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Preface

T. h,.e idea for d. ding thi.s rese. arch re. ally g~lle~ af~er I audited · a couple of courses •for my· own .continumg mterest and . education. In two different semesters I sat in on a course·· offered in other departments, so naturally I went to class regu- larly, did course readings, and occasionally raised my han:d.to ask questions like everyone else in class. I discovered that in doing so I inherited a sort of transactional· $tude:nt identity. That is, because I related to the teacher as if I were a student, and behaved as students do, my defaulfidentitybecame that of a student.. I found out quite unwittingly that if) walkeq Jike' a duck and quacked like a duck ... then people thoughtl'was a

. duck. My fellow students began sharing opinions and gossip with me thatJ would never hea~ as a professor.

That was the beginning of my realization: that;. even after my fiftieth birthday, I could still be a student, anci'be treated by. other students as,' more or less, a peer. This new identity seemed essential· to my budding researCh idea. While ·others. had successfully studied campus life as professors, I wanted to see the campus thn;mgh stu~ent eyes to the extent that was pos- sible. I certainly did not wantto relate to my classmates or resi-

. dence hall mates or professors under a professorial identity. It ' was dramatically.apparent to me that·I.heard a very different set of conversatidl:ls when I audited cla~ses than'when I taught

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• th~m, and I d:ldn't warit my research to digress into the often . scripted dialogues that characterize professor-:student .· dis-

course. I felt that the world I wanted to penetrate would be pre- chl.de.d .if I were simply an interested professor"doing re- search" on . students. I decided ·then to become a •· student by 'formally applying to the university, by registering for and tak- ing courses, ·and by moving into a dorm~hence setting the stage to view· undergraduate life as both ·an observer- interviewer and a participant. ·

A book abotlt a professor who goes back to school as a fresh~ . man at her own university.,-not telling anyone that she's a pro-

. . ' fessor-raises many questions, especially for ethnographers

· and students of ethnography. Can an anthropologist legiti- . mately go "undercover"? Pid the researcher lie to people about who she was? Did the university give her permission to do this? How did she deal with the requirem.ents of her Institu- . tionaL Research Boar.d? Did anyone discover, her real identity? And. then·there are methodological and presentational ques- tions. Can a researcher who hasnotfully disclosed her identity

.record· any of her own personal experiences in;her field notes? Anythffig that anyone has said·in her presence? Can she pub-· lish these accounts?. As one reviewer .of the manuscript sug-

. gested, ethnography should rely primarily onwhat natives say and ·how they say"·it. V\7hy1 then,· are some chapters of· this e1:1:1.llogra,phy replete with quotations while others are thick with the authorrs own narrative? To add to the quandary is the question of arionymit)r. After much deliberation, 1 ~hose in the . erid to identify neither my university nor my own name. How is the reader to make sense of these choices? · ·

Although 1 address some ·of these questions in the text, I want togive·fuller.play to these issues for those who wish to know more. I have done so in an appended afterWord, titled "Ethics arid Ethnography/' where I discuss, among other things, my decision to write this book about "AnyU," an in- vented acronym, .under apseU:donym/'RebekahNathan."

. Such adecision complicates thillgs, everythingfrotrithe au~ thor's ability to respond to acadelnic critiq11e to her personal

P·REFACE xi

• '· ' j

acknowledgments. To keep my identity unknown, I can send my thank-you's only to first names: to L1nda, Kay, and Claudia for their early feedback and encouragement on the manuscript; to Dick for his brave arid trusting facilitation of my classroom research; to Arin, from public radio, who helped me chioniele

· and reflect on rriy own experiences; to Phyllis for her year-long support and patience through . my dorm e~perience; to my ·

. niece Rebekah arid my nephew Nathan, both future college stu.,. dents, who lent ·me their names; and for the· wonderful· stu- dents at AnyU, who tutored, advised, helped, arid inspired me . as a student ·

There is one person I can fhank with a full name. I owe a spe- cial debt of gratitude to Frances Benson, editor at Cornell Uni-. versity Press. Our relationship is the sort one envisions authors and editors to have but they rarely do-a cooperative, genera- tive, horiest, and ongoing relationship that feeds the creative process. When the research behind this book was justa vague idea in my mind; Fran satwith ine in Washington, D.C., for hours, listening, finally ~rging me to take the risk of breaking with my.lifelong research. agenda and m~wing forward with this ethnography. When this book was just an outline, Fran m:et me in New York City to discuss its development. When it was a completed manuscript, she slogged with me through issues of anonymity, which can be so troublesome to an academic press. ~ May every professor who writes a.boo:k find such an editor an<f, intellectual partner. . ·