Changing Roles

At Texas Tech, I became aware that I was the Colonel Hogan of the department. In Hogan's Heroes, Colonel Hogan was the senior Prisoner of War, so he was the leader of the Allied prisoners, seeking to undermine the buffoonish Germans led by Colonel Klink.

As I was the senior assistant professor for my last couple of years, I was one of the leaders of the reasonable junior faculty who had to manage the Chair of the department, who had been appointed by the dean, as well as the tenured professors.

Now that I am at McGill, I am no longer a junior member of the department, but I am among the most senior of the Associate Professors. I am also no longer the leader of the pack, but, instead, my formal seniority and plus my tendency to blog about things (among other behaviors) make me perhaps Colonel Crittendon--the British officer who was technically senior to Hogan and would undermine the efforts of Hogan and the gang through his own inept escape attempts.

I am not too sure how I feel about this realization.

For illustration, see below. Of course, finding a German version of HH on youtube was just too ironic: