The last month has been big for graduate education reform and post-ac in general. This Chronicle piece summarizes it pretty nicely. Some new reports have told us what we already knew. We’re planning some exciting stuff. MLA is just around the corner. It’s all happening.
But all this has left me wondering if the post-ac community — the small world of which I am a small part — is really part of this reform conversation. It seems like we should be, right? It seems like all of these schools and students and programs who are desperately concerned about employment prospects for graduate students would be interested in talking more to people who have actually left. And I guess #Alt-Academy is sort of doing that, but I have already written about my problems with the concept of alt-ac as the only option discussed as legit for humanities grads. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m glad “alt-ac” is around, and I’d love to hear if it has helped any grad school quittas as they look for assistance when they decide to leave. I like what Bethany Nowviskie, a founder of #Alt-Academy, says about the ethos of alt-ac:
The #alt-ac track is not exactly filled with a Romantic brand of lunatic-as-solitary-genius. We are not the individualists our faculty mentors trained us to be. If this generation is possessed of a vision and an energy, it’s for the most pragmatic and collective kinds of reform. Strong and unconventional ideals underlie the #alt-ac project, but we… like to get things done, collaboratively, and in the real world… we’re inclined to feel the pain, to document it all, and to share outcomes and services freely in order provide a leg up to the people coming behind us… for us, “service” was never a dirty word.
But I’m uncomfortable with how, for lack of a better word, academic it is. Alt-Academy says that alt-ac is “really about an alternative academia, a new imagination for the systems in which we operate.” Which just sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. I mean, I get it: I appreciate the refashioning of academic identity to broaden it and make room for the many folks who love working for institutions in a different capacity. But I see it mostly for grad students who plan to stay, selling them the notion that staying is wise and there are options that they can learn to love as much as they loved the fantasy of being a professor. This feels markedly different from the conversations in the post-ac blogging world, which are about breaking with the academy. Our pain is disjuncture from the identity that I think alt-ac is trying to maintain and expand. Our topics and methods feel similar, but our projects feel different.
Why alt-ac and not post-ac? Does one encompass the other? How much overlap is there in our Venn diagram?
I just don’t know if I or we are really a part of that, even though it seems like “we” (?) ought to be. Within the last few years, post-academic blogs have flourished (in that there’s, ya know, many of them where there used to be few). In fact, it seems that every few years, there’s a new crop of websites, blogs, or books devoted to post-academic life written by grad school/academic quittas that are subsequently abandoned (seem to have a shelf-life of 1-2 years — see postacademic.org for a great example). Even within post-academic blogs that are still active, posts focusing on quitting, job hunting, skill development, and the transition out of academia seem to peak for about a year or two and then fade away as life goes on. I’m sure that will happen here, to my blog. Life goes on. Maybe post-ac is different from alt-ac, or from the reform movement, because eventually it leaves these concerns behind, instead of rehashing the same concerns and points all over again, or trying to make academic conversations out of our daily lives and occupations.
* * *
I was really amused to stumble across a series of posts on Postacademic.org from two years ago (2010), after MLA President Sidonie Smith made some proposed reforms for the dissertation. Caroline Roberts wrote:
“It’s great that Smith is taking such a sincere and proactive stance challenging one of the sacred cows of the Ph.D., the dissertation, so it’ll be interesting to see how her words translate into actions. While I hate playing the naysayer–OK, maybe I don’t hate it so much!–conceptual solutions can only go so far in a profession that is, in many ways, defined by looking backwards and not forwards.” The Latest from the MLA: Acknowledging the Problem is the First Step
And then:
“Before we go into greater detail about our admiring skepticism as to how plausible the possibility of change is, we do have to give Pres Smith credit for her foresight in attempting to take on the most ingrained and daunting of academic hazing rituals, the dissertation writing process. Beyond any issues folks have at a personal level maintaining their own sanity, balancing their finances, and figuring out their day-to-day lives through grad school, Pres Smith identifies the consequences the dissertation process has on the profession as a whole, stunting the development of young scholars at the start of their careers who may be investing too much into the diss manuscript as the end-all, be-all first book.” The Latest from the MLA: Is the Diss Extinct?
A few months later, Caroline @ Postacademic commented on grad students who had been writing to Salon for career advice. The columnist encouraged the students to stick it out, and this conversation happened in the Postacademic comments among Worst Professor Ever, Caroline, and Eliza (the three most active and “high profile” post-ac bloggers at that time):
WorstProfEver said: And so it begins — have you seen the PhD on this weeks’ PostSecret? I predict more people will need your Sense & Sangria!
Eliza said: “That dream will turn into a nightmare, though, if all you have to show for your PhD is a massive debt load.” Well put! Now if only more unhappy academics would ask the post-PhD community for advice rather than well-meaning, if clueless, advice columnists who are well and truly out of the higher ed loop.
Caroline Roberts said: WoPro, I did see the Post Secret! And that postcard will be appearing on Post Academic sometime in the near future. Eliza, I totally agree. While I have no doubt that these advice columnists have good intentions, I wish the people asking the questions about academic job dissatisfaction turned to the post-PhD community more often!
WorstProfEver said: Agree! But it’s been really hard to find people who are willing to talk about the issue honestly even though I’ve been looking pretty hard. I think we are the post-PhD community!
I think it’s interesting that there are all these conversations happening within institutions like #Alt-academy, which is institutionally housed, funded, and run by senior researchers, but there’s so little overlap between the alt-ac world and the post-ac world. I don’t think any alt-academy people are readers of post-ac blogs (Bethany Nowviskie popped up on my last post, but I don’t think she’s a regular!). I don’t think any of us have contributed to #Alt-academy, even though ostensibly many of us “count” (certainly me), and some stuff there is terrifically helpful and relevant. Is our how to leave academia project redudant with #Alt-academy? It doesn’t feel that way, but I’m curious if people who are in the process of quitting are finding the answers they seek over there.
Two years ago, WorstProfEver said that “we are the post-PhD community,” meaning the bloggers, the quittas. I wonder if that’s still true. What do y’all think?
I think it’s fascinating that you see #altac portrayed as the only legitimate option for “quittas.” Until recently, I’ve seen the exact opposite — which is that Ph.D.’s who didn’t want tenure-track jobs were assumed to be relegated to a life of adjuncting or leaving the academy, with no acknowledgement that there might be folks who want to stay in academic but not be faculty — and that in fact that was in some ways seen as a less legitimate choice than leaving. I remember having to work hard to convince folks that no, really, I did not want a TT job — and no, really, I did not want to leave academia. And that there were in fact plenty of us around.
So, I do think that in some ways there is not a lot of overlap between post-ac and altac as post implies leaving academia behind and we altac folk generally tend to still identify as academics, albeit off the tenure track. That said, I do think that we all have a vested interest in reforming graduate education as I do believe that we need to see a Ph.D. as valuable for more than just one career option (as they do in Germany, say).
Brenda,
Because alt-ac is pretty new, maybe I should be more specific and say that I think the rhetoric around *alt-ac* right now seems exclusive to me. I feel like it doesn’t encompass the experience of a lot of graduate students who leave, yet it’s getting a lot of legitimacy as the representative of those who don’t do the TT thing.
It’s interesting that you found alt-ac less legit than leaving altogether. Intriguing! Maybe some if it has to do with timing and when you’re leaving.
Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for the reply, Lauren. I think “legit” might have been not quite the right term — what I meant is that it seems to me that, until very recently, the conversation really focused around the dichotomy of leaving vs. adjuncting. I’ve been “altac” since before it was called that, having started my first full-time job in fall 2001. I always intended to continue to research, teach, and generally be part of the academic enterprise, but I didn’t want to be a TT faculty member. As a friend put it on Twitter the other day, I went “altac” because I wanted to do academia on my own terms and that seemed to be a way to do it.
However, again until very recently, folks didn’t seem to know what to do with us altac folk — (some) faculty think we’re in admin/staff positions because we failed at getting a TT job while folks who had left academia could be suspicious of us for having stayed in an institution they distrusted. So it often felt (feels?) as if we didn’t quite fit in anywhere. That has changed somewhat with the recent discussions around altac, although I tend to find those dissatisfying in their focus on digital humanities and librarianship. There are lots of folks with “academic” Ph.D.’s doing lots of different things in universities. I work in a women’s center and have friends who work in faculty development, writing centers, development, honors programs, advising, etc.
Do I think altac is going to solve the structural issues facing higher ed and the problem of too many Ph.D.’s / too few jobs? No. But for many, it can be a valid choice and lead to a good career — we need to keep talking about ALL the options out there and continue to dispel the notion of “one” career path for Ph.D.’s. To me, that’s where we (post-acs and altacs) can find some productive common ground.
Thanks for this blog and happy 2013!
I myself work in an “alt-ac” position, but I don’t really consider myself part of that movement. It’s a position I got incidental to my graduate training, and mostly because of my experience as a teacher. It had little to do with the identity I crafted during grad school, and everything to do with the kind of work I determined I’d be good at afterwards. I certainly didn’t need 3+ years of graduate work past a MA to earn this job.
Happy New Year to you as well!
Alt-ac doesn’t appeal to me at all, and I’ve never considered it. Research and teaching appealed to me. I was passionate about that life. And I invested a lot if myself in pursuing it. Then academe bit me in the ass, just as I had finally acquired the credential that supposedly made me a legit candidate for the type of job I thought I wanted. Why would I want to stick around as part of that same system doing work I was much less interested in doing? Instead, I’ve found the post-ac track much more interesting in terms of options, opportunities, and outlets for the type if critical thinking and imagination I had once put into my academic work. A direct route to a fulfilling career? No. Difficult? Yes. But, with my current job in an advocacy organization, I’m much happier working with people who actually are devoting their time and energy to making positive change in the world than I would be in academe just talking about it.
I agree with recent PhD re: my passion for academia and my dismay at “academe bit(ing) me in the ass” once I had the terminal degree.
As I made my post-academic transition, I did not find the alt-ac route/discussions particularly useful. Often times it seemed like most alt-ac career trajectories were the only options bandied about by my very confused and frustrated faculty advisors who didn’t know how to help me find employment/make my degree useful in the non-academic world. As a personal choice, I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to stay in a field related to academe, but it seems like dangerous rhetoric to encourage people that alt-ac careers will be waiting for them if/when they can’t get an academic job. More emphasis needs to be put on the vast majority of people who will leave academic employment and become truly post-ac.
For example, every student who “fails” to get a job at my former U is told the “apocryphal” story of one of our graduates who, gasp (!), CHOSE to work as an academic librarian and researcher rather than as a tenured faculty member. Many of our students now think this is a common, fairly easy trajectory (cue similar stories of digital humanities scholarship, etc). This seems like an unfair representation of the markets at play and the kinds of jobs former academics can get.
I see post-ac as a separate and valuable identity from alt-ac.
In terms of the larger project of reforming higher education? Well, I would like to think that current academics, retired academics, current graduate students, alt-acers, post-acers and, frankly, anyone who–has a brain!, I mean–has any stake in higher education should be engaged in projects that encourage higher ed reform. I feel as though it shouldn’t just be post-acs, who have left academe or been betrayed by it, who see how messed up the current situation is and work toward fixing it.
In fact, and maybe I’ll have to toy with this idea some more over at my blog…maybe anyone who is interested in true higher education reform is post-ac, regardless of your current working relationship to academia. Anyone who sees academic myths as troubling and damaging is “post” academic. Anyone who sees that the academic status quo is corrupt is “post” academic. Anyone who wants substantive changes in higher ed is “post” academic. At the very least these people are “post” current higher ed’s BS.
“Even within post-academic blogs that are still active, posts focusing on quitting, job hunting, skill development, and the transition out of academia seem to peak for about a year or two and then fade away as life goes on. I’m sure that will happen here, to my blog. Life goes on. Maybe post-ac is different from alt-ac, or from the reform movement, because eventually it leaves these concerns behind, instead of rehashing the same concerns and points all over again, or trying to make academic conversations out of our daily lives and occupations.”
This is the part of your post that really resonated with me. As long as the blogs and resources surrounding the post-ac community rest in individuals who are doing the personal and professional work of disentangling themselves from an academic identity that has consumed them up to that point, then I think the rise and fall of the individual blogs is actually a success. You could probably plot the actual trajectory of the people who write these blogs as a sort of roadmap out of academia. I’d be willing to bet that there are patterns in place: a phase of identity deconstruction, a phase of job hunting, a phase of identity reconstruction, a phase of community building, and then a gradual (or maybe even sudden) break as the author moves from “post-ac” to “whatever they see themselves as now.” If the goal is to move out of academia and craft an identity outside of it, the fact that so many of these authors move from philosophizing on the “post” part seems to suggest a success. Right?
I agree that it’s a good sign. I just worry that, due to the ebb and flow of post-ac writers/representation, we get drowned out. Because the “movement” doesn’t really sustain a voice or presence, but gets restarted every year or so with a new set of voices, it feels more disjointed than it actually is.
Maybe that’s neither here nor there, but I agree with what you’re saying!
Sounds like you need a Dread Pirate Roberts style passing of the baton, something that lets each new participant build on the prior knowledge without reinventing the wheel. Hopefully that’s what your new project can do. Good luck!
I think thats also a very good reason for publishing the new e-book and the new all-encompassing website.
Susie, I hope so!
Hmm, good! I’ve been thinking in terms of post-PhD—post-ac works just as well!—because alt-ac doesn’t sit right with me, either. I want little to do with academia. Doesn’t mean I am quitting scholarship, but academia as it exists today is not for me. And thus alt-ac isn’t for me! Post-ac, good.
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