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Changing Tracks

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By Albert Stone

"You need to begin work on your doctorate." That observation from my dean became something of a rite of spring during my annual performance reviews. It wasn't a threat, it wasn't even a requirement, just something she wanted me to consider.

My two-year college had gone through a lot of changes since I began teaching there more than 16 years ago. Maybe the most significant was our transition -- like that of many a community college -- from an institution primarily devoted to technical education to a more comprehensive community college. That change brought new programs, new classes, and, of course, new perspectives on faculty credentials.

Actually, I had no problems on the credentials score. I already had a master's in physics, thanks to the foresight of a supervisor who had encouraged me to go to graduate school at a nearby regional university. My college does not require faculty members to have a degree higher than an M.A.; the only positions for which a Ph.D. is important are in the upper reaches of administration. But that's not where my ambitions lie.

I had been a department chairman for many years and served in an administrative slot between the department heads and the dean of the faculty. I enjoyed my time in those jobs, but I finally realized that I was not interested in climbing the administrative ladder any further.

So why did I want to pursue a doctorate as much as my dean wanted me to?

My years as an administrator had left me feeling that I was missing something in my academic career. That something wasn't teaching, which I still did quite regularly. It was thinking, studying, analyzing -- in other words, dare I say it, research.

Over the years, I had done some research on the side, benefiting from various projects with faculty members at neighboring universities, but I realized I was hungry for more. It wasn't that I wanted to leave my college, or that the college would not have supported my efforts at research. It was just that I felt I didn't truly have the proper training to pursue such work. The other problem was that I was becoming interested in doing research in the humanities -- a field radically different from the one in which I had received my training.

So every year during my evaluation, I would agree with the dean's assessment. I wanted to pursue a doctorate, not for her reasons but for my own -- in order to be better equipped to conduct research.

Many of my fellow faculty members, who heeded either the dean's prodding or their own personal desires, had entered into a program in higher-education administration offered by the same regional university where I had earned my master's.

The program was a good fit for them in many ways. Most were already administrators or wanted to move into administration. They were often from fields of study that made them amenable to the idea of a program in administration, and, given the history of our institution, they had all come from the business world and were pragmatic about their education and what it would do for them. The program itself was designed to accommodate their busy schedules, providing a consistent class schedule from term to term and intensive summer courses, and marketing itself to working professionals. But it was not for me.

Three years ago, after much investigation and procrastination, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program in the humanities at a major research university about an hour away from my college. The program was not deliberately designed for working professionals, it was not related to my job, and it would not likely benefit me in my current position unless I changed my mind and decided to move further up the administrative ladder.

It has taken much effort and adjustment to adapt myself to the program while continuing my teaching and administrative duties full time. I don't sleep much and I am liable to have my nose in a book even more than I did before, but as my wife once observed in a discussion about the whole venture, "You're having fun, aren't you?"

She was right (as usual). But my experience is also changing my perspective on my career. I have often pointed out my unique situation to people I encounter in my doctoral studies at the university. "I am preplaced," I like to say. Given the universal concerns about the job market for new Ph.D.'s in the humanities, I am smugly comfortable, already holding a teaching job in higher education, albeit not one at anything resembling a research institution.

Lately, though, I have begun to imagine myself at a four-year college -- nothing elite or even research-based, but one where I might be able to teach a course whose catalog number was something higher than 200. I tend to haunt the online discussions on The Chronicle's Web site, carefully examining the responses to questions like "Am I too old to get a faculty position?" or "What about my background, which is not in the traditional academic mode -- should I highlight it or conceal it?"

I am not naïve. I have been in higher education for a long time and have observed its processes beyond my own little institution. I know that the job market in the humanities is generally considered abysmal (although I suspect that it depends a lot on the type of institution and geographic location you prefer), but I keep my little fantasy anyway, as I work on my degree.

It may amount to nothing -- after all, I do not fit what seems to be the common perception of a desirable candidate for a tenure-track job. I am a shade too old. My publications, before embarking on my new studies, consist primarily of a couple of textbooks, a couple of scientific papers written with a co-author, and some nonrefereed work on various aspects of administration. And my work experience at a two-year college seems to be a double-edged sword at best.

I suppose I could always "write my way out," as I often see suggested in various discussions, building up a body of work with enough merit to allow me to make the transition to a four-year college somewhere. I do very much intend to write and do research, to study and to learn, but with only my own intellectual interests as my guide. Maybe that will lead to something later, but if not, hey, I am preplaced.