Acting Smarter Than You Really Are - The Academic Edition

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has come up with a list of how to act smarter than your really are. He offers some good general advice, like not talking much, agreeing with what other people say, learning some big words and using them in sentences, etc. While this might be good enough for the typical person to convince their friends and family that they are smart, an academic needs an entire different list of ploys to convince his or her colleagues that they are smarter than they really are.

Here are some options.

1. Teach an honors class. - Even if you weren't in honors yourself in college, just teaching a class of really bright kids makes you seem smarter than them.
2. Keep lots of obscure theoretical books on your shelf. Used copies are best, because it they look like they been read diligently even if you've never bothered to open it up.
3. Learn all the different ways to call something "pedantic" and use these terms when discussing works by popular scholars.
4. Be cynical. For some reason, most academics equate cynical with worldly and smart. So look for the negative and hidden agenda in everything some other department, the college's administration, or the government suggests.
5. Wear glasses. Tell people that you used to have 20/20 eyesight until graduate school. They will think you've read your way to being near-sighted.
6. Hang some obscure Bizzaro comic on your office door. People won't get it and they'll be too embarrassed to ask you what it means.
7. Get your news from some alternative news source (not NPR or CNN or the New York Times) this way you will always have an opinion on things, but people won't recognize that you stole it from someone else.
8. Adopt an absent-minded professor persona. If you forget little things like meeting times, where you parked your car, how to use the internet, etc. it suggests its because you have bigger and more important theories on your mind.

Adopt these behaviors and before you know it your colleagues and students will think you have an impressive IQ.

Academic Leadership in the Department of Defense

While I realize it is stretching it a bit to refer to Secretary of Defense nominee Robert Gates as an 'academic', he does qualify in some ways since he is as a history Ph.D. and the president of a university. After a little checking, I discovered that previous Secretaries of Defense fit the mold of an academic even better than Gates.

First was James Schlesinger, a Ph.D. in economics who taught at the University of Virginia, before serving as Secretary of Defense under Nixon from 1973-1975.

Second, Harold Brown, a Physics Ph.D., who had only a short teaching stint, but eventually ended up as Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Defense from 1977-1981.

Third was Les Aspin, a Ph.D. in economics (and a BA in history), who taught for several years at Marquette. He was Clinton's Secretary of Defense from 1993-1994.

William Perry, Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense from 1994-1997, had a Ph.D. in math. However, as far as I could tell, he never had an academic appointment.

A Historian for Secretary of Defense

I was pretty shocked by the news that Donald Rumsfeld is resigning as Secretary of Defense, but that doesn't come close to matching my shock that his replacement could be current Texas A&M president and historian Robert M. Gates.

Gates received a master's in history from Indiana University in 1966 and his Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University in 1974. These are two high ranking history programs so I couldn't help but be a little impressed at these credentials.

His dissertation - SOVIET SINOLOGY: AN UNTAPPED SOURCE FOR KREMLIN VIEWS AND DISPUTES RELATING TO CONTEMPORARY EVENTS IN CHINA - is a weighty 306 pages long.

Although it doesn't look like he ever spent any real time in the classroom behind the lectern, I wonder if he will be the first 'academic' to serve as Secretary of Defense? There have been lots of academics who have held the Secretary of State job, but I can't think of any who have served in this capacity [although I'm going to go research it ASAP]. It should be interesting to see how someone like Gates can combine his practical experience from the CIA and other government positions, with his historical understanding of how the world operates.

Looks like I'll have to add another name to my list of famous historians if Gates is confirmed.