Oooh. I do hope you'll report on it. I've always wanted to be the only woman on a committee. I've come close, but no luck so far. Yeah, it's a weird thing to wish for.
Hee. What fun. I've been the only woman on a college committee before, which was interesting. The older than dirt folks can either be non-entities or real bitches. Hope for your sake he is the former.
It's easy for me to forget, sometimes, how much men still dominate in the academy.
I, for one, am very glad you're on that committee!
I am often the only woman on a committee. (Where I work, less than ten percent of the faculty are women.)
Sometimes the older-than-dirt men start acting paternal towards me. Ugh. I hate that. I'd rather deal with hostile young men who need to talk about how affirmative action has so hurt their careers....
Hee - older than dirt. I love that phrase.
I get the paternal thing too. Now, I recognize it's a little weird for the old guys who started teaching at the school the year I was BORN, but it's still a pain in the ass.
Looking forward to stories...
Oh, you got the lucky "we need to have one woman on each committee" position. I always enjoy those postings, especially when I'm the one twenty years younger than everyone else.
Just think of your time there as if you were a field biologist: alpha males strutting around, big swinging dicks trying to hold on to some shred of perceived power that is only granted socially by each other. Maybe you should forward them all some Cixous to read a couple of days before the first meeting--hee hee.
I don't mind the fact that the senior faculty are so old...until they call me "kiddo." I'm in my 30s, I act a little old for my age, and I look 30, not 20. It shows they think of me as a child, not a colleague. (Yet the males who are YOUNGER than me get called by names, not cutesy-poo nicknames.)
Damned alpha-males. I'd probably get more respect if I put on a short skirt. Hmmrph.
I was the only woman on my last faculty senate committee. The older guys were a lot more interesting and useful. They said what they thought and had little apparent need to kiss up. You can get lots of history and lots of bluntness from them.
The worst part was that the chair decided we should rotate minute-taking responsibilities and my name was first on the roster, so the later arrivals assumed I was the secretary. But I made sure their misapprehension did not last.
I must say, faculty senates many places can be a huge waste of time. Often the senators see their role as "doing what the admin wants" rather than "figuring out what should be done and doing it." I hope your senate is more pro-active than re-active.
Commenting by HaloScan
