The Princeton Math Department's First Wives Club

At one time, it seemed to me that the number of Princeton math faculty who divorced their wives to marry their grad students wasn't so very far from the number of women that Princeton had ever admitted into its math graduate program. This was rather different from Harvard, where some of the math faculty had affairs with some of the secretaries.

John Tate knew I was interested in the history of the Harvard math department, and I appreciated his willingness to talk about it. In 1991, he told me that in his early days on the Harvard faculty, the math department admitted men to the graduate program with the idea that they'd become mathematicians, and admitted women with the idea that they'd become wives of the male grad students.

At Princeton, the faculty wives were understandably nervous about the idea of their husbands supervising female students. This made it hard for female grad students to find a thesis advisor.

My PhD thesis advisor's wife was unfailingly kind to me, and I'm very grateful for how nice she was. I think we always got along. She had nothing to worry about from me.

One evening at a department party she told me about a recent dream. In her dream, she and I were college students, taking a course taught by her husband. The class had an exam, and she was distressed that I did much better on the exam than she did.

I told this to a more senior student, and I wondered what it meant. He replied, "Alice, you know what it means. Her husband's colleagues are having affairs with their grad students. She's letting you know that she has some anxiety about her husband having a female student." I didn't (and don't) know this to be true. But I can certainly understand how the behavior of some of the faculty was problematic for both female students and faculty wives.

Hot chocolate and handshakes

One of my strangest job interviews was at a university I'll call Dysfunctional U. An early hint that things might not be entirely normal was that the first email message from the chairman of the recruitment committee, Professor V, began "Dear Ms. Silverberg" rather than the customary "Prof." or "Dr." A bigger hint was when he asked me to use frequent flyer miles for the trip. 

When I arrived at V's office at Dysfunctional U, he shook my hand with an overly firm handshake, and I screamed. When he opened his hand, I saw that it held his keychain with about a dozen keys, which he had forcefully dug into the palm of my hand.

V's next act was to refuse to let me go to lunch with a group of his colleagues who asked me to join them. V insisted that I have lunch with him. Lunch with him meant that I bought a soggy sandwich and a hot chocolate with whipped cream from a cart on the ground floor of the building, to consume in V's office.

When we went back to V's office, he immediately sat down in the only free chair. With the wrapped sandwich in one hand and the overflowing cup of hot chocolate in the other (V had suggested that I not get a lid), I looked around and realized that the only other chair was filled with a three-foot-high pile of midterm exams, and every inch of desk and table space was covered with sloping piles of dusty books and papers. Was this his version of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party? V didn't clear any space until I pondered aloud that I could rest my cup on V's piles of papers and exams while I unwrapped and ate my sandwich standing up, but since the cup's bottom was already covered in dripping chocolate and whipped cream, I couldn't guarantee that his papers and exams wouldn't get stained.

Until I met V, I hadn't realized it was possible to mispronounce my last name. Each time he introduced me to someone, I repeated my name with the correct pronounciation, but V never caught on.

The most pleasant time I had with V was when I drove him around campus in my rental car. We'd pass an intersection, and he'd say, "You should have turned there." After the third or fourth missed turn, I had trouble suppressing my laughter. By then, I had decided to go with the flow and view it all as quite amusing. This was really getting too silly.

Perhaps the silliest part was that I was a full professor at a much higher ranked math department, but the job ad was for an assistant professorship. Numerous Dysfunctional U faculty had told me, "Of course you won't accept an assistant professorship. But apply anyway. Once people like you, we'll make a case for upgrading the position. But we can't do that if you don't apply." In my application I made it clear that I hoped they would consider making a senior level offer. But I did tire of reminding them of that each time someone asked "Why do you want an assistant professorship?"

The faculty members who wanted me hired warned me not to tell anyone that they supported me, since that would turn the other factions against me. If all the faculty who told me they supported me had really done so, it would have been a majority of the faculty. Professor V eventually notified me that the department decided not to fill the position that year.

Some of my "supporters" told me that things were said at the hiring meeting that they believed were illegal, and they urged me to report it to Dysfunctional U's Office of Equal Opportunity. I pointed out that I wasn't at the hiring meeting, so I had no evidence; such a complaint needed to come from a witness. Alas, they were too afraid of retaliation to report the violations themselves.

Before my visit, several of the faculty had insisted that Dysfunctional U had the most dysfunctional math department in the country. I responded, "I can't believe it's more dysfunctional than Ohio State's." But after I saw for myself some of the infighting in that department I told them, "You were right! Your department really is more dysfunctional than OSU's!" On the bright side, it made me feel better about OSU.

Of course, his wife is requesting to accompany him

When I was an undergrad, Harvard told its students that it's a good idea to get the files that your university keeps about you and see what's there. While universities discourage it, and sometimes even threaten people who ask for their files (which happened to me at Princeton), I was persistent.

After a bit of a battle, in November of 1987 I was allowed to see some of my Ohio State files. One file contained the letter that my department Chair had sent to the Acting Dean in June of 1985 in support of my formal request to spend the academic year 1986-87 elsewhere. They never let me photocopy that letter, but I still have the slip of paper on which I copied it by hand.

The letter began, "As you know, K was awarded a Sloan Fellowship this year. He is requesting approval of the following plans for using it." This was followed by three paragraphs explaining in detail K's plans, why one part "would be excellent for his research" and why another location he planned to visit "is also an excellent choice of sites for furthering his research and scholarship," giving names of mathematicians he would have contact with at those locations.

Almost as an afterthought, this was followed by: "Of course his wife, Alice Silverberg, is requesting to accompany him." I still feel an awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about that sentence.

The letter goes on to say that I would fund my visit on my fellowship, and "The department has no objection to the arrangements in the areas of teaching and service. They are both excellent teachers who have given more service than required so far." No specific details were given as to why my plans would be excellent for my research or scholarship. The letter ends by recommending "approval of these requests" and that the year "be counted for service credit [i.e., towards tenure and sabbaticals] in both cases."

I wondered whether the Chair's letter contributed to the Acting Dean treating me like a baby-making machine rather than as a mathematician (when he recommended that I not get service credit).

In response, I sent the following to my new department Chair, with a request that it be sent up the hierarchy of administrators:

                                                 November 12, 1987

To be attached to all copies of the letter of June 26, 1985 from X (Chairman, Department of Mathematics) to Y (Acting Dean, College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences), and the letter of August 15, 1985 from Y to Z (Associate Provost)

   I have just seen the above-mentioned letter from X to Y for the first time. The letter begins with a discussion of how K, an assistant professor in the mathematics department, plans to use his Sloan Fellowship from Spring 1986 through Spring 1987, and continues with the sentence "Of course, his wife, Alice Silverberg, is requesting to accompany him." I would like my comments to go on the record.

   (1) First, some historical inaccuracies need to be corrected, and the chronology set right. My plans to use my NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at research institutes from Spring 1986 through Spring 1987 were discussed with and approved by X in winter and spring of 1984 before I (or K) were hired, and long before K was even nominated for a Sloan Fellowship. Therefore it is not only false that I was following K around, it is chronologically impossible.

   (2) The letter connects two separate, independent requests, implying (erroneously and irrelevantly) that one is dependent on the other.

   (3) The letter makes irrelevant, inappropriate, and unwarranted assumptions about personal lives and relationships.

   To elaborate:

   In my letters to and discussions with X concerning my plans, I have never made reference to any other person's plans. I have never informed him or the mathematics department of my marital status, and it is not relevant to my work as a member of the mathematics faculty. I might or might not be married to K; I might or might not want to follow K around. Such assumptions about my personal life, correct or otherwise, do not have their source with me.

   Three additional comments:

   a) Y's letter to Z on the same subject says "since they are husband and wife they are planning together". It seems appropriate here to draw attention to the fact that I objected (in a letter to Y) to the inclusion of this phrase in a draft of the letter in August, 1985.

   b) The inclusion in my files of a letter (which has no reference to me) from K to X is inappropriate.

   c) Considering the correct chronology, and X's differing views from mine on my comments (2) and (3) above, one is led to ponder the question: Why did he not begin his letter by discussing my plans, and continue with "Of course, her husband, K, is requesting to accompany her."?

                                    Alice Silverberg

                                    Assistant Professor of Mathematics

"You'll want to have babies"

When I accepted the job offer from Ohio State in 1984, the department Chair agreed, in writing, that I could spend the academic year 1986-87 at a mathematics research institute, where I would be funded by my NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship. (I learned much later, before I officially accepted the offer, that the Dean and Associate Provost had agreed, also in writing, that my time on the fellowship would count towards tenure, and would not delay my tenure review.) So I was surprised during my second year at OSU when the same department Chair asked me to submit a formal request to go on leave. Why did I need to request permission for something for which permission and approval had already been granted? The Chair assured me it would be routine.

K submitted a similar request to go on leave and have the year count towards tenure, and his request was approved.

One day, I got a phone call from the new Acting Dean (the one who attended weekly meetings of the John Birch Society). He told me that he was going to deny my request to keep the tenure clock running during the year away. Why? He said that since I was female, "you'll want to have babies", and that would slow my research productivity. 

Indignant, I told him firmly that I was not going to have babies, and I wanted the tenure clock to keep running. He replied that his decision stands, he was doing me a favor, and I would eventually be grateful to him. I guess I'm not a very grateful person, since that day hasn't come yet.

As I hung up the phone, I thought to myself, "I am not going to spend the rest of my life at Ohio State University."

"But there's only one door!"

In June of 1981, John Tate gave Larry Washington, K, and me a ride from Paris to the new mathematics conference center in Luminy, on the south coast of France. Larry was navigating. When we got lost in Marseille, I had the sinking feeling, "Oh my God! Larry is holding the map upside down! He doesn't have any sense of direction! We're going to spend the rest of our lives going in circles in Marseille!" I wrested the map out of Larry's hands. (Larry's rebuttal is: "Yes, we missed a turn and ended up down by the docks. We were going south, so I was holding the map upside down in order to orient it with the direction we were going. I was trying to figure things out, but you took the map from me. I would have gotten us out, but you were impatient." He's probably right on all counts!)

The building we were housed in was in the process of being renovated, and I remember the toilets overflowing and flooding the floors.

When we arrived, we found the caretaker and asked for our keys. 

K and I were sharing a room, and the caretaker wanted us to share a key.

It was clear to us Americans what was wrong with that plan, and that independent people should have their own keys so they could come and go as they pleased. John Tate tried to explain this to the caretaker.

John translated the caretaker's response for us: 

             "Why do they need two keys? There's only one door!"

John thought this answer was quite funny, and over the years he enjoyed reminding me of it, by saying emphatically, "But there's only one door!"

John rummaged around in the key box on the caretaker's desk, and found a second key to the room. The caretaker didn't know what to do about it, so he didn't stop him. He probably didn't feel comfortable stopping a senior professor from taking the key.

I was reminded of this story in 1995, when I asked Elham Izadi to share a hotel room in Utrecht during the Frans Oort 60th birthday conference. I had been staying in Europe, and Elham arrived jetlagged from the U.S., so we had very different sleep schedules. The hotel staff made us share a key, and pointed out that we could leave it at the front desk when we weren't in the room, so the other person could pick it up. But that didn't help us when one of us was asleep (with the key) in our hotel room, or showering, and the other needed to get in.

"Alice doesn't want to give a seminar talk, does she?"

In my last semester as a grad student, a postdoc I'll call the Mock Turtle was running the Princeton Number Theory Seminar. A professor I'll call Professor Gryphon told Turtle to ask the finishing grad students to give seminar talks.

Instead of asking me to give a talk, Turtle said to my significant other, K, "Alice doesn't want to give a seminar talk, does she?"

K told Turtle that if he wanted to know that, he should ask me. 

So when Turtle ran into me in the department, he half-heartedly invited me to give a talk, and I accepted.

The seminar participants generally went out to dinner after the talk. Turtle told me that there wouldn't be a dinner after my talk, since I was a Princeton student. The problem wasn't that the department didn't have funds to pay for it, since participants always paid their own way, and I was willing to pay my share.

When I found out that Professor Gryphon was hosting a pizza dinner at his own house for another finishing grad student after his talk, I went back to the Mock Turtle and told him that I would organize a dinner for my talk, which just meant that I would choose a restaurant and announce it at my talk. Afraid that that would make him look bad, Turtle said that he would announce the dinner.

The day of my talk, I got a phone call from Turtle. "I'm on my deathbed," he exaggerated, pleading that he was so ill that there couldn't be a dinner after all.

I replied that I was sorry he was ill, and that he shouldn't worry about the dinner, since I would organize it.

Turtle then mentioned that he would introduce my talk.

"What do you mean? If you're on your deathbed, you're too ill to go to my talk!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, I'm not that sick," he replied.

Turtle not only rose from his deathbed to show up at my talk, he also came to dinner.

I have one recollection from the dinner conversation. Turtle eagerly told us that the secondary sexual characteristics of female humans (which, for him, meant the breasts) were prominent and colorful, which was not the case for the secondary sexual characteristics of men. He believed that that pointed to an important difference in the purposes of male and female humans, and he wanted us to discuss it.

This was really not something I wanted my colleagues to discuss in my presence, at the dinner after my very first research talk, when I was the only woman at the table. I wanted us to talk about the subject of my talk, namely Mordell-Weil groups of generic polarized abelian varieties, and I tried to steer the conversation in that direction.

Luckily, I've mostly managed to avoid interacting with Turtle since then, though I am concerned about his female colleagues and students, and how he treats them.

While revisiting this story still conjures up feelings of annoyance, I'm pleased that I've at last reached the stage where I can look back on it with mild amusement.

"Dr. & Mrs. K"

When the Princeton University math department had an event or threw a party, the staff put an invitation into the cubbyhole of each faculty member and grad student, with their name on it. Everyone except me, that is.

K once returned from a trip to find in his pigeonhole an invitation to a party for math faculty and grad students, that had taken place while he was away. It was addressed to "Dr. & Mrs. K". Since he was a postdoc, K's pigeonhole was in a room marked "Faculty Only", so I wasn't allowed in (and I couldn't sneak in since the graduate secretary's desk was right outside the door). I didn't go to the party since I hadn't known about it.

I went to the department office and asked why all the other grad students got such notifications and not me, and was told the department was saving paper. I pointed out that I wouldn't necessarily find out about something before it happened, if K were traveling. This didn't bother the secretary. Pleading that I had as much right as any other math grad student to have an announcement in my box, with my name on it, led her to think of me as a radical feminist and a troublemaker.

The pattern continued at Ohio State, though the salutation was sometimes different. To welcome me to the faculty when I accepted the job offer, an OSU professor (who later became my Dean) sent a letter addressed to Profs. A/B (where A and B were K's and my last names), Department of Mathematics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. Why he thought we shared a mailbox or should receive shared mail is anyone's guess. In addition, I wasn't a professor (I didn't yet have a PhD), and K didn't have an appointment or mailbox at Princeton University at that time. Somehow it made its way to me, since I have the letter.