Thoughts on Academia

Last week a friend posted about her disaffection with academia. The post got me thinking about my own views on the subject, which once upon a time I blogged about on this site. (My plan at one point was to get a PhD in the humanities.)

First, and for one thing, I really wish I had the hours and freedom of an academic. Though it might seem odd to my friends in academia, I also wish I had the salary of an academic (I do work at a newspaper, after all). Though there's plenty to dislike about the day to day work of a college professor, it's still better than most other "regular" jobs — so excluding things like being a professional musician, for example — that I can think of.

But while the lifestyle keeps academia on my list of things I might go back to someday, there's a lot more than prevents me from actually pursuing it. The biggest of those things is the writing.

Probably my biggest qualm with academic writing is that you have to become a superstar for it to matter much in the humanities world. Sure, if you're Harold Bloom or Stanley Fish your work influences people far and wide. But most academics are not superstars. Their work is read by very, very few people, and meaningfully influences only a fraction of those readers.

I think that's why I've gravitated toward journalism and even blogging, where between the different things I write I have thousands of readers every day — and I work at a relatively small paper in a relatively small city. If I worked in a bigger market, I'd have even more readers. And even in my short professional life, I've seen my writing have some, very modest influence in my community. If I was writing to an academic "community" I suspect it would be much smaller, much more difficult to influence, and much more detached from the material world. But feel free to disagree with that assessment.

I don't know what the future holds for me career-wise (probably not crime writing at the Daily Herald, as much as I like it now) but no matter what happens I don't think I'd ever be happy primarily writing academic papers on the humanities. I applaud those who do like it, but I want my writing to, you know, be read.

Anyway, I guess that's my biggest qualm about academia.

But there are others. In all my time in college (which was much longer than most people), for example, I really only encountered two or three professors who were meaningfully engaging with the community. More often, I found professors who seemed to think it was beneath them to participate in Provo's (sometimes admittedly provincial) culture. Perhaps my professors were engaged in ways I couldn't see, but I think few of them attended cultural events in Provo, patronized Provo's independent restaurants, or (and this is huge) even lived in Provo, where their college was located.

That attitude wasn't universal and it was probably influenced by the fact that professors at BYU are LDS and therefore might feel the church provides them with sufficient community engagement, but it nevertheless strikes me as a kind of provincialism itself. (Again, however, I can't stress enough that I had wonderful professors to whom this description doesn't apply even remotely.)

Well, this post is getting long enough now, so I'll wrap it up. But it's been nice to think again about academia and perhaps I'll post some more thoughts in the future.

Goodbye Academia Part 7: What I'll Miss

This series has to end sometime, and that time is now. Though I could probably write indefinitely on the topics of academia and my life, I'd like to conclude by mentioning what I'll miss about not being a part of academia. After all, I did spend a massive amount of time, a ton of money, and a lot of stress trying to get into a PhD program. Obviously, I wanted to go, even if there were other things I was (and am) interested in doing. So here are a few things that I'll really miss about not being an academic.

1.(Producing) Big ideas. I can't think of another profession where people are paid to sit around and think about big ideas like "ethics" or "humanity" or "art" or a lot of other things. Whether it's researching, teaching, etc., academics are supposed to turn a critical eye on culture. They're supposed to make connections and see things about the big picture that are hidden from others. That's something that journalistic writing—as well as many other things I've done—don't really do. They're more interested in presenting information. Scholars, on the other hand, produce information. That really appeals to me, and is probably the thing I will miss the most.

2. Being on campus. Have you ever seen a sappy, poorly-made movie about high school seniors about to graduate. Its the best time of their lives! As silly as those depictions are, that's largely how I feel about being in college. I was cutting across BYU's campus to get to the Daily Herald the other day, for example, when I realized just how enjoyable it is to be in the bustle of a college campus. There's always a bunch of interesting things going on. Living near a college provides similar opportunities, but I've found that not being in school makes it harder to know about them and participate.

3. Teaching. This might be a strange thing to put on here, given my previous posts, but there are great parts of it too. If I could teach one course a semester, for the rest of my life, while doing other interesting things, that might be ideal. In any case, while I won't miss grading, I will miss being in a classroom with students.

4. Discussion. Obviously, discussion can go on anywhere, but at a college it is supposed to happen. I've also found that many people outside of the classroom/college don't have the time or inclination (or stomach) for heated, passionate discussion. Most workplaces, church settings, etc. aren't really set up for people to bring up ideas and argue out their disagreements. Though I try to have discussions with people where ever and whenever I can, I find that A) it still happens much less often post-college than during college, and B) a lot of people just get offended or defensive when people push back against their ideas. There's probably a lot of reasons for this fact, but my experience is that there are few thick-skinned intellectuals outside of the academic setting.

5. Flexibility. This is a practical concern, but an important one. Being a professor allows people to largely determine their own schedules. As long as they get things done, they can work early or late, or whatever. I think I thrive in that sort of environment. I like working, for example, at 2 a.m., and sleeping in late. One day I might be one fire with ideas, and the next I might be lacking. I like how academia, though busy, gives professors a greater degree of flexibility than many jobs. I'm sure everyone wants a job like that, but until recently, I was actively pursuing one.

6. The Political Orientation. Let's be honest, most academics are liberal. And though I hate labels, I typically find myself in agreement with liberal politics. The prospect of being surrounded by people with whom I agree is immensely appealing. That's probably because I currently live in Utah, and I'm constantly surrounded by conservative fanatics who claim the Tea Party isn't racist or idiotic. But seriously, I'm so tired of being a lone liberal on a sea of hyper-conservatism. Some people want academia to be more politically diverse, and objectively I know that's a good thing, but secretly I just want to go to a place where people seem to care about each other, are willing to sacrifice for the good of others, and see government as a collective choice to help the less fortunate. Also, the conservatives I know in academia (or in my program) are smart, insightful, and decorous about their views. So, ultimately, academia is conducive to being a liberal, and if nothing else values respect and rational justifications for whatever conclusions people arrive at. (Maybe what I want is to be surrounded by people who investigate and are interested in politics, regardless of their orientation.)

7. The Culture. The people who go into academia are a self-selecting bunch, and they're into certain cultural things. Even the most mainstream of my professors had a decent understanding of pop culture, for example, and I remember having several interesting conversations with different professors about growing and preserving food at home. Academia isn't hipster-ville, of course, but the professors I admire take a holistic approach to culture and seem to think it is important to be conversant in things outside their disciplines. Obviously there are people like that outside of academia, but in the college community that approach to culture is common, even expected. If nothing else, academics seem to be interested in trying new things. Those things may be approaches to literary theory, or something like twitter or Lady Gaga.

Well, this could go on and on, but it's already a lot longer than I wanted it to be. Also, none of things are necessarily unique to academia, but I think they're all present there, and in abundance. I'm not sure there's another field where that is the case.

Goodbye Academia Part 6: A Few More Thoughts on Teaching

So I've been pleasantly surprised that people are reading this series, and even more so that a few of these posts have prompted discussion. I've been thinking a lot about some of the comments that were made in previous sections, and I wanted to discuss them briefly.

In Part 3, I talked about some of the frustrating aspects of teaching, and I pointed out that it was rare that my students really impressed me with their comments. As I've thought back over my time as a teacher, however, I can actually think of a bunch of instances when I was impressed by my students ideas. Once, for example, one of my classes wanted to discuss politics, so I threw out my lesson plan and we just debated for an hour. It was great and enlightening. So why did it feel like I was more often hearing the same thing over and over?

I think the curriculum largely to blame. I was teaching writing, and while that sometimes included critical-thinking exercises, it also included a lot of practical things. Like instructions on how to write thesis statements. Or how to do MLA citation. Or even grammar.

In retrospect, it seems like many of these practical considerations overwhelmed my courses. I'd want to discuss some interesting idea, but my students didn't understand yet how to craft a good thesis, so I'd have to backtrack and show them.

So, my students rarely had much to say about these practical things, and, to be honest, I don't either. After all, what is there to say, that's really interesting, about topic sentences? In the end, I think the reason my students were consistently coming up with old news was because we were in a writing class, as opposed to a philosophy, literature, or film course. In those settings there is an actual text to analyze, and that text is supposed to mean something larger about the world. In a writing class, the "text" is often a set of instructions on writing, and most analysis centers on how emulate good writers (or, worse, how to get a good grade).

As I've been typing this post I've also realized something else: a scholar keeps intellectually progressing, but each time a new semester starts, a teacher is back to square one with his/her students. It's frustrating because each time a person thinks about something—even something as mundane as a semicolon or topic sentence—that person might theoretically come up with a new insight.

However, if you teach the same thing over and over, you come to new insights that you students probably won't have the time to get to.

One semester, for example, I asked my students to go out on campus and determine what the thesis statement was for various objects. A few of them got it, but I think for most of them the idea of "thesis statements" hadn't simmered long enough in their minds for them to see it as a metaphorical idea that can be applied to anything.

This worked better when we tried it at the art museum, but at some point it might be interesting to discuss the ideological implications of campus architecture or floral design, as exemplified by those things' theses. It's hard to do that in a writing class, and when you do you're often neglecting something practical that you're supposed to be teaching.

Ultimately, then, I guess writing curriculum can be modified to discuss some fascinating things, but if it's taken me years to come up with the ideas, a lot of young undergrads won't have the background to appreciate them (yet). Also, there is administrative pressure, in the form of predetermined texts and course structures, to give students a "skill set" that they can use elsewhere (like, God help us, in the business school). It was an eye-opening experience as a graduate instructor, and one that fundamentally changed my career goals.

Goodbye Academia Part 5: The Public Intellectual

I think that what I've been hoping to become as a result of my education, often without knowing it, is a public intellectual, or even a man of letters. And, basically, I see a successful public intellectual as being someone with the chops of an academic, but the charisma of a public figure. I see it as someone who thinks (and can write) as deeply as a professor, but who is also involved in the translation of those thoughts into the public consciousness.

And, despite some negative aspects to working in academia, there are definitely things I like about it, which I'd like to couple with non-scholarly publication and other work.

My understanding of what it takes to become a public intellectual is probably naive and biased. However, as far as I know, most professors don't regularly write commentary for newspapers or TV. Their books aren't praised for walking the line between academic and popular works. They aren't tapped to serve with politicians, or transition back and forth between academia and industries like, say, consulting (which theoretically should have a lot in common with the critical study rhetoric and texts).

In other words, most professors that I know tend to work almost exclusively within academia. And that's great.

But there is also a different kind of professor. At NYU for example, film professors listed publications in The Village Voice and The New York Times. Some of the professors I researched at USC and UCLA routinely serve as judges at well-known film festivals. Some of the English professors that I researched had more "public" work listed alongside their scholarship. (Herbert Blau, for example, at University of Washington, has worked in theater and fashion, but now also teaches in the University of Washington's English department.) The point here is that there are some people who write or produce both for academics, and others. (Stanley Fish, Wendell Barry, and Nigel Spivey are examples of people who have done this to one degree or another. An while I don't agree with everything they say, I do admire the venues available to them to say it.)

Obviously, the people who become public intellectuals are those who have risen to the top of their respective fields (with a lot of hard work). And, they also typically don't have those opportunities straight out of school. Yet, the another thing they seem to have in common is that they studied at, and then often worked at, really good schools. My conclusion: to become a public intellectual it's helpful to have an elite academic pedigree. Also, one has to aspire to that position. I think a lot of people are happy to simply teach and publish within their discipline. Which is cool of course. But others definitely hope for a more diverse work load.

Like I said, this is probably an incomplete vision of what it means to be an intellectual. It's certainly romanticized. But ultimately I don't think I'd be content teaching three or four classes a semester at a remote state school and publishing in Western Humanities Review or The Journal of American Culture for the next 30 years. (Both those journals are great ones that I used in my thesis.) I don't expect to have a regular column in The New York Times, but I'd like a career path that at least includes the possibility of public work/writing in addition to submitting work to academic journals. For most professors—and for whatever reason—it seems like those doors aren't just closed, they often don't exist at all.

So the point, it seems, is that like becoming, say, an astronaut, becoming a public intellectual requires a pretty specific career path. Without that path, the probability of reaching that goal is minuscule.

In my case, it was literally not until I began writing this series of blogs that I began to understand my own ambitions and goals, but as I look back on the choices I've made and the people I professionally admire, it seems obvious that I was looking for some balance between academia and public work (because I enjoy parts of both). Not surprisingly I suppose, as I've gravitated away from scholarship, I've moved toward journalism, which is in many ways the flip side of academia. Instead of emphasizing specialized writing, it's more populist and very general. It has a clear purpose, and reason for existing. Obviously it has it's own problems too, but without a degree from an elite university a choice likely has to be made between public work and scholarship, and I'm as surprised as anyone to find myself gravitating toward the former.

Goodbye Academia Part 4: The Work (Scholarship)

I'd like my career to be at least one of two things: fun, or meaningful. Ideally, it'd be both. And while I know that there are aspects to even the funnest and most meaningful jobs that are tedious and un-enjoyable, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a career to have an overall net positive amount of fun and/or meaningful-ness. (Obviously many people, and perhaps myself in the future,have to work just to survive. Still, who doesn't want to have a job that offers more?)

In my last post of this series, I basically commented on the less-than-fun aspects of being a professor. But that leaves the question: is it meaning? Does it matter?

Increasingly, my answer to that question is "no." When I entered BYU's master's program I was very confident about the power of professors to shape society. They teach people, sure, but they also publish research that affects how people thing. To be honest, this aspect of the job excited me much more than teaching.

Yet as I researched, I became increasingly disillusioned with the academic publishing environment. Scholarly conferences were not only boring, but individual sessions were poorly attended. No one seemed to care. Scholarly journals weren't getting much more interesting, just because I was moving up in education status. Though I had frequently defended the relevance of humanities scholarship, by the time I was halfway through my master's degree I had completely lost faith in its ability to do anything but earn people tenure. In other words, it didn't seem to matter.

Basically, academic publishing in the humanities is, at best, a kind of trickle-down intellectualism. It supposes that there are a few experts who are qualified to explore certain topics, and that what they find will eventually (somehow) influence something. That's a really disheartening thing. It means that while most humanities scholars are politically liberal, they are among the most culturally conservative people I can think of. They are trying to conserve the past (literature, or other historic texts), and they are doing it by joining a small corps of power-holding elites. So it doesn't matter how many liberal issues they support, their career choices are literally the definition of conservatism.

Which has made me wonder: where is the populism? Where are the people who are so skeptical of power structures that they try to redistribute authority in academia?

The answer, of course, is that they're probably not academics. Or, if they are, they're exceptions to the rule. They probably don't publish as much, get denied tenure, and end up teaching at lesser institutions.

Or whatever. The point is that as I've come to see the academic publishing environment as more conservative, as well as less capable of affecting social change, I've become under-enthused about entering it.