A Labor of Love: Growing into an Academic Identity

I defended my dissertation at the beginning of August 1989. I began my first tenure-track position at Purdue University Calumet in mid August, and by early September I was unexpectedly, but joyfully, pregnant with my first child.  So, during my first year as a tenure-track faculty member, I struggled not only with issues surrounding a “professorial” identity, but also with issues surrounding my burgeoning belly. I remember reading Jane Flax at the time who said that women can succeed in the academy—can develop a persuasive academic identity—only to the extent that they could mimic the male body: woe to the pregnant assistant professor.

Nor was my pregnancy something that I could discreetly high away until the spring semester (when discretion was impossible).  Because of my prior medical history, my pregnancy was labeled high risk, which meant that twice a week I made the trek across the Eisenhower Expressway into Presbyterian-St Luke’s Hospital, and then 50 plus miles along the Dan Ryan to Hammond, IN, and the Purdue Cal campus.  As a result, in the same month I started as an assistant professor, I had to tell my chair I was pregnant and ask my chair for dispensation for frequent absences from equally frequent meetings.  This, in addition to saltine crackers, bathroom breaks, and a well nigh irresistible desire to nap 15 (well, maybe 20) minutes out of every hour, made it abundantly clear that I was definitely not mimicking the male body.

My smooth transition into a professorial identity was further disrupted by my degree.  I graduated from Illinois State University with a Doctor of Arts, a degree that in 1989 was already being phased out at other universities and would soon morph into a PhD at ISU itself.  I walked into a combined language, literature, and philosophy department staffed by PhDs from a variety of impressive institutions. There I was, new kid on the block (who had the poor judgment to become pregnant within the first two weeks of the fall semester), with a DA, and with a DA in composition studies to boot. Soon after I was hired, at a department social, a new colleague asked if I had to complete a dissertation to get my degree.  My credentials as a scholar, thus my identity as a scholar, including my identity as a potential scholar, were suspect.

Pregnant, panicked, and pained (with more of each coming): how was I to survive the transition from graduate student to professor?

First, I studied and learned my department, along with its institutional role, as if it were a new course I wanted to ace. Here I had crucial support from the women of the department who had just fought and won a hard battle to receive equal pay for equal work. They were generous and warm in their welcome, as was my chair. So I kept my mouth shut, listening to colleagues who understood the history of the program, the personalities involved, and the stakes better than I. 

Second, even as I kept my mouth shut, I tried to be professionally visible (and as the semester progressed there was more of me to be visible).  I decided that becoming a professional meant acting like a professional, which involved inhabiting the role. So I made sure that I dressed the part. I made sure that I was regularly on campus, in my office with my door open, beyond my assigned office hours. Finally, like a good daughter of my working class parents, I made sure that I had all my chores done on time, from submitting departmental documents to fulfilling committee responsibilities. When asked to contribute to a program and department initiative, I followed through on my promises as promptly and completely as possible.

Third, I gave up (with deep regret) the joys of procrastination.  My spur in part was greed.  I wanted some space in my second year so that I could enjoy the arrival of my new child.  That meant that I needed to get as much scholarship in the pipeline as possible. In addition, I wanted to demonstrate to those in the department who doubted my abilities (and my good sense) that I could, in fact, contribute to the scholarship of my field. All this meant that I could not put off for tomorrow what I absolutely needed to get done today. 

Fourth, I replaced the joys of procrastination with the joys of intellectual foraging. I entered a department that included linguists, literature scholars, and philosophers.  I had a cornucopia of new areas to explore, areas quite distinct from but complementing composition studies in exhilarating ways.  I happily plunged into my colleagues’ interests and found companions who shared with me the complexities and pleasure of the French feminists, postmodern religious studies, Sartre, and eighteenth century history of science.  In the process, I gained friends, enriched my own knowledge, and improved my teaching.

Even without my unexpected but joyous pregnancy, my first year as a professor would have been difficult because, for me, a professor, like a mother, had always been a respected “someone else.” I was not the professor, not the mother. Perhaps the greatest discovery I made was that, like the identity of mother, I could, with patience, grow into the identity of professor. And, like the identity of mother, the growing did not have to end after the first year.