Over the years, I've told colleagues and friends about things I have seen or experienced. Many times, people have said that I should write them down so that they won't be lost and forgotten, since some of them might be useful parts of our history. I've been writing them down, without being sure what I would do with them. I decided to gradually post them on this website, and see what reactions I get. I suggest reading from the bottom up (starting with the August 2017 post "The Meritocracy"). Thoughtful and kind feedback would be useful for me, and would help me to revise the exposition to make it as useful as possible. I hope that while you read my stories you will ask yourself "What can I learn from this?" I'm particularly interested in knowing what you see as the point of the story, or what you take away from it. Please send feedback to asilverb@gmail.com. Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully reflect on them!

I often run the stories past the people I mention, even when they are anonymized, to get their feedback and give them a chance to correct the record or ask for changes. When they tell me they're happy to be named, I sometimes do so. When I give letters as pseudonyms, there is no correlation between those letters and the names of the real people.

Sunday, September 2, 2018

"Alice, what are you doing next year?"

During my last semester at Harvard, I ran into Professor Q on the stairs leading to the math department Common Room. He animatedly asked, "Alice, what are you doing next year?"

I replied, "I got into MIT, Chicago, and Berkeley. Princeton makes its decisions next week. If I get into Princeton, I'll go there."

Q's face turned beet red. "You mean ... you're going to grad school?! ... In mathematics?!"

"Yes."

Not only had I done well in the courses I took from Q, but I had done well in general (I had already been named one of the few students to get junior year Phi Beta Kappa, and would soon graduate summa cum laude in mathematics). Had I been male, no one would have been surprised that I planned to go to grad school. In mathematics.

Q had clearly been planning to tell me something, but now thought better of it.

I asked, "What were you going to say?"

"Oh, nothing. It doesn't matter." He looked very embarrassed.

Curious, I insisted. "Please. You were going to say something. What was it?"

Hesitatingly, he told me that a math teacher at his son's high school had recently left. Q had thought that I might not have plans for next year, and would be interested in the position.

I deduced from Q's embarrassment that he would not have had this conversation with a comparable male student. But it's nice to know that he realized he should be embarrassed!