I haven't always been a cat person. For much of my life I preferred dogs, which are more inclined to show affection, express appreciation, and come when called. In other words, when it came to pets, I was a narcissistic control freak. Then my family adopted a large tabby named Peanut Butter from some friends who were moving and couldn't take him along. At first my relationship with this proud feline was strained, but I soon found myself admiring his independent spirit and graceful insouciance. Over time Peanut Butter and I developed what I would describe as a good working relationship: I provided him with food, water, and a warm place to sleep, and, in return, he would occasionally climb up on my lap and allow me to scratch his ears.
Perhaps that's why I was so intrigued the first time I heard the term "herding cats" in reference to managing faculty members. That was several years ago, when I was getting ready to start a new job as a department chair. About a week before I was slated to report for duty, I got a call from the departing chair inviting me to lunch. She was leaving on good terms and felt a duty to fill me in on the department and its personalities.
Predictably enough, we ended up talking mostly about the personalities, of which (it turned out) the department had quite a few. It was obvious that, while my host held her colleagues in high esteem, she also found them to be frustratingly independent at times. Toward the end of our conversation, she laughed and said, "Some days this job is like herding cats."
In the years since that lunch date, the "faculty are like cats" analogy has become a cliché. But just like "hard as nails" and "dark as night," it has attained that status precisely because it's so ridiculously self-evident.
How are college faculty members like cats? Let me count the ways.
Like cats, professors tend to be highly intelligent, deeply self-actualized, and fiercely independent. They need to be stroked occasionally, but only on their own terms and in their own good time. Mostly, they just want to be left alone to do their own thing. They might not come when called—perhaps because they're suspicious of the caller's motives—but they may
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