of interest was published recently in Chronicle Careers by Claire Miller, which is the pseudonym of a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies. She reflects on the frustrating process of finding just the right “fit” in job descriptions that seem to be so strangely pieced together by vastly different specialties. Here’s her humorous fictional job description to demonstrate what she’s been seeing:
Nameless University invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position in church history and applied ethics. Ability to teach ancient Greek and pastoral counseling desired. The successful candidate will also have competence in visual arts and international relations. Candidates with experience in administration and campus ministry are encouraged to apply.
After discussing with her graduate advisor, she reasons, “I’ve decided that if I can do less than half of a job description, I should let it pass. But if I can do more than half, it’s fair game.”
It all seems kind of crazy, how different this profession is from any other. If you include my undergraduate work, I am already in the seventh year of training in my field, biblical studies, and I’m going to near double that with my doctoral work. Then, after my twelve to thirteen years of training in biblical studies, I’m going to try to find a job that more than halfway matches my skill set. At that point, I hope to get paid at least as much as I could have made in my first year out of undergraduate studies if I had majored in, say, computer science or engineering.
Like my undergraduate professor told me, we’re not in this for the money. That’s right, I’m in it for the fame. Okay, maybe not that either. No, I’m on this strange journey because I want to engage difficult scholarly questions about the New Testament and early Christianity, while I also serve as an educator and mentor to students who wrestle with the same questions on the lay level. I’m on this road because I feel this is how I can make the biggest difference in the world.
So, I guess you could say that this post is me wrestling with the messy practicalities of future academic life, while also not losing my idealistic vision for why I’m motivated to enter the field in the first place.
Can you guess my desired doctoral programs?
In response to my last post, Michael W-W asked me what schools, programs and mentors I am considering for doctoral studies. At this point, I’m holding my cards close, not merely to be enigmatic, but because I don’t want to appear to favor one program over another in such a public way. To be honest, I feel like I would love to go to any of the schools to which I’m applying. I am excited by all the interesting possibilities out there. But I’m not adverse to others guessing my thought process. Let me tell you what I am generally looking for, and then see if you can guess. I think any responses would be worthwhile in themselves. My wife is, of course, disqualified.
My field of interest: I am interested in studying the documents of the New Testament as a window into the social history of Christianity’s formative period. I am particularly intrigued by questions of how a new movement of Jesus followers balance their rootedness in early Judaism, their attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus, and their connections with the Hellenistic context surrounding them. More specifically, how would their beliefs, and how these early followers “remembered” Jesus (e.g., Gospel narratives, christology), affect their social structures (e.g., family, slavery, community) and vice versa? I am also especially drawn to apocalyptic literature and how themes of perseverance and anticipated eschatological victory work into the social cohesion of early Jesus followers. Spin-off issues of interest include Jewish-Christian relations, the Wirkungsgeschichte (history of interpretation) of relevant texts, and the later transitions in Christian communities due to “Constantinianism.” All in all, I think I would like a healthy blend of both diachronic and synchronic approaches to biblical studies.
What I hope for in a doctoral program: Taking my interests into consideration, I would like to have at least one faculty member who has stellar New Testament credentials. I hope that the program would offer some way of connecting New Testament textual study with social sciences, either in a New Testament or early Christian history faculty member [could be the same as the aforementioned New Testament specialist]. I would also appreciate working with someone who has considerable expertise in Second Temple Judaism. One also hopes that said experts would be caring and compassionate folks. Finally, I would like a school big enough so that I can more readily pursue interests that cross-over with other fields.
And I haven’t even mentioned financial or geographical preferences, but let’s not narrow things down too far . . . what do you think fits the bill?
Committee involvement for personal growth
Posted today on Inside Higher Ed, is an interesting article entitled “Don’t Be Afraid of Committees.” It is written by Adam Kotsko (see his blog here), a doctoral student in philosophy at Chicago Theological Seminary. He surmises that, far from a waste of time, serving on various committees can become an integral part of the educational formation of aspiring academics, helping them to learn the nuts and bolts of academia. Personally, I can’t imagine being involved on committees while in my M.Div. and trying to make the grades and doing other things that are of the utmost importance to doctoral applications (not to mention M.Div. extras like my part-time pastoral internship this past year and a full-time internship with the non-profit Bread for the World this Summer — which I’m very excited about, by the way). Perhaps it is naive, but I do imagine letting my guard down a little bit once I’m a doctoral student, leaving open more time for learning experiences on committees and whatnot. I would be interested to know if search committees appreciate seeing committee work on the CV when hiring new doctoral grads. Here are a couple clips from the article:
My service on Academic Council also made me eligible to serve on the search committee for an open faculty position in New Testament. That same year, I began a two-year term as the seminary’s student liaison to the American Academy of Religion, which required submitting various reports and — of course — serving on a committee at the national meeting, which that year largely served as an opportunity for us to ask a high-ranking administrator in the academy questions about the organization and its future.[ . . . ]
All of this was very valuable experience, and although it sounds like a lot of work, it really wasn’t. Much of the actual decision-making, for both the faculty and the board, took place in the closed executive sessions. Thus the responsibilities of students, and so also the expectations of outside preparation work, were limited: Our primary role was to allow student voices to be involved in the conversation. Even at the peak of my involvement, I was averaging under two hours a week, and most of the time it was considerably less. Since I was in my coursework stage, I was normally on campus anyway on the days when the committees met.
Blogging towards Academia
I would like to highly commend to you two recent blog postings by Mark Goodacre on the New Testament Gateway blog: Should Blogs Count for Tenure? and Blogging and Tenure 2. Dr. Goodacre, as usual, pushes academia forward in trying to think about the potential for new technologies, rather than getting hung up on the dangers. He suggests that a well-respected academic blog (and his own would certainly fit the bill!) should count as one of many “esteem indicators” in consideration of an academic who is up for tenure. I agree; I think we should recognize the dangers, try to avoid them as best we can, but ultimately utilize whatever may be helpful to the academic enterprise. This is the “glass is half full” view of academic blogging and new technologies in general.
One comment that he makes stands out for me, given my own personal educational situation:
But I know that I would always look favourably on someone who has an intelligent and energetic blog, whether as potential applicants to a graduate programme, or as job applicants, or as applicants for tenure. To me it is likely to suggest several things, a commitment to the dissemination of scholarship outside of the guild, a commitment to collaborative scholarship, and some degree of courage and public risk-taking. So I would be strongly inclined to treat blogging as a plus.
I have a particular interest in this comment (and the whole post, for that matter) after recently reading a 2005 article from the Chronicle for Higher Education, entitled “Bloggers Need Not Apply,” which has a very unfavorable attitude toward academic job applicants with blogs (even if those blogs aren’t mentioned in their documentation!). Consequently, I locked up my more personal blog so only registered friends could read it and I thought twice about some of my past postings on kata ta biblia.
Being a future applicant to doctoral programs in NT studies, I am a little confused as to what role my blog on NT interpretation will play. Dr. Goodacre has a positive view of “intelligent and energetic” blogs, but there are obviously a lot of academics who are not as positive on the potential of academic blogging. Then there is the question about whether a blog would be considered academic (let alone “intelligent and energetic”) enough in the eyes of various academic readers. With these great unknowns, therefore, does a doctoral applicant make mention of her or his blog on her or his application? I lean towards “no.”
I would love it if professors or admissions committees reviewing my application took a look at my blog and, thinking it simply wonderful, count it as one of many various “esteem indicators” for me as their perfect applicant (yes, this is a grand fantasy). On the other hand, I am dreadfully aware of my ignorance on a great many subjects. My educational pursuit is in many ways a fight against ignorance, my own and that of other individuals, groups, or society as a whole. But I would fear that in this online experimental exploration of ideas, I may accidentally reveal some dastardly wrong-headed and unforgivable ignorance on one of my postings. As a result, instead of being an “esteem indicator,” this experiment would constitute a “folly alert” for those reviewing my application.
What say ye? Do prospective students reveal their blogs to doctoral programs? Perhaps it depends on the program and its professors? Perhaps one could mention it at appropriate moments in conversation with the potential doctoral advisors (e. g., “That’s interesting because I was just blogging about this the other day…”). This question is particularly for Dr. Goodacre, as this started out as a (too long) comment in response to his post, but I’d like to read what others would say as well.
Anti-faith scholars vs. uncritical scholars?
I have just had an interaction with April DeConick regarding her approach to early Christianity and the response of some bibliobloggers to it. Tensions seem to be revealing themselves and I would like to explore them for a moment. Here is a quote from April DeConick’s Forbidden Gospels Blog:
What impedes our examination of early Christianity is not the limitations of historical criticism as some in the Academy would like to lead us to believe. The impediment is the fact that the majority of biblical scholars still have not dislodged themselves from their own faith perspectives. As long as this is the case, historical inquiry is impossible because the historical-critical perspective cannot be used uncompromisingly. Although I recognize that there can be no “objective” history recovered or written, this doesn’t mean to me that all subjective inquiries are the same. The theological inquiry is not the same as the historical.Those in the Academy who have not dislodged themselves from their faith operate to defend, justify and explain it in terms they couch “historical” while privileging the New Testament canon and ignoring or dissing the apocrypha. Their personal religious belief in the authority of the New Testament scripture has led them to a common (and erroneous) assumption, that the New Testament texts are the only documents that tell us about the history of early Christianity. This leads to another common (and erroneous) assumption, that these canonical texts are accurate and reliable documents for the study of early Christianity. In this way, the religious walls of the canon have imprisoned the Academy for a couple of hundreds of years, holding us back from an honest historical analysis of early Christianity.
Many comments have been made to challenge this perspective. One commenter seemed to lump her view in with “those of secularised people living in late-20th century America, and that subset holding positions in full-time education (i.e. leftish, liberal, post-hippy, hostile to Christianity, Clinton not Bush, etc etc).” Another biblioblogger has written on his own blog: “She is a ferverently secularist and eschews faith-based approaches. . . . Given the tone of this remark, I think I prefer the company of James Crossley who is somewhat more restrained in his criticism of faith-based approaches. Actually, James is probably more pro-secular than he is anti-faith!” A patristics blogger has left the comment under another of April DeConick’s posts:
It is very possible to write as a good scholar within a religious tradition. We know this because so many of those writing in, say, patristics or even in the Apocrypha and Biblical Studies do write from a religious tradition and still manage to retain balance. They may have a different understanding of their purpose and they may ask questions that a ‘humanist’ may not, but I’m unconvinced that their scholarly integrity is compromised by their religious affiliations.
There are other examples, but we can see a theme coming out here. I asked Dr. DeConick how she would respond to the implied suggestion that she is “anti-faith.” Her response to the whole whirlwind of comments in such a short amount of time (she’s been blogging for less than a week, after all):
It is fascinating to me that my hard line on historicism has dumped me so immediately into the anti-faith, pro-secular, liberal camp (whatever that is supposed to be). Also fascinating is the immediate swing to point out that I’m not value-neutral because of my critical humanist approach (which is nothing more than the historian’s approach in any field of study). This is dizzying. I have nothing against theology or theologians. But I do recognize that there is a difference between theology and history. And I’m a historian who is concerned that theology is still dominating an Academy that claims to be doing history.
At this point, I’m not going to wrestle with whether one side of the argument is “right” or “wrong.” But instead, I would like to explore a theory about the tension. Being at an evangelical seminary myself, I converse with many evangelical scholars or evangelical scholars-in-the-making. The general impression that I get from them is that the academy of biblical and religious studies is overwhelmingly “secular” and “against” any kind of “theological” approach to early documents. At the same time, I have been reading several scholars from another perspective (such as Berlinerblau in his Chronicle article) who seem to think that the academy of biblical studies is too “theological” and entrenched in theological education. And as Dr. DeConick says, “I’m a historian who is concerned that theology is still dominating an Academy that claims to be doing history.” On the other hand, I have the feeling that the “theological” folks feel like a persecuted minority in the academy, worried, for example, that they will be negatively judged for their seminary educations.
Since most current bibliobloggers wear their faith on their sleeves (including myself), perhaps they feel like this biblioblogging world is a “safe” place for them. Maybe they feel threatened when another academic comes on the scene blogging things like “The impediment [to our examination of early Christianity] is the fact that the majority of biblical scholars still have not dislodged themselves from their own faith perspectives.” At the same time, perhaps more “secular” folks (and by that I just mean they are attempting to be “non-theological”) come into this biblioblogging world and see their frustrations confirmed in the blatant faith-based approaches to biblical studies.
To me, it sounds like a mutually threatening atmosphere in which both sides feel they are defending their views against the flow of the academy, and now it’s gotten a little tense online too. I think the dizzying response to Dr. DeConick’s blog has to do with the fact that she may have touched a nerve here. The problem about the blogging world is that it lends itself to knee-jerk reactions, and sometimes those knee-jerk reactions are not as cordial and respectful as they should be.
That’s my theory. I am happy to be corrected. Being one who is outward about his faith, I would tend to agree with the comment of our patristics friend listed above. But I can also see the need for accountability in these faith-based approaches. I would point to my earlier post about OPP people saying that the NPP is calling Judaism “racist.” When the basic values of our faith are at issue, I think we do tend to retreat to polemical tones. And at the risk of sounding “holier than thou,” I think that us Christians should pause a little longer and take a note from the person at the center of our faith, who reportedly told us to “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” I don’t mean that we shouldn’t examine and challenge the claims of others, but I think we should first breathe, then examine and challenge ourselves. Personally, I hope to be able to say to those with whom I disagree: “I don’t agree (and this is why), but I see where you’re coming from.”
SBL 3: “Where do you want to study?”
When I told them that I am an MDiv student hoping to do a NT PhD, this was the inevitable question that arose from scholars I met at the conference. Of course, there are a bunch of schools that would be wonderful to attend and a plethora of exciting scholars under whom I’d love to study. But the real answer is: wherever I can get in. Good stats (GPA and GRE) only get you past the first round of elimination, then good recommendations make a considerable difference. After that filter, so I’m told, admissions committees assess your letter of intent. They may not even look at your writing sample unless there is a close call between you and another applicant. [If anybody has different information about these things, please share!] [Update (9/19/07): I just would like to make clear that "wherever" is strongly qualified by being within a select group of programs that I feel will be a good fit for me, and that will find me to be a good fit for them]
On Monday afternoon, I got a picture of North American graduate programs from a kind of behind-the-scenes perspective. I attended the 4-hour session entitled, “Graduate Biblical Studies: Ethos and Discipline.” Representatives from 10 different programs shared on the details of their curriculum and the ethos of their program. The idea was to get the discussion going between the graduate programs and see how things should be affirmed or transformed. Some representatives were quite honest about the situation within their schools.
The schools (and their reps) were: Catholic University of America (Timothy Friedrichsen & Frank Matera), Dallas Theological Seminary (D. Jeffrey Bingham), Drew University (Melanie Johnson-Debaufre), Duke University (Eric Meyers), Emory University (Michael Joseph Brown), Fuller Theological Seminary (Donald Hagner), Princeton Theological Seminary (Jacqueline Lapsley), Union Theological Seminary (Brigitte Kahl & Hal Taussig), Vanderbilt University (Douglas Knight), Yale University (Adela Collins).
Here are some thoughts and things that stood out to me (but my disclaimer is that these are things as I heard them, I might be misrepresenting the facts):
- Drew University’s most recent admission roster of graduate students was (“proudly”) 100% international and/or underrepresented minority. I had been interested in Drew University, but now I wonder: Can a North American white male make it in? I know three profs who taught or teach at Messiah who went to Drew (all in OT) and they are all white men. [Clarification: Don't get me wrong. I think it is great that there is a place so welcoming to underrepresented minorities in a largely white-male academia. But my conflicting emotion is my own desire to enter academia as a white male. I want minorities empowered, but I (naturally) don't want doors closed for me because of my own race and gender. So it goes.]
- Universities have more funding than independent seminaries like Fuller and Dallas. I know from personal stories that Fullerites have a hard time making the bills (especially in SoCal), so are distracted from their studies. It sounded like Yale and Emory had significant stipends available to students. Emory has an added bonus for minorities. At PTS, the TA income is in addition to the stipend received.
- Emory and Yale (at least) admit a pool of the best applicants into the entire religious studies division and then divide them up by area of interest. That means that I wouldn’t just be competing against New Testament folks, but also theology, Christian history, Hebrew Bible, etc.
- PTS emphasizes biblical theology and interdisciplinary studies at the university, Penn, and other schools are encouraged. Vanderbilt has a nonconfessional approach to the Bible and offers no courses on theology of biblical texts. Union and Drew emphasize nontraditional social-reading approaches to the Bible (the program at Drew enables students to “drive around in the complex three-dimensional map in time and space” that is biblical studies). Yale emphasizes the “text of the canon,” but does not neglect the historical context. Dallas students must agree with the school’s doctrinal positions and research cannot “offend” their doctrinal base.
- It seems like the schools with the biggest emphasis on foundational linguistic tools (like advanced ancient Greek and Aramaic) are Catholic University of America, Princeton, Yale and Vanderbilt.
- Duke’s NT program is a bit of a maverick compared to the other Duke programs. They do not require an external minor (like the other programs) and there are less language requirements in the divinity school exegetical classes as compared to the Religion Dept. exegetical classes. There is sometimes conflict in balancing the perspectives of the confessional students in the Divinity School and the nonconfessional students in the Religion Dept.
As an added bonus, I met a biblical scholar from Eastern Mennonite Seminary yesterday and she recommended Union Theological Seminary in Virginia to me. I will have to take a look into who is there and how their program is set up. People say to focus on potential mentors rather than the prestige of schools, but I’ve also been told to make sure the school’s program is something I want in case the mentor leaves the school or is unable to remain in the supervisory role (Duke admits that this has happened a number of times). Of course, there are always other factors: the size of the preferred advisor’s current plate, the perception of Fuller Seminary and Messiah College, etc. So the search continues and the answer remains: [among the "good fit" programs,] wherever I can get in.
SBL 2: (Un)Important Interactions?
I am generally having a good time at SBL thus far. I am certainly not one of those people who has dreams of biblical or religious academia, goes to one conference, and calls it quits because of a horrible time. Well, at least not yet. I still have a few days to go. My personal favorite presentations have been two done by Richard Hays, who is ever the skilled communicator. I also got to have dinner with my former prof and college mentor and some of his friends last night, then a good Quiznos lunch with a fellow PMCer (Pasadena Mennonite Church, that is . . . we’ve got a bunch of people here). I wanted to highlight two interactions, though, as an interesting moment of the day. One that made me feel about as significant as a gnat, another that boosted me up quite a bit.
I was perusing the grand book exhibition, looking for super deals, when the first incident happened. I found a book that is on my list of “priority books” that I made for the conference and it was a third the price. I had picked it up and was looking for the place to purchase it, when one of the women working there said (in a tone befitting a scolding parent slapping the wrist of a child with a hand in the cookie jar):
“Oh, we’re not selling the last copy.”
Me (feeling scolded): “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was the last one” (nor did I realize they weren’t selling the last one as there was no sign indicating such). She handed me the catalog where you can order it for 20% (whoop-dee-doo, I can get it for less on Amazon).
Me: “Will you be selling it on the last day?”
Her (hesitantly): “Yes . . . but it’s first come first serve” (meaning: I don’t think you’re going to be the first served.)
As I placed it back, she said (as if with hope for some alternate means of discount . . . i.e. a free review copy?): “Do you teach?” Alas, she had found my weakness. “No.” “You’re a student?” “Yes.” “Yeah, you look too young to be a teacher . . . [pause] I hope that’s not offensive to say.” Me (feeling belittled and, yes, offended): “No.” And I walked off.
But then, I turned the corner and saw my adviser from Messiah, Mike Cosby. He was on his way to a meeting with an editor, but he stopped and said hi. Then, he said (in a laudatory fashion): “You look very professional.” “Thanks!” There wasn’t much else said and I hope I get to see him again during the conference, but it was just the medicine I needed to get over the unfortunate incident with the no-last-book lady. I should note that I understand why they weren’t selling the last book, it was just the way she handled me as an unimportant customer that was bothersome.
I’ve got more to check out this afternoon and evening. It looks like it’s going to shake out into a good evening.
Update (11/21/2006): Two things:
- I went to the booth for the book in which I was interested to see if I could indeed be the first one to grab it and, lo and behold, it had been “reserved” with a scholar’s business card. Interesting that they extended the privilege to “reserve” a book to someone other than myself. I am still a peon.
- The next day, I found Mike Cosby after going down to the exhibition hall for the express purpose of finding him again. We had a great little 5-10 minute catch-up conversation.
First Day at SBL
What a blessed time. I got into DC last night at about 9pm and, since we had similar flight schedules, traveled with Chris Spinks to our hotel. My first steps out into the brisk, cold air were a beautiful welcome back to the East Coast, which feels so much more like home. After checking in, Chris and I went out to a place called “Dakota Cowgirl,” which apparently is a place where same-sex male couples go for food and drinks before or after hitting the gay club upstairs. So I guess Chris and I could have seemed like a gay couple, while our waitress called us each “baby” a few dozen too many times, but I had a good cup of chili.
This morning I went with Rob Muthiah over to the session for Mennonite Scholars and Friends, with a presentation from Daniel Boyarin responding to J. H. Yoder’s ideas of the Jewish-Christian schism. It was a great presentation with excellent responses. Afterwards, I greeted my former pastor (and now Goshen College president) Jim Brenneman and several other fellow Anabaptists from Pasadena Mennonite Church.
We walked over to the Convention Center and I picked up my tote bag and name tag holder and took awhile to try to find a place to eat in the Convention Center. We ended up eating at the “Café” behind the publisher exhibit, where I paid $10 for a salad, an orange, 10 oz. of OJ, and a sugar cookie. I’m going to stay away from the Café in the future. In the meantime, though, I ran into several Messiah profs (John Yeatts, Reta Finger, Susie Stanley, the Jacobsens, and Brian Smith [though, that was intentional]). It makes me wonder if I’ll run into any fellow Messiah alums. I surveyed the vast offerings of books and made a couple bargain purchases and generally had a grand old time.
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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