 cool and we're recording now um but yeah I think we will start um with Luis. Hi there um so again my name is Luis Escadrillo um I got into the line of work that I'm in now um as a musician actually I studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music worked in the development office while I was there uh as a student and increasingly got more and more interested in the work that people were doing around me and just took the opportunity to ask a lot of questions about um how fundraising works and by development I mean fundraising. I'm a fundraiser for the School of Information and a lot of my work is really kind of having one-on-one conversations with people who are interested in endowing scholarships, in supporting the school, and also use my uh my job as a way of connecting people to the School of Information if they have other ways to help students. So I got a left school with a job in place essentially working for arts and non-profit organizations and really what I was doing at the time was kind of taking a lot of the administrative skills that you learn as a musician right you know um how to put on a concert how to promote your concert um where that funding is coming from how do you play uh pay your players things of that nature and so I would say that um you know one of the things that I took away from my education was not just being really knowledgeable about the field and the work that I was doing but also how it's run um and I think that for me the things that were really valuable was really those administrative skills that you don't get taught in school you just have to kind of learn them by doing um and um so I I worked in San Francisco for for a while and um and made my way to Michigan when my partner uh came to Michigan uh the School of Music Theater and Dance to receive a doctorate degree they were in the doctorate program the DMA um and I came to Michigan really wanting to to continue the work that I was doing which was really helping create access to opportunities for people of color and other um underrepresented communities um and access to education is something that's very very important to me so I made my way into uh fundraising full-time um started off as an assistant and worked my way up essentially over over the years um and now I'm assistant director of development at SI. Hi everyone my name is Jennifer um so I kind of arrived at my career through a winding path so right now I'm in a career transition where I am starting to learn how to farm and pursuing work in regenerative agriculture and um food justice work um and maybe also food education I don't know I'm still figuring it out but um before that I worked as a freelance book publicist um which was right after I got my MFA at Michigan um yeah and I kind of chose to do that because I had worked in publishing for a few years before I came to the MFA program and it was something that I just knew how to do and it was kind of in my back pocket um and I really enjoyed the aspect of working with authors one on one um so yeah I started to do that and a lot of the skills um that I used as a publicist kind of came from um my time in the MFA program thinking about um like teaching there's a lot of like mediation and communication that happens in teaching that I think really translates over as a publicist also um with writing and creative writing finding ways to market a book um and place it within the industry um yeah so I was doing that work it was something I knew how I knew how to do um but it wasn't really satisfying to me in other ways um I think I knew for a long time that being a publicist didn't really mesh well with the type of person I am and like my personality um but it wasn't until I started volunteering at a farm and exploring that that I was like okay I'm really unhappy with specific aspects of my job and um it kind of made me really rethink things and decide to do this career change um yeah and I think um there are some aspects of like teaching that also come into farming as um sometimes I would lead crews out into the field um and would have to teach them how to do things I think teaching helps a lot now I'm going to teach and be a good teacher yeah awesome I'm gonna hand it off to Esther but just for some people who've joined late I want to repeat that the question that we're talking about right now is about how our panelists arrived in our current on their current careers and what skills from their academic backgrounds help them succeed in their current position but yeah Esther now to you thanks um I'm Esther Grace Witte um I so let's see um when I was introduced it was mentioned I'm class of 2018 which means I started my PhD in the fall of 2012 um and finished my six-year program in 2022 so I was in grad school for 10 years um and I just started this past um in August I started my current job working at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching here at U of M as an instructional consultant for diversity equity and inclusion um so yeah so I work in DEI I think of my career as more in pedagogical theory and practice and um um and that's kind of that's kind of been my path into this current job and in this career is just the the teaching opportunities that I had in grad school um my PhD is in English so um in that program I started teaching as a GSI in um 2013 um and um and then I was teaching writing uh first year writing um in 2014 uh and in in that space I started having conversations with you know we had grad student mentors um some of you in this session right now might might be grad student mentors um and just interacting with my grad student mentor I was like this is so cool like talking at this kind of meta level about teaching um learning how to teach um and I wanted to do that I wanted to be in that role so I applied for that um and I loved doing it and then a couple years later I applied for the um CRLT graduate student instructional consultant program which is a it's both a part-time job and a professional development program at CRLT um and actually Dom was in it as well um which is where we first met and it's it's great because it's like it's it's pretty well paid um part-time work it's flexible schedule and you just get to work with other GSIs about their teaching um helping people improve their teaching um and that was also a really great uh thing for me to do during the years that I was spending writing my dissertation um so and it also like it helps me it helped me build skills and like I had a lot of opportunities to work on like extra projects research projects and things like that um and uh and facilitate workshops um and when when I finished my PhD in CRLT had an opening and I applied you know I already had um I had a lot of connections already in relationships with with the staff there and was kind of able to um to say like you know in a in an interview when I got a question like what are you excited about this work I was like well I'm excited to like keep doing the work I've been doing like and building on like the relationships that I've been building um so uh yeah that's that's the the short version I would also just add like the the sort of DEI side of my work or thinking about equity um I think I came to that through a a similar path I mean through my graduate studies but also outside of grad school in like local um Ann Arbor community organizing and activist contexts especially during 2016-17 um there was a lot going on that year with um GEO and um I was part of a group for a while during that year called the collective against white supremacy so I think that's another thing to to think about and be aware of is like what's happening in the community outside of grad school that that can be spaces for learning um and skill development and relationship building and all that's really important for me as well um all right I guess I'm last um so as as Abe mentioned I am a staff organizer for GEO um GEO is the um labor union that represents graduate students here at the University of Michigan um apologize for any background noise I'm actually at bargaining right now um so if you're a grad student you should come to bargaining but um how did I get here is is sort of a long windy path um like Esther I was a PhD student here starting in 2015 um and you know I very much had the mentality of like we're getting to the tenure track we're gonna do it like let's get there which I think is how a lot of people come into these programs um and throughout my time as a doctoral student um got really really involved in teaching and that was sort of my my prime focus um during my PhD so my guest here said um we met through CRLT where I was a grad student instructional consultant um I taught a lot of courses and developed courses and like pedagogy facilitation and teaching were sort of my my things the strengths that I really um enjoyed in grad school um and in 2020 after the pandemic hit um many of you might know that uh the grad student union went on strike um for 10 days um and before that I had been pretty involved with the union just as a rank and file member you know going to meetings and participating in bargaining and things like that um but the 2020 strike you know this was a strike mostly about public safety so um COVID precautions um disarmament of campus police um it was a really really radicalizing time for me where I was like oh like I have all these skills that I learned as a person but also a grad student that I can apply um and got really really involved as an organizer within the union while still being a doctoral student um so between then and now um you know I got more involved I got more disenchanted with doing the PhD um I know in the program it says I'm class of 2021 but I did not graduate um I there was a job that came up for the staff organizer for the union um and some some people encouraged me to apply I kind of on a whim was like okay maybe that could be cool um and then when I got the job and realized like this is real this is serious um have really dove into organizing since then so it's been really interesting um because it's been a huge learning experience because I don't have a whole lot of background in organizing besides my time as a member in GEO um but some academic background that helped me succeed in my current position I mean it's um facilitation and teaching I think is at the core of it um you know knowing how to get people to talk about the ideas that they have um is sort of key to like organizing a big group of people so it's been really interesting to see like how a lot of my doctoral work really does apply to this this job that I previously thought might be you know real real foreign feeling um yeah I think that's everything that I'll say for this one yeah thank you guys I mean it's so great to hear like the diversity of experiences that we sort of have in this virtual zoom room and how you all sort of took um you know these like key things that we learn in our you know in academia into like non-academic non-academia spaces so yeah thank you so much for sharing that um gonna reset the time and we'll move on um to our next question um which is oh not reset cool yeah our next question is about um it's a moment for you guys to give advice um but the question is what advice would you give to current graduate students looking to break into industry positions that are not traditionally academic or even more generally just sort of like how to make that jump from like you know our academics the rigorous coursework um that we learn in PhD and master's programs and translating that into sort of another sphere um no matter how connected or disconnected that transfer might be but yeah I'd love to hear from you guys yeah so I guess I'm first yeah um yeah I mean in terms of advice um I've always kind of approached my career from a standpoint of wanting to someday run an organization that closely aligns with you know my passions and things of that nature um and a lot of that a lot of what I realized that I needed to do was learn how to do the things that need to be done when you run an organization right um you know all of those administrative skills that it really takes to um to get the work done um I find that outside of academia you know you might have some administrative responsibility depending on your role um and that for me is is really interesting at least in terms of of being a good leader um because you really need to know how the work is is done uh on the ground in order to to lead effectively at least that's something that I strongly believe um I've worked for people who were not good administrators but were brilliant researchers brilliant thing you know brilliant at what they do um but then we're tasked with running an organization full of folks that are you know marketing professionals development folks you know all all kinds of all kinds of positions and there just was no understanding of how the work was getting done it was only a direction of here's where we are and here's where we need to be and then no concept of what a timeline looks like to get a project done no concept of of you know how many people have to be contacted in order for something to be done and how long it takes for other people to get back to you you know those little things that we kind of take for granted if we have others do for us um and and certainly you know not every position that you have outside of academia is is like that you know there are certainly positions one could get where they can go into a job and and just focus on their research if you know if they're a UX designer or you know things of that nature but I I find that when you are a good administrator it's easier to understand where other people how other people do their work it's easier to then communicate with them it's easier to adjust your expectations um and and for me that has always just been um something that I've been able to rely on that I know others will appreciate and I think it's something that makes me stand out when I do a job interview um you know having a holistic picture of how the entire operation works I think is um is really important not not only for the work that I do just you know for myself and not just for collaborating with others but also for being able to think strategically um and so I my main piece of advice would be you know look at those those skills that um that are that help sort of run the ship if you will um I find those skills really valuable and you know I already consider myself knowledgeable in the field that I'm that I'm working in but but always sort of cultivating those skills I think has has really stood be I've been able to stand apart from from others yeah um I think well I think the first piece of advice I would give is to kind of just like follow your heart in what you want to do um because when I was in grad school I was kind of kind of like working under the assumption that I too would also be going into like a market of trying to like teach and apply to teaching positions like um but like I quickly got disillusioned with academia as Dom was kind of mentioning um and really thinking like if that lifestyle was really what I wanted to go after um and I think all throughout like trying to figure out what I've been wanting to do there's been a little voice that has been like why don't you try farming but I've been like quiet down like no um and I think I although I'm grateful for the experiences that I've had um I think a part of me wishes that I would have gotten here a little bit sooner um and so like just kind of like follow whatever your gut is telling you to do um and even if it's a little bit scary or a little bit out there maybe there's something there that will bring you to a different experience like you never know um and I think maybe like on a more practical side advice wise um I think well I got my MFA in poetry um and it's been a little bit it was kind of interesting to try to translate that experience into something um that's like legible I guess to the job market um and I tried copywriting for a while and found out that I was really bad at it but I think um how I kind of translate the experience is thinking about like um how did I I don't know um thinking about like like translating something that's like bigger into like very like specific skills so like poetry like I'm able to take big ideas and distill them into very succinct lines or like translate and like create an experience using a few words or whatever um so thinking of it in that that kind of way um and it takes I think it takes time to kind of like totally figure that out and as you can see I'm still trying to figure it out but um yeah I don't know um this question is really hard um I think um I feel like I like I don't I don't know what advice I have but I can I have so much to say about like how I've struggled to like figure figure things out um and like I'm sitting here like thinking about like how to how to articulate I mean I'm also like how do I articulate this um and it's like the thing I want to articulate is like a very queer thing it's like it's like so for me being in grad school like coming to grad school in the first place like I didn't have a I didn't have a clear sense of purpose in coming to grad school I was kind of like I don't know what to do with myself I did really well in undergrad in my English major like maybe I can I've liked school maybe I could just be in school forever let's see if that'll work um and I had I don't know I think I got really lucky like with who was on my selection committee like when I look at my application now for grad school I'm like who is that person who wrote this like um and also like I was that that was like years before I figured out that I'm trans um so it was like why did I come to U of M I don't really know but I'm really glad that I did because it was a place where like I made friends who are trans like I'm and queer and like it was this space where I could figure things out um also I was able to so I guess here's one piece of advice I have is like if you are in a PhD program and you have fellowship like take at least half of your fellowship time to do anything other than grad school work like I at the beginning of my fellowship year I decided to quit my program um and I was like end of fellowship I'm gonna move to a new city and like where I have friends and like start new start fresh um and then that year uh that was 2016 the 2016 election happened and I was like oh maybe not the best time to go be like unemployed without healthcare in a new city as someone who is just coming out as trans like maybe I stay here where it feels a little safer um and then I ended up figuring like coming up with a new dissertation idea and basically starting over um but you know I was able to I was able to decide like instead of finishing my PhD I'm going to use this year that I have to transition to like figure that out um and that was like that really worked out for me um so the other thing I want to say is like I think I always from the beginning when you know I remember being a first year in my PhD program and like feeling like Ann Arbor okay like seminars what the hell are we doing like what is any of this it's also confusing and people would ask me like what is your field what's your specialization and I would be like I don't know I just like to read stuff um and I kind of always push back on that you know now I have a sense of like I'm a specialist in like rhetorical theory and and pedagogy and and all these things um but um I think like the the question about like shifting from academic from like the academic track to other things is like whatever that track is like people who are in that track or imagine that you are in that track like your professors who talk to you like you're on this track like they have this idea that that the track is something real that you can talk to but to me I was always like what what what is it it didn't make any sense to me and that feels a little bit like queerness like gender binary and all that stuff like people being like you know like male female those things and I'm like what what the fuck like excuse my language um can we swear on this panel uh yeah so um like if you can find people who can shift out of that and who you know if you're like like for me it was hard to find mentors who like uh who would remember that I told them that I have no intention of going on the faculty job market going on tenure track job market I have no intention of that like I had very few mentors who would actually remember that I told them that um repeatedly like they would always come back to that um and then I had a few very few but I did find a few mentors who were like what are you actually interested in like what are your questions what are like what are the kinds of experiences you're having that feel valuable and how can you build on those and it wasn't about that track um if you can find those people they're the ones who I think can help you like build that that other alternative you know alt-ac uh future I just want to um echo like everything Esther said um because I I was have been you know in some ways still am like in this like what am I doing like oh no I'm off this track and like I'm supposed to get on another track but like the secret is there are no tracks it's just like you know an open field it's like outer space there are three dimensions like so I think um you know as for me as a grad student at least if me as a student my entire life I was like okay by this age I'm gonna have this degree done and then I'm gonna go do this and then I'm gonna follow the plan and I'll be a blah blah blah blah blah and obviously like that can only last so long um and I got to a point where I was like who has this plan for like um this is not bringing me happiness this is not what I want to be doing and like there is a better world out there for me so I think like acknowledging the messiness and that like the messiness is going to continue regardless you can accept it or not um is is really really good advice um I also want to echo some more of what Esther said about like mentorship um and and you know talking with the the people who are in your you know academic professional life about your intentions um I for me when I told my advisor that um yeah I mean that was like there a year of therapy broke um was like who is this for um but uh with with mentorship um rather than my mentor forgetting about it um she sort of took it as like a challenge of like no like we can convince Dom to like really really want the job market um which you know in some ways was like well intentioned and like I can understand why someone might feel that way but I was like this is not helpful like what are we doing here so I think finding people that really can understand like you know as Esther said like the experiences that you know bring you fulfillment and um you know how you can best seek that um in terms of more practical things um I think grad students as a group um tend to be really humble um like oh like I'm just a grad student who's only done this like I've only published three articles I'm not good um and when it comes to the like industry market you know you are an expert project manager you're an expert at qualitative research you're an expert at statistical analysis you know whatever it might be um and I think that within academia you know we're conditioned to treat that expertise as um you know in in contrast to everyone else and you know you're not good enough and you have to achieve and blah blah blah blah blah um but I think one one tool that was really helpful as I started entering the non-academic market was like you know let's take a list of everything I've done for a job while at the University of Michigan huge list and if I can like decompose that into the times where I ran a team of this many people and we got this publication out that's like a um that's huge on a resume whereas on a cv it's just kind of another line on you know seven pages of type um so yeah yeah awesome wow thank you guys so much I love the insight uh that we're bringing to this conversation and again and the idea of like sort of transforming right that is a very clear thing like Esther said um but yeah thank you so much I I don't know it's I'm just having a great time at this conversation because I am in that place of like thinking of what am I going to do with my master's degree uh so this has been really helpful um all right we're going to move on to our let me reset the timer um we're going to move on to sort of our last question before we move into the breakout rooms for the small Q&A um with our participants but the third question is what role did diversity um and your queer identity play in your career search um whether that be again in like sort of the job you job you were applying for or even like thinking about location or sort of all the factors that go into thinking about um a career but yeah all right pass it on to you Luis yeah so um I mean coming from the classical music world either I mean there are some overlap there in terms of academia uh in terms of there are a lot of opportunities that were just not meant for me they were not designed for me they were um they were cost prohibitive you know there's a also just a lot of racism in classical music um there is a lot of classism if you're of lower socioeconomic status it's really hard to you know go to music festivals and um get pieces played you know all there's there's a barrier to entry to everything and really the way that I've kind of approached my work is I want to be in a position to be able to change that and so the positions that I've taken over the years have always been in service of kind of creating a tool belt uh or toolkit for myself of what I need in order to put myself into a position where I can make changes that are based on the experiences that I had um and so that way you know there is some change there's some movement it's slow it's it's such a slow uh thing that happens it's a long game um and in terms of that that's kind of informed also how I approach job interviews um that I will preface though that it that I feel like I have the privilege in order to um approach job interviews the way that I do and that it is not safe for everybody to do the same thing that the same thing that I do which is I you know first thing that I say in a job interview is I talk about my identity I talk about my identity as an immigrant as a person of color as a queer person um as someone who grew up in a lower socioeconomic status um and and and very upfront about all of those things and the reason I'm upfront about those things is just if any of what I say you know in those first couple of words is is not something that a future employer might want to hear I don't want to work there um it's not somewhere I will feel safe um you know I think having come from that classical music world I didn't feel safe there and I never want to go back to to a space that makes me feel that way um that said again that you know I I have the privilege to do that and not everybody does and I can't say that I can recommend doing that for everybody in every instance but um it's something that is really important to me now and I am always very upfront about who I am and what biases I hold yeah so for me I think my identity plays a lot of role into how I do the job search but I've been lucky in that even when I worked at spaces where like white majority spaces I've worked in like smaller teams where the people around me were um were also Asian American or queer um so like having that community um has been I feel really lucky to have had that um um and I think I now actively kind of seek that out um sort of what Louise was saying um although sometimes I um I'm still like one foot in one foot out about disclosing my trans identity um yeah so that's something that I'm still navigating around and like figuring that out but um um yeah and then also like thinking about like outside of work the communities that are available as well um because I don't want my life like I want to feel safe at work but I don't want that to be my whole entire life so when I've looked at work as well I've looked at the spaces like the cities around the communities around um like do they have career meet-up do they have like cool neurodiverse support groups um things like that they know that I would feel supported in some other type of way um yeah um I would I talked to I think my previous uh answer was on this a little bit um um I definitely uh my like transition and non-binary identity is a has been a huge part of my like teaching um practice and experience um I was like during the year like the first year that I was teaching like as an out trans non-binary person um I was teaching a uh one semester that year I was teaching a class on cultural rhetorics and um you know trying to help these undergrads think about like how to analyze power like social power and how to see it in the world um and how to think in terms of like intersectional um power dynamics and uh and it was useful for me to be like well I'm coming into this new awareness about my gender identity like my non-binary identity and how like it interacts with my whiteness and how like I could move through space and feel unsafe in some ways and at the same time safe in other ways or feel like acceptable to people um and like being able to kind of narrate that to students was a useful like illustration um and as I and then like you know I'm helping other GSI's learn how to teach and trying not to be like you know just talk about your identity to your students because like not everybody wants to do that um so um coming to CRLT I mean like my current job one thing that I have thought about a lot is like the climate there and the office at CRLT is not great um it's it's predominantly white and predominantly like straight cis-normative um in terms of who is there um I'm not the only I mean I have several colleagues who are queer um as far as I know I might be the only trans person currently working there um but like because I have years of experience and existing relationships with people who I trust you know there are a few people who I feel very supported by like it feels okay to me I think if I had gotten a similar job in a new place in a new city I don't know I don't really know how I would navigate that um because you know going into this I knew like if I encounter you know problems uh you know like I have I know that there are people who I trust who I can like go to for support um and like there are people I can talk to when like there there are weird things like the leadership in the office will like make these gestures of like you know uh signaling their support and that they recognize you know um who is who is present and it just feels very performative and and like I can talk to other people in the office and be like was that weird that felt weird and they're like yeah that was weird um so uh yeah and I think also like being like getting a job in the place where I was for grad school really helped also because like I have a lot of connections I have a lot of friends um and like uh like Jennifer was talking about like you know what what is in the community I already know this community um so that's that's been really uh important and helpful to me um see I think this question is the hardest one so I'm glad I'm going last because my my co-panelists have helped spur some thoughts um but I have a lot of thoughts here and a lot of them are parallel to Esther surprise surprise um but um I I feel like my my like development in understanding my own set of identities was really um was really developed through teaching so I taught a course called language and discrimination a few times this is like a race and ethnicity requirement in lsna um it's a no prereq course tends to be a huge huge course of mostly you know uh white upper middle class students who you know have never been meant to think about power or racism or whiteness or any of this um and so like as a queer who is also you know um uh mixed race I was like okay like this is really a time where I'm going to figure out how to get uh on on the students level and like really like um understand this sort of process of interpretation that that teaching is um so I think that was really really formative for me um and then like I said um the 2020 geostrike was really sort of political politically radicalizing for me um and I think that really helped me understand you know queerness and like um ethnic diversity um in in less of sort of a you know neoliberal label like I'm this identity therefore I can blah blah blah um so it really helped me understand like how different identities are speaking to one another and how they fit into like I don't know the neoliberal frame of the university um what else did I want to say in my current job um for a while I was the only staff member um and you know as I'm sure many people here know u of m is um incredibly white um and all of the people I work with are um graduate students and so they tend to be pretty reflective of the overall population um of graduate students that is and um you know it tends to be um not uh um how do I want to diplomatically phrase this I think there there's um difficulty for people of color to um sort of break into a lot of activist spaces um and so being a solo staff member who is already sort of isolated you know I sit in my office and then I talk to the volunteers um and sort of knowing the existing culture that is here institutionally and then also within the organization um was pretty difficult um and so since then I have a co-worker now and that has like changed drastically and I like have a person who I can like say like was that weird yeah that was weird um but I don't know I think I've I've wandered around a real answer to this question um I think the answer is like a big role in that it's it's everywhere it's the whole thing yeah no I I totally agree I I mean I think like it's interesting to think about in terms of careers because I know like for me applying to graduate school that was something to think about just like broadly but also not as broad because it's like acceptance rates are so low that you're like okay I'll go where I you know where they'll take me um but yeah no thank you so much for you know enlightening us again with this question and I'm sorry these were hard questions I didn't realize uh but I think they were very stimulating um but now I'm gonna like we're gonna sort of transition into breakout rooms and short room uh short sort of intimate Q&A spaces um and again I want to say thank you again for our amazing panelists um I'm going to make the breakout rooms and the way we're doing breakout rooms is that um you as participants um should be able to choose um which rooms that you would like to go to um so Esther and Jennifer will be in one room and then Dom and Louise will be in one room um is that something that you guys as participants can see right now um and join well I think I think that's everyone so everyone's filtering back um again I just wanted to do some like concluding remarks before I let everyone go again I want to say thank you to our panelists for sharing your career stories and advice um with the rest of us it's been an incredibly engaging conversation and thank you to our virtual audience for tuning in to this event um I want to say that we'll be sending out a survey shortly to ask about your experience with the with this event please fill it out um and you guys get a lot of surveys but this one's really important since we're a pilot program and it's really critical that we hear from you so we can continue to continue to create events to answer the needs of our affinity communities um but yeah thank you again and I hope I hope you all have a great day all right yeah and yeah Esther has put um their stuff on their info in the chat so that's awesome again thank you so much