00;00;00;00 - 00;00;35;13
Erica Machulak
What does being a scholar mean to you? This is a question that we've been thinking through with our research partners at the University of British Columbia. And in this episode, we're going to share our ongoing conversations with them about this question and others relating to the emerging experience of PhDs. An experience that captures a lot of themes about the future of work, and in particular, what we mean when we talk about communities of practice.
00;00;35;16 - 00;00;59;25
Erica Machulak
As you'll hear, we're thinking about scholarship not necessarily specific to a discipline or a department, but as a process, a practice and a form of labor. These are questions that are massively important to Hikma, where we're thinking about what it means to build a community of practice. So with that, I'm Erica Machulak, the founder of Hikma, and you're listening to the Hikma Collective Podcast.
00;00;59;28 - 00;01;07;09
Erica Machulak
Thank you for joining us.
00;01;07;12 - 00;01;24;18
Erica Machulak
Welcome back to the Hikma Collective Podcast, I'm delighted to be here with our research partners at the University of British Columbia. And I'll leave it to them to say a little bit about themselves. But Jillianne Code, can I ask you to tell us a little bit about what this project is and why we're all here?
00;01;25;23 - 00;01;26;18
Jillianne Code
Sure. Thank you, Erica.
00;01;26;21 - 00;02;12;01
Jillianne Code
Absolutely delighted to be here and to be partnering with you on this work. My name is Dr. Jillianne Code, and I'm an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. And we came together to really explore more what it means to have a Ph.D., what it means to be a scholar. But beyond that, where people with PhDs or with doctoral degrees end up outside of the academy, why they chose that direction and really to consider professional agency and what that means in the context outside of the academy space.
00;02;12;03 - 00;02;33;11
Erica Machulak
Nice Andy Webb, will you tell us a little bit about how you came to be involved in the project?
00;02;17;03 - 00;02;38;11
Andrea Webb
Hi, my name is Andrea Webb and I am an associate professor of teaching in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. And my real interest in this is how we engage in teaching and learning in higher education. And that's the focus of both my research and my participation in this project.
00;02;39;17 - 00;02;40;80
Erica Machulak
Kieran Ford. How about you?
00;02;42;27 - 00;02;52;80
Kieran Ford
Hi, my name's Kieran Ford. I'm a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at UBC. I'm a research assistant on this project and Dr. Code is my mentor and advisor.
00;02;53;30 - 00;02;56;11
Erica Machulak
Nice. Thank you, Kieran. And how about you Zahira?
00;02;58;27 - 00;03;23;16
Zahira Tasabehji
Hi I'm Zahira, I'm a current MA student, first year student, with under the supervision of Dr. Code as well. And I. I'm doing my MA in media and technology studies education. Yeah, I guess for me, it's thinking about what it means to be a scholar and where I see myself within the academy and whether I consider, you know, pursuing a PhD in the future.
00;03;23;19 - 00;03;46;19
Zahira Tasabehji
It's it's really important to understand the opportunities that lie, you know, at the, at the other end and whether I am able to see myself within that realm in the first place. I think this work is really will shed some light on that. And whether on my own personal experience of what it means for me to pursue those kind of opportunities in the future.
00;03;46;21 - 00;04;00;16
Erica Machulak
I love that Zahira, and you beat me to the punch. So I want to ask each of you, while we're here, to answer that question. So Zahira went first. How about you, Andy? Complete this sentence: Being a scholar to me means...
00;04;01;03 - 00;04;20;16
Andrea Webb
Being a scholar to me means applying in a, rigorous, a thoughtful, an appropriate method and methodology to questions and curiosities.
00;04;20;19 - 00;05;01;16
Andrea Webb
I think that being a scholar is actually a very broad pursuit and is actually taken up by lots of people. But the universities have often, or higher education has often, made a cachet around around their own work. But I think that lots of people engage in intelligent, rigorous, intellectual pursuits outside of the academy. And to me, being a scholar means bringing that training to bear on questions and curiosities that individuals have, regardless of the area of interest.
00;05;01;18 - 00;05;03;16
Erica Machulak
I love it. How about you, Jillianne?
00;05;05;21 - 00;02;12;01
Jillianne Code
It's a really great question and a great statement. I think it depends on which mood you're in on how you answer that question. But at the essence, for me, being a scholar means that questions and curiosities like like Andy said. But for me, it's I take that one step further.
00;05;33;16 - 00;06;21;03
Jillianne Code
One step adjacent to that is that that inspired curiosities to really think about questions that I have about the world. But applying a rigor to investigate those questions, but more importantly, to tell a story at the end of it, and how no matter how what data you've collected, how you've collected that data there, there is a story to tell, and it's likely a very compelling story, even if there is no, you know, it's non-significant in whatever statistical way you're thinking about it, it's still a story. And so I, I see myself as as a storyteller, essentially.
00;06;23;03 - 00;06;26;21
Erica Machulak
Nice. Kieran, how about you?
00;06;23;03 - 00;06;42;21
Kieran Ford
Yeah, being a scholar is a it's a tricky one. It's always good to say something is a spectrum that we have a pretty broad appeal to play with. So I like the spectrum idea. I'm like, as a scholar, as a student, I guess I would be a junior scholar.
00;06;42;21 - 00;07;12;07
Kieran Ford
So I guess I'm thinking of the privilege that I've been afforded to be a scholar, and that is to sort of be in the academy where I can play gracefully with ideas. Where I have the time, the luxury of the time, a lot of it uninterrupted, a lot of it undirected, to to explore things that interest me and things that might afford purpose and to me in my life and meaning in my life.
00;07;12;10 - 00;07;30;28
Erica Machulak
Nice. So Kieren, as the Ph.D. candidate, as the one who's been going through it while we've been working on this for a number of years now, what are some of the takeaways from the research that we've done so far that feel most relevant to you?
00;07;12;10 - 00;08;01;28
Kieran Ford
Um, the, the need for community. So the blog post that I wrote for Hikma spoke around the issue of community, I think, which was highlighted very clearly early in my PhD when COVID happened and my cohorts disappeared. I had a group of people, my sort of community that I studied with, that I had classes with in a particular room in a particular setting.
00;08;01;28 - 00;08;26;29
Kieran Ford
And I met these people and we had a forum, we had a sort of traditional physical place where these things happened. And when that physical place was replaced by by what we're doing here, where we all got put into our little boxes, things changed, and some of some of my my cohort I haven't seen since. And and it was it was quite a struggle.
00;08;26;29 - 00;08;52;21
Kieran Ford
So what I've taken away from what we've been looking at is that need for community and the need to to feel connected to not just your subject, but to feel connected with others, because it's definitely something you can't do alone. I think there's a saying that, you know, everyone can be miserable by themselves. But to appreciate happiness you have to have company or something like that.
00;08;52;21 - 00;09;15;22
Kieran Ford
I think to be a scholar is not a solitary exercise, certainly when we're writing a lot of the time. But everything that leads to the writing is part of community. And so it's like the community funnels into that and, and then, yeah, the community is, is the funnel that that distills and guides and puts a point in what we're trying to do.
00;09;15;24 - 00;09;20;03
Erica Machulak
Nice. What is this study all about? Andy
00;09;21;15 - 00;09;46;03
Andrea Webb
Well, I can talk a little bit about how we have engaged in the study. Essentially, based on our interest in looking at how people have moved beyond the Academy and what what their interests are. We sort of pursued two separate avenues. I think that there is a real interest in looking at recent graduates.
00;09;46;03 - 00;10;25;06
Andrea Webb
And there is some, some studies have been done around that. Jillianne took this idea of professional agency, and how people think about their activity, and did a large scale numerical study with them and has some amazing, really interesting results in terms of how people understand themselves as being powerful agents in their own progress. And on the other side, I interviewed a small group of individuals on what their post graduation career path was.
00;10;25;06 - 00;10;38;85
Andrea Webb
And so following with appreciative interviews, we asked people, What are some of the things that went well in your post degree process? What are the things that helped you as you engaged in that process?
00;10;40;66 - 00;10;45;15
Erica Machulak
Nice. So, Andy, what is an appreciative interview?
00;10;45;71 - 00;10;59;15
Andrea Webb
An appreciative interview is essentially a narrative type of interview where they told me a story of when things went well, rather than focus on a stitch and bitch kind of situation.
00;10;59;18 - 00;11;19;55
Andrea Webb
Or rather than focus on an unfortunate series of events that have led them to leave the academy, we tried to focus on what were some of the positive takeaways. What are the opportunities? What are some of the things that went well that we could build upon in order to learn something about how to support people going forward.
00;11;22;03 - 00;10;43;77
Erica Machulak
Within the social sciences and humanities we're so well trained to critique and to find the holes. It's nice to put that perspective not only on the storytelling of of what has happened in our lives once we once we left the academy, but to think about how research can generate positive things. Jillianne, How would you respond to that?
00;11;45;32 - 00;12;05;01
Jillianne Code
I think Andy did a great job and I think it also speaks to the way in which we approached this project with a distinct mixed methodology because we really felt very strongly that there was no one method that was going to tell the whole story.
00;12;05;08 - 00;12;35;12
Jillianne Code
Having lived through much of these, these experiences, positive, negative and everything in between ourselves. How we came together to to tell these stories was really important. And I think at the essence of it was that, you know, there's some shocking stats out of the UK, you know, saying that only 50% of social sciences and 45% of arts and humanities PhD holders are in academic roles.
00;12;35;14 - 00;13;02;10
Jillianne Code
And and so what about everyone else? You know? And so there was we really felt that there was a significant need to educate and empower PhDs and postdocs about their, how to how to develop their professional agency. And so for from my side of the project, and we talk about, you know, her side and my side, and Andy is very qualitative and I'm somewhat somewhat more quantitative.
00;13;02;10 - 00;13;31;05
Jillianne Code
And so, which was a perfect pairing in my mind, you know, really just having this focus around professional agency and how people make choices and act on their own, on those choices. And as adults, how you know, how you, the meaning that you make out of your career was was really, really important. And Kieran is exactly right. You know what the data is telling us.
00;13;31;05 - 00;13;57;12
Jillianne Code
I know you're probably going to ask about the data specifically a little bit later. But even as we theoretically linked and understood that with professional agency, we need a community of practice. And so so those two elements really did come together. And I think we can say in both data sets with the with the qualitative and the quantitative that that really did come through.
00;13;57;15 - 00;14;04;47
Erica Machulak
Nice. Okay, let's break it down a little bit. Jillianne, what does agency mean in this context?
00;14;06;58 - 00;14;35;17
Jillianne Code
That's a great question. And agency.. There's many definitions of agency and they usually surround the idea of one's ability or will and skill to act in certain in, given the constraints around them. And so, you know, so the capability that individuals have to make choices and act on those choices in a way that makes a difference in their lives.
00;14;35;17 - 00;15;06;06
Jillianne Code
And that and that difference in their in their life is really important. From the, when we're looking at it from the professional agency side, with respect to the recent grads postdocs, we're thinking about, I think what comes into play, is the meaning that individuals have out of their their current, their current roles, the current roles that that that they're in, that they find themselves, that they may find themselves in.
00;15;06;06 - 00;15;42;15
Jillianne Code
That's right. Or that they chose. And so those two very, those two intentionality are very, very different. And I think coming into this project, we're thinking about professional agency. When we're training or training or educating and we're welcoming people into graduate programs. What has happened over the many, many years is that we are telling these people, our grads, that, us included, that the only way for you is to be a professor, a teaching professor, a research stream professor.
00;15;42;15 - 00;16;14;27
Jillianne Code
But in the professoriate in some way. And that, we know, both and you and I feel, I guess being younger scholars, you know, I don't know if we can call ourselves that, but hey, that that does a huge disservice because there are so many, there's there's just so much there. And so what we really wanted to do was get a lay of the land and really find out if if that's, you know, in actual fact.
00;16;14;29 - 00;16;26;07
Jillianne Code
So how much or how little agency people really felt that that they had in or that they have in the snapshot that we were able to capture.
00;16;27;47 - 00;16;33;86
Erica Machulak
So in the context of this technical work, how do we define agency?
00;16;34;61 - 00;17;30;22
Jillianne Code
So in the process, within this context, we can really define agency as, a recent, a Ph.D. graduate, or recent doctoral holder, somebody in the workforce, even, that is able to actively negotiate their identity within the context of the availability or perceived lack thereof of opportunity. And in how you how you actively engage or disengage in that process and how you utilize the community around you to find value in your, in what you're pursuing.
00;17;30;24 - 00;18;01;03
Erica Machulak
Nice, thanks Jillianne. The reason I'm asking for these technical definitions is, one of the things that really inspires me about the work of this project is talking about agency and community and communities of practice - these things that we tend to talk about in these really lofty, abstract ways - as actual, tangible things that we can think about and use to build better systems, to build better experiences, to build better communities.
00;18;01;03 - 00;18;21;17
Erica Machulak
And by breaking down those terms into an information that we can work with and real understandings of the roles that these things play in our lives, I think we have a real shot at building better ones. So, Andy, to that end, can I ask you technically, what is a community of practice?
00;18;22;43 - 00;18;39;02
Andrea Webb
So within the Academy there are lots of different definitions in terms of how people take out communities of practice, and that really is a term that has been used in the higher education literature for the last 20 or 30 years.
00;18;39;04 - 00;19;13;15
Andrea Webb
And a community of practice is often a group of people who come together to support each other as they engage in learning. So the practice being the learning, the community being the group of people. I think that that has become increasingly more complicated but also interesting as we have started to see the Academy become more diverse, more interested in interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary conversations.
00;19;13;18 - 00;19;48;26
Andrea Webb
So it's not so much about having a single community that we, that we work with, and that we investigate. But within this research, I think that it's become really, I have become really encouraged, by this idea that people have a constellation of communities that they are working with, and that we have a group of people over here that are supporting their disciplinary learning, and we have a group of people over here that are supporting their personal and professional career kind of learning and growth.
00;19;48;26 - 00;20;19;27
Andrea Webb
And then we may have our personal groups. So there are groups outside the academy that we are engaged in thinking with. And some people have talked about artistic pursuits that are part of that particular community. And so while originally it was, you know, a group of scholars or interested parties getting together to work on a particular problem, I think now we're starting to see in the academy that there are multiple different groups of people that we engage with.
00;20;19;27 - 00;20;45;23
Andrea Webb
And so no longer is it about A community of practice. But I think we have to talk about multiple communities. And I'm using this idea of a constellation, because I also think that we have different arm's length engagement with some of those communities. So some communities we are deeply embedded with and these become the foundation and the rock that we are connected to and how we we hold on to ourselves as part of this process.
00;20;45;23 - 00;21;05;22
Andrea Webb
Because I think the, you know, as we go through grad school, you do sometimes feel like you're going through a transformative experience, and some of it you keep in some of it you have to let go of. But we also do have our fingers in lots of different communities. And I think about people like Kieran and Zahira who are going through this process.
00;21;05;24 - 00;21;31;22
Andrea Webb
And not only do they have the community they came in with, but they're finding their way with other communities being, part of research projects like this and determining whether that's something you want to stay connected with going forward or, you know, just tipping your toe away and taking a taster of something and then moving on to other projects going forward.
00;21;31;25 - 00;21;38;70
Erica Machulak
And so if we're talking about constellations of communities, then what do we mean by practice?
00;21;31;25 - 00;22;01;15
Andrea Webb
So. Well, practice is something we do to to develop competence, right? And so I think that practice also has to do with - now we're going to get all over the map - but practice has to do with this idea of how we develop a craft or a skill.
00;22;01;18 - 00;22;37;26
Andrea Webb
And so if we are in the process of developing this skill of scholarship and academic research or inquiry, then these are the people that are supporting us in that practice. And I think that we have the practice makes perfect definition of practice, but we also have the practice as in our craft. And I think that this is where, you know, we have to talk about what we do in higher education as not being something that we have perfected.
00;22;38;03 - 00;23;00;28
Andrea Webb
But something that we continue to work at, be that the intellectual pursuits and, and science that you are engaging in. Or if it is the critique of manuscripts, I think that there are always different ways to be thinking about these things. So practice to me has two definitions.
00;23;01;03 - 00;23;18;05
Erica Machulak
OK. I'll allow it. Two definitions. I'll take it. One of then one of the challenges, or opportunities with what we call in Canada knowledge mobilization that has different terms all over the world public scholarship, knowledge, translation, making research ideas accessible.
00;23;18;08 - 00;23;47;17
Erica Machulak
One of the key pieces is figuring out who who you want to work with, who you're speaking to, and how to distill those ideas into the pieces that are going to be most interesting, compelling and useful to the people that you're talking to. And for me, one of the connections between that and the way that we're talking about agency and communities of practice, is learning how to pull out different dimensions of the work that you're doing to make it translate across contexts.
00;23;47;20 - 00;24;15;21
Erica Machulak
And that's as much about process as it is about outcomes. We're here talking about a study that is still very much evolving. The analysis is still continuing. We're thinking through how we're going to make this useful to the world with this podcast being one step. But if you're thinking about everyone here, if you're thinking about yourselves as scholars who are in a group of people right now that I'm Andy, tell me, does this group count as a community of practice?
00;24;15;23 - 00;24;53;02
Andrea Webb
Of course. Okay. Yes, I think so, because, you know, I know that as part of that process, we have met as a group a number of times to talk about the evolution and the iteration of our findings, but also talking through who would be interested in this. And so the outcomes are a distinct product of our community talking about this. I know that Kieran and I have met a number of times to go through the interviews and talk about what are some of the pieces that are emerging and what are we looking for and what are we hearing in the data.
00;24;53;04 - 00;25;15;08
Andrea Webb
And then he's also been meeting with Jillianne and Zahira to talk about the research or the data that they're looking at as well. And so to me, this is the perfect example of a community of practice, because we have a group of people who bring very different skill sets but are also learning from each other. And no community is flat.
00;25;15;09 - 00;25;41;00
Andrea Webb
All communities have these different levels of experience and practice and knowledge, but all of them come to a place together where they are contributing. And I think that that is is hugely powerful when we start talking, about especially research with community partners, with organizations. And coming back to your idea of knowledge mobilization, who is going to benefit from this?
00;25;41;02 - 00;26;01;03
Andrea Webb
I think it's really easy when we start looking at research, say, around, you know, cancer research, it's really easy to see who is going to benefit from that kind of research. But when we talk about knowledge mobilization in the social sciences and humanities, we have to think really hard about who outside of the academy can benefit from that.
00;26;01;06 - 00;26;39;13
Andrea Webb
Because if we don't think about that, then it becomes an echo chamber inside the academy that that isn't really helping and supporting. But if we start to think about who can benefit from this, how can people outside the Academy benefit from this idea of agency and of communities? I think one of the best things is that they could start to perhaps see the university as a partner in their community where they may not have been partners before, or that we can start to look at other organizations to have as communities and partners with us.
00;26;39;16 - 00;27;10;14
Andrea Webb
And the more we are offering those as suggestions, especially to our graduate students, to our research graduates, to the people that we know that might be looking at a career change or transition, then we keep those networks, we keep those threads, right? And this amazing web starts to develop, of people connected to each other, not just because of where they work, but because they have really interesting interests that connect with each other.
00;27;10;17 - 00;27;31;96
Andrea Webb
And the more that we can look for where that knowledge is being generated and being shared, then I think we have opportunities to do so much more with it rather than have this echo chamber in a particular department or library or wherever it is that that information is being held.
00;27;33;17 - 00;27;39;14
Erica Machulak
Zahira, what is agency look like for you in this project?
00;27;39;17 - 00;28;08;21
Zahira Tasabehji
Oh, that's a hard question, but I think, I mean, agency in general. I didn't know much about it before and I kind of got to know through Jillianne because her whole work and now I'm working with her and I think it's for me, it's the idea that I am kind of like I need to be the person who controls my my course in a way.
00;28;08;24 - 00;28;38;29
Zahira Tasabehji
And through this project, thinking about, like, my academic journey and how I'm steering the course of my ship, basically, and where I want it to go. I need to take control of my actions. I need to put myself in positions where it allows me to be, you know, to take these opportunities are presented to me and not just like, you know, sit back and be like, oh, like I want it to go a certain way and be flexible in that process.
00;28;38;29 - 00;28;57;09
Zahira Tasabehji
And I think agency plays a big role in that because I need to be an agent in my own learning journey and I need to put myself in those positions that allow me to grow and learn with other people, not just kind of have this intention and just stick to it.
00;28;58;29 - 00;29;04;09
Erica Machulak
Nice. Jillianne, tell us about this survey. How many people responded?
00;29;04;12 - 00;29;35;02
Jillianne Code
Great question. We had a total of 76 respondents, and that's the number, the complete number of individuals who finished the survey from start to finish. Which was really, really lovely to see because at the end of the survey, we actually had two open answered, open answer questions. And for any of you who've ever run a survey, people usually skip those and you're just like, Oh, okay, it's over. Hit submit.
00;29;35;02 - 00;30;05;15
Jillianne Code
But in, in our particular sample, all but one or two actually filled out those last, those last couple of questions. So me the quantitative researcher, able to do all of this grea,t all these great numbers with the Likert questions. We also had a lovely thematic analysis that we could do on the on the two qualitative questions.
00;30;05;18 - 00;30;09;35
Erica Machulak
So what were those open text questions, Jillianne?
00;30;10;08 - 00;30;34;00
Jillianne Code
The first open text question was: What does being a scholar mean to you? And the second question was, is there anything else that you would like to tell us? And that one is still under analysis at the moment because there is a lot that people really wanted to share, and so that that's ongoing.
00;30;34;00 - 00;31;12;20
Jillianne Code
Maybe that's podcast part two. But the the open ended question about what does a scholar mean to you was absolutely fascinating. Really paragraphs worth of information. And thematically there are some really, not surprising I suppose, answers to that question but really, really interesting responses and the general generally kind of clustered around three themes that that I labeled.
00;31;12;23 - 00;31;29;47
Jillianne Code
So there was challenges and struggles in academia. The pursuit of knowledge and intellectual curiosity. And the evolving perceptions of scholarship and the role of the academy. And so there's some really fascinating nuances to that.
00;31;30;65 - 00;31;37;75
Erica Machulak
With the responses to that question "What does being a scholar mean to you?" What was the thing that surprised you most?
00;31;38;73 - 00;31;29;47
Jillianne Code
Honestly, one of the things that did surprise me was a) that so many people answered that question from a methodological standpoint. But that there was this really significant number of people, really spoke to this whole evolving idea of scholarship.
00;32;00;05 - 00;32;28;69
Jillianne Code
I was actually really happy, you know, despite some of the of the tone of some of the responses, but that there was an evolving perception of that there, you know, that people were considering as being beyond the academy, that their identity as scholars was evolving and changing. And for me, that that was very optimistic.
00;32;29;28 - 00;32;38;17
Erica Machulak
So, Jillianne, based on the data that you've gathered so far, what's the next step for the quantitative part of the research?
00;32;38;19 - 00;33;19;22
Jillianne Code
Well, the next step is to really examine in more detail the role of some individual differences play in this whole idea of professional agency and the interaction between professional agency development and a community of practice. And so the elements of agency really involve aspects of intentionality, self-efficacy, the ability to self regulate, and in, in terms of reaching your goals.
00;33;19;22 - 00;34;14;11
Jillianne Code
And so one of the things that that we found in this particular population is that 26% of our respondents identified as having some kind of disability. We didn't ask them what disability they had or anything like that, but they identified as being disabled. And then we had 13% of our respondents identify as racialized. And so both of those identifying elements play a significant role in how we talk about professional agency development, of professional agency in a community of practice, and what this is beginning to tell me and I'm still, you know, wrestling with these ideas and thinking about, well, what is this telling me?
00;34;14;11 - 00;34;48;29
Jillianne Code
What is this telling us about the role of the the importance of a community in developing professional agency for individuals who have, who identify as racialized and, and/or have a disability. And I believe that what that that is much more important. It's important for everyone, but it's extremely important for these individuals. That's what that's what I think it's telling me.
00;34;49;01 - 00;35;06;85
Jillianne Code
But because we didn't ask that specific question, I don't want to overemphasize, but because it came out as in this population, in this sample, I think there is much more that we could investigate around that specifically.
00;35;07;40 - 00;35;34;60
Erica Machulak
Mm hmm. If I'm understanding you correctly Jillianne, you asked these questions about how people identify how people identify in terms of race, in terms of ability. And you've gotten these high level answers that seem to be indicating that there's more there. But the next step is to peel back the later layers and ask more specific questions about the connections between those experiences, agency and community. Is that right?
00;35;34;90 - 00;35;55;62
Jillianne Code
Absolutely. That's exactly right. Is that we don't know. We can't say, you know, what exact role that that they do play. But there is a significant correlation. So there is a significant, some kind of relationship there that we do need to discover, do need to explore more.
00;35;56;35 - 00;36;04;94
Erica Machulak
Thanks Jilliannne, that's really, really interesting. Andy, would you please give us the shape of the qualitative side of the project? What did it look like?
00;36;05;46 - 00;36;26;24
Andrea Webb
No problem. I think that when when I sat down to put the protocol together for for the interviews, I really was using two driving questions: How do people who have moved beyond or outside the academy understand or enact this idea of professional agency?
00;36;26;26 - 00;36;56;23
Andrea Webb
And then how do they understand, navigate, or use the ideas of communities of practice? And so those were the driving questions that I was asking. The big picture questions. Each of the interviews was a little bit different, because I'm trying to do these narrative appreciative interviews, so I'm wanting to hear stories from the participants and again, focusing on what are the positives or what are the things that they were able to take away.
00;36;56;25 - 00;37;40;21
Andrea Webb
And then I used those two questions as sort of the guides, not sort of, as the guides for the findings. And when we started to talk about how people understand professional agency, it really comes down to this idea of feeling that they were directing their learning and then their life beyond the Academy. And how did they feel that they were making decisions or responding to external factors in a way that they felt that they were making those decisions, they were purposefully or consciously responding to to some of those factors.
00;37;40;24 - 00;38;20;07
Andrea Webb
And then when it comes to things like the communities it really was this idea of these overlapping constellations of communities and how it was that they themselves were choosing to engage sometimes for a short period of time, sometimes very purposefully, or sometimes finding a sustained engagement with this diverse group of communities. Be that an artistic community, an academic community, a softball league, all of those things fell within this idea of communities, of people that they were engaging with.
00;38;20;10 - 00;38;44;94
Andrea Webb
And so I thought a lot about who is the self that comes to these kind of situations, How have they used the skills, the dispositions, the things that they have learned as part of of their degree training in order to make these purposeful decisions and purposefully engage with people.
00;38;45;88 - 00;38;59;25
Erica Machulak
And so in these conversations with PhDs who had graduated and gone on to new and different pathways, what were some of the things that you learned?
00;38;59;28 - 00;39;33;21
Andrea Webb
I think there was two, two big things that I learned. First of all, when we say Beyond the Academy, it's a spectrum. It's not just rejecting the academy and moving away. Looking at the type of careers that people took on. There are people who are sort of para academics that often work for a university or college or higher education institution and facilitate other people's research, PhD processes, all those sorts of things.
00;39;33;24 - 00;40;01;03
Andrea Webb
And then there are people who are adjacent to the academy, often working with scholarly organizations and doing work that is also around knowledge generation and knowledge mobilization. And it's a much smaller group of people who actually reject and actively work outside of the academy in a way that is not tangentially related to to the type of work that they had before.
00;40;01;06 - 00;41;17;18
Andrea Webb
And so I think there's this spectrum of work, sort of moving away from the academy and that not everybody sort of actively rejects and turns away. And the other big piece was really around the place of identity and how people see themselves as being part of their agency. And I think about a number of the individuals I talked to and even my own experience coming back to graduate work much later in life, having had a career before or having other work before they returned to their Ph.D. and the element of time and personal development and self interest, I think that are a huge part of how it is that they navigate this process, because many of these people were saying, you know, it took me ten years to get my degree. I'm totally happy with that because I had all sorts of amazing experiences and now I know enough about myself and about the kind of work that's demanded in the academy to know that my personal happiness is more important than, as somebody put it, slogging away in a carrel.
00;41;17;20 - 00;41;27;62
Erica Machulak
So based on what you've been hearing in these early conversations in this work, is scholarship a job or an identity?
00;41;27;67 - 00;42;20;24
Andrea Webb
That is a fabulous question. I think that scholarship with a small 's', if we were to use that, is this idea of as I defined, you know, what is a scholar or who is a scholar? Scholarship is a disposition. It is an identity. It is an approach. It is how we choose to engage in this work. I think that, you know, the being an academic is often associated with inside the academy, but being a scholar can be somebody who is outside the academy. It was interesting, though, in one conversation with with one of the interviews, one of the interviews got caught up on the idea of me using that term.
00;42;20;27 - 00;42;49;11
Andrea Webb
You know, how do you see yourself as a scholar? Because they did not see themselves as a scholar. They saw themselves as an artist. And an artist, even though there are involved using methodologies, using inquiry, using research, that was not what they were engaged in, they were not doing scholarship, they were doing art. And so that element of self-determination or self-definition I think is also a key part.
00;42;49;11 - 00;43;17;13
Andrea Webb
And it goes back to this idea of what is your identity, How do you see yourself, which I think is a lovely dovetail with some of the things that Jillianne was finding in the survey, is that identity is a huge part of this and and that identity as a "scholar", in quotation marks or an academic or a learned person, is part of how people navigate this particular world.
00;43;17;15 - 00;43;28;31
Erica Machulak
Hmm. And so as you think about what you've learned so far and the next steps for for these findings, what are the next steps of this research?
00;43;28;95 - 00;43;42;23
Andrea Webb
The next steps for me, I think are, not as clear, because I do think that this is something that, those of us who have been through this process probably go, Yeah, okay, yeah, I see that.
00;43;42;26 - 00;44;10;25
Andrea Webb
And our own closeness to this particular time probably brings up some of those feelings. But many of our colleagues who may be, you know, 15 years into an academic career and are mentoring graduate students, may not be, may not remember those feelings quite as well, or maybe had, you know, a solo focus as they went straight from their undergraduate to their master's to their graduate degree.
00;44;10;28 - 00;44;39;13
Andrea Webb
So in some ways I see the purpose, or my own work as a next step, is to remind people of some of these experiences and reminding everybody that just because you have this degree or this, you know, you've gone through this process doesn't mean you're going to a singular place. Because I also then want graduate students to say, I don't have to be training towards this particular way.
00;44;39;13 - 00;45;01;14
Andrea Webb
I can train and I can use these skills in a lot of different ways. So I think, you know, there is an element of outreach with our colleagues and reminding them that, you know, not everybody who's going through this process is destined for an academic career, nor should they. You know, perhaps we need to have that conversation earlier on in the process.
00;45;01;16 - 00;45;25;29
Andrea Webb
But then also reminding, as Zahira said in in the interview so beautifully, she now has to be an agent of her own learning journey, right. That we can't just you know, as Kieran said, take the time, engage and be privileged in this moment and allow, you know, ourselves to wallow or to to soak in the academic experience.
00;45;26;06 - 00;46;02;00
Andrea Webb
But that part of that means that we have to be purposeful in where we're spending our time. And, you know, it's it's a beautiful privilege to be able to engage in the world of the mind during this terminal degree. However, I don't think that we can rest and become lotus eaters and sit there and spend too much time without thinking about how can I use this, how can I use this experience to expand or to further my own goals?
00;46;02;03 - 00;46;26;10
Andrea Webb
And perhaps, you know, we find goals in lots of different places because we've had these opportunities. And so it's that tension between spending time loving this world, but also remembering that we have to be able to use it at some point, that it is fleeting and and we'll have to engage in our next steps as part of our career process.
00;46;26;12 - 00;46;36;73
Erica Machulak
Mm hmm. Thank you all for taking the time for the interview and for for this work. It's really been a pleasure to partner with you as it evolves, and I'm looking forward to the next steps.
00;46;39;12 - 00;47;20;09
Erica Machulak
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Hikma Collective Podcast. I'm your host, Erica Machulak, founder of Hikma. The production this episode was led by Sophia van Hees, in collaboration with Simangele Mabena, Eufemia Baldassarre, Ai Mizuta, Nicole Markland and Dashara Green. Matthew Tomkinson composed the original music you hear now in his capacity as the 2022 Hikma artist in residence. TThis podcast has been made possible with generous support from Innovate BC, Tech Nation, the Information and Communications Technology Council, the Canada Digital Adoption Program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
00;47;20;11 - 00;48;03;02
Erica Machulak
You can find show notes, links and transcripts at www.hikma.studio/podcast. Hikma is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the ən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam people.We are grateful to be here and to share this space with you. Our speakers, team members and listeners are based all over the world and wherever you're listening, we encourage you to learn more about whose lands you're on.
