Painful Discussion

Elaine Elion has always been someone that I've feared.

Not because she's a tough professor, a ball buster of sorts. That, I can deal with. She's the opposite.

My first impression of her (and only one prior to today) came from beginning of the last semester. It was an organizational meeting and she was the course head. The course itself was designed to critically read and discuss papers. Of course, being newly admitted students, we had no idea what to expect. We had a lot of questions and was a bit intimidated by the format. We went to the meeting hoping that it will provide some clarification as to what's expected of us, logistical details, etc.

Man were we wrong. Personally, I only learned one helpful thing during that meeting -- Elaine Elion cannot do anything because she doesn't have an assistant. Since the class basically comprised of reading 2-3 papers per section, one student had asked if she can just xerox all of those papers into a handy little packet for all of us. It took Elaine 10 minutes to explain to us that she can't do it...because she doesn't have an assistant. Now, half an hour after class, we all receive an email. Apparently, one of our classmates had printed out the papers and made the copies for us. It's already ready for pick-up at the BBS administration office.

So today was my second encounter with Elaine. For the discussion, we were assigned two papers to read about telomerase. These are classic papers. One showed that overexpression of telomerase was required to immortalized cells and create tumors. The other had knocked out telomerase and showed that it wasn't required for cell line immortalization and tumor formation. On the outset, these papers are supposed to generate a lot of discussion. It's rare to find papers that take such pointed approaches and have such diabolically different results. Based on these papers, we're supposed to argue if telomerase makes a good target for cancer therapy.

So Elaine lead the discussion, and the activity level was dominant negative! (har har, bio pun completely intended) It was so quite. Now, my group is normally pretty active. This time, we were so quiet.

A good discussion leader will asked thought-provoking questions, that are open-ended. This way, others in the group will talk and there will be some verbal volleying. Elaine, on the other hand, asked VERY pointed questions, but in a very passive-aggressive manner.

Worst of all, there are moments where I think she has literally fallen asleep. There would be these pauses that are just way too long. Completely awkward silences. Ones where the sound of breathing may be too disruptive.

I can't deal with people like Elaine.