WHY, after all those years in graduate school, and the scholarships granted by my more hopeful advisors, did I turn out so many cartoons, and so few contributions to social science research?
ANSWER: If you show someone your serious research, you will get back pages and pages of advice as to how you could and should revise it. This will happen even if that someone likes what you have produced. In contrast, if you show someone a cartoon, and he/she likes it, you will get a laugh. And if the recipient thinks the cartoon is pointless crap, you will never know. The psychological advantages are obvious.
WHAT are the cartoons good for?
ANSWER: with luck, comic relief. And, as in the case of the first collection, they can be used to lighten the mood of a commitee meeting, focus a discussion, or make a textbook more appealing. For those who have some such purpose in mind, the cartoons have been arranged in specific categories. (See ‘A Quick Guide to the Cartoons’.)
WHO should get credit for inspiring these cartoons?
ANSWER: almost everybody I’ve ever called a friend, but especially William B. Hixson, Jr., Professor of History at
Michigan State University, my husband/companion for many, many years. Thank you all!
Vivian Scott Hixson
About the author
During many years as a part-time, temporary, adjunct and assistant professor at Michigan State University, Vivian Scott Hixson has produced hundreds of cartoons commenting on the academic scene. Described as ‘brilliantly perceptive’ ‘on-target humor’, they have often appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and have been widely re-printed in textbooks and newsletters. The earlier cartoons were re-published as a collection, He Looks Too Happy to Be an Assistant Professor, by the University of Missouri Press in 1995. This second collection makes the more recent cartoons
available to all.
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