I found the reading of Rogers’ book to be very comprehensible and realistic. However, I am still left with specific holes and gaps related to her argument. I would like to point out that unlike Austerity Blues and The Undercommons, it is clear that Rogers’ has created a text with the purpose of an inclusive audience. Their message and idea of restructuring the ways students regard their graduate degree and prospective professional careers is very clearly stated. In their post, Stefanie mentions the practicality of the text. I completely agree! I am obviously very interested in abolitionist works and readings. However, as reform goes, Rogers’ book poses realistic approaches to reforming higher education that places the work on the student and faculty level. Their idea of reform is based on student’s ability to unlearn the practices and limited professional aspirations embedded in graduate education, Rogers writes, “graduate education is sometimes perceived as elite and esoteric, but scholarly research has a significant impact on things that affect the daily lives of millions—from the policies that structure our society to the stories and art that bring meaning and joy. This book offers ways to reframe humanities doctoral training with an eye toward public impact, and a focus on making graduate education matter in new and powerful ways,” (2).

There are two major points that stood out most for me during the reading. The first point is Rogers’ argument of working for “love” vs. “food,” they write, “many faculty members love what they do, and will say so openly. And yet, as numerous scholars including Fred Moten, Stefano Harney, Michael Bérubé, and Kathi Inman Berens have all described, the notion that one works “for love” reflects a position of privilege that minimizes the struggle many academics face to support themselves, and renders invisible the barriers that exacerbate the challenges for women, people of color, people with disabilities, and others who are not well supported by the structures of academe,” (21-22). Rogers’ main point of argument is understanding privilege involved in wholeheartedly loving what you do. I understand in a capitalist society there is enormous privilege in the act of pursuing and thriving in a career that a person loves. However, it is hard for me to fully understand and agree with her angle (I’ll try my best to flesh out my opinion in writing!). On the one hand, Rogers is urging students to consider professions outside of academia. But, regardless of the overall systemic issues of academia, can an adjunct professor not simply work for love? In our system of capitalism labor and love is not designed to go hand in hand. Any form of labor is done out of necessity to survive in the system, so working for love is a contradiction in itself. However, at the very least are we not supposed to do the work we love? Rogers also goes on to argue, “this rhetoric of love is one of the mechanisms that can lead people to endure underemployment, insufficient wages, and poor working conditions,” (22). Being a Black woman scholar, and placing myself in proximity to be mentored by senior Black women scholars, I have witnessed how working for both love and food can inevitably lead to the issues stated. Her argument of working for love leading to the issues listed centers whiteness. In my experience, I’ve worked with Black women scholars who take on roles to make a living wage and remain arguably underemployed, underpaid and endure unfair working conditions. I’ve also witnessed Black women scholars who pursue work based on their dying passions and endure the same issues. I’ve also learned many Black women scholars are not compensated at all or fairly for the extra work they do whether for food or love. I do agree pursuing work based on what you love is a major privilege. I would also argue that for most scholars, and professionals outside of academia, will endure some of the issues regardless.

Another point that stood out for me is Rogers’ idea of the grooming of graduate students. She mentions this throughout the book to criticize how most graduate students are fixated on a career based on teaching, rather than branching out to engage in non-academic professions. Most students, particularly myself, recognize the privilege of making a living only teaching. Particularly in the CUNY system, many professors engage in careers/jobs outside of teaching. The cost of living in NYC is a major factor. However, Rogers’ point of “grooming” sparked me to consider my own journey to a PhD program. Graduate school was first introduced to me during undergrad as a scholar in the McNair program. The program is specifically designed and funded to “groom” minority and underprivileged students to pursue a PhD. Without my involvement within the program I am 100% sure I would not have pursued graduate school. I’m still wrestling with the overall outcome of my “grooming.” The highs and lows of academia is similar to the structure of most institutions in our capitalist system.

While Rogers’ Putting the Humanities PhD to Work, offers some positive and practical suggestions to affect some change, albeit incremental, in the higher education system, I wanted to focus on one of the gaps that the text did not address. As Zoe mentioned in her post, asking Rogers to delve completely into the complexity of all the issues is not the intention of the work. But I do think Rogers text is a good starting point to further the discussions she is interested in engaging with. Specifically, I want to address how Rogers somewhat centers whiteness and white supremacy in this text, but that centering does not fully address ways to dismantle, deconstruct, or decolonized the structures that support constructions of whiteness.

Having taught in various “academic” setting for over thirteen years as an adjunct professor, or in some other administrative capacity, in my experience I have found that academic structures mirrors, or is an extension of, structures that (re)produce colonization. I have anecdotes to support my claim and will definitely share during class, but to provide a brief example: I often think about something James Baldwin said about how we all have a little white supremist or colonizer (I can’t remember which) on our shoulders whispering white supremist or colonizing things in our ears. A little devil that attempts to influence or govern our behavior, thoughts, and morals. This Baldwin saying, and its referential image almost always arrived when I was around some of my white colleagues. Being light-skinned Puerto Rican with a somewhat ambivalent sounding last name has often granted me access to certain “white” spaces in academia. Spaces where my middle-class white colleagues go to disclose their negative opinions about the predominately Black and Latino and working-class white students’ inability to learn or perform on a level that equals and (re)produces their middle-class, white values/standards. Mostly these colleagues expressed anger and resentment toward the students lack of (re)producing the Western (middle-class white) standards that are responsible for their myriad forms of oppression. They did not see that the Western (middle-class white) standards as the real problem. Nor could they see how actually living a middle-class life (many, if not all of my colleagues who complained about the students in this manner, did not live in the urban neighborhoods where the college/university was located, they lived in the suburbs) furthered the oppression of those they “taught.” After they would disclose how they really felt, I always asked these colleagues of mine how forcing students to learn values that are responsible for their oppression is ultimately helpful for them economically? Since one of the ultimate goals of obtaining a college degree is to secure some kind of career, work or access to wealth.

To put this question in a broader context: How can we decolonize institutions responsible for (re)producing social stratification and deimperialize those who (conscience of it or not) are granted certain privileges as a result of that power dynamic?  I don’t have the answer to that question, and I wasn’t expecting Rogers to either. Nor do I know what that looks like. (Like Rogers states in the book, as an adjunct professor I was highly aware of the fact that I did not have any support or backing from my department. So, I tried to radicalize the students any chance that I got just to create some kind of support—since students have more power than they know! But I don’t know if that is an example of what my question is trying to get at.) Still, I think it should be central to the discussions revolving around the issues Rogers’ book takes up. Especially since I think part of what Rogers is getting at is that these issues are not just economical they are cultural, social and political. And I think that the kind of movements that is necessary to effect change is more radical than what Rogers proposes. To that end I want to connect with what Zoe quoted from Moten and Harney, “The student with interests can demand policies, can formulate policy, give herself credit, pursue bad debtors with good policy, sound policy, evidence-based policy … The student can start her own NGO, invite others to identify their interests, put them on the table, join the global conversation” (67). While Zoe is right, Moten and Harney are warning us to be wary of the connection between academic accreditation/expertise and the world of policymaking, I also find that the corollary to Moten and Harney’s statement is that students with interests can demand policies, can formulate policy, etc. That is, no matter how it is spun (for good or bad) students have tremendous power in academia.

This semester, I’m taking a few classes outside of my area of special interest. So far, it’s been a great opportunity to read unfamiliar material, broaden my knowledge base and make some interesting connections to my interest area. But it comes with the real challenge of entering into a particular discourse that other students already seem to speak fluently. Sometimes I feel like I’m just trying to translate what people are talking about…examples from last week in the zoom classroom: Who is this theorist X student keeps referring to? What is this outside text everyone seems to know and is discussing? What does this acronym mean? In light of these thoughts, I appreciated Rogers’ emphasis on the value of learning and acclimating in Chapter 3, when she quotes early modernist Sarah Werner: “‘ I spent a lot of time at first feeling nervous about how much I didn’t know; now I realize it’s okay not to know things, since the skill is learning them, not already knowing them.’” Here Werner is talking about her first job, but I think it’s just as relevant for first year students. It’s the ability to learn that is essential, not the knowledge I have (or have not) already accumulated. 

In light of this issue of “imposter syndrome” I appreciated Rogers’ discussion of peer mentoring. Noting Kandice Chuh, she discusses how peer mentoring allows students to be both expert and novice simultaneously, creating, “a combination of confidence and humility that makes it far easier to share what one knows without being afraid to admit that there is still much to learn” (55). One of our greatest assets as we embark on this half decade (or more) of learning, is one another. How can we act as peer mentors for one another inside and outside the classroom? How do we help to create an atmosphere that encourages confidence and humility? And thinking about teaching next year, how do we cultivate this same atmosphere in our future classrooms, physical or virtual? 

Reflecting on how we can mentor one another leads me to think about Rogers’ discussion of tacit PhD knowledge, that stuff that “greases the wheels” (55). I know I am where I am today, because I was privileged to receive these kinds of tacit knowledge morsels, from applying to college to applying to grad school — how to structure an admissions essay, the right phrasing on a paper abstract, advice on what to wear (or what not to wear) to academic events, I could go on and on. After reading this chapter, I took some time to look at Aimée Morrison’s Hook and Eye Blog and #tacitPhD on twitter (particularly appreciated Dr Richard Graham’s tweets, “My most productive “networking” was never under the guise of networking, it was chatting to humans about genuine interests” or “Taking weekends and evenings off is more productive in the long term. Trying to work every second of the day won’t work out well”). I wonder if there’s a way for us as a cohort to compile a similar kind of #tacit phd compendium of what we are learning along the way. How can we make CUNY more equitable by sharing this kind of tacit knowledge with one another? I’m also thinking about my undergraduate education. What are those pieces of tacit knowledge that I have the power and responsibility to share? How can I do this successfully with my future students?

I also appreciated Rogers’ discussion of the importance of the life of the mind and the body. We are all here because we are passionate about what we study; but working for love, as Rogers describes, does not negate the material reality of “wages, benefits, and working conditions” (22). As Rogers describes, by treating teaching as a noble, love-driven calling, it is more easily exploitable. I loved this quote:  

“The idea that the life of the mind is somehow separate and independent from physical well-being is most often rooted in the privilege of material security. To be sure, the pleasure of pursuing knowledge is one of the deep satisfactions of advanced graduate study—but scholars still have to make rent.”  (23) 

When the mind and the body are not equally valued – hierarchically compartmentalized, if you will –  everyone, in the end, suffers; those who were thinking about teaching are dissuaded because of material insecurity, great teachers cannot continue teaching without benefits, students suffer because their adjunct professor cannot give them individualized support. It’s a vicious cycle. Valuing people’s bodies and wellbeing allows the creation of valuable work. It is essential that we push for better wages, benefits, and stable positions, not only so I can pay the rent (!) but also for the health of the whole institution.

First and foremost, I must say that I truly appreciate the honesty of this book. We are told from very young, in general, that college and education two of the keys to success. At least, those of us who did not grow up wealthy were likely told some version of this. As an educator, I often question this belief. Like Katina Rogers, I do not question the importance of higher education and would never disparage the pursuit of knowledge. However, we must be realistic about our prospects and the systems at play in the institutions of higher education. In fact, not understanding how the academy works and the availability of gainful employment within the academy can be detrimental.

The section of the book where Rogers talks about the reliance on adjunct work and how tenuous the securities of adjunct work are reminded me of an adjunct I came into contact with as a Human Resources professional within a particular college. The adjunct I attempted to help was an older woman, in her 70s most likely, and, by her account, very successful in the field of classical music outside of the academy. She had her PhD and because of her success outside of academia she was recruited by the president of the college to come work as a faculty member and master of ceremonies. It was her understanding that for all the years she worked for the college she was a full-time member of the faculty. She had no reason to think otherwise. She received regular paychecks and enjoyed the same benefits as those employed in full-time roles. For 13 years she had the same routine- she would teach two classes per semester and would coordinate and host several of the college’s musical events. Eventually, the college was forced to make some decisions regarding the use of certain job titles and this professor’s workload was reduced to teaching one class and had her duties as master of ceremonies were removed. As a result, she lost her health insurance and her income was drastically reduced. She came to Human Resources to make an inquiry as to why this was happening. I explained to her that she was never a full-time professor. She was an adjunct and held a secondary part-time title- the two titles combined resulted in what felt like full-time work comparable to that of a faculty member. She was shocked and devastated. She came into the world of academia because she loved to teach (Rogers discusses in good detail how the rhetoric of love is used against educators) and because she was told she would be a full-time instructor. For 13 years she never had a problem and never knew she actually held two tenuous part-time titles. When the college was forced to change how it was granting certain titles to the employees she was left with no protections. She was receiving benefits because she consistently taught two courses. Once she was knocked down to one course she was left without insurance and her salary was chopped from 85K annually to about 3K for the semester. Ultimately, she was left virtually jobless with no recourse.

The reason why Rogers’ book reminded me of this scenario is twofold. Firstly, this professor enjoyed her career outside of teaching and was successful. She was able to use her PhD in the arts outside of the role of educator which supports the importance of helping students to search for the opportunities available to them outside of academia. Secondly, the professor did not understand the structures of the academy and so was duped into believing something that was not accurate. Of course, the president of the college had lied to her but she had never taken the time to truly learn and understand what her job title and role was in the college. It is vital for those of us who are interested in working within the realm of academia to understand the structures of the system before we commit to wanting to become a part of it.

Overall, I think that what I appreciated most about this text is the optimism and call to action. It’s very easy to read all of these shortcomings, or to live experiences like what I described above, and feel overwhelmed and disheartened. Rogers acknowledges this implicitly and explicitly and, rather than allow the reader to feel defeated, she attempts to provide hope and guidance. For example, Rogers says the key to addressing the complications found within the study and pursuit of a degree in the field of humanities is to continue engaging in deeply scholarly work while also “taking steps toward repairing, restoring, and reforming problematic structures- something that both students and faculty can do…” She follows this up with actually providing suggestions on how to go about meeting this goal. She does this by focusing on the impact the university has on the communities around it and how we should be training our opinion leaders to go out into those communities to help make them better. The other texts we’ve read have lacked this type of optimism and call to action. The most useful piece of advice I found is that advisors and programs should encourage students to reach beyond the academy for support, ideas, and guidance.

I am very appreciative of this week’s topic, as I think addressing academia’s investment in a purported “academic/non-academic divide” is a productive entry-point into understanding how academia, despite its claims to a certain disinterestedness or removal from the market, operates according to very real incentives of prestige and funding. For example—this exposes how naive I am—but prior to reading Rogers I had never made the connection between departments exclusively encouraging students to pursue academic jobs and departments’ outcomes in ranking lists (as well as, consequently, their funding and budgets). It was illuminating to watch Rogers demonstrate how something that on the surface may just look like snobbery or personal bias is actually produced by the structure of an academic department and its material and financial underpinnings. I also found her formulation of a “university worth fighting for” useful in a big-tent way, as it pushes us to do the constructive work of changing our institutions as well as the imaginative work of envisioning alternatives to present-day suffering. Even if Rogers’ suggestions are incremental, I also believe that reorienting PhD programs towards the public would entail a wholesale shift in not only how we conceptualize graduate education but how we define and assign value in the context of our professional lives. 

Like Alessandra and Sandra, however, I found that The Undercommons really influenced my reading of Rogers, just as it influenced my reading of Austerity Blues. (For some reason I wasn’t expecting Moten & Harney’s work to have such an enduring personal relevance for me, even though I found so much of it meaningful and beautiful to read!) In particular, I kept coming back to Moten & Harney’s critique of policy, and how that critique seems to bump up against some of the recommendations in Rogers’ text, perhaps in discomfiting ways. 

I find Rogers’ argument that the humanities should have a public impact to be, on the face of it, appealing. Of course we should be marshaling our expertise and our skills to address the wider world around us! Of course we should help and influence others for the better! At the same time, I was frustrated by how vaguely Rogers kept defining this concept of “impact.” She writes that it can take the form of starting “a thriving or profitable organization,” effecting a change in “local policy” or producing “a widely used website or resource” (103). She urges for a deep connection between “research material, communities, and contemporary issues” (62). But what do those terms mean, concretely, actually? To be a little harsh: it seems that the book consistently performs a rhetorical slippage wherein “impact” becomes conflated with an inherently desirable public good, or even—in cases where Rogers cites scholarship and the BLM movement—a radical politics. But I don’t feel like that slippage is earned, and I was somewhat frustrated by how rarely Rogers actually formulated the political stakes of what she was discussing. What does it look like for a doctoral degree-holder in the humanities to make an “impact”? We know it shouldn’t look like working for Palentir, or Google, or McKinsey, and yet those are impactful companies, in which many humanities grads already work. In some cases, these grads are taken on so that they can think through the “ethical implications” of these companies’ actions, yet they do so, crucially, in often defanged and powerless capacities, as part of a face-saving PR strategy. I’m not saying any of this to shame or criticize PhD grads who go on to work in tech or consulting. What I’m trying to get across is that working for those companies entails making an impact, and yet doing so would also affect “local communities” or “contemporary issues” in probably negative ways. Yet Rogers, in ny view, does not parse that type of distinction in a satisfying or thorough manner. 

Moten and Harney write that, “The student with interests can demand policies, can formulate policy, give herself credit, pursue bad debtors with good policy, sound policy, evidence-based policy … The student can start her own NGO, invite others to identify their interests, put them on the table, join the global conversation” (67). I think part of what Moten and Harney are doing is warning us to be wary of the pipeline that stretches between academic accreditation/expertise and the world of policy-making, a pipeline that so many university departments already feed. Interestingly, though, parts of this excerpt feel like they could have been lifted from Rogers’ book. Which makes me wonder: is it necessary that our jobs—because for many, these are always, ultimately, just jobs—have public impact? I am torn, because I do feel that people within educational institutions, especially public ones, have certain ethical obligations to their larger communities. At the same time, I wonder why we feel the need to position our professional work as socially and politically valuable in this manner. What about the hypothetical situation of an academic who only wants to publish esoteric research in peer-reviewed journals, but uses their free-time to do organizing work, help form a mutual aid collective, or organize an occupation of a government building? Perhaps one could make an argument that there’s a connection between being cloistered in an elite, academic sphere and acquiring class interests that are deradicalizing or inimical to caring for one’s community. But that’s not an argument I’m totally prepared to sign on to yet…

Maybe many of my doubts could have been easily assuaged if Rogers had been a bit more specific about the types of “contemporary issues” graduates should—or shouldn’t!—work around (interestingly, Austerity Blues does something like this in its introduction, when it argues that we need public education in order to produce well-educated generations who can ameliorate climate change). But that may also be asking Rogers to do too much—to push political ideologies onto a book that is ultimately trying to help people thrive through the tricky business of giving them advice and recommendations. I’m not sure. Either way, I’m looking forward to hearing other people’s thoughts tomorrow. 

It is hard to describe my reaction to reading Putting the Humanities PhD to Work. I hesitate to say that I enjoyed it, given all the dread and confirmation I found within it of the prospects of current practices in higher academics. But perhaps I would say I was validated by it, and found myself at moments emotional while reading it. I also felt thankful for its persevering optimism even if I struggle to share such perspective.

I was particularly struck by Chapter One’s outline of the current practices within higher academe in terms of how faculty work is structured, what is considered valuable, who is made to teach which classes, and more. I found myself drawn to the lines about reliance on adjuncts as well as relatively inexperienced non-tenure faculty or grad students to teach Intro courses. “These introductory courses are among the most challenging to teach from a pedagogical perspective….Moreover, many of these students are also encountering college for the first time….All of this requires more intensive time and attention from faculty members” (26). Rogers quotes Moten/Harney about how university cultures seem to see teaching as a low-grade mode of academic work that, when one reaches true success, one can bypass. Rogers connects this thought process to a broader gesture by higher academia generally to reject its own work as “labor” and rather seeing itself as a “pure” form of knowledge-seeking constituted through “passion.” “Until we talk about faculty work in the language of labor and employment,” Roger writes, “it will remain shrouded in mystique that makes it difficult for graduate students to consider it as one option among many ” (13). These are, indeed, ideas I have seen touted, and I am thankful to this book for giving me a frame to dissect them. They are perhaps where I found the book most helpful.

It is the question of “what is to be done” where I am less inspired or, perhaps better once again, “validated.” Yes, the proposals outlined by Rogers are great: broadening the possibilities for various vocational preparation; reforming the admissions process; improving working conditions and pay for adjuncts and non-tenure track faculty; increased childcare, healthcare, and support structures; and reorienting programs to give care to pedagogy and various measures of success. Yes, that is all great, and I am glad that I read it. But I guess it was strange to begin this course with The Undercommons, which, compared to this text, I would consider abolitionist in spirit. For Moten and Harney, the university as it has been built seems to be a sort of beastly king in a towering castle, and those in the undercommons are chatting servants stealing scraps in the subterranean kitchen (weird analogy, but an honest one from my head). In Rogers’ book, the university is a space worth saving insofar as it continues to exist and humans continue to pass through and desire to survive in the world. Perhaps this is the difference between a utopianism/fantasy in M/H and the “practical” in Rogers. I guess my question is then…where does the more cunning, more free and dangerous “play” of M/H enter into the “work” of Humanities-PhD-being-put-to? 

On a different note, I was also validated to see Rogers critique diversity initiatives as they currently work, and provide the analysis that, even if these initiatives increase numerical diversity, as long as universities continue to measure success along conservative and racially biased frames, they will not precipitate long-term change and may in fact harm people of color, particularly Black, Indigenous and low-income people. A friend of a friend recently published the article “A Farewell Letter to DEI Work” in Inside Higher Ed, an article I thought of often while reading Rogers. I’d recommend reading it for a bit of insight into the potential harm of Diversity/Equity/Inclusion initiatives that stand without broader structural changes to a university or larger accountability mechanisms.

I am around after 11 AM, and happy to speak with you by phone or by video chat! Carrie

Reading The Undercommons is illuminating to me in ways that come with some caveats (some, not all, of which are expressed in Austerity Blues). Reading Austerity Blues is illuminating to me in ways that come with some caveats (some, not all, of which are expressed by The Undercommons).

I found myself attaching much less to Putting the Humanities to Work, even when I ostensibly agree with much of it, and I’m struggling to articulate why.

First, let me say, I am GLAD GC’s English department is (often seemingly) hospitable to students who want to pursue alternative paths or more creative assignments. I am truly glad about this, and I cannot emphasize how much different the overall culture seems to be here than in my previous institution. One of the most demoralizing moments at my last institution was when I said I was interested in pursuing a community college position and one of my advisors said, “Well, then why are you here? You don’t need a Ph.D. to do that.” I don’t think I would meet the same response here and, if I did, I don’t think it would be difficult to find support from people within the institution who assured me that that response was a bad response. I am thankful that, from what I’ve seen, people here seem to talk really openly about what they imagine for their futures and about their desires re: pursuing the degree. I think that this culture coincides with more honest and interesting intellectual work, for sure, if partially just because it allows for more honest human beings.

I think it’s a very PRACTICAL book insofar as it suggests some ways we could shift culturally to respond to a context where most people simply will not get tenure track, full-time faculty positions. I guess that just frustrates me because there are…plenty of academic positions! And I think I’d personally prefer a book about how people (especially full-time faculty) could fight the reliance on contingent labor. The end of the book has a list of things to do and questioning racism and sexism was kind of a point on a list instead of foundational to this system of contingency. Something I was missing from the book is just kind of like….How are we going to expect full-time faculty members who are not all but often (as Rogers notes) people with privileged backgrounds, consistently and effectively (as a group, not just as certain cool individuals) mentor people without those privileges? And then if a potential goal of mentorship is to mentor people toward non-faculty positions – does that not just reproduce and reinforce the same departmental hierarchies and demographics?

I also pause a bit at an assumption driving the book about how humanities students trained by Ph.D. programs would be especially suited to non-academic jobs. Is her point that they COULD be with widely different training, or that they are? There was one point where she mentioned that academics would need “no specific training” or “no specialized training” (these are paraphrases because I unfortunately didn’t write it down!) to mentor students toward less traditional careers but…is that true?? The beginning of my previous paragraph called the book “practical,” but I’m not sure if the huge cultural shifts within departments that she said should happen really could happen in meaningful, consistent ways across departments and institutions? It’s almost like the book argues for a cultural shift without being nearly as harsh (in my opinion) about some of the really destructive thinking and relational habits that also happen in and are nurtured by many Humanities departments.

I keep thinking I’m missing something. To be quite honest, it’s possible that the word “career” feels a little abstract at this moment in time! But yeah. Super interested to hear other people’s responses.

Dear All

So much to respond to below, and I look forward to our class meeting. Just to start out, a lot of people have referenced CUNY’s history of Open Admissions. I wanted to share a recent dissertation from our program:

Danica Savonick, Insurgent Knowledge: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Open Admissions