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, October 3, 2021

"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.