Anyway, here's an excellent blog response by Lucianne Walkowicz, who is one of my favorite astronomers (picture at left). An excerpt:
"There’s been a lot of conversation about an email sent to students in a certain astronomy department, which originally appeared here:
http://jjcharfman.tumblr.com/post/33151387354/a-motivational-correspondance
"While I certainly think the original email was problematic, with an eau d’ 'we walked uphill both ways in the snow' about it, I also think there were seeds of good advice buried in it– both for students and those further along.
"In the following, I’ve tried to cultivate those seeds into some advice for being an astronomer, largely based on my own philosophy of course. I’m sure not everyone will agree with these points, and it should be noted that as I don’t have a permanent job yet, I don’t know whether these are “successful” strategies in the long term. Perhaps one day we will share a laugh over this post, just before I ask you if you want fries with that."I'm still mulling things over myself. I think The Email was good for sparking discussion, and I've had many good conversations. I stand by my main point in my initial reaction, but I think that initial reaction was limited in scope. There's much more that I want to say about how communication is badly lacking in astronomy (as illustrated by the fact that there existed an email rather than an in-person conversation with the students), and how ironic that is given that science is supposed to be based on communication. I also want to address the way we treat each other in scientific meetings, classes, referee reports, etc. But I feel that I need to grapple with my own past hypocrisy first.
Anyway, until then, it's like what Lucianne said.
You cannot control how people interact with you, only how you interact with them.
Being a jerk and being smart do not share a causal relationship. It is fine to challenge a speaker with a question, but keep it respectful– learning stops as soon as arrogance steps in.
It’s also important to realize that we work in a field where various of our colleagues have difficulty picking up on social cues. Not everyone who seems like they are being a jerk is actually doing so on purpose.
Dealing with aggressive questioning can be very challenging for students, as the ability to weather the storm relies on having enough confidence in the material to not become rattled. This is difficult, because the nature of being a student is for that information to be still fresh and malleable in one’s mind. For mentors, the challenge is to have a supportive enough environment in general such that the occasional difficult Q&A doesn’t seem like a personal attack.
A simple step towards making these situations less charged is just to talk with students about strategies for dealing with questions, which will depend on the individual and their strengths. Although taking the learn-to-swim-via-a-swift-kick-into-the-deep-end approach seems it would teach students what to do in these situations, it doesn’t. It just models poor behavior that they then perpetrate on others.
Seriously, check out her full post.
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