We have often noticed, as we stroll down the hallways of academic buildings, how the doors of the faculty beckon to us — with whispers and insinuations, exhortations and declamations, jeers and jests — via a motley collection of decorations: cartoons, articles, quotations, posters, advertisements, photographs, and artwork.
What motivates such postings by that increasingly threatened species, the North American professor? How do those office doors reflect upon the professors or the disciplines in which they study and teach? —James Lang —Office Doors of the North American Professor (Chronicle)
On my office door:
A printout of my home page (redesigned so it fits on one page).
A brand spanking new nameplate (everyone on the floor seems to have gotten one, which sends a nice unifying, inclusive message).
A small number of business cards, stuck by the corners in the windowpane and fanned out for the taking. They disappear at the rate of about one a month. (Every so often I rearrange them so it looks like one has just been removed, and then for some reason they disappear quickly after that… maybe because they fall out and get swept up… I don’t know.)
To the side of my door:
Articles from The Onion: deconstructing a Mexican take-out menu, and “English Replaced to be New Syntax With.” Maybe one more that I can’t remember. (I’m blogging this from home.)
A feature from the local paper on Pittsburgh weblogs, forwarded to me by an administrator. (Two pages, with artsy pictures of computer keyboards and bloggers.)
I always liked the “Microsoft: You Will OBEY” printout. Something that I find strange at UW-Eau Claire these days is the number of professors who always leave their doors closed.
I realize that students need to take the initiative to get help and approach professors during office hours, but closed doors do not help the situation. To me, it says something like, “I don’t care.”
Nothing but my nameplate – but next to the office door a framed poster, part of the department’s decorating campaign years ago, but I keep carrying that poster with me when I change offices. It is a nude, an overweight (ok, fat) woman reclining between lilies and irises. Underneath the text declares it a poster for a photo exhibition called “Women of substance”. The picture is amazing, all that pale flesh and the dark green of the foliage, and the responses to it are interesting too. Everything from intense rejection and horror (mostly women) to shy grins (the janitors and tech-maintanance, the only men who have commented on the picture to me; they love it) to downright attacks with post-it notes and markers (mostly very adult academic men).