PTSD

On the importance of PhD community

Two notes about previous posts: first, when we refer to authors we use initials. Yes, it can be annoying. But it’s the way it is. We’re basically too lazy to write out Heidegger or Wittgenstein ten or fifteen times in a row. And even if we did, it would probably be spelled wrong. So I’ll acknowledge the concern, but promptly ignore it.

Second, there have been snide remarks about our devotion to abstract theory (you know who you are). We’re phd students, so some addiction to theory is to be expected. We choose to indulge this in a forum where people have the option to skim, rather than listen to us in person. And we try to throw some gossip and random information in as a balance. We really can’t be expected to do more than that. And now, some more useless crap about being a phd.

There’s been lots of talk around TUWSNBN about the importance of community among PhD students. Specifically, it’s been complaint about the total lack of community, and the resulting dismissal of PhD needs by the administration. This complaint has come in the form of emails, discussions at other events, and (sparsely attended) PhD meetings. Which says something about the type of community that’s even possible, I suspect.

Fair enough. Things are geared towards MA candidates, and there are a lot more of them than there are of us. Even if we count the maximum possible number of current PhD students, we still don’t add up to half the incoming MA class. Also, they pay the university, while we are the equivalent of leeches: sucking funding out of the school until we hop off and go to suck funding from elsewhere (as a funding-sucker myself, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. Just that it leads to a certain reluctance on the part of university officials to throw more money at us). Incoming PhD cohorts aren’t big enough to be counted by the various college-ranking announcements, so we don’t really even contribute that much prestige. So at least some university resistance to a PhD takeover seems inescapable.

But what could a united group of PhDs do to improve our lot in life? Even if administratively we’ll never get all the concessions people have asked for, is there something to be gained from the act of discussing problems and working toward group cohesion? Or are we here (as suggested by various introductory lectures in the first year of the program) to get our degrees and get out as soon as humanly possible?

The first benefit of knowing that we need community (I’ll get to the actual benefits of a so-far-hypothetical community in a moment) is that it spurs action—within a week of the first complaints, we’ve had proposals for book discussions, regular dinner parties, formal meetings, a listserve, writing workshops, and outside events. No, proposals are not the same as activities, but I suspect that at least a few of these ideas will actually succeed in giving the people who care about cohesion a place to start. The second is that it forces people to think about what the point of this whole project is: is it to build scholarly communities and exchange information, or to gain a degree that will let us get jobs as individuals?

Both of these are useful results. I tend to come down on the scholarly community side of the debate, though, so I think that a successful cohort of PhD students has even more benefits. If we could manage to get it together, we could help each other find jobs, understand both the theory and process of earning a PhD, and create a group of graduates who are able to discuss the discipline and the academic life long after graduation. These seem like good things (in the utilitarian sense) to me.

posted by Elizabeth @ 7:25 PM