L. M. Freer

musings on the fourth year/alternative careers

April 16, 2010

Today, my doctoral program’s student association sponsored a “Workshop on University Administration and Other Non-Teaching Careers.” I hadn’t intended to go. Today was my first stop by the Graduate Center in about ten days, and I really had come in simply to run errands: print a few items, file for travel reimbursement, etcetera. But a friend was going, so I tagged along — and honestly, I’m so glad I did.

Is it hubris, to say that I want a job like Joe’s? ‘Cause I do. I adore teaching, and I’m pretty darn good at it. But I’m at my best when I have a slate of different sorts of tasks to accomplish, when teaching is one piece of a larger portfolio. I like to create. (The videography I currently do for Macaulay is quite satisfying, because it feels so tangible to me.) I also like to lead. (My AmeriCorps supervisor once said during a review, “Face it, Lindsey, you’re a leader.” At the time I was caught off-guard. I hadn’t thought of myself that way. I thought of myself as forward-thinking, and someone who liked to take on new challenges, but I didn’t really see myself as the vanguard of a bigger community. Since then I have tried to think critically about what leadership is, and how it can be deployed effectively. And while I definitely have much to learn, I think I’m growing into a leadership style that might work well both inside and outside of the university.) And I like to think about how universities work–something which my service record at the Graduate Center most assuredly demonstrates. (It’s going to be a relief to give up my service commitments at the end of this term, and spend a year in close company with my dissertation. But I have gained a heck of a lot from that work–not the least of which is an abiding interest in the structural features of institutions, and how they can be made to work better.)

Given these characteristics, as well as a certain amount of techie geekitude (in this I am aided and abetted by my sweetheart, who keeps plying me with delectable science fiction, as well as the odd bit of database programming knowledge), becoming a Central ITF this year was a deeply gratifying move. And as I muse on what I want to do in my fourth year in this fellowship, I can come up with a list of specific technical skills I’d like to develop (*cough* I want to learn how to do Jeff’s thing with the servers, as well as how to write a WPMU plug-in. And I’m going to get the sweetie to teach me Perl), but I also want to work on further refining my leadership style, and on working with various constituencies within and outside of Macaulay. I think my question for the fourth year is: how can I bring groups of people together to accomplish new things?

So given that I have all of these interests and concerns outside of my scholarship–and given, too, that I hope to move to a particular region of the world in the summer of 2011, PhD in hand or not–it turned out to be probably the best Friday afternoon I’ve spent at the Graduate Center in ages. The three speakers–Tom Harford, Dan Porterfield, and Peter Taback–were all English PhD alumni, and are currently working in university administration, though Taback, at least, has also worked in the nonprofit world (most recently at amfAR). And while the message each of the three gave was slightly different, I gained quite a lot from what every one of them had to say.

Taback, the first speaker, emphasized two things that recurred in the other two talks. One, you need to be your own best advocate, and make an argument for the relevance of your doctoral study no matter what field you enter. And two, that the training an English PhD receives results in a unique ability to understand and manipulate narrative, and that that is something that is almost universally transferrable (if, of course, you can make your case). It was flattering to be told that I know how to tell stories better than a lot of the population (even if it sounded a little bit like what we say to undergraduates who want to know what you can do with a B.A. in English. *cough* Cue the Avenue Q song, please). The truth is, I think that the more time you spend reading and thinking about stories, the more you know how to work with narrative to achieve your goals. It doesn’t have to happen in an institutional setting, but the rituals of academia do help reinforce that knowledge. At the very least, I think that in graduate school you begin to better understand that universities have narratives too, and that you can be a part of how those are constructed. You can influence the story of anything, if you’re in a job where they’ll let you at it. Taback’s positive energy was ever so slightly contagious–it was about at this point that I was glad to be in the room. And his obvious belief that the payoff is worth it made me feel slightly more optimistic about my murky future.

The second speaker was Tom Harford, who probably gave the best examples of “how to get a foot in the door” of the three alumni. And he reminded me that developing new interests and new skills is never a bad thing. While he emphasized that you should choose “what creates a fire in your belly,” that you should do what you have passion for–and not to consider administrative jobs “consolation prizes” for those who don’t “make it” on the tenure-track job market gauntlet–he also discussed his ability to get a lot of work “by accident.” And I think that part of that was about allowing his varied interests to emerge as they would, without shutting something off in favor of a single-minded, “I WILL HAVE TENURE” sort of perspective.

The final speaker, Dan Porterfield, probably had the most circuitous route to his current position–having found his way back to Georgetown via positions within the federal government. He mentioned in passing that if he were younger he’d be intrigued by the idea of trying to get a job in the Obama administration–something I have to admit I considered for a while, myself. But he also said something that the other two speakers didn’t emphasize as much, and it was good to hear it: graduate study is intrinsically valuable. It may also become instrumentally valuable as part of a larger career path, to be sure, be that a faculty career or something else. But the education itself, the degree itself, it has a value all its own.

I can’t really find a good way to explain just how helpful it was to be reminded of all of these things. I knew some of them before I walked in the door. But I left feeling affirmed in ways that I rarely do at the Graduate Center. (Which isn’t an indictment of anyone. I have a great dissertation director, a solid committee, and good working relationships and friendships around the building. But sometimes I think people don’t think I need positive feedback. Everyone needs mentoring.) I was 22 when I began the doctoral program in English. I’ll be 29 in a few weeks. So much has changed in that time frame. My own career goals are completely different from when I began. I didn’t really know enough about myself back at the beginning–certainly not enough to be able to determine what I might like to do when I was finished with my degree. I had been shaped by my undergraduate professors into the near-perfect, ready-for-graduate-school package. But now, as I think about my future, I haven’t got overwhelming tenure-track priorities. Sure, it’d be nice. But there’s so much more that’s important to me besides that. There are more skills I want to develop. More challenges I want to take on. And as I think about the near future–and what will likely (though not absolutely) be my final year as a technology fellow at Macaulay–I want to make sure that I remain committed to growing and learning and being a positive force for change, however small.

Today really was the push out of the Slough of Despond that I’d been seeking.

Entry Filed under: Dissertation,Macaulay,Pedagogy,Rants. Posted in  Dissertation ,Macaulay ,Pedagogy ,Rants .