My Last Homework Assignment

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:29:00 -0500
civic-engagement, ph-d

Last semester I completed the final course before I begin writing my doctoral dissertation: a seminar on crafting a formal research proposal. It was a great course that helped me focus on what I want to accomplish with my research about how college students can develop a sense of civic power and agency.

The final assignment for the course was to write a short paper reflecting on the semester. A slightly edited version of my paper is pasted below. 25 years after I entered college, this was my very last homework assignment (I think!).

The experiences of this semester have helped me to gain a much stronger grasp of the dissertation process, and of what it means—and what it will mean for me—to make an original scholarly contribution.

One piece of advice I had heard frequently over the years was that I should avoid the all-too-common mistake of believing that my dissertation must somehow express the very essence of my personhood, or display my imaginative and literary capacities at their absolute peak. Just get through it, people said. Grind out the necessary work, recognize that the exercise is just a rite of passage, and then, having liberated yourself from the dungeon of drudgery and gained citizenship in the academic community, you can pursue your scholarly adventures at your leisure (but by the way, don’t forget about the need to publish or perish . . .).

I have to admit, I was ready to take the advice. I was not in any particular rush to obtain my degree, but I was experiencing my participation in the doctoral program as a serious burden and I wanted to be done with it. My job at UMBC involves participating in exactly the activities about which I am most curious and passionate, but doing it well entails working long hours, so that even relatively interesting reading and writing assignments for my courses felt like stress-inducing, family-disrupting distractions.

One of the things the work of this semester has helped me to do is develop an approach to my research and writing that is as perfectly consistent with my identity as is my day job. Exploring how college students discover their personal agency in the context of civic life, through the lens of my own lived experience, in collaboration with the students themselves, is a way of expressing and fulfilling my deepest self. As I have been able to frame it with help from my advisers and colleagues through my participation in this course, the problem that will be the focus of my dissertation is precisely the problem I choose to live. And that is more liberating than any aggressive effort to fulfill degree requirements as quickly as possible would be.

I also feel that I have a much better understanding of what the dissertation is for. The image of the dissertation defense that I had in mind when the semester began was of a novice scholar testifying to a group of academic judges, hoping to be found worthy. My impression now is that the doctoral candidate’s maturation as a creator and manager of the research process (along with the dissertation advisor’s help with committee politics) makes the process less about judging and more about clarifying and consensus-building. The maturation itself is really the point. Partly because of the sense of validation I experienced after presenting my research plan to members of the Language, Literacy and Culture program faculty (both my committee members who read my proposal drafts and the other faculty members who attended the oral presentation), I feel empowered to initiate and shape my research in consultation with my committee, and to seek the help I need, rather than waiting for directions.

My biggest challenge is finding the time and space to think and write. As inspired as I am to move forward with my research, my other commitments and cares make it difficult to dive into my dissertation work for days or weeks at a time. Even more challenging is to create the flexibility in my schedule that would allow me to immerse myself in research whenever I have the energy to read or write, then pull away when I need to gain some distance and perspective, then dive back in when I have had a chance to think and process.

Furthermore, as I rediscovered this semester, I have an instinctive hesitation about immersing myself in somebody else’s thinking when I am trying to understand something on my own terms. I am eager to read and understand, but I do not want to be taken in by any author’s unstated assumptions or literary maneuvers; instead, I want to recognize, process and evaluate them. I also feel the urge to consider the implications for my dissertation proposal, especially for the sections I’ve already written, at every step, sometimes every sentence. So as a practical matter, every time I start to read, I find myself wanting to stop every couple of sentences, get a sandwich, flip on the TV, check my email or do a household chore. (Well, OK, maybe not so much that last one).

I know I will have to experiment with solutions, and will have much greater ability to do so during the winter and summer breaks than during the fall and spring semesters. I also believe that once I have the basic intellectual framing of the work completed, the rest will flow much more easily. I have no fear of losing traction once I am actually working with students and analyzing data. It’s the philosophical grounding of the whole enterprise that may continue to be a slow process for the next few months. . . .