Feb. 7, 2006

Advice From Administration Courtesans

By Antinous Castiglione and Kitty Fisher Lewinsky

It’s not in the job description. Few of your colleagues will mentor you in this line of work. It is the by-path on the road to tenure that no one wants to talk about — providing certain benefits to The Administration that it passionately desires and can only obtain from a young, fresh, junior member of the faculty such as yourself. We do not wish to be misunderstood; despite some less-than-flattering appellations by which we might be known, we are proposing nothing illegal, or even unethical. If you follow our advice, you will not hate yourself in the morning. But you might get tenure.

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Most of the time junior professors don’t seem to get noticed by The Administration — but when your moment comes, you must know what The Administration wants. It is a fickle Leviathan of great appetites that will devour you if you do not approach it carefully. Above all, it serves the god Mammon. The reliable sources of its satisfaction are twofold: parents and donors.

You already know that you are not cheap — tenure is your price. Now you must ask yourself, what do you have for barter or trade? You might think it’s good teaching and a steady stream of publications. But you have something The Administration wants even more — the power of advertising. When it looks at you, it sees you — young, charming, persuasive, and smart — in press releases and viewbooks or in front of undergraduates’ parents; managing department meetings made difficult by the latest Administrative pronouncement; and sweet-talking the CEO of Raytheon who happens to have an interest in those colorful Louis XVI ceramic garden slugs you mentioned in a footnote in your last article.

First, you must make your assets known to The Administration. Until then, you are merely another new face, neither more nor less interesting than any other. Your first task is, by subtle suggestion, to give hints of your abilities. This requires attending the banal Administration-faculty functions in your first few weeks. But responding to this call with residual graduate student reflexes (“Free food and liquor? I’m there!”) is not enough. That oak-paneled room bedecked with portraits of plastic-looking past presidents is more tricky than it may seem, because it is here that The Administration seeks its next conquest.

Be coy at first. Strike up a conversation with the provost. Give her an ever-so-tantalizing glimpse of your youthful energy, your enthusiasm for the wonderful students, and your potential to rock the academic world with your scholarship. At that moment, the collective mind of The Administration will begin to fantasize about you as a “value-add”: If you make the institution look good, you will seduce parents and donors.

We offer several helpful tips for your consideration. But a word to the wise — do not be fooled by the façade of an academic administration. You are entering a corporate world. You need to appear to be of that world, yet also beyond it. Here is how to achieve this delicate balance:

First, look hip — or specifically, what Administrators think of as hip. You must look like you belong in their world, and that means avoiding looking like a professor at all costs. Women — no frumpy! No sweater-vests, turtle-necks or t-shirts. No jeans, no peasant skirts, no Birkenstocks. Form-fitting skirts and elegant sweaters are effective. Heels are a must and perhaps even cosmetics — the gender climate report may say your college isn’t sexist anymore, but have the “old boys” who fund it reformed? You men — no stodgy! No tweed or suede elbow patches unless you look like Brad Pitt. Even then, be clean-shaven. A stylish suit or a nice leather jacket will get you noticed. Sure, Thoreau says you should never trust a job that requires a new suit but not a new person within it. So buy a used suit if you must, but get one.

Second, language is extremely important. You must be able to speak American Corporate. This assuages Administrators’ doubts about your loyalties or priorities:

Ms. Carnegie: How do you balance research and teaching here at Excelsior University?

You: My approach is through strategic planning of time allocation and, most importantly, vertical integration of my graduate and undergraduate student projects, to create a responsive, team-oriented environment in my classes and laboratory.

Ms. Carnegie: Excellent!

Dean of Faculty (aside): “Vertical integration” — great phrase. Let me write that down….

Third, as important as fitting into the corporate model is, you need to let them know oh-so-delicately that you are far above them. There is a reason they hired you: you are brilliant! And they were smart enough to snap you up when you were on the market. So, timing your move very precisely, you will talk about your work. Your entrée should be simple, in terms that any corporate minion would understand. Draw them in, get them on board, and let them follow your train of thought effortlessly. Lull them into a good sense of their acumen; it must seem as if they themselves came up with your startling conclusive insight:

Associate Dean of Aspiring College: So you’re asking why globalization hasn’t made everybody happy, and you’re suggesting that it’s partly because we still have a macho style of diplomacy?

Then, once you’ve got them, launch full force into the complexities of your thesis in the full glory of the jargon of your field:

You: I couldn’t have put it better myself. Can I quote you? (Laughing together.) Of course there are the complications: transnational feminism urges a post-Lacanian conception of the relationship between mobility and self-conception, which inevitably affects the flexibility of labor architectures no less than it effects a continuous topography of mediated selfhood, which I conclude, in a recently published article, threatens post-post-Enlightenment accounts of cosmopolitan representation.

Stay in the stratosphere just long enough for them to know that you are not of their world — but not too long! (“You” probably went on a little long in the above example.) Before you alienate them, swoop back down to their level and embrace them with a comforting summary that leaves them nodding, awestruck. Add that a major press is interested in your work or a big grant is on the way, and you will have them whimpering at your feet.

This is how you advertise your wares to The Administration. Then, you must wait for the beast to make its move. Perhaps you will be asked to speak at a special informational session for the Board of Trustees, with a cocktail reception to follow. Or an invitation will arrive to an excessively fancy dinner with unusually restrictive seating requirements (“You will be seated at table three, between Mr. Google and Ms. Titanium, at 6:37 P.M.”). As you stand in front of the department mailboxes, you may feel a slight swoon. The glint from the embossed invitation may catch a colleague’s eye, in which you think you see a spark of green, and provoke the comment, “Ooo, you are being courted by The Administration.”

Don’t succumb to the romance — it is vital that you keep a clear head. Once you have been brought to the Inner Court, you will need to know how to seduce the money. As we mentioned, there are two sources, parents and donors.

First, the parents. Especially if you are at a teaching college, take every opportunity to engage with parents of prospective students. The more you do, the more the Admissions Office, one of the long grasping hands of The Administration, will take notice and report favorably to the head. The same attributes that hooked The Administration will work here. Play on your strengths: youth, energy, hipness. You are fun, but also serious. You will give them their money’s worth in tough love for their kids. And their kids are so smart! Of the many (many) places you could have worked, you came there to teach them.

Second, you must learn to flirt with old people of both genders. Donors are usually old. (It’s probably a bad idea to flirt with young donors — we wouldn’t know.) Again, you are young and energetic and smart: a model of what they want to see at the institution they are supporting. Don’t be afraid to lay your hand on an arm, tilt your head beguilingly, and listen attentively to all they know about your field. They are brilliant! Laugh at their witticisms and bring them another glass of wine.

The seduction will bring a bounty to the institution and The Administration will be gratified and appreciative. It will believe that you are invested in the institution — which you are. You offer what The Administration would term a high ROI (that’s “Return on Investment” for corporate neophytes). It will come to look on you as not merely a means to its ends, but as an object of desire, a coveted favorite who excites jealousy at the mere thought of his or her departure for a more generous benefactor.

As you peddle your wares, you will wend your way to the Inner Court and win not just the grand prize, but smaller riches along the way. You can expect expensive (if not always tasty) dinners at fund-raisers, extra money for your special projects (which, of course, are designed with the benefit of the institution in mind), occasional overseas trips for “institutional development,” and a host of other invitations to rub elbows with trustees and high-profile visitors to the institution.

But, we won’t deceive you: there are potential pitfalls in your role as Administration Courtesan. They lie mostly with your less-favored colleagues. You, as the Golden Child, might be envied or suspected of vile motives and even more sordid activities.
“What is the academy coming to,” they will say.

There is no need to provoke suspicion and contempt, because your motives really are honorable. We therefore offer one last and crucial piece of advice. No matter your status at Court, do not neglect your real work — your teaching and scholarship. If you do, you will deserve all those epithets that your administratively anonymous colleagues might hurl at you. Remember that your role as courtesan is a means to an end — tenure, and with it, true academic freedom.

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