TITLE: Setting a Good Example
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 18, 2009  8:01 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
David Patterson wrote a Viewpoint column for the
March 2009 issue of <EM>Communications</EM> on
advising graduate students, paired with a column
by Jeffrey Ullman.  One piece of Patterson's
advice applies to more than advising grad students:
"You're a role model; act like one.":

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
I am struck from parenting two now-grown sons
that it's not what you say but what you do that
has lasting impact.  I bet this lesson applies
to your academic progeny.  Hence, I am conscious
that students are always watching what I do, and
try to act in ways that I'd like them to emulate
later.

For example, my joy of being a professor is
obvious to everyone I interact with, whereas I
hear that some colleagues at competing universities
complain to their students how hectic their lives
are.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I often worry about the message I send students in
this regard.  My life is more hectic and less fun
with computer science since I became department head,
and I imagine that most of the negative vibe I may
give off is more about administration than academia.
One time that I am especially careful about the image
I project is when I meet with high school students
who are prospective CS majors and their parents.
Most of those encounters are scheduled in advance,
and I can treat them almost like performances.  But
my interactions with current students on a daily
basis?  I'm probably hit-and-miss.

The idea that people will infer more from your deeds
than your words is not new and does apply widely,
to advisors, teachers, decision makers -- everyone,
really.  Anyone who has been a parent knows what
Patterson means about having raised his sons.  Long
ago I marked this passage from Matthew Kelly's
<EM>Building Better Families</EM>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
If you ask parents if they want their children to
grow up to live passionate and purposeful lives they
will say, "Absolutely!"  But how many parents are
living passionate and purposeful lives?  Not so many.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Our example can set a negative tone or a positive
tone.  The best way to give children a zest for
life is to live with zest and share your zest with
them.

This applies to our students in class and in the
research lab, too.  My favorite passage in this regard
comes not from Patterson's viewpoint but from <EM>The
Wednesday Wars</EM>, which I
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2009-01.html#e2009-01-26T19_52_51.htm">
   quoted once before</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
It's got to be hard to be a teacher all the time and
not jump into a pool of clear water and come up laughing
and snorting with water up your nose.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Through all my years in school, my best teachers jumped
into the pool all the time and came up laughing and
snorting with water up their noses.  They wrote prose
and code.  They read about new ideas and wanted to
try them out in the lab.  Their excitement was palpable.
Fun was part of the life, and that's what I wanted.

I hope I can embody a little of that excitement and
fun as a faculty member to our students, as a father
to my daughters.  But some days, that is more of a
challenge than others.
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