Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

Two phrases from a classic film will ease your way around campus and throughout your career here.


The movie "Chinatown" ends with two lines as forlorn as Oscar-winning scriptwriter Robert Towne could make them. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), who has just witnessed a police killing in service of avarice and power, mutters, "as little as possible," the phrase that the L. A. prosecutor had used to tell Gittes what to do in Chinatown. Gittes' associate Walsh muscles Gittes away from the death scene with the memorable "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

I respectfully suggest that colleagues use the mantras "as little as possible" and "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." to address conditions they may never redress. The phrases may be defeatist, cynical, or fatalistic. However, these two mantras will get colleagues past irrational decision-making and crass favoritism and myriad other vices of academic life.

Take the young colleague who asked me, "Doesn't the university support scholarship and publication?" As little as possible.

The university luxuriates in mostly imagined glories from accomplishments of faculty but supports research and scholarship minimally. Bequests and donations keep support from being entirely rhetorical, but such support mostly falls on the university rather than wells up from within the university. Almost all support for scholarship is honorific. In multiple senses of the term, support for scholarship is cheap. You need support to execute researches that you were promised you could pursue? Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

Sound too cynical? Look at "The Open Line,"* the newsletter by which the university's PR flacks keep the community informed about the accomplishments of faculty and staff. Ignore the few entries that seem to be genuine accomplishments. [Many of them are only apparent accomplishments, but do not let that concern you.] Now assay the remaining majority of entries. Tenure-seeking self-promoters tout minuscule feats as attainments. Would-be experts report recent interviews by media whose provenance is unknown and whose prominence may be doubted. If faculty had less pathetic accomplishments to report, would the "Noteworthy" section be so unworthy? "The Open Line" imparts new meaning to the phrase "minimum publishable unit." What items are not reproduced in "The Open Line?" As little as possible.

Still unconvinced? Find a report of colleagues tenured, promoted, or reviewed in a given year. Now search the Internet to see what accomplishments those colleagues claim on their resumes. If the university sincerely values academic excellence, how did this person get tenure without a peer-reviewed publication? If the university earnestly demands academic accomplishments, how did that person become a "Distinguished Professor" with nary a substantial scholarly credential? To be sure, the university consistently embraces scholarly achievement, but the university also embraces an absence of scholarly achievement. As a result, many faculty publish as little as possible.

Maybe the curricula vitarum are selective and the most impressive scholarly achievements are not yet listed? And maybe it's Chinatown.

Given that Puget Sound supports scholarship as little as possible, a naif might expect support to be directed to the most productive scholars and worthiest projects. Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown. If track records mattered, those rationing support for research would demand a Curriculum Vitae with applications for support. At the University of Puget Clowns, we ask that applicants not provide a resume. Could the University of Puget Clowns [© Susan Resneck Pierce] be clearer that it's Chinatown?

Multiple colleagues have held named chairs despite decades or careers largely bereft of publication. As little as possible indeed.

When a colleague is feted for a book about which he or she has been talking and getting rewarded for decades, don't ask why it took so long or other questions. Just mumble to yourself, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

When a colleague coming up for evaluation quickly publishes a book with a flimsy press, it is impolite to comment on the press or the absence of peer reviews before or after publication. The colleague is after all merely living the Puget Clowns motto: as little as possible.

Look up this blog's "Scoundrels and Frauds" from 18 May 2009. A member of the faculty said nearly despondently of graduation, "I am happy to attend for the kids but usually dislike the speeches. The speeches are high-minded. I get inspired then look around and see so many scoundrels and frauds sitting near me. I feel soiled, but say nothing. The hypocrisy bothers me." Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown!

So what to do? Teach your students, read and learn, and, if you're serious about research, look for another place at which to do it. But do not even think about service, accreditation, or faculty governance unless you can keep in mind as little as possible.

You expect administrators, colleagues, committees, schools, departments, or programs to approximate their ideals or to redeem their promises or to deliver what they talked about while recruiting you? Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

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*In this blog, "The Open Line" is usually called "The Open Manhole," for it leads to sewage. See "Lifting the Manhole Cover," 14 March 2009 for my parody of "The Open Line."