It's March 15
th and that start of my Spring Break -- maybe the start of a whole new "post-dissertation" life. March 15
th is the first day of the old Roman calendar and the first day of Roman spring (our Western spring is still a week away -- though the sunshine and 62 degree weather today seems to belie this arbitrary date). Of course, as an English major, I must mention that this is a great opportunity for anyone to read Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar, since today is also, perhaps most notably, the date in 44BC when Julius Caesar was betrayed and violently kill
ed by a colleague and friend ("
Et tu, Brute?").
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Clearly, Caesar had a lot more to "ware" than me...
I thought it fitting to muse, at least a minute today, about what a post-life might be -- what a post-life might feel like... maybe it'll help raise my spirits and nudge me over the finish line. Because, right now, the "end" seems far, far away -- even sitting this close to the "finish line." In fact, some days, the coveted Ph.D. seems less an inevitability than it does some sort of bizarro fantasy I've made up in my own mind. One chapter that must be revised this weekend, and another to finish this week... meanwhile, the April 7th defense looms closer and closer.
So -- what will it be like? A real job... no more cobbling together three paychecks -- one big (as Rochelle likes to put it) "grown-up paycheck." Ahhhh... cool, huh? But paychecks aside... I've made "grown-up" money before; I've had another very "real" career before... the real difference in what we do as GTAs -- as adjuncts -- as P/T tutors, freelance writers, and "emerging" (what a backhanded euphemism) scholars is very different from the lives we'll have as "real," gainfully F/T employed Ph.D.s. And the main difference has to do with respect. Not money. Though, again, that doesn't hurt in the respect department, I'm sure.
No, it's not the respect that a Ph.D. after your name will bring (though that doesn't hurt -- obviously) that makes the biggest difference when you have the "grown-up" job. It's not the respect that a "real" paycheck affords you. And, believe it or not, it's not the respect you earn because you no longer have (as many) worries about meeting all of your financial obligations.
Having a "grown-up" job suggests that YOU were chosen --- better yet, you earned a position in the company, university, or college. This is a very different reality than my current experience as a GTA. It seems, in my world, at least, that being a GTA implies you have been "given" something; you haven't earned it (though you have), and you sure weren't chosen (though you were). This mentality has created an awkward situation that makes this "dual" life we lead as instructors (not professors, note -- but something more, perhaps, than mere "teachers") and pseudo-students. In many instances, our professors are working with new scholars who will be (in theory at least) their academic peers in (seriously) a matter of months. Yet they feel (as most humans do) a need to justify their positions, reiterate their tenured superiority, and make their fragile egos feel just a little bit better. It's a conundrum, I admit. And I'm sure it doesn't feel any better on the "Dr." side of this relationship, but I can only speak from this side today.
I've decided that it is this awkwardness that what runs off
ABDs to sub-par F/T jobs. It's why the dissertation becomes an underground, closeted activity. What this year or two (or four -- yep, four! It's the reason I defied convention, kept my
GTA position, and stayed "put" writing) of virtual "invisibility" provides the
ABD is an opportunity to gracefully segue into the position of peer to his or her mentors and professors. It's a time of readjustment. Mental replacement. It gives everyone time to move the former "student" into a new category --
Ph.D. -- and therefore just as important (though an
nontenured novice, no doubt -- an
issue for a future blog, I'm sure). Those of us who stay put, doggedly determined to finish without the "real" job -- but not THE job -- distractions, we face a completely different sort of
prejudice and discrimination. And, I've recently decided, our very existence makes it harder for the
new doctoral students (and recently named candidates) coming up in the ranks behind us.
Our department, for example, recently decided that GTAs would no longer be allowed to work outside of the institution. School work, they feel, is suffering, because too many students are stretched too thin. They're right. I agree. But what disturbs me here -- and, you should know, even in the "worst-case-scenario" of my dissertating life, this new policy will not affect me (I'll be gone by the fall when it is implemented) -- what disturbs me is the lack of respect this decision suggests that our faculty has for us. It's as though the last four years of hard work, sleepless nights, overachieving, and true scholarship suddenly means zip. Sure -- they can say that's it's for (or even because of) the "newbies," but you and I know that this sort of huge decision does not happen overnight or without overwhelming support behind it.
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Yes, too many doctoral students choose to work far too much (damn the bill-collectors who don't care about your academic dreams!), yet even more students produce slip-shod work as a result of their overwhelming outside obligations (family, kids, church, volunteer work, television, sheer laziness -- all of these distractions and more account for poor performance across the board). The new rule will do nothing to improve the level of work from these students, so does the department not care about non-GTAs, or are there bigger issues at play? I suggest the latter is true.
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Now, to be clear, our department has explained that they are worried that our work is suffering because we are so overworked. They care about us -- they want to see us succeed, right? Well, my problem with their faulty logic here is two-fold.
First, many doctoral students choose to NOT be GTAs for a host of legitimate reasons -- many that are working full-time elsewhere already. I've been in classes with these students (most of whom have complex family obligations too boot), and I can speak from personal experience when I tell you that their work is just as likely, indeed MORE likely I'd argue, to suffer than the average GTA's work.
In fact, most GTAs come closer (in age and in terms of outside, traditional "family" obligations) than our non-GTA classmates in fitting a "traditional" student mold that it seems our faculty wish we all fit (you know, that poor student who lives on campus and clandestinely tends bar at night at a off-color, cool hot-spot --- you know, one who dresses like his or her students and who functions brilliantly on beer and 3 hours of sleep a night).
GTAs, though not traditionally "traditional," are engaged, everyday, with our academic lives. We work, teach, study, and "live" (though not literally) on campus. Our pitiful shared offices become a tenuous sanctuary. We attend conferences, we publish, we sub for one another, we rarely miss classes --except for the occasional out-of-town event, and we are the students who apply for and receive the graduate and departmental scholarships. We finish, generally speaking, our course work faster, and we actually graduate while faculty and our fellow students still recognize our names. Yet, somehow, we are being called on the carpet -- punished for our efforts and continued attempts to live up to an unfair expectation professionalism placed on us by our college. Bizarro, indeed.
Second, if it is course work that is, allegedly, suffering, then why, I ask, why aren't our grades suffering? If the time has come for such drastic program-altering measures, why haven't we been seeing a host of "Cs" or even "Fs"? We rarely even hear of a "B" in our program. You might argue that I couldn't possibly know who's making what in their courses, but as an "A" average is a prereq for taking comps -- and no one, in my memory has been denied the opportunity to take their comprehensive exams, then this suggests that we, as a group, are maintaining an "A" average --right? In fact, those who drop out of the program or start and never finish to the point of taking comps at all -- are, without exception, always NON-GTAs.
I say, give ALL students the grades they EARN -- and let them decide what must go and/or what their own priorities must be. Last I checked, I am a tax-paying citizen of the USA, and as such, I am allowed to make my own decisions -- however bad other people might think them. How is this situation any different than in Communist countries where, in order to keep your job, you have to sign a "pledge" to the government? Sure, in theory, one could leave -- but with what other reasonable options? It is a nasty trap (especially for those "citizens" who began their work under a different regime) -- one that is, at its core, as undemocratic as the more extreme Communist example above. I'm not saying that our department is full of hating Communists either; I'm just suggesting that once you begin to take away freedom of choice -- it's a "hop, skip, and a jump" over to the dark side. And I've heard many of these same professors bemoan the fate of the country because of the Bush Administration's tendency to do this same thing. Patriot Act, anyone? How is this any different?
So, how does any department justify demanding that students (but -- only GTAs, remember) limit their work life to your institution, when these same students continue to receive "As"? After all, it's not our teaching that is at issue here (presumably we are "on track" in this regard, as we are evaluated regularly)... it's the level of doctoral work we're not producing that is, supposedly, the impetus for this illegal, illogical, and "not gonna make a difference" rule.
Fact: GTAs only make up a small percentage of our program's graduate students... what do then will they do about the other 50% of the doctoral students who already have full-time jobs while being full-time doctoral students (a recipe for disaster, according to our department)? Do we no longer accept gainfully employed individuals into our program at all -- assuming, incorrectly I'd argue, that they cannot produce work that is "up to par"? Do we tell students they can't have babies, get married, or fall in love while working on the doctorate? Each of these things happen regularly, and all of these result in distracted (at least temporarily) students.
In my opinion, it all comes down to respect. We are "just students" -- and, as such, we have placed our lives squarely in the hands of our degree granting institution. Now, I should explain that all of this would be irrelevant if, as they do at other universities, we were paid more, required to work as GTAs, and our tuition was covered as part of our stipend. Instead, we pay full tuition, we make 20% less as GTAs than any other GTAs in our DFW area, and we teach 2 classes per semester, as opposed to the DFW area average of only one per semester.
Furthermore, we are not allowed to teach anything besides composition courses (though we are NOT a comp/rhetoric program) -- and even in the final stages of our dissertations, we are not provided an opportunity to teach courses in our (supposed) specialty areas. For this reason alone, many GTAs teach outside the university so they WILL have the chance to teach the very course that, one day soon, they hope to teach in their "grown-up" jobs. Moreover, we have 1-2 meetings as GTAs per semester -- and these are "policy and procedure" meetings, not "training" meetings or workshops. There is very little short-term pay-off for the high price we pay. I'm still hoping for the long-term pay-off, of course.
Now, why, you might ask, would anyone in their right mind choose then to voluntarily place themselves in such a situation? Well, convenience is a major factor (to the area, or the convenience of spending -- by necessity -- so much time wandering the halls with your doctoral committee, or even the convenience of having your own -- limited-- space in a cubicle area with your peers). Me? I chose the program for the very freedoms that, just this week, have been taken away from us: respect and freedom -- two words indelibly linked, I believe.
I wanted the freedom to pay my own bill -- and therefore maintain complete authority over my own life (because in this way, I admit, money DOES equal respect). In my experience when people perceive that they are GIVING you something, they generally ask for an unreasonable return. Sometimes I'm willing to give in, but in this case, I have to work (GTA stipend does not pay my bills; hell, it doesn't pay my tuition).
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Additionally, the university, originally at least, catered to a non-traditional older student -- one who did have family obligations, bills to pay, and the self-discipline REQUIRED FOR ANY GROWN-UP -- that is, the discipline necessary in order to work more than one job and successfully balance school with the existing mix of family, et.al.. And the university encouraged that.
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We are not an R1 (or R2 for that matter) institution. Our department is part of a small "arts and sciences" college that is a small part of a larger institution that caters to the
applied sciences. The bulk of our university's students are occupational, physical, and speech therapists. They are studying
kinesiology, family therapy, and health studies.
They are NOT liberal arts majors. These are the reasons that were given to me when I asked (five years ago) about the very small
GTA stipend, the lack of fellowships, the high cost of our unsubsidized tuition. And yet now our department is acting as though they have suddenly -- overnight mind you -- become a selective R1 facility --- one that can pick and choose among a list of eligible candidates. This is simply not the case.
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Add to this reality the sad fact that, apparently, even our "closest" advisers considered this new "rule" a "compromise" (after all -- you may apply for "permission" to teach up to one class elsewhere -- or to work 10 hours a week somewhere else; otherwise, your GTA contract won't be renewed). Have those senior among us not proven what good students are capable of accomplishing? Have we not proven that juggling is possible? That maintain a high level of professionalism is attainable? We won't suffer for the new rule as much (or as long) as others among us -- but we feel slighted just the same. Surely someone stood up for our rights?? Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.
Several
GTAs have already turned in notice for next fall. They'll cobble together jobs
adjuncting or tutoring at several institutions, and still finish ahead of their never-been-
GTAs peers. I'll have moved on -- somewhere, somehow. Wounded from this most recent
experience in loss of freedom and respect, but standing nonetheless. The defense can't come soon enough. And the "real" job --
ahhhhhh... even a slight increase in respect will seem downright decadent.
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Come to think of it -- maybe Caesar didn't have more to "ware" than us. At least HE got stabbed in the back -- to his face.
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Yes... beware the "Ides of March." It just might make dissertating bloggers ranty.
-DONNA
issue for a future blog, I'm sure). Those of us who stay put, doggedly determined to finish without the "real" job -- but not THE job -- distractions, we face a completely different sort of prejudice and discrimination. And, I've recently decided, our very existence makes it harder for the new doctoral students (and recently named candidates) coming up in the ranks behind us.
st hiding out at your local Hilton? We got SIX inches of snow yesterday, so Dave 4x4'd me over here (he's better than the USPS, clearly). This is a picture of our "pre-Hilton" snowperson (walking snowdog).
Dave is nice, and my room is even nicer.
