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A Ph.D.'s Road to University Advancement

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By Jennifer Koch-Gibson

When I was a doctoral student in comparative literature, I did a lot of thinking about whether universities should limit the size of their graduate programs because of the weak academic job market. I even participated in a 1999 Web discussion here on the topic, and specifically on whether a graduate program has any obligation to help its doctoral candidates find work.

Here's what I wrote in The Chronicle back then: "Although I will be entering a job market next year that looks fairly grim to me right now, I am truly disgusted by my fellow graduate students who believe that the university, the M.L.A. and the world owe them a position teaching at a "good" university. ... There are so many interesting and equally challenging opportunities out there for scholars of our caliber -- how dare we limit ourselves to only one job possibility?"

Two years and one Ph.D. later, I am happy to say that I have followed my own youthful advice, and am currently the assistant dean for development in the School of Health-Related Professions at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Sure, some people have described what I do as "begging for the university." To my mind, being in advancement and development is more about building relationships with alumni and community leaders than begging. Such relationships lead to the financial support that the university needs for its programs -- including the money that paid for me to have a teaching assistantship and free graduate tuition for five years.

Almost everyone who knows me has asked why I did not pursue a career as a professor. They ask this question with a sort of incredulity, as though I had broken some sacred mold. My colleagues from graduate school pose the question differently, with an ever-so-subtle tone of disdain, usually followed by a shudder at the mere thought of an "administrative" position.

My answer? Usually a longish, tangential explanation that touchs on the unavailability of tenure-track jobs in English departments, the necessity of relocating to different institutions in the quest for tenure, the low salaries for assistant professors, and the "publish or perish" culture, to name a few factors.

Truthfully, it is sometimes difficult to point definitively to one reason and say: "There, that's it. That's why I did not pursue a teaching position." It's a difficulty that many Ph.D.'s who leave academe experience. That lack of an easy explanation is one of the reasons we feel guilty when we decide to pursue other career options. It's also why we are often accused of "selling out" our education for a higher salary -- a charge that I have heard from many of my graduate colleagues and at least one professor.

It always struck me as rather strange -- even contradictory -- that in an environment where diversity of experience, thought, and expression were supposed to be prized, divergence from the beaten academic path would be so rejected. But it is, and those of us who have veered from that path have to face the fact that others will think we couldn't hack it as scholars, that we somehow didn't make the cut.

Some of us perpetuate and even encourage this stereotype through our own defensiveness. I know I was guilty of this at first. I said I didn't want to put my husband through constant moves. I said I needed more financial stability than a faculty job could offer. I said it would be too hard to find a position teaching Renaissance poetry and drama at a "good" college. The only thing these explanations proved was my own inability to deal with the reality of academia.

But my decision to take a different career path had nothing to do with whether I could hack it as a professor. In fact, I'm rather convinced that I could have done well for myself as a faculty member. After I defended my dissertation, I sent my C.V. to area colleges here in Buffalo, N.Y., and almost immediately was offered adjunct faculty positions in both the English and the art-history departments at four different institutions. It wasn't the tenure track, but it was a foot in the door.

While I was circulating my C.V., however, I also began sending out résumés to the local nonprofit organizations in Buffalo. I had had some grant-writing experience and wanted to see where it would take me. Six weeks after my dissertation defense, I was offered a position with a local theater group writing grants and directing an annual fund drive.

I now had a decision to make: I could take an entry-level job in a cultural nonprofit organization or I could take my chances on the adjunct life and hang on to the chance that in time it would lead to a tenure-track job. The money was about the same for both types of jobs -- an appallingly low $24,000 -- so that was not a factor.

My decision to take the nonacademic job was based on my own honest assessment of myself -- my personality, my goals, my ambitions. And although I treasure the six years that I spent in graduate school, I know myself well enough to understand that I would not have thrived in that environment for the rest of my life. As one of my dissertation advisers pointed out, I was always more "of the world" than most of the other graduate students -- a comment not meant in the complimentary way I have since learned to take it.

Not surprisingly, a person with a Ph.D. does not stay in an entry-level position for long, even if that degree is in no way related to the work that you do. Within a year I was offered my present position at the university. At 31, I am the youngest assistant dean in a development position at the university.

Occasionally I miss teaching, the deep discussions with other impassioned graduate students, the sangria parties, but I do not feel any sense of loss, nor do I lie awake at night wondering what could have been. I still believe in the experience of being a graduate student, of earning a Ph.D., but I have also learned I do not have to race, lemming-like, toward the professorial sea in order to validate that experience.

Nor is there anything wrong with wanting to earn a living wage -- utility companies are not impressed by my ability to quote theorists if I can't pay the bills. Nor again did I need to earn my Ph.D. to work in development. Earning my Ph.D. was a personal, intellectual goal that I set for myself, and one I set knowing that the intellectual niche I was carving for myself would probably not lead to an academic position.

I am still surprised at the ease of my transition from graduate study to a career in development. A successful development officer requires many of the same skills as a successful graduate student -- tenacity, creativity, and dedication to a concept. It was these abstract skills, not any specific knowledge of fund raising, that gave me the edge over other candidates for my job.

Many people associate development with what they see as the rather seedy task of asking for money. What is rarely recognized is that the people I interact with on a daily basis give money to the university because they are enthusiastic, even impassioned, about their alma mater. The university's supporters have their own reasons for giving, and their dedication is at times inspiring and even touching. I sometimes think about the near mandatory contempt for campus bureaucracy that characterized so many of my graduate colleagues, and wonder if I am still at the same school.

I have found that a Ph.D.'s inclination toward metaphorical and critical thought is a highly respected and sought-after ability outside the professoriate. I did not sell out my education; I bought in.