I was really good at being a graduate student.  After seven years and two degrees from the same University, I had served on about every committee there was to serve on, I knew the ins of outs of my department, I knew the undergraduate catalog, the graduate catalog, I knew the best place to get coffee on campus, the best time to tune into the college radio station, and which office assistant to ask when I needed a favor at the last minute.  I was very literate in the discourse of graduate student life, yet I now find myself starting over; on the one hand this is very exciting, and on the other it’s terrifying.

I am almost done with my first semester as an Assistant Professor.  When people ask how I’m settling in I usually give that canned “oh, fine” response, when really, the past fifteen weeks have been a blur. I look back and think that those were fifteen weeks I should’ve gotten two articles out the door, fifteen weeks I should’ve wowed my students with my pedagogical brilliance, fifteen weeks I should’ve started on grant proposals and had members of my department over for dinner.  Instead, I’m still surprised everytime someone calls me Dr. or Professor, I just found three boxes I haven’t upacked yet, and I got lost in the Library again last week. Yes, again.

I had great professional development as a graduate student, and in many ways I did feel prepared for this move from graduate student to professor, but there were many things I wasn’t expecting. Cheryl and I put together this series of interviews and advice given the questions, fears, and successes we’ve had as we move through our time as Assistant Professors.  Given that I’m a newcomer, my perspective and line of questioning is a bit different than Cheryl’s.  I currently find that I am focused on the following:

Where did my community go?
One of the hardest adjustments I’m making is the sudden lack of community I’m faced with as a professor. While there is one other person here who does roughly what I do, and another five who are in the ballpark, it’s not like we have classes or workshops together.  I find that most of my intellectual time (when I have it) is now spent alone in my office.  I desperately miss Friday afternoon dissertation meetings where four other graduate students and myself would workshop ideas over two dollar pints. I’m unsure if one rebuilds such a community over time, or if I’m suddenly an island whose only outlet is publishing and conference presentations—this is something that mildly terrifies me. I loved graduate school because I enjoyed sharing ideas with people, listening to people think, and learning communally.  I feel a bit like I’ve entered a machine where I alone must generate brilliance and spit it out into the field in the shape of a publishable piece.  Academic journals feel much less like two dollar pint conversations and much more like asserting an authoritative ethos of certainty, but that’s the life I’ve chosen isn’t it?  A life where I’m told to quit hedging and act like I know something. And I guess I do know something, but it felt much more enriching to gather with my peers and discuss ideas than it does to share my ideas with the blinding white screen of Microsoft Word. I have slowly begun creating a community of new faculty from across campus, and this is enjoyable, but not quite the same as someone who immediately knows what I’m talking about when I start muttering about Burke or the New London Group. I’m hopeful that somehow I can rekindle the spirit of two-dollar pint Fridays.

Where did my time go?
I was one of those weird graduate students who would work from 8-5 and do my best to not take work home with me. This is unusual I realize, but because of my belief in a balanced life I really did my best to make it work.  By the time I was at the end of my graduate career, I was teaching classes I had taught numerous times before so most of my time was spent working on the dissertation in that my prep time was greatly reduced.  This has radically changed.  While I only have a two/two load this year, over the course of the academic year I have four new preps.  The time I’ve put into prepping two new courses this semester has been astronomical and I imagine next semester will be no different.  I also got in over my head with the amount of written work I have assigned both of my classes. While I truly believe in the theory behind my practice, the time I’ve put into grading is excessive.  This, in part, is coming from my desire to have students rave over my teaching. I want my department to believe that they’ve purchased a good product in me, but I’m not sure twenty hours of grading a week is really going to make much difference in this regard. I’m realizing quickly that I might need to change my priorities a bit, because that’s twenty hours I’m not even remotely thinking about publishing, which leads me to:

Where did my luxury of thinking time go?
During my final year of graduate school, I spent most of my days writing, researching, and/or discussing my dissertation with people.  It was a year where I had the luxury of delving deeply into an issue without the distractions of advising appointments, new course preps, and department meetings. I like some of these distractions, but I’m finding it difficult to block off time where I can just sit down with my ideas and work.  I feel like this weight of publish or perish is hanging over me, and I’m unsure of how to fit this in without damaging my marriage or my health—things that take priority over all.  This isn’t to say I’m not doing any work in this regard, but I really would like my scholarship to feel less like an exercise in survival and more like a rich intellectual pursuit.  Maybe I’m kidding myself and maybe this whole machine that is the academy is simply a series of hoop jumping, but I’d like to feel some joy as I jump.

 

While these three questions above do nag at me, I must admit I’m feeling fairly level headed about it all.  When Cheryl and I begin this project in early Autumn I was feeling panicked, but since I’ve read, watched, and listened to the advice of our interviewees, I’m feeling a bit reassured.  I’ve been reminded to remember that my committee knew what they were doing when they granted me a Ph.D., and that the hiring committee knew what they were doing when they offered me the job. The many voices here have encouraged me to try and take in my new surroundings and give myself a bit of a break for not being the image I have of a perfect professor. For now, I vow to be happy if I can find my way out of the Library.