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Hi tweeps, I normally don't do big personal things, but in this Spring of success, I feel compelled to share (thread):
Let's be clear about this up front: I am a cis, het, white male academic. I've benefited from every unearned privilege there is.
I am also a first generation college student from a highly dysfunctional home.
My mother grew up in a physically, mentally and sexually abusive home.
She ran away at 18 and kept her vow to never speak to her mother all the way until her mother's death.
My father was a chronic alcoholic who left community college after a year.
He joined the Navy, sailed the world, and gained the equivalent of an electrical engineering degree.
He also served in Viet Nam and suffered night terrors and flash backs until his death two years ago.
Despite his alcoholism, he became a Senior Chief Petty Officer (E-8) before retiring after 20 years.
They divorced when I was 5 years old (with a 3 year old sister).
My mother's second husband was a borderline sociopath who would leave for months at a time with his latest fling.
When he was around, the boundary between punishment and abuse blurred.
When he wasn't, my mother cried for days and wondered how we would pay the mortgage.
Many months we were behind on bills, had food stamps and free/reduced lunches and barely got by.
My mother worked two and three jobs to make ends meet.
She would leave before my sister and I woke up, and return sometimes after we were already asleep
I was the most "latchkey" kid in my neighborhood during the height of the latchkey generation.
I waited in the school nurse's office for hours after I broke my arm at school because she couldn't leave work.
She divorced him when I was 15.
Her third husband, who she married when I was 16, was physically aggressive and threatening.
He mostly stayed just |thisside| of actually being violent, until I was 20 and he beat my mother head-to-toe.
I moved her out the next day to live with a friend.
She fought depression and drug addiction for years afterwards.
She moved back in with him a couple years later to care for his son from another marriage.
She left him for good as his mental condition deteriorated and he threatened to slice her throat while she slept.
He has been in an psychiatric ward for 10+ years, after killing his former boss and then sitting down to wait for the cops.
I graduated from one of the best public University systems in the world:@UCBerkeley and @UCSanDiego .
I also left college at age 19, after a failed stint at @calpolypomona mistakenly pursuing aerospace engineering.
My mother's third husband (yeah, him) had saved enough money that I did not qualify for financial aid (zero need)
But, he also refused to pay for school, saying "He's not *my* son".
I worked as a house painter, starting at age 15 (yes, 15) until age 23, even through college.
I attended Chabot College from age 20 to 23. To pay for even the tiny fees Chabot charged, I worked M/W/F/Sat/Sun painting and took classes 9-9 T/Th.
Even with my Cal Poly coursework, it took me three years of part time classes (and full time work) to complete my gen ed requirements.
After completing all of my gen ed requirements (and knowing they would transfer!), I applied to UC Berkeley.
They rejected me.
I took a BART train to the admissions office, spoke to someone there and learned I could appeal.
I did (with incredible help from Chabot Profs. Egl Bachelor and Ben Hollander).
Berkeley changed their mind and admitted me. I still have that letter in my office at UW-Madison today.
While at Berkeley, I worked mornings (5:30 - 11:30 am) and weekends managing a coffee shop and took classes in the afternoons (thanks Chris O'Sullivan).
I also sold mountain bikes, especially during vacations, spring break, etc. I'd work morning shifts at the coffee shop, and closing shifts at @performancebike .
After taking eight years, off and on, to complete my undergraduate degree, I was admitted to my top choice PhD program @UCSanDiego.
I was rejected from almost every other program I applied to.
After completing a dual PhD in Psychology and Cognitive Science in a little over five years, I took a post-doc in France with @StanDehaene.
I worked with incredible colleagues and did some really fun, important science, and I got to travel all over Europe.
My girlfriend (now wife) was still in San Diego the whole time: we did long distance and Skyped every day.
In 2008, I landed a dream faculty position in a Cognitive Science department with great colleagues.
That offer fell through during start-up negotiations after the economy collapsed.
I then took a second post-doc at the @TheSackler in New York. It was one of the best things I could have done.
The lab moved to @VanderbiltU four months after I arrived in New York. We set up a new lab, and did some really fun, important science in Nashville.
Along the way, my girlfriend and I finally got to live in the same place again. (I honestly feared that once she had to put up with me, she wouldn't like me)
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We were married in Nashville in 2010 with friends and family from all over.
In 2012, I moved to @UWMadison to become an assistant professor here in the @UWMadEducation, NTP and @UWWaismanCenter.
While here, my wife and I also had two beautiful daughters, and my lab has done some fun, important science.
Next month, my department will vote on tenure for me. The tenure decision is scary because of how big of a hurdle it is. But, I am (cautiously) optimistic (see above!).
Now, you could read this thread seeing only the successes, as we do when we write our CVs.
Or, you can read this thread highlighting the struggles.
Neither version is true. And, both are true.
I am here today, not despite those early struggles and hardships, but because of them. They inspire me, drive me, and keep me grounded.
I think of the sacrifices my mother made, the hard work. And the fear. The ups and downs of my life all from a higher starting point because of everything she did.
One of my favorite poems. Langston Hughes: Mother to son. poetryfoundation.org/poems/47559/mo…
I have also benefited from generations of incredible awesome (yes, really, incredible awesome!) mentors.
In 6th and 7th grade, Paul MacFarlane showed me that my intelligence was valuable, and introduced me to a different vision of life.
At UC Berkeley, Steve Palmer and Joe Campos, who gave me my first research jobs, studying vision and infant development.
At UC San Diego, V.S. Ramachandran and Geoff Boynton, the yin and yang of my PhD training.
In Paris and London, @StanDehaene and Brian Butterworth.
And here at UW-Madison, all of my incredible colleagues and students.
It's a honor to have mentored @etoomari, my first PhD student, now at Stanford. @RadhikaGosavi who will soon walk across the stage (May 10) and defend her PhD (May 13), @jv_binzak shortly behind (December!).
I also recognize my constant privilege as a backdrop to this story. We like to believe that academia is a meritocracy, but it's not (or not solely). Of course I worked hard: we all do.
But, how many of these opportunities came my way (instead of someone else's) because of those unearned advantages?
In a world where women, minorities and immigrants are systematically denied opportunities, these same setbacks would be even worse, because the next door wouldn't open for them the way it did for me.
Indeed, many of the opportunities wouldn't even have been presented, and so never would have turned into setbacks.
When people are made to feel inferior, how much harder is it for them to push back against the rejection? This is not to say that they can't, but we must admit that it is a constant force.
We often highlight the simple stories, but no story is really this simple. I wouldn't be here today without every single piece of this story.
If we tell students only the simple stories, and they don't see themselves in these stories, do we systematically exclude them from academia? Do we subtly tell them that this is not the place for them?
When we focus only on our successes, or even our failure CVs, do we tell them only about the ups and downs? Do we leave out the fun, the passion, the excitement and the opportunities that go with these careers?
Most importantly, do we fail to share that our careers are only one (big, satisfying, important) part of our lives?
Seeing all the short simple stories out there, I think it's important to also (occasionally) share the long complicated stories that led us to where we are today. (end)
