Resources

Part 1: “Hate”I came into academia sideways. At a slant, you might say. After seminary, I worked in multicultural student affairs at a small, private liberal arts college by day and attended classes in an educational leadership, research, and policy PhD program for working professionals by night. After earning my degree, I served my church denomination as a researcher and was happy in that role, but the constant travel was taking a toll on my health.I longed to find a vocational path that could ground me within a particular community, a place where I might have a day-to-day impact on others and vice versa. I also knew I didn’t want to pastor a church (I never did) but desired to continue engaging in relevant research for the church and community. This is when I saw a job announcement for an administrative faculty position at my alma mater to direct the school’s internship program and decided to apply.Little did I know what I was getting myself into. I quickly realized that “one of these things is not like the other.” My daily activities of running an internship program, overseeing adjunct faculty teaching seminar courses, and planning trainings for intern supervisors and students was quite different from the daily labors of my faculty colleagues. Sure, I taught half the credits that a tenure-track colleague taught, but this was far eclipsed by the kind of work that I and my staff—yes, I also have the responsibility of hiring and supervising staff—faced regularly. Think student affairs/academic dean type of work, with less responsibility but more external accountabilities.My first year was especially difficult. I was asked to conduct a review of the program’s curriculum and the department as a whole, and there was staff turnover during that time. While much of it was not unlike the administrative and supervisory work I had done for the denomination, it was a very different rhythm and workload from that of my peers.Because I came into academia at a slant—from the church, and with a non-religious doctorate from a non-ranked state school—I felt honored that the faculty had chosen me to join their exclusive club. I still feel honored. As a Latina and first-generation college graduate from a poor, rural background, working at a graduate theological school was beyond my wildest childhood dreams. Many of the faculty had been my seminary professors more than twenty years before. They, along with the administration, saw my gifts as a teacher and researcher and nurtured those gifts through various avenues of support and camaraderie. They are now truly my colleagues.Eight years into the life of a teacher-administrator, however, I am feeling the wear and tear of administrative work on my body and my spirit. Having earned a sabbatical (for which I am very, very grateful), I have tasted the sweet nectar of being only a teacher—someone who maintains a certain amount of autonomy over their own schedules for course planning, research, and travel. They are not beholden to staff or adjunct faculty supervisees, leaders in churches and nonprofits, or even students in the same ways. Even though there are committee and guild responsibilities for full-time teaching and research faculty (I have those too), there is more space to read, to think, to write. I realized early on that if I wanted to pursue a research and writing agenda, I needed to adopt a bivocational mentality as a teacher-administrator. Unfortunately, what this has led to is possessing two full-time jobs. Sabbatical affords me the luxury of holding just one full-time position, committing with gusto to research and writing. Adding the teaching of one or two classes and a few monthly meetings to that schedule seems pretty manageable compared to the pace at which I had been running. (I know boundaries are important, and so on; but I needed to produce scholarship at an accelerated pace in order to even be considered for tenure, which is a story for another time.)I don’t really have a “hate” relationship with the role of teacher-administrator because I do not ascribe to the action itself. But with each passing year, I find myself wanting to live more fully in one world or the other. Having now established myself as a scholar in the field, I want to explore further where my research and academic pursuits might lead. Institutions are demanding more from all of us these days, so many are feeling the tensions of the teacher-administrator conundrum in this era of scarcity and rapid change. These pulls often remain unacknowledged in academia, but if we begin to talk more openly about them, we might be able to imagine more sustainable paths forward (and more equitable compensation models).I came into academia sideways. At a slant, you might say. I still feel honored to be here. Might I dare to want more?