I had lunch with Saintseester today. We talked of many things, as is our tendency. One of those was academic careers. If you read her blog, you know that she’s coming out of one (or at least going on hiatus).

I considered an academic career at some length. If you’re a liberal arts major, that’s one of the things you do. (I’ll tell you sometime about the night I came home and announced my intentions to pursue a liberal arts degree.) Ultimately, the decision against such was a monetary one. I’m not terribly materialistic, but I had an informed idea what a liberal arts professor just starting out made, and though I didn’t want a whole lot, I wanted a little more than that.

A secondary (but not by much) reason I didn’t go into academia was that I perceived that it empowered small people, and I didn’t like it.

In 1992, I made the acquaintance of one Susan Kray. She was one of two women I have ever met in my entire life who, simply and unambiguously, hated men. I concluded such to my complete satisfaction, anyway. (She was 50ish then, so she’s probably retired now; whatever the case, I’m pleased to contribute to her Google footprint in this manner.)

Dr. Kray was a professor in the Communication Arts department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I never had her for anything. So why did I care? Ah, grasshopper, here’s the thing. Communication Arts majors had to do a senior thesis, defended in an auditorium against the slings and arrows of all of the Communication Arts professors. All of them had to pass you for you to get your degree.

To a fucking person, Dr. Kray failed all of the men and none of the women.

My senior seminar professor (who was also a woman, thank God, else I might be managing a Waffle House right now) eventually persuaded her to retreat from her ridiculous action, and most of us graduated. But I’ve never forgotten that detestable witch, and if I ever see her again, I’ll exercise little restraint in sharing my opinion with her.

To be sure, there are analogs of this kind of smallness in other sorts of workplaces as well. But they seem to get a lot more traction in academia. That my professor had the gumption to confront her about her prejudice is a blessing. If she hadn’t, that probably would have been the end of it, and I’d have had to take that course again. (That would have been a real pain in the ass, as it was only offered spring quarter. It would have delayed my graduation by a year.)

I’m not going to say much specific about ‘seester’s issues because she will and should, but it sounds to me like the same kind of people giving her grief. They crave power, but lack the ability to obtain it in a “real job.” So they plunge themselves into the hallowed halls of universities and colleges (and homeowner’s associations, probably).

Understand that I’m not impugning the profession in general. I met several stellar professors as a student who had a great deal to do with me even considering academia seriously as a career. I’m just saying that the entire arena contains insufficient checks for a certain kind of small person, and I doubted my ability to tolerate such indefinitely.

Part of me is still sad I didn’t do it. When I got up “on plane” with Dr. Cling (philosophy), Dr. Neff (English), Dr. Fillippeli (rhetoric), or a couple of others, it was as if my brain was using different, transcendent wiring. That has happened to me occasionally as a technical writer, but it’s not at all common. Chasing that buzz is what I most think about when I consider the if-I-win-the-lottery sorts of questions. Relieved of the quotidian burden of making a living, I would study.

Then, from my financially set perch of tranquility, I could tell the Dr. Susan Krays of the world exactly what I thought.