Dr. Holly Heard is the Director of Data and Analytics for Texas 2036, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy organization that uses data to advocate for policy change in the state of Texas. Holly’s team works to develop data products, resources, and governance systems to support strong state policies. Previously, Holly served as a Senior Research Scientist and Associate Director at the Houston Education Research Consortium, and as an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department, both at Rice University in Houston, TX. Holly is a native Californian but has lived in her adopted state of Texas for 18 years, so it’s home now. Holly has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was originally trained in the sociology of family, education, and demography. Her career path has moved from tenure-track position in a sociology department, to education researcher, to manager of data and research systems, to Director. None of this was planned. Along the way, Holly has learned, sometimes the hard way, about leadership, equity, and finding her space in the world.
Dr. Holly Heard is the Director of Data and Analytics for Texas 2036, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy organization that uses data to advocate for policy change in the state of Texas. Holly’s team works to develop data products, resources, and governance systems to support strong state policies. Previously, Holly served as a Senior Research Scientist and Associate Director at the Houston Education Research Consortium, and as an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department, both at Rice University in Houston, TX. Holly is a native Californian but has lived in her adopted state of Texas for 18 years, so it’s home now.
Holly has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was originally trained in the sociology of family, education, and demography. Her career path has moved from tenure-track position in a sociology department, to education researcher, to manager of data and research systems, to Director. None of this was planned. Along the way, Holly has learned, sometimes the hard way, about leadership, equity, and finding her space in the world.
Pod E6: Holly Heard
[00:00:00]
Mya: Welcome to off-track on purpose. [00:00:15] I am your cohost Mya Fisher, and I'm excited today to introduce our guest, Holly Heard. Holly is the Director of data analytics for Texas 2036, a nonprofit nonpartisan policy organization that uses [00:00:30] data to advocate for policy change in the state of Texas
before Texas 2036. She served as senior research scientist and associate director at the Houston education research consortium, as well as an assistant [00:00:45] professor in the sociology department, all of this at Rice University. And even though she is a native of California, having spent the last 18 years in Texas, Holly considers that state her home.
Holly has a PhD in sociology [00:01:00] from the university of North Carolina at chapel hill. And she was originally trained in the sociology of family education and demography, but her career path has moved from a tenure track position in sociology to education researcher, to [00:01:15] manager of data and research systems to her current role as director. None of this was planned and along the way Holly has learned the hard way sometimes about leadership equity and finding her space in the world for all of these reasons, we [00:01:30] are so excited to welcome Holly as our guest and let's get the conversation started.
Pre-Flections [00:01:35]
Britt: So as always, we're set to begin our pod with some pre flections [00:01:45] on our conversation. One of the things that I'm really interested in excited about is hearing Holly's origin story, what brought her to be interested in her field and sociology, but then just how that [00:02:00] arc bent and evolved and has brought her to where she is now.
We've had a number of conversations with folks who have, of course. Gone off track, gone on track taken different paths. And in that regard, Holly's, isn't very [00:02:15] different than the, but at the same time her work on the tenure track and then moving off of it. But staying broadly within academia is a, it's a very interesting thing to explore.
Mya: Yeah. And, Off-track on purpose. A lot of times we've talked to people [00:02:30] who have had specific intentions and have gone in those directions. And, what do you do when life doesn't turn out the way that you had planned or, you can't, be a tenure track professor.
I think my. Interest is in [00:02:45] resilience. And that's what I see in her story, but also, does she connect with that word? Does that word make sense to her? Does she see that in her own story? What is being talked about now and areas of leadership, but also in the [00:03:00] world, as we come out of the pandemic is this idea of resilience as a skill, as a necessity for people to be able to move forward and on.
And so that I think is one of the tracks that I'm interested in in asking her about [00:03:15] it. Um,
Britt: Yeah. And looking at her academic journey. I think she did her undergraduate in the Midwest and then did her graduate studies in the Northeast and then also coming from California. I don't know if North Carolina qualifies as the south. You can probably let [00:03:30] me know that. But then of course ending up in Texas where she is now, she's been exposed to a lot of different institutions. And I'm curious what are some of the things that, weave through her experience in higher ed, both positive and challenging and [00:03:45] what we can all learn from that too.
Mya: I know, there's so much happening right now in higher education, around the tenure structure. And as a woman of color in a field like sociology where there are going to be [00:04:00] more of us, but still a smaller number I'm interested in, her thoughts of if she would ever go back if she would ever return.
Are there things that she thinks were part of her journey that might've made it [00:04:15] easier or less constraining or does she even feel like her journey was different from others in that tenure track for suit as well? I know, we don't want to bash things, but in terms of re-imagining the academy what would re-imagining higher ed [00:04:30] with an equitable and inclusive tenure process or system, what might that look like?
Britt: We of course launched this pod wanting it to be an evergreen pod so that it can, I can [00:04:45] withstand the the test of time. And fortunately, or unfortunately there are some issues. Also have with standard the test of time one being the way in which scholars of color have experienced the tenure track [00:05:00] process or just the tenure process.
And as we're recording this the Situation with Nicole Hannah Jones, a very prominent journalist who's worked on the 1619 project or led that project won a Pulitzer and MacArthur genius grant. Any [00:05:15] number of amazing awards having been denied tenure at the university of North Carolina and that being an ongoing issue.
And really, shining a, another harsh light on this process and the way in which scholars of color, have experienced tenure and the [00:05:30] tenure track. And so I'm just curious, especially since she got her PhD from university of North Carolina, I'm sure she has some thoughts about what's going on there.
Mya: I think it'll be a dynamic and thought provoking conversation. I can't wait and I'm looking forward to talking more [00:05:45] with her.
Britt: Okay. Let's get started
Conversation w/Dr. Holly Heard [00:05:47]
We have Dr. Holly Heard with us today. Thank you for joining us, [00:06:00] Holly. Welcome.
Holly: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited.
Academic Origin Story [00:06:03]
Mya: We're excited to have you today as well. And we kick off our podcast with our guests just sharing their, what we call the academic origin story. What brought you [00:06:15] to, to graduate school in the first place. And a little bit about, what brought you to where you are right now.
Holly: Oh yeah. And I love how you put that. It makes me feel like I'm a superhero or
Mya: super hero, right?
Holly: Oh, absolutely. Yes. [00:06:30] So yeah, I feel like I've had a meandering story and I don't claim that there was a lot of intentionality about it, but I'm happy to tell you. I went to undergrad at Notre Dame. I started like 1988- 92. So just to give you a timeframe and I really liked sociology.
I was really interested in that and I was [00:06:45] always very interested in children and families. So I was very interested in family structure is very interested at that time. There's a lot of talk about like single parent families and fatherless children and race. And so I was just very interested in child being and how that situated within families.
And I got a double [00:07:00] degree in like sociology and psychology, but I had no idea what in the world to do with it. And I'd been very successful in my professors have been like, you'd go, should go to grad school. And I was like, I don't really know what that means. And so I didn't know what I was doing. I graduated, there was a recession. I got just office management, job. [00:07:15] And there was nice, but I hated it. I didn't want to stay. I was making no money. And so I was like, oh, that whole grad school thing, send them a lot more attractive right now. I can make the same amount of money and be doing something more interesting.
And so I applied [00:07:30] and again, I'm not claiming that I made the most strategic decisions, but I ended up going to Penn state university. Because one of my former professors, I told him that I was interested in and he said, you're a demographer. And I said, what's a demographer. And so he explained that, oh, those are people who want to know [00:07:45] how everybody sorts and they tracking fertility migration, whatever.
And I was like, oh yeah, that sounds all right fine. And they have a really good fellowship, so I'll go there. So that was about as much thought as I put into anything. And so that was really good. I I really liked it. I got my master's there, but I didn't want to stay. It was clear [00:08:00] that I just didn't really love being in state college.
It's not fun for a lot of people over 20, but certainly not for a black woman to be in that place. I moved to North Carolina university of North Carolina at chapel hill for a PhD program. [00:08:15] And I had more sense about it at that point. So I said who are the people that I'm reading and I'm citing and like my master's thesis and my work go there.
That made more sense. I worked with my advisor, Kathy Harris who's was great. And and so I feel like I [00:08:30] got a lot of really good training. And so I was good at a lot of things. I was good at thinking I was good at analysis as good at writing. I wasn't great at finishing. And that's important, right?
Nobody cares how many projects [00:08:45] you've started or how many drafts you have. They care what you've published. So that was always a challenge. And that should have been a hint. But I was like, all right there's the one thing you can do from grad schools, but I thought, so I'll just give it a shot at that thing and see if I can do it.
It didn't really occur [00:09:00] to me that of there was something else to do. So I got my PhD in 2002 and I got a job at Arizona state university. It was a joint job in like half time and sociology department and half time in a family and human development department. And then once I [00:09:15] got there, I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.
Like, how do you do this thing? I don't really know, but I knew that I just didn't feel comfortable in there. I was much more in the family department and they're just worked really different than me. They weren't demographers, I wasn't fully in the [00:09:30] sociology department and they had some, their own internal political squabbles.
So a friend of mine was at rice university in Houston and she was like, Hey, we have an opening. I've been telling them how great you are. You should come here. And I was like, okay. I'm not happy here. I don't [00:09:45] really love Arizona. I'll come to Houston again. I can't come that. I had a lot of sense about this, but but I came to rice and the truth is I really did like it.
I liked that place. It's a really It's a gentle bath kind of place in the sense that it's a [00:10:00] small private university. You're very well-resourced, your yeah, everybody knows who you are, right? So it was very nice. But I also still struggled of course, with the thing that ever been in academia need to do, which is get your shit published. [00:10:15]
And I was great at starting things, not great at finishing them. When I did publish things, they were really horrible. She was really good because I worked on it for a year and a half. That's not a way to get tenure. And as I realized, I just didn't like that part of it, like the [00:10:30] things that I liked, I wasn't doing.
And I think that I didn't like I was doing more of and not being good at it. And that is not fun. To really be shitty at something. Pardon my French. So it was like, okay, this isn't gonna, this isn't gonna work. So I knew it. Wasn't gonna get to. They didn't give me tenure.
[00:10:45] And that was very hard. You very much feel like a failure. And I've got very depressed and I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't really want to do this, but I literally have no idea what to do. And so I, I will always be very grateful. A colleague of mine [00:11:00] and sociology was starting a research center.
And so she was like, look, you'd be great. I just need staff member. I need a research analyst here to run this And I was like, yeah, please, here's a job. And it's doing the thing that I [00:11:15] most love, which is research and, messing with data all day. Yeah. So it was very much a soft place to land.
I didn't have to like really look for a job. I found a great one and I'm still in the same university. I literally was in the same building. I just [00:11:30] moved offices. It was great, and so I was a research analyst helping start this research center on education. And I was there for nine years.
I learned everything I suddenly learned on the job training and data [00:11:45] management and data security. I had to learn how to deal with secure individual student level data and create data systems. It was half an it person. I worked with students even more cause we had post-docs and then we had grad students undergrads.
So I really [00:12:00] developed mentoring skills even more than I had when I was teaching. And I I learned to write for non-academic audiences, which is, it turns out is really good to have. That's a really good skill. And those are also useful audiences as it turns out. And I learned about [00:12:15] leadership that was the hard way through the fire.
But I learned it and I can, we can dig into that more. But there was also a lot of stresses and challenges in that place. And I think the direction of the place changed from where it had been and where I think. [00:12:30] I want it to be. And I just think, I think we all have the same goal, but I think our values and goals and methods for how to get there just really diverged.
And I didn't feel like I was really being appreciated for what I was doing and had done. And so I finally said it's time [00:12:45] to go. And then that was the first time that I really put myself on the job market and looked for jobs. The first time I'm like 17 years is I had not done. I didn't have a LinkedIn page.
I hadn't really updated my resume since I started that job. I had, I didn't know how to do resume. I had a [00:13:00] CV, but I didn't know how to make that arrest me and no clue. But honestly, through the help of friends and networks, help me set this up. And I ended up in the position, my mat, literally through somebody who'd formerly been on our advisory board of our organization who had sent me something about one [00:13:15] time.
And I connect with those people and talk with them a lot apply for got offered it, but it wasn't a great fit, but he also mentioned this one, Hey, there's also this other org. Oh, okay. And where I'm at now is called Texas 2036. So we are [00:13:30] a nonprofit nonpartisan policy organization. That's interested in creating policies that make Texas the best .
And it's very much about kind of centrist practical policies. And it's about more than education. So that's very much a challenge and I'm the [00:13:45] director of data and analytics. So it's my job to find data, find people to do data analysis, do our own analysis, put out products, create really cool online data visualizations, and also work on data policy.
And so I'm talk with [00:14:00] people in the state about, how the state can improve its data systems. Is very different, is very cool. Is there a challenging and it's the first time I've been outside of academia in 20 twenty-something years, but it's cool. That's a pretty long [00:14:15] story, but yeah, that's it.
Mya: Wow.
On Developing Skills and Learning Leadership [00:14:20]
Even though you say that there was no intentionality, or thought that you were giving to things you said that you. Realize that you were good at certain things. [00:14:30] And do you feel like you've always been good at those things in terms of like where they just naturally kind of things that came to you or things like over time that you became good at?
Holly: Some yes. Some no. I think that I always had, as it turns out an aptitude [00:14:45] towards kind of data analysis, statistics, that kind of thing. And so I was grateful that there was a job opportunity outside of academia that let me use those skills as opposed to just thinking, oh I guess I have to, just go into teaching and, or something like that, which I was not that great at.
[00:15:00] So I knew that I think it's something that I didn't know I could be good at and didn't know was important. Was leadership. That was a revelation. Most jobs, nobody teach you. About leadership, certainly not active yet, [00:15:15] even though there's a hierarchy, you have to manage people. And I used to think it was weird that there were like leadership training programs and degrees and certificates and leadership.
And I was like, people either have those skills or they don't like, why are you training people in that? That's so weird. I had no idea what I was [00:15:30] talking about. But I learned in many ways the hard way, right? When you face leadership challenges and you're like, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to communicate with these people.
I don't know how to persuade them. I don't know how to fix this problem. And I suddenly started learning and I realized that I do care [00:15:45] about it, and I am good at it. And I do have a philosophy about it. And that very much developed over say the last five years. I had no idea how to do it.
Mya: Can I ask you what your philosophy.
Holly: Yeah, [00:16:00] absolutely. I am, very much about transformational leadership and I think that grows, I think that's very important in academia and we don't think about that enough, right? That you're there to transform the people who work for you, they're not going to be with you forever. You want them to [00:16:15] leave with better skills and as better workers than when they came to you.
And I think it's not, we're also here to transform some certain, system, right? I'm always working in a nonprofit space trying to change something, whether it's, local school districts and the educational [00:16:30] opportunities for kids or whether it's the entire state of Texas and many of our policy there is you're trying to change things for the better.
So I'm very much about that. And the way that I try to do that is and failing honesty, right? I always tell people I will not lie to [00:16:45] you or for you. And humility. I have to always start with, I can be wrong. And always start with if we're having trouble communicating, then it's a responsibility for me to think about how I can communicate better.
And [00:17:00] ethics always first and foremost. Which is very important in research. And I think even more important when you're doing the public outreach work, research, integrity matters for district publishing articles. Absolutely. But it matters because you have to deserve the credit that you get, but it matters [00:17:15] even more when the research you're doing impacts a school district and program people's lives.
So you absolutely have to do your things right. In this circumstances. So yeah, yeah that's my approach.
Mya: That sounds so [00:17:30] cool.
On Inevitability and Not Receiving Tenure [00:17:33] Britt: So how I I love to circle back on your time as a junior faculty and particularly around what I heard a little bit of, at least in your reflection on it [00:17:45] feeling a bit like not getting tenure felt like an inevitability for you because of the research and publication piece of it.
And so I'm curious when you look back on that, number one is that inevitability frame. Does that [00:18:00] seem consistent with perhaps how you may reflect on it, but then number two, do you remember at all where that sort of started to settle in or where you felt that? Because I would also associate that with a certain kind of gut level instinct about how something is going, and you see [00:18:15] it headed somewhere. So I'm just curious about that.
Holly: That's a good point. I think there was definitely, it was a gradual thing.
And I, I got feedback, I had reviews, I knew I wasn't hitting the mark. We had a third year review and that was tenuous. But I made it [00:18:30] so I was getting feedback in some ways I felt like the feedback was harsher than it was like, I felt like I was a lot closer than.
Then I think they did. And I definitely, I sh I should have done things differently, but there's definitely things that my department should have done differently. They're definitely ways in which they [00:18:45] should have supported me. They I think evaluated things I did more harshly than other people.
But I think it was clear in the end that they had the evaluation that they had, the thing that upset me when it kinda came down was I didn't think I would get it at the university [00:19:00] level, but my department didn't even vote to recommend me out of the department.
And that hurt because I felt some of the things that I think I was evaluated negatively forward, because there were things that they told me to do. It may not have been the best thing, but they told me to do, for [00:19:15] example at one point I was told, don't apply for grants or anything. You don't have time for that.
Just put that time into publications. And then later I got a review that said you haven't applied for grants. And I said, but see right here where it says, you wrote that you told me that and they just pretend that [00:19:30] didn't happen. Great. And so it was like, so like that kind of thing. So that really hurt.
And so that I think really damaged some relationships where I felt like people weren't taking responsibility for the way they had mentored and let me, and so their mistakes were the ones that I had to pay the [00:19:45] price for. But all that to say, yeah, I think it was a gradual thing, but it was very clear there I, credit or blame, they're very much about communicating with, their evaluation of me.
Britt: So then when you officially received the news it didn't land as a surprise. [00:20:00]
Holly: No. And like I said, it was that particular part of it, I think was her full. But I, now that I look back on it, no understanding more about the process than I shouldn't have been, but but it, that part definitely hurt.
Like I didn't even know they were voting. They [00:20:15] didn't tell me anything like about that. But yeah the general idea am I going to get tenure here? No, I knew that I wasn't going to get tenure. That wasn't a surprise.
Britt: And then in your department, was that something that was unusual? a junior faculty not [00:20:30] advancing in getting to.
Holly: Partly because they just, it was a small department. They didn't have that many. There had been somebody who maybe 15 years before, 10 or 15 years before it didn't get tenure.
And it was a very complicated case and it [00:20:45] was, and I didn't know, all I knew was rumor, so I don't want to, but I just think it was a very difficult case that separation and that person left and went on to do to a much better department and did really well. So I think that person's fine.
So they, the whole time I was there, there were two people [00:21:00] who went up for tenure before me and both got it. And at the time I was going up, there was another person who was going up at the same time, she'd come after me, but she was so successful that she was going up early and she absolutely deserved it.
No problem. So yeah, there just hadn't been that [00:21:15] many opportunities. Okay.
Mya: So even though you felt like it was inevitable, you wasn't going to happen sitting with that reality is there any sense of okay, what happens if you don't get tenure?
Is there any direction or guidance or [00:21:30] instruction manual on what you're supposed to do?
Holly: No. And that kind of a thing, like I knew I was going down this road. And this was a bad road but did I have oh, I better start you looking for, like there was just like, this sucks, but I don't know how to get off this training.
What do I do? [00:21:45] And then I hit it. It was hard. I was very upset. I was depressed. Like I was talking to me. I'm very good friends in that department. And it was like, I can't talk to you guys for awhile. It, it's a blow. You may know what's happening, but when it happens, it is a blow.
It is everything that you were [00:22:00] told you were about for years at that point, like 15 years, and suddenly you're not going to do that. You're not good at it. It's and it feels humiliating. It feels public, right? So many my networks, my friends were in [00:22:15] academia. They're all gonna know. I didn't get it.
Like it was. Humiliating. It was painful. It was depressing. It was all of that. And I, and so I was dealing with that. I started working with the therapist was also a career coach. So [00:22:30] that was a really good combination. And I did, but I didn't know what to do. I was just trying to get myself out of the hole so I could get up enough energy to decide what to do.
The nice thing is you have about a year right before you have to like separate. And but so [00:22:45] also what happened is I was like, fuck it. So I don't have to do a lot of this stuff. I don't have to go to faculty meetings. Don't ask me to do anything. I stayed on my university committees cause I felt like I owed them, but honestly I [00:23:00] showed up to teach and then I left.
And I started investing myself. I had a friend who said he worked in the same building and she was like, man, one of my colleagues was like, Holly looks amazing. She just it's whatever she's doing great. I was like, I'm buying some nice clothes. I'm getting my hiar done I'm doing whatever I like lost [00:23:15] weight.
I was like, whatever, because I was kinda like, so at some point it became, I don't have to worry about what you guys think about me anymore. And I'm gonna treat this as a part-time job. I was just like, whatever. Yeah, so that [00:23:30] kind of also happened I had to come out of my head a little bit.
Mya: What was, if you don't mind my asking what was the response of people in your professional network when they heard this? Did you lose any relationships? Did they, [00:23:45] change, grow stronger, professionally, how do you feel as a sociologist, not quote unquote in academia right now? How does that, what does that feel like?
Holly: It's interesting. I think, the nice thing is that [00:24:00] my, my colleague, was starting the center and so brought that opportunity to me relatively early. It might've been the spring or something like that. This decision happened sometime in the fall.
So by the spring I knew I was going to do this. So for example our professional meetings, the American [00:24:15] sociological associations in like August and I was going there. Because I already had some professional commitments. And and so I was nervous oh God, I have to see people, but I also knew I had this job.
So I had a plan. I knew where I was going, but [00:24:30] it there's also this self-consciousness. But when I went and I told people, you put on a brave face, but I felt but I said, yeah, I'm not going to be doing that anymore. I think, I don't know that I said I didn't get tenure, but I think it was clearly obvious.
But I said, I'm going to be doing this. And [00:24:45] everybody I talked to was uniformly supportive, excited for me. I even had some people who were academics were like, wow, you're so lucky. I, there's a kind of, I think a, kind of a golden handcuffs part of academia but there anybody that at least talked to choice face [00:25:00] there wasn't that, you get that face okay. Good for you. I didn't get that. I really didn't and I expected it. So yeah, I was a very positive response. Yeah. And so I think I [00:25:15] I partly as a feature of the new job and, complications within that organization, I wasn't able to go to conferences as much when I moved into that new role.
And that, that was I think, professionally not, that didn't give me the professional development needed. [00:25:30] And that was a problem that I had with my director that, she just wasn't willing to support that. So I didn't keep up those relationships as much, honestly, having closer relations to people through Facebook, I think any more than I do professionally, but I, I [00:25:45] don't know what they thought internally, but I really did feel like people were very, excited for me and thought this was a cool option.
On the Other Side--Applying Academic Skills Outside The Academy [00:25:51]
Britt: I don't know if other people who have not received tenure have talked to you over the years or have been pointed to you because I think you would be a really great [00:26:00] person to talk to about that because of just how sounds like even just the way you talk about it now very much turned toward it as painful as it was. And then acknowledged it and worked through it and then found your way to the other side in a healthy way. Cause I [00:26:15] don't sense any bitterness or anger
Holly: feeling for a while, but yeah,
Britt: Yeah. Not to say that wasn't there, but yeah. But I'm just curious, what you've learned as someone who has in many ways pass through that threshold that is so on [00:26:30] many levels in many angles, such a big thing in the academic sphere and fully survived and come out the other end all the greater for it.
Holly: Yeah. That's a good point. And I think, five years ago, eight years ago I would not have, thought that [00:26:45] I did. And I wouldn't have thought that I made my way through it. But I can say that once you go do this, you realize how many other people have done this.
And one thing I was thinking about one thing I learned there was, when you're academic you're and academia, you're titled these skills and you're told there's the one thing you can do with them. [00:27:00] And then once that's not an option or you're faced with deciding what your option is, you look up and you realize that all those skills you have mean that you can do a ton of thing.
So I had a couple of friends in my same university who were in two different two different [00:27:15] department. And so we're all in three different departments and all of us left academia around the same time, within a couple of years of each. And we all were much happier in the places we've landed.
for example, I had a friend, it's like coming from a psychology department. And when she was looking, she started doing that because kind of trainings and, [00:27:30] assessments, we try to figure out what can I do with the things that I like to do that I'm good at. And she learned that she was really interested in corporate training and we were like why does that, her, that she was like look, when you find out about it, you, they tell you the things that you need to do to be a good one.
And that's being able to [00:27:45] give public presentations, being able to put together a PowerPoint being able to teach people, be able to give assessments, be able to write. And I was like, you mean everything that we do all day long and twice on Sunday. And she was like, yeah, I was like, holy cow, there are jobs that [00:28:00] nobody tells you that.
And so that's what she's doing. And I have another friend who came from an anthropology department, but what she really liked. Helping students with writing. And she's now a professional editor works and med school and she edits [00:28:15] people's publications and grant applications and things like that. so you're like, oh, holy shit. We can do a lot.
On Being Off-Track [00:28:22]
Britt: And I think what you're speaking to is one of the reasons why we created this podcast is that [00:28:30] there are so many things off the track that bring your, that hopefully bring you even more meaning and closer to purpose as a human.
And that, oh yeah, by the way, the skills that you learned over several years and a lot of struggle. That sort of like ground you [00:28:45] to a little nub emotionally, intellectually, physically in some cases actually have incredible need in the world.
And so there's just not enough. collective voice of all of the various [00:29:00] pluralistic ways that those skills are applicable in the pursuit of meaning and justice and what have you. But you just don't see it because unfortunately this is going to sound very disparaging for those who are in the academy, which is.
That people don't really have the [00:29:15] perspective to be able to share, because that's where they are. They're in that insulated bubble. So they're not thinking about how to, influence policy so much, or if it is, it's like through some very sort of esoteric way of this little thing.
[00:29:30] So anyway, just lifting that voice and being able to be a place where like a grad student or someone making a career transition and you'd be like, oh, there's people doing all kinds of interesting things with their PhDs.
Holly: Yeah. Yeah. And there are people who could [00:29:45] be doing even more interesting things with their PhD.
Like I always felt like the message I got in grad school was, you're supposed to go to a R one university to research publishing. Yeah. Yeah. You can teach whatever. And if that doesn't work, if you can't, it. [00:30:00] Then you go to a teaching university and you're supposed to teach and there were a couple people who maybe didn't do that and then worked at research centers like child trainees or whatever, or NIH.
That was it. And so I think one of [00:30:15] the important things was you hear about people who have PhDs or, have gotten to ABD or have a master's and then end up doing something completely different. And all I can think is there's tremendous human capital there. And those people could be doing contributing [00:30:30] so much, and in space, particularly as somebody who's understands the data analysis and data science world, there's so many places where there's a need for somebody who has a content knowledge and a background and an understanding of research, [00:30:45] or that are now, those positions are being filled by people who understand data and statistics, but not content, not the system. And I keep thinking, man, we need to be pulling people from academic programs from grad schools, like way more be filling these positions with these people, [00:31:00] but we're not having those conversations with those programs.
On Reimaging The Academy [00:31:02]
Mya: And soif you had a magic wand part of the podcast too, is this idea of, re-imagining the academy, right?
So in your own experience and in your conversations with people who might [00:31:15] have had similar paths to yours, what do we do with something like tenure? And, with all the changes in higher education that are happening right now about, programs shrinking were just being done away with How can we not sniff [00:31:30] out the hope of people who are currently in grad programs and they're thinking about these things, but, in terms of faculty or your passion for transforming systems, right? If you had a magic wand, what would you do?
[00:31:45] Holly: That's a good question. I think what I would like to do is I guess it's two fold, right? Create better connections so that people who were in programs understand the opportunities outside of academia. But also I think it's important to try to change it from within, right? There are a lot of places [00:32:00] that are perpetuating a dying model and they know it's dying.
But they haven't figured out how to get off the train. And so that's one of the things that my former organization Herc that was the you know, evangelistic, argument, which was working in academia, trying to get academic [00:32:15] people in tenure track positions, as well as kind of staff researchers to do research that is not intended to go towards a journal article publication that 10 people are gonna read.
It is explicitly about doing research that speaks to the people who need to hear it, [00:32:30] which means you jointly work with them on the questions. It's not just the stuff that's academically interesting. You write it in a way that is written to them and for them, it's not, here's my journal article.
How do I write a brief that speaks to you and answers [00:32:45] your questions and you go out and build those relationships so that you can have trust and communicate with them so that they will hear you when you speak with them. And so much of that, work and I'm very proud and grateful of that was trying to get other academic programs to build [00:33:00] incentives for that kind of work into their tenure track process.
That what other publications and somebody do, what other work, and it's not just public sociology and have a blog to be cool and get Twitter followers it's to do something that has an impact. How do you build that into it? How do you [00:33:15] develop research, practice partnerships? So I think that's important, right?
And that's how you can get this transformation, right? You need academic academics to speak to the people because they can impact them, but you also need to create an incentive structure and academia to get people [00:33:30] to do that. And if you make it so that once you get off the train, you can't go back.
If you make it so that these things are separate, then you're not going to get people and programs to want to be bothered, to invest. So yeah, I think all of that has to work and we need to give people who are not in tenure track [00:33:45] spaces, also the opportunity to publish, because that gives them those opportunities that they can move on with, to write grants and all that. So both of these spaces have to change and to work more kettle collectively and be more connected. Yeah, that's what I would do if I had a [00:34:00] magic wand. Okay.
Mya: It sounds like you've been sprinkling magic already. And there's different spaces. And as I'm hearing you talking, I'm just thinking about an equity and inclusion standpoint and my background is international education.
And so there are [00:34:15] the premier voices, in any field that everybody wants to talk to and hear from, and international education. Less academic, in terms of it's usually multidisciplinary, so it's just a lot of different fields. But you have the people [00:34:30] who have PhDs. You have heads of programs, directors, colleges, et cetera.
And one of the things that they are working through right now is this idea of elevating voices that are at all different levels in all the different [00:34:45] arms of international education from, the coordinators, to students participating to international voices. And from what you're talking about, it sounds a little bit similar in terms of elevating and bringing together people from all the different [00:35:00] parts of a field or university around.
Finding an understanding of the value of all of those voices, contributing to a broader benefit for everybody, not at the expense of anybody. And [00:35:15] then that helping to lead towards some of these transformational things in systems.
Holly: Oh, thanks. Yeah. And I, that was I think the thing that I developed the most, and my former org Herc, that, that was the leadership crucible. I think that kind of [00:35:30] led me to develop this was I really became committed to developing staff and advocating for them because I think, and this kind of always happens, right?
Like when you're at the top, all you're thinking [00:35:45] about is the big thing, and you're almost are more invested in the process. Then the goal, then the ultimate mission, right? If your research practice partnership, you're about developing relationships with people, with organizations so that they can hear you when you give [00:36:00] them the truth about your research.
But the risk is that you invest more in and prioritize the relationship than the actual research and the truth. And so one of the things that I pushed a lot on is that's why we need [00:36:15] to make sure that our staff who were doing the research, people were actually in there doing that labor always have a strong beliefs because they're, the people are going to keep us on it.
And we need to be professionally developing them, right? They're not here to, we're not here to just extract value from [00:36:30] people, we're here to give benefit to them. And and part of that is protecting their voice, protecting their position and making sure that they have a say in how we do what we do.
And so I never thought about [00:36:45] that. But when you faced with those challenges, that was very much the thing that I was in, so I said, I will always listen. I may have struggled with my peers and my superiors, but I always listened to staff. Always and I always was about supporting my people. [00:37:00]
And yeah, I think that the hierarchical nature of a lot of organizations and institutions it means that it makes it harder to make that change, make those changes that you're talking about. And to open those things up. But I think that's the [00:37:15] only way that yeah, you're going to get anything done.
On Responsibility and Being a Scholar (and Grad Student) of Color [00:37:18]
Britt: Holly, I think we're almost the same age. I graduated in 1992 from a undergraduate also university of Michigan. I think it was probably like my junior [00:37:30] year in undergrad going into the career center and I was an English major in undergrad was focused on Asian American literature.
And so of course I was starting to wonder, what am I going to do with this English degree? I'm a good writer. I feel like I'm a good communicator. [00:37:45] Similar to what I think some of your faculty told you in undergraduate, I felt like I was receiving some of the same feedback. And I had some wonderful mentors Asian-American professors.
And so they were particularly encouraging me to to continue pursuing graduate education. [00:38:00] So I went to the career center and was looking at these articles and these articles are saying. It's almost like growth fields becoming a faculty, all these faculty or wave of retirements and there's going to be this need and this emergence around ethnic studies and, there's going to be such a [00:38:15] demand.
And I was like, wow, this is, sounds like a great growth opportunity. So I applied for fellowships over the summer for, undergraduates of color to introduce them to what higher ed is and research. And so [00:38:30] I worked with a mentor and did a paper and presented it at a national conference in blah-blah-blah.
And so of course like you, I was like, oh, this is fun. I don't really know anything else I do. And I'm getting some feedback here and it seems like good. So just [00:38:45] went down this path and Long story short. It took me a while to get back to graduate school, like six years between undergraduate and master's program, so I didn't choose to go immediately into higher ed. And [00:39:00] I even at that very young age felt a certain sense of disappointment on what I, as a very young scholar of color was not doing to pursue that. So I was already feeling this like [00:39:15] weight of the community or of scholars of color or whatever layer it might be.
Like I can deal with my own disappointment or whatever, but then there's this layer of that I think is unique to those of [00:39:30] us who are moving forward on, on the more leading edge of something that, that sort of take on the responsibility of that weight.
And maybe it's different. Junior scholars now. And of course it was different from those who came [00:39:45] before us. But I think in the nineties, that was still something, it was still very uncommon to see scholars of color other than just being like one maybe person in the department.
Holly: Yeah, no there's absolutely that. [00:40:00] So for example, when I started at Rice nobody really confirmed this for me, but I'm pretty sure I was the first black person in the entire school of social sciences.
Britt: Wow. Okay. So that's what I'm talking about.
Holly: Yeah. I ask people like, how many are there?
How many have there been? [00:40:15] And they couldn't put anybody in social sciences before. A couple of years after I started, we recruited another black woman. And she was a bit more senior than me in the process. And so she ended up getting tenure before I went up for tenure. So they've been able to establish a history such as it was. And she [00:40:30] did great and I was a bit, but yeah, there was a bit of that, like shit, and maybe there was a little bit of cause I did feel like I wasn't supported and I wasn't treated the same as others, but there was also probably a little bit of he can't really critique them cause they did fine.
And they, tender this black woman. Is your experience [00:40:45] really, about race and you like in some ways, yes. She just made it through, but in some, but that's a harder argument to make more broadly kind of the experience of being a woman of color in academia.
I think we all face something, but I really, I think that I was very [00:41:00] fortunate that I didn't face as much pushback and as many barriers as a lot of other people, partly because the things I was interested in and the way that I did things were much more Highly valued by mainstream people in the [00:41:15] program.
I was quantitative I was interested in race, but as it was a variant on kind of family structure and all that for you, like I wasn't. So I I found, I guess there were ways that I was proving my value and in that sense, they were probably like, oh wow, a black woman who's quantitative and [00:41:30] really, like student demography and all that kind of stuff, take notice, and so I really do feel like I was highly regarded. I was given opportunities. I very much did, but I also felt ways in which nobody thought about where I wasn't things, the example is [00:41:45] I had started at North Carolina. I was in my second year and I had to go meet with our chair of our department.
Okay. I've been around, I've been afraid. And when I went in to meet with him and he was like, I never see you. Are you when you, your first year? And I was like, I've been here for a year. You need to be around the office more every day. [00:42:00] Oh, okay. Whatever. And you had to sign something for me. It's fine. And then a week or so later, another woman I department came to me and she was like, yes.
So our chair had this weird interaction with him. I was standing in the hallway and he came up to me and he said, Hey, Holly, she's white. And [00:42:15] about eight inches taller than me.
Who does that? He literally had a 10 minute conversation with me. This is like the fourth time he met with me. And then they still didn't remember me. And me being a loudmouth and stupid. I told everybody in the department that story and I [00:42:30] told her was that's hilarious. Can you believe he did that?
Haha. And I think they're really now. I'm like, I can't believe I did that, but I told them I'm like, that's ridiculous. You're so silly. Could shame. You didn't even know what I looked like, but I'm like, how do you not know what I look like? I was literally the only black woman in my cohort. [00:42:45]
I think among other black grad students. I remember it seemed like there were a lot of if black grad students came in, they tended to center around or tend to mainly have one mentor wasn't mine. It was another person and she was lovely, but they all seem to come in there. But then when you talk to them, the stuff they were [00:43:00] interested in didn't necessarily align with this woman's interest and experience, she was just their mentor.
And I would ask them, where did you look? How'd you get there? And they were like she was. Willing to work with me. And she was willing to let me do, study what I wanted to study. And I was like, oh, that's [00:43:15] weird. And I remember I asked one of our other faculty members, there were like about, around the time you were recruiting grad students, and I said, and they're like, these are the grad students who are interested in, meet them. And I'm looking at like these grad students of color, and they're all interested in like [00:43:30] race . And all of a sudden we didn't have anybody who did that. And I said, why are you admitting these students or trying to recruit them when, you don't have anybody who does that.
And she was like it's up to them to, make their decisions. It's [00:43:45] not up to me to make decisions for them. We just want the best grad students. And I was like, you're just recruiting to get numbers. And you don't give a shit whether these students are successful once they get right. You just want to claim that you're retaining that you admitted people.
Hey, I was like, this better [00:44:00] than they do. They don't know what the heck they're doing. You understand this? It's up to you to say this isn't the place for you. You're amazing. You should go to Michigan or wherever it's that is selfish and short-sighted and damaging.
So you have tremendous [00:44:15] people who come in and then have no direction because nobody's training them and then investing in them. I was very lucky. I knew what I wanted to do. I found a person who did that thing and I said, I want to do this. And she said, great, come here and do that. But it wasn't because I, knew a ton more.
I just [00:44:30] said, I got lucky and I made the right connection. And yeah, that that was very disappointing.
Mya: And to extend that, it's like they accept students, they don't support, don't provide what they move. And then when we leave. [00:44:45] It becomes about that student, versus the department or the industry, they, I could have just asked, why is it that, we have to go out of our way to ask for the things that other people are [00:45:00] just presented with without having to ask.
Holly: And people don't know to ask, if you don't know, really
Mya: know, you don't know what you don't know.
Holly: But you do know because you've done it. And also you literally are creating this system. Like you literally are doing it. [00:45:15] So it's, You're literally there to train people. And then when they come in, you don't train them. It was your fault for not asking for the training and getting it like that is perverse.
Mya: And it's funny because so many people within the structure [00:45:30] in the system don't see the issues, right?
They don't have the perspective or the distance or the ability to be able to take a step back and look at how the system is operating and where, they are in facilitating the operation. And it's funny that you [00:45:45] talk about one advisor or, a woman who's advising students who don't do any of the things that she does.
Because you do have departments like mine, that Wisconsin, because my advisor. He just, he was invested in the training [00:46:00] of the grad students as teachers. Like he really wanted to help people who he saw that could be good teachers teaching. And so he agreed to be my advisor. He was my master's advisor, as well as my dissertation advisor.
And, he was I don't know what you're doing. He's if [00:46:15] you need support or whatever, but he also knew that my interest was outside of academia. And so it was nice to be able to find it's about like that who also was willing to let me do what I needed to do and wanted to do.
And if I wanted to ask, I could, but I [00:46:30] already knew what I wanted to do. And I knew the help I didn't even didn't need. And that was fine.
Holly: And, and the converse of that is like when the people who don't necessarily come in there and are discounted, who gets RA shifts and here he gives TA shifts. You [00:46:45] understand how that is determined. I felt very lucky. I came in to started grad school with a fellowship. I felt like I was highly regarded. I was given opportunities. I didn't have to know what the heck to do with it. But I had, a friend who, came in, they're like here, take this TA shift, but you know what, [00:47:00] she, and I don't really know. It was like, oh, I guess I got to make my own way.
And so she found some person who came in was new. And so let me, can I start working on your project? And she started doing this, and then she, you took to it like a duck to water and is tremendously successful [00:47:15] researcher and scholar now. And I think, she had whatever that thing is that helped her kind of be efficient and successful and, knock these things out trainable, I don't know whatever it is, but they couldn't see that from whatever evaluation they got from, her grad school application. They [00:47:30] didn't see that.
Mya: Yeah. And equity is not about applying the same solution for everybody to get to the same place, but looking at each individual and providing them with the tools that they need to achieve the outcome that we're looking for. And I think that's where exactly systems get it [00:47:45] wrong.
And what that does. But, that requires, looking at each person separately and people like that takes too much time and that's too much effort or nobody has time to do the extra stuff, but, in reality it takes maybe [00:48:00] 25% more time to do it that way. They just don't know how, and nobody is around to be able to explain how to do it effectively and efficiently, but also with a high level of impact either.
Holly: Yeah. Because again, the system doesn't reward [00:48:15] any of that. The system of the, the professors who are the advisors. It's about, I got to get their stuff done. Cause they're trying to get tenure. They're trying to get full professor. They're trying to move up and I need you to just get this thing done.
And nobody told them, oh, here's how you listen. [00:48:30] Here's the questions that you ask to draw it from somebody what they may want to do. And they don't know that they want to do it because they have no idea that it exists or that it's a thing. Here's really how to mentor.
Nobody taught me how to mentor and get that shit out, yeah [00:48:45] they aren't trained cause nobody tells them that it's important and makes it valuable. I do feel like things would probably have changed slowly. They're creating these incentive structures. But yeah. There's.
Yeah. They don't have the wherewithal to learn what to do. [00:49:00]
On the Dysfunctional Academy [00:49:00]
Britt: One of the things that we've snickered about on this podcast several times is the idea of collaboration in the academy as if we are trained to be able to work with other people and give credit, not just silo off things and slap names on the [00:49:15] articles as working with other people.
So yes, there are certain characteristics that I would say broadly define the world is looking for that the academy is just not currently structured to provide, people are being trained in many ways the [00:49:30] opposite way, unfortunately, so and this could be said for a lot of systems that exist in our world, but.
I feel like the academy there's this layer to it, that unique where it's this antiquated nature of it and the attachment to that. [00:49:45] And then the hierarchy is like you mentioned earlier in the systems of power that are just accepted to be part of the grand juror of it.
It's really weird, the whole thing.
Holly: It's just like really [00:50:00] bizarre EFT up system that is really dysfunctional. And honestly, if anybody's successful in it, you just have to applaud them because you're the, you're the exception, not the rule, and I think bringing up collaboration is a really good point, but one of the most [00:50:15] freeing things that I had when I transitioned from being an academic scholar professor to being a research analyst, and I started working with people and collaborating on projects, the best thing was to be able to say, I don't give a shit [00:50:30] about publishing.
That was the best thing that I ever did. It removed so much stress for me that wasn't what we're doing. But I also knew that I was working with grad students. Post-docs people who did care, but I had the space to say, I care about getting this [00:50:45] project done and informing our partners and making sure it hasn't.
I care about publishing because you care about it and I want to mentor you and support you with that. And so my rule was always like, I'm absolutely not first author. I me, at the end, I'm here to help. I'm here to [00:51:00] guide you, write it all right, these sections or whatever, but this is your voice, your baby.
And it was the best thing I ever did to not care, because it freed me from stress. It allowed me to be the [00:51:15] best mentor and collaborator I could be to get the best thing done and to help them get what they needed out of it. And all I needed out of it was the, the report to give to our partners and help them do something.
Mya: It's interesting too, because one of the things we've [00:51:30] also talked about on the podcast is the extraction of the personal or relational from academia where, thinking of people as human beings, not just these machines that turn out projects and research and et cetera, and, to your [00:51:45] point, somebody who successfully navigates the crucible of grad school and, the tenure track process as a full emotionally sound person, does deserve applause, right? [00:52:00] Because the system, it does its best to extract sort of the emotion, the human element, the relational pieces that are important for things like collaboration from you. And, one thing that has been a [00:52:15] blessing for me is, being somebody who didn't feel like that happened to them fully, yes.
There are times and points where you're just like, oh my gosh. Being able to have people outside of my department who could help get me through emotionally or, those times where I felt [00:52:30] like emotionally bereft, anything, and being able to survive. And it sounds to me that you've had a little bit, you've had that too, where you've been able to manage to keep them relational and the humanistic pieces of [00:52:45] yourself and your relationship despite this having gone through the process.
Holly: Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that's something that it was able to develop once I left being a professor and not that I didn't have good relationships and [00:53:00] whatever it is, the intensive nature of grad school and academia, you tend to have a lot of your personal friendships with people were also academics and even in your department in a way that, my mom who was a nurse thought, it was super weird that I was good friends with people I worked with. She was like, why would you wanna hang out with them? [00:53:15] But that also makes things complicated. And so that made, for example, me not getting tenure extra complicated, so there's a cost to that. But but I think, to your broader point, like once I moved into HERC and became working with a staff and had colleagues [00:53:30] it can make it hard. If you have a personal relationship with somebody and then professionally, they disappointed you. In a way that's very difficult, but it also can mean that once we had a different incentive structure, I could develop relationships and get [00:53:45] honest friendships with people above me at the same level as me and below me.
And somebody in particular, I was interested in investing in those relationships with people below me. I was interested in, reducing that hierarchy because if [00:54:00] people can trust you and talk with you, then you know how they're really feeling about things what's really going on. You can get really actual, honest feedback from people.
And that's something that the academy does not lay out for, like [00:54:15] the relationships between grad students and advisors is exploitative, and we all know those stories of people. Got sucked, dry and weren't developed, and then they finish they get a PhD and nobody taught them anything, but they've been managed to produce produce somebody else's papers [00:54:30] all on the way.
And that was absolutely not what I wanted to do. And so I think, yeah, finding, I think if you focus on, transforming and helping people then you'll be able to have those relationships and be able to [00:54:45] be a critical friend if necessary and be a supportive ally when necessary and to focus on what they need and what everybody else needs.
On Resilience [00:54:52] Mya: So in your discussion about leadership and in our re-emerging post pandemic world, this word resilience [00:55:00] keeps popping up. And I see and hear resilience in your story and just was wondering if that resonates with you in any way. If you see that as well, and then also just, how do you see [00:55:15] something like resilience fitting into issues of leadership or even in these academic training pathways?
Holly: You know I I'm not sure I would've thought of that word. But thank you for seeing it and if I think [00:55:30] about it. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I, certainly don't feel resilient at the time. But yeah, that's a good question. I think I was just looking at it like just a little bit of a Ted talk today, and it was talking about how girls are taught to be perfect and boys are taught to be brave. [00:55:45] And it did make me think about what you do when you're faced with failure, and I I don't know that I was socialized really to be resilient but maybe I was right. I got through that, so there must've been something. I certainly [00:56:00] didn't feel aware of that. But I think, for example, by the time I transitioned from being an academic to hurt, I really.
Was HERC falling back backwards into something But I think doing that helped me build that resilience. And that [00:56:15] the main lesson from that is you actually can do a lot of things that you didn't know you could do. And then the lesson, I learned all the challenges in dealing with, my leadership just the people we had a lot of conflict was also learning about that I'm [00:56:30] a good leader that I can actually be a good supervisor and run things.
So I think all of that did set me up for the transition that I made to where I'm at now. Yeah, I think I think a core part of resilience is being self-reflective You [00:56:45] can't learn from a mistake if you can't look at yourself really clear. And to have a trusted relationship with somebody who will tell you the truth and it's gonna suck.
But you have to have somebody to tell it to you and you have to be able to hear it. And the people that I've had trouble [00:57:00] with or think are people who cannot see themselves clearly we cannot be self-reflective. So I think that's really important. I don't think people can be resilient alone. So I think you have to have a network for you to actually be able to yeah. Successful at it. Yeah, I think [00:57:15] both of those things were probably necessary.
On If it was Worth it [00:57:18]
I know one of the questions that you asked Mya when we first met was the question of, was it. And I I realized that I had not actually asked myself that question before. I don't know why I hadn't.
That seems like a pretty basic question. But I think my [00:57:30] answer is absolutely. Yes, It was worth it. As much as grad school sucked and should have been better even not getting tenure was worth it because once I didn't get tenure, I realized that was okay. Cause I actually hated what I was doing.
And if I had gotten tenure, I never would have left and it would have been [00:57:45] miserable. and I think the things I'm doing now are best done with a PhD is that opens your doors. And it gets you people to hear you. And the training you got is absolutely worth it. Because again, those skills can be used in lots of different ways.
as [00:58:00] much as I had highs and lows and then yeah, it was worth it,
Britt: it was worth it. That is a nice place, for us to dismount our conversation. I want to thank you Holly, for taking time and [00:58:15] sharing so much of your experience and your insight and doing it in such a thoughtful and really clear-minded way. And in addition to us being able to confidently check the explicit language advisory box on the podcast this week, which is always a lot of [00:58:30] fun I
Holly: that's who I am.
Britt: I just think people will get a lot out of this conversation. So
Holly: I should've warned you guys. I can't get more than 10 minutes.
Britt: Don't worry It's checked every week.
Mya: Thanks so much, Holly, [00:58:45] for for saying yes to to joining us. And there were a lot of things that I felt resonated with me in your own journey that I was like, oh, that was similar to my experience too. But one of the things that is always really interesting and fun to see is the differences and where those things [00:59:00] diverged. But I think what the sentiment and the emotional place where people are right now in the moment is like talking about these things is a place of purpose and fulfillment and [00:59:15] feeling like to your point, all of these things that we've gone through, have been for a reason. All of these things are coming together so that we can do the work that we're doing in the world that we feel like we were meant to do. In that vein, you were definitely part of the off-track on purpose family. [00:59:30] So
Holly: thank you. I've really enjoyed this. And you guys have made me ponder questions. I hadn't so good on ya.
Reflections [00:59:40]
[00:59:45]Britt: All right. Now's the time for some reflections on our conversation with Holly.
Mya: Yeah, lots of good lots of good nuggets. Just words and themes for me were leadership, transformational leadership [01:00:00] and the recognition that there's training in grad school that is applicable in other ways that grad students aren't necessarily taught or understand.
And just got me thinking about, what are ways that. Departments can [01:00:15] intentionally do that or make spaces for that information that has the potential to transform also how some graduate students might navigate the program and feel like they're not a failure or a [01:00:30] disappointment. I think those are two things.
Britt: I really liked her response to your question about resilience. I found it to be very honest and open and that she mentioned that. She hadn't thought about her experience through the lens of resilience, I think [01:00:45] was also was also very interesting. I just really appreciated her orientation to the time as a faculty member. And then. Experiencing not getting tenure and sharing some of those things. And then also what happened immediately [01:01:00] after, and while we didn't talk specifics. I can only imagine that there were some moments that were just like really hard given the way in which that elevated experience of getting tenure. That being the pinnacle and then not reaching the peak, so I [01:01:15] appreciated her willingness to share that with us.
Mya: To the point about resilience, the idea that you can't be resilient alone and so many people, in academia, you're trained basically to go in alone or whatever is achieved is done by you. And the [01:01:30] theme that I saw both in her post academic work is the idea of investing in people. And that is something that really resonates with me. And how she talked about Relationships with people above and on the same and [01:01:45] below, and how she's very intentional about, directing her energies into helping people develop and grow and leave better, or, with more information or more skills than when they arrived.
And. [01:02:00] The idea that investing in other people matters how you do it matters. And knowing that there is a need for people out in the real world to be able to do that. And I just found that [01:02:15] very fascinating and something. I feel like I, I want to chew on a little bit more.
Britt: was thinking a little bit about our conversation with OMI. And when Omi shared that she always loved school and she loved learning. [01:02:30] And when Holly was sharing about how along the way, somebody said, you should do this, or you're good at this. She didn't say that it was the learning or the education that she really enjoyed. I get the sense that she did and it's just interesting how these things that we are [01:02:45] exposed to at a very young age, and then we may like them, or we may do well at them or whatever it might be. And then we just continue on with it, but at some point the sort of conditions and the context changes. And this'll be. The stretch too far was the analogy, but oftentimes with like [01:03:00] professional sports, you hear athletes say who are the top of their game at the NFL level or major league baseball or whatever.
And they talk about how it's business and you got to make that shift from the game. It was when you played as a kid to recognizing that it's a [01:03:15] business. When you get to that level. And at the same time, still holding on to some of that childlike enthusiasm that you had for the sport. And. It feels like there's some similarity there with graduate education, where at some point it becomes like this business, [01:03:30] where it's not just purely about the learning, you have to perform it in a slightly different way, or the competition becomes a bit different.
Just things start to shift, certainly from when you were in fifth grade and you just like reading. Sharing, what you read about, for the [01:03:45] pure love of learning and grad school by and large is not that, in an ideal way, like your research is, you get exhibiting probably 10 out of 10 people end up hating their dissertation research when they're done.
So anyway, through this conversation and thinking a little more about that, [01:04:00] and How it squeezes the learning out of you a bit, the graduate training, but that you need that in order. Persist,
in like beginning to knit together, the different conversations we've been having.
Mya: It's interesting the analogy, cause I do think there are some similarities and parallels [01:04:15] there and something that. I take my point, you said is, that childhood love of learning, there's an emotional attachment, right?
So for me, it's also about where does that belong in the process as it's trying to squeeze out, perhaps the love of [01:04:30] learning or just learning for learning steak, it is still there. And to some extent you still do need that on the other side, right? There still has to be something that fulfills you right. And brings you joy. And that thing that is [01:04:45] uniquely you, whether it's the topic or, what's motivating you to do the research. We still need that on the other side, that we don't want to squeeze it totally out. And it's interesting because I hear on the other side from all of our [01:05:00] guests so far is, there is something that has stuck with them that has brought joy that has been some kind of emotional.
Anchor that has fed sort of the human part of them as scholars and [01:05:15] academics and whole professional people too. I really am drawn to this idea of having you do this at level.
Britt: It's fascinating too, just from my own learning and development, as result of these conversations, where. I'm realizing the power of the mythology of [01:05:30] education broadly, but specifically about the power and the mythology of higher education. And whether it's the it's like being in the library or proximity to knowledge.
And just these things that we [01:05:45] maybe take to be intrinsic to who we are when in fact. They're more complicated than that and that they're connected to these larger stories that we've been hearing over our entire lifetimes about the sort of majesty of learning and the majesty of the academy [01:06:00] and it capital the academy perpetuates itself off of that mythology, and.
In a way that because it's so rooted in our almost as soon as we have like adult level consciousness or pre-teen, whatever, unlike [01:06:15] other industries or sectors, there's so much nostalgia tied to, it's just such a complicated thing, and I'm just curious how our understanding will evolve about.
That sort of level of to be able to name it. I'm not even close to being able to do it yet, but I [01:06:30] think that we all share some level of disappointment with the academy. And what's that common sense of what we're disappointed in? It's that do better, can do better. Look at all the missed potential.
I hear that in every one of these conversations, but it's like, what [01:06:45] is that? Like what's that connected to in our own hearts about how we expect? Cause the disappointment comes from whatever expectation we had going in, so
Mya: we just have to have more conversations to more data is needed [01:07:00]
Britt: Yeah. Yeah. Great. That was a fun conversation. I liked Holly a lot. She had such a what What's the right word,
infectious personality. very much drawn into her being.
[01:07:15] Mya: Again, another person that I would just like to go on a walk with, have coffee with just sit and talk about whatever's going on.
Britt: pretty soon. We're gonna work. We're gonna have enough people who are going to have to start holding these retreats .
and things