On the outside

I went to a meeting yesterday of Chairs, Directors, Advisors, Associate Deans. I sat in the front row so I could use the white board on my iPad to ask a question if I needed. A few cracks about being "one of those first row types" started the session. These remarks were jovial, nothing unkind intended at all, but they reinforced the oddity of my position.

As I listened to my colleagues chat and greet each other before the session began, I was reminded again of how much of this particular job is about just showing up and making conversation. But it was during the question and answer portion of the meeting that my silent position really became pointed.

My friend Julie, who is going through her own challenges with her vocal cords this summer, remarked that silence puts you on the outside, and as an outsider you have some clarity on what is going on inside. She said it more eloquently, but that is the gist of it.

Academics are a pretty irritating lot, really, when you are looking at them from that perspective. Folks asking questions that weren't questions at all, but challenges in the form of "I'm smarter than you" assertions, the tendency to be immediately negative or critical...things I know all too well from my normal behavior. And I felt my own urge to be a voice in the room, to make myself and my brilliance known. When you are silent in an academic world, you are dismissible.