On the peril of humor in academics (or the context really matters)
My sense of humor is terrible.
My first wife once commented it was a reason she divorced me. I always thought it was a typical barb thrown out in divorce anger. I preferred to think she just didn’t get me.
Truth be told.
My sense of humor is really terrible.
Even if you are funny, I’ve come to realize that there are times where humor is helpful and times it is not - particularly in an academic career.
A good joke in class can set a positive tone for the entire semester.
Self-effacing humor can make a professor feel approachable and bridge the Gen X - millennial/z gap - resulting in better questions & visitors during office hours.
A comic can lighten up a lecture.
However, humor is often problematic for academics.
Why?
Common sense - many of us don’t have much - how many Michael Scott ‘that’s what she said!’ Jokes have you heard?
Controversy - we serve so many audiences, the ambiguity inherent in jokes, make it easy to misstate or stir a pot.
Curation - many jokes don’t age well - many people would not tell the same jokes today as they did 20 years ago.
Beyond the three C’s, humor can be problematic when used in conversations with power differentials.
When I look back at my career, often I have felt the discomfort captured in this scale all to often.
The joke that an endowed chair made about where is your solo authored paper, as I submitted my tenure packet, sent me into a spiral for a week.
The joke told by the dept chair about catching faculty misconduct, politely laughing, and wondering what the hell was going on.
The joke by the Provost whose punchline was you can’t please everyone but you can make everyone angry, generating a polite laugh & withdrawal cognitions.
Jokes just aren’t a good idea when power is involved.
And even more so when between an advisor & an advisee.
What may seem funny to the advisor, can cause a lot of pain for the student.
So what to do?
Use humor sparingly, whether you are funny or not.
Remember that jokes don’t age well - esp. about people or politics.
Be mindful of how jokes make people feel, and that varies with the context.
And be kind if you must tell them, no one likes being the butt of a joke, esp if shared with a group.
There is a place for humor in the academy - just be smart about when and how you use it!
See awesome humor research here: https://lnkd.in/eKEnfYvm
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