Anyone who has “stumbled across” this second, and final, installment of my account of several “flaws and shortcomings” in my life, is welcome to read on. However, you have missed the identification, the analysis, and the first illustrative “instance” of this second flaw, as well as my account of the first flaw I chose to share. So, if you decide to read on, I’d suggest backing up to the first post on this topic, then come back if you’re motivated to do so.

          To the readers of the first post a couple of weeks ago—assuming there are any!—you can pick up where you left off, with this second experience relevant to my difficulty with confrontation.

The instance came to my attention when I became aware of some “buzz” among faculty in a certain department concerning a new, first-year Instructor and a fulltime, tenured Professor. After making some confidential inquiries, I learned that the first year instructor was struggling in her classes and was overheard crying after the aforementioned senior departmental faculty member was seen leaving her office. While the last thing I wanted to do was to have to confront these two faculty members, it was clear at that point that I needed to become involved. So, I had my administrative assistant make an immediate appointment for the obviously troubled first year instructor. While she was hesitant to talk with me and obviously felt threatened, I was finally able to convince her that I needed to know why she was feeling so ‘shaken” and only wanted to find a helpful solution. I then learned that the senior member of the departmental faculty had come to her and offered to be her “mentor,” to help her with classroom issues, and with her teaching. Since (s)he seemed sincere and knowledgeable, she readily agreed. But over the next couple of months, the self-named “mentor” became a bully, who tried to dominate her classes by “sitting in,” then criticizing her teaching, the way she dressed, her interactions with students, etc. Because of her “mentor’s” senior faculty status, she was afraid to do anything other than accept his criticisms and try to comply with his advice, which only made her more uncomfortable! Since I was relatively new in my position at this institution, I conferred with a couple of my valued friends, whose confidence I trusted, and learned that this was not the first time that this senior member of the department had been accused of such behavior.

So, although it was not/is not my favorite thing, I decided it was time for a “face-off,” and scheduled a meeting with the three of us. The first-year faculty member was, of course, terrified to be in the same room and have to give her account of the interactions with her “mentor,” but I assured her that there she would have no penalties if she simply told the truth—as she had experienced it—about what (s)he had said to her, what she had done in response, and the effect it had on her. She did that while her “mentor” shook his head and rolled his/her eyes. I then let her/him say why (s)he offered to be a mentor to this first year Instructor, what advice (s)he gave her, how (s)he helped her when his/her advice didn’t work, etc. The first year faculty member listened in totally shocked and frightened disbelief at what (s)he said. I then told her that she could leave the room and return to her office. I then looked the senior faculty member in the eyes, reminded her/him that this was not the first time (s)he had been accused of this behavior, that this faculty member did not come to me of her own accord, and that she had nothing to gain and everything to lose by telling lies about a tenured, senior faculty member. I said that I believed, basically, her account of what had been said and done to her, and since, in my judgement, this was “strike two,” that if ever there was a “strike three,” I would see that (s)he was dismissed from the faculty “with cause.” I also said that if (s)he wanted to appeal my  decision, that could be done through the appropriate faculty committee. (S)he left my office muttering indistinctly and two years later resigned to accept a position at another institution. Over the next few years, the first year Instructor completed her doctorate and became a most valued member of the faculty.

The necessity for confrontation has been far less in my retirement years, although it does happen from time to time—with a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, and occasionally “at home.” But I’m still an avoider, when possible, and a gentler user, when necessary. And with that I will let this second flaw lie in whatever “nest” it has made.

          Finally, the third and final flaw that I’ve chosen to share is Procrastination—putting things off . . . and putting things off . . . and putting things . . well, you get the idea. It isn’t difficult to see this characteristic ”joined at the hip” with the aforementioned flaw of over-thinking, which often caused me to put off (think procrastinate) finishing some task until pulling an all-nighter was the only option! And it happened with regularity in both my teaching and administrative careers. In my teaching life, as noted above, it took the form of over-prepping for class after class, year after year, as well as waiting until the last day to complete other tasks—e.g. paper-grading, computing a final grade for each student, submitting class grades before—just before—the deadline, preparing the Syllabus for each class at or almost past the beginning of the semester (can you spell “all-nighter”?) . But enough said about my procrastinating “skills,” which were developed and applied during my 20-years as a teacher!

          When I went to the dark side of administration as the chief academic officer in the two institutions I served, I was—with enviable ease—able to apply the skills of procrastination that I had learned and employed in my teaching life to the different but amenable responsibilities that came “packaged” with the position I had accepted. The tasks were mostly different, but “deadlines are deadlines.” Some were imposed by my “boss,” the College/University President, some by the Board of Trustees, others by state or federal Officers, Boards, Commissions, and Committees. In any case, written reports, requests, and emails, along with periodic oral reports, Q&A sessions, public addresses/presentations, and such, were required. Some of these, given my inclination to procrastinate, led to “all-nighters” on a regular basis. And here I must note that for most of the years in my first iteration as an Academic VP, I was blessed to have as my Administrative Assistant a woman who had been the Secretary in a faculty office/classroom building tending to the demands of two dozen or so faculty. She served my needs virtually before I knew I had them and “kept me between the white lines.” She was fully aware of my tendency to get buried in the “tyranny of the urgent” and put off important things—such as, for example, my annual address to the faculty at our Fall Convocation—resulting, again and again, in too many “all-nighters.”

          So, in her “subtle-but-gotcha” style, arriving at the office one morning, I found, as usual, the current February 23, 1996 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education at the center of my desk. However, while it had always been “face up,” that day it was “face down,” displaying on the back page of the Chronicle an article by John Perry entitled “How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done.” Perry, then a Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University—who had written an article in 1995 entitled Structured Procrastination—posited that the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, important tasks, as long as they are a way of not doing something more important. So, one makes a list with seemingly urgent, important things at the top, then placing further down the list some worthwhile tasks that one really wants/needs to do. Since doing those becomes a way of not doing the things higher on the list, it’s important that those at the top (1) seem to have clear deadlines (but really don’t), and seem awfully important (but really aren’t).  Perry notes that if that appears to require a certain amount of self-deception, it’s because it does! It’s a way of “fooling” oneself into believing that tasks that seem important and urgent actually aren’t, which clears the way to accomplish several apparently less urgent but eminently achievable tasks that one really wants to do!. So most procrastinators have excellent skills at self-deception!!  It was an interesting idea that apparently worked for Prof. Perry but not one I was, knowingly, able to put into practice. So, I had to say for my thoughtful and clever Administrative Assistant, “bless her heart,” even though I didn’t take the gift and run with it! Thus for most of my professional life, “all-nighters” ruled! In my 8 years of full retirement, I must say that this skill—developed and “honed” in my 45-year career—is alive and well.  I have still found ways to practice procrastination, but, happily, with the ability to “hit the sack” for a full night’s sleep.

          And so ends this selective exercise in self-reflection. I’m sure that my dear wife and a few of my close friends would be glad to suggest other and more obvious flaws in my life, and perhaps will do so in a comment. These three, however, will have to do for now, providing me, I hope, with some “points” for being willing to talk about my flaws at all. But more importantly, motivating me to be reflectively mindful that “these three” are mere examples of other “flaws,” some “now and thens” and some that live alongside and within me. That said, as I was pausing, as usual, before preparing to close and post this blog on a more serious note, it was unbelievably timely that I happened to be browsing among the books available on Kindle in my computer and chanced upon this passage in the preface of a book by my friend, the late John Claypool: