Category: education

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, education, Higher Education, Women's Issues

A Reply to “Academia, Love Me Back” by Tiffany Martinez

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Between 1981 and 1988, I was trying to do something similar to what Tiffany Martinez was doing in her essay, Academia, Love Me Back. I was trying to earn a doctorate degree. Tiffany was trying to earn an undergraduate degree on her way to a graduate program. The degrees we were trying to earn don’t matter. The discrimination both of us faced in academia does matter. The reasons we faced that discrimination matters. Tiffany alleges that academia is broken and her essay is current. Tiffany, academia was broken when I was trying to earn my doctorate between 1981-1988. It was broken because of discrimination. You faced the same discrimination I did. You just faced it 35 years later. That is quite an indictment of academia and a legitimate indictment.

I entered a doctoral program to earn a DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) in the Fall of 1981. That was 35 years ago. I find it terribly disturbing that what was broken in academia 35 years ago has not yet been fixed. Tiffany, you faced discrimination because of your last name and because you are a woman. You say it was because you didn’t look like everyone else. Of course, that is true.

As for me, I am a white female who was in my late 20s at the time I entered the doctoral program. I was of American descent (Northern European). I did look like most other American women. What I did not look like was a man. In 1981, few women entered my field, the field of finance. It was seen as a man’s world. Only one other woman was in the finance program with me. Sometimes, I felt I was treated like a pet. Even worse, I had to work twice as hard as the men in the program for half the credit. Why? Because I didn’t look like everyone else in the finance program. I was female. I couldn’t possibly conquer finance. Bear in mind. Tiffany, you are facing exactly the same problem 35 years later.

I want to give my fellow finance students in that program credit. The men who were my fellow students were wonderfully accepting. There was no discrimination there. We studied together. We socialized together. I made lifelong friends who are still very much in my life. It was the administration and the professors in the program who discriminated. Not all of them and I don’t want to indict all of them. But enough of them to cause a problem for me.

You might have expected this 35 years ago. Women had just begun breaking into fields that had typically been male-dominated. I suppose one could say that it was more understandable then. Thirty-five years have passed and women are in many male-dominated professions. We have had a woman run for President of the United States. What are we doing discriminating against a female student because of her appearance and her last name?

My biggest problem came when I was finishing my degree. The last step in obtaining a doctorate degree is writing a dissertation and defending it to a committee of your professors and an outside reader. There was an older, very traditional professor on the committee. It was well-known that he did not think it appropriate for a female to have a doctorate in finance. I knew he would vote against me when I defended my dissertation. I was very prepared but I was also scared to death.

I defended my dissertation and stepped outside the room as asked. I don’t know exactly what happened in that room, but I knew that my dissertation chairman was on my side – a more progressive, younger professor. Some time passed and my dissertation chairman stepped out and congratulated me. I had to really control myself to keep from crying with relief.

The time I spent in the doctoral program were some of the best years of my life – and some of the worst. Yes, I faced discrimination but I also had support from my fellow students, mostly male. It disappoints me greatly to think that, 35 years later, a female student like you, Tiffany, is facing the same discrimination in her quest for higher education. I, too, love academia, Tiffany. I, too, wanted it to love me back and went on to become a college professor myself. I tried never to judge a student based on anything but their work.

Tiffany, keep on fighting. Your fellow students will help you. Most professors will help you. There are bad apples in every bunch. You ran into a bad apple who is still caught in the discrimination mindset. Academia needs students like you. Students who will speak out. Students with your credentials. Students with your smarts. Academia will eventually love you back. It is like most institutions. Very slow to change. #amwriting #amblogging #writing #academia

Posted in education, Finance, Uncategorized, Writing

Mind the Gap: The Knowledge Gap

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

When I saw this week’s Discover Challenge, I actually heard the big bang that occurred with the collision of my two careers. I received my doctorate degree in Business/Finance in 1988 and taught on a university level for many years. Writing is a second career that began with academic writing during my university career but expanded during and after that time into both non-fiction and fiction writing.

The concept of Mind the Gap is a familiar one to doctoral students. Our real purpose is to learn to do original research, not learn to teach, which is simply a by-product of our education. We learn to teach because we have to learn the material in our fields in order to do effective original research. That doesn’t mean we all become good teachers. That is another essay for another time.

My field was and is finance; specifically, corporate finance and financial institutions. Simply put, I studied larger business and big banks. Everything about larger business. What makes them tick. How to analyze their operations. How to advise them. How to value them. And much more. When I finished my courses in finance, banking, and statistics and was ready to write my dissertation, that is when “mind the gap” really became an issue. Doctoral students have written many papers up to that time. But there is nothing more important than the dissertation, which is nothing more or less than a book that you write about an original concept in your field. Not to mention the fact that you have to write a dissertation in order to graduate.

“Mind the gap” is the gap between existing knowledge, in my case, in corporate finance and banking and knowledge that is yet to be determined. I know that sounds very esoteric but in everything, there is knowledge yet to be determined. Business, science, technology….you get the picture. Else, we would never have the next iPhone. So, my task was to determine what my topic would be for my dissertation. Where did I think there was a gap in the knowledge in my field.

At that time, banking regulation was going out the window. Banks were beginning to merge and expand and the big regional banks we have today were being born. Banking executives seemed to think that bigger was better. At least, they thought it was more profitable and earned their shareholders more money. There was my topic. Was that true? There was the “gap.” No one yet knew if bigger was, indeed, better in banking.

I will spare you the details of my dissertation. (Trust me, you do not want to know.) But, in general, what I studied was whether or not banking expansion caused increased and even abnormal returns in banking. The bottom line was yes, in the short run, but no, in the long run. Think about this. I finished my dissertation on this topic in 1988. The financial crash that almost took down our economy that we all remember was at the end of 2007. What happened? The big banks were engaging in activities that were earning abnormal returns for them. It worked, in the short run. In the long run, many of them failed and many more were bailed out by the federal government.

There again is the “gap” I’m speaking of. The gap in the banking literature in 1988 was in the research on bank returns in the absence of the regulations they had always been under. By 2007, the premise I had studied in my dissertation had been addressed in the “real world” and had been proven to be correct. That gap in knowledge had been filled in. I had proven in my dissertation that banks do not earn excess returns in the long run as they become increasingly unregulated. They did, but only for a short time. Unfortunately, it seems to be happening again. #amwriting #amblogging #writing #banking

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, Eastern Kentucky, education, Higher Education

#SoCS November 12/16 Remembering my Dad….

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Yesterday was Veteran’s Day. Linda reminded us that it’s also Remembrance Day in Canada. I have remembering on my mind, particularly remembering my dad. He fought in World War II. It was his side of the family from which my Canadian relatives came. The Ottawa and Thunder Bay areas.

I was a Daddy’s girl. He was my hero from the time I have any memory. He had a big voice, a big laugh, big arms, and a bigger heart. He wasn’t home a lot. In those days, when a man couldn’t find work at home, he left home to find work as close as he could. It was the late 1950s when my memories of him start. The supposed halcyon days in the U.S. except they weren’t. Times were hard in northeastern Kentucky where I grew up. My dad worked hard.

He tried to come home on the weekends. That was my favorite time because no matter where he had to go and what he had to do on Saturday and Sunday, he took me with him. I went to lots of lumber companies, sawmills, and hardware stores! I learned about lots of things little girls didn’t often know. But, no curse words, nothing bad. My dad’s friends would never say or do anything bad in front of me. I wore little pairs of blue jeans and flannel shirts, just like he did. We took these weekend trips until I was 15 years old or so. Sometimes even after that. If he was going to work on someone’s house, I would even go with him to do that.

When I was in the third grade, my dad left home to work in Wisconsin. He was gone for an entire year. That was one of the hardest years of my life. I found out many years later that my parents had actually separated that year. I’m glad I didn’t know that then or I would have been terrified. I wrote him thousands of letters and he responded to every one. They apparently worked something out because, at the end of that year, he thankfully came home.

When I met my first boyfriend, I think it hurt him. He worried. I was only 15. He was 16. But sending me off in a car to be with our friends scared my dad to death. I see that now. Of course, I didn’t then. It turns out that he was right to be scared.

I went to college in my hometown and lived with my parents. That’s all they could afford and there really weren’t scholarships to go to the Ivy League like I wanted to do and like you can find now as a high school student.  I graduated from college early. I was 20. I moved to Frankfort, KY, the state capitol, and worked in state government for six months. I’ll never forget the day I moved. My dad cried. That was before the days of cell phones. My dad gave me a telephone calling card. He told me to call him daily – more than daily if I wanted. I still had that credit card, and used it, the day he died about 10 years later.

I, then, moved to Lexington, KY, the second-largest city in the state. A wonderful city. As a girl from the country, it was pretty overwhelming. Daddy helped me find an apartment where I would be safe. I worked a few years but I wasn’t satisfied. I needed to go back to school. I was interested in teaching in a university. My dad had paid for my education as an undergraduate student. He then paid for me to get my Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree even though I was working and had married in the interim. He wouldn’t even discuss letting me pay for it myself.

My dad was a blue-collar worker. My parents weren’t exactly rolling in money. They got by. Financing several college educations for me could not have been easy in any way. There was no arguing with him.

That wasn’t all he did. My husband and I were married very young. We bought a small home in a nice section of Lexington. Not only did my dad fix everything that was wrong with it, he insisted on making the down payment and helping us with house payments until we got on our feet.

I finished my MBA at the University of Kentucky and was recruited by the Director of the doctoral program to go into that program which would lead me, if I wanted, to a career in college teaching and research. Since I loved living in Lexington, I decided to start the doctoral program there, at the University of Kentucky in 1981. Once again, my dad insisted on paying for it.

My area was finance and it was hard work. I studied a lot and when I wasn’t studying, I was teaching classes. I didn’t see my parents much, even though they only lived 70 miles away, during the next couple of years. They understood.

Then the unthinkable happened. My dad was 63 years old. He became ill. He was diagnosed with lung cancer the second week of November, 1983. I spent as much time as I could with him. It was hard. I was in denial. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. I was in school and working. A horrible time.

From the time he was diagnosed until the time he died, only six weeks passed. My mother called me on December 20, 1983 and told me to come home as soon as possible. My dad had surgery but the cancer had spread and he was home but in pain and having trouble breathing. As soon as I got there, we called an ambulance to take him to the hospital in Lexington. My dad, who loved Christmas and who had made me love Christmas, died on December 22, 1983 and was buried on Christmas Eve.

He talked to me some, as much as he could, those last two days in the hospital. I remember every word of those conversations. He was in a coma at the end, but if I would speak to him, he would nod his head and open his eyes. It must have taken a super human effort.

I was in shock and incredibly sad for a long time. When I went back to school in January, I found that he had already paid my tuition for the spring semester. I took incompletes in my classes that semester. I just couldn’t do it. By fall semester, 1984, I had pulled myself together and finished up the class work for my doctoral degree.

I’m retired now from my career as a Professor of Finance. I had a wonderful career. It was thanks to my dad.

Someday, I’m going to write a book about him, but probably a funny book because he could be a hilarious guy, especially when he was with his brothers and sister. He was the son of immigrants from Sweden, fought in the WWII, and had a really interesting life. It’s been 33 years since he died. Maybe, by then, I won’t cry when I write about him. #SoCS #family #amwriting #amblogging #writing #WWII #USSBlessman

*This post is sponsored by SoCS Nov 12/16

Thanks, Linda!

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, education, Lifestyle, Women's Issues

A Letter to my 15-Year Old Self

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Do you ever think back to some past point in your life and ponder what you might do differently if you had it all to do over again? I find myself doing that at critical junctures in my life. Recently, I’ve thought about myself as a young teenager and what she might do differently if she had the opportunity to write a different script for her life. I think some of what I determined might be better courses of action for her might apply to others so I thought I would share them with you.

  1.  If I could be 15 years old again, with the wisdom I have now, I would ignore the boy I met at the college basketball that night when I was truly 15. When he came over to me, sat down beside me, and introduced himself, I would get up and walk away. I would know that I wasn’t ready to date anyone, including that boy. I would know that this boy came from a different background and we wouldn’t understand each other. I would sense his underlying bad temper and be fearful of him. I would not waste three years on him and let him change the course of my life forever.
  2. If I could be 15 years old again, with the wisdom I have now, I would be looking at colleges in other cities rather than just in my hometown. I wanted to go to an Ivy League school and I would try to make that happen by getting scholarships. Instead, I let my parents talk me into staying at home and going to college in my hometown. It was a good school, but I wanted to go to a great school – an Ivy league school. Instead of majoring in what was popular at the time, I would double major in Classical Piano and English and head off to New York City after college to seek my fortune – a good music school that would accept me into their program.
  3. If I could be 15 years old again, with the wisdom I have now, I would realize that I would have my friends from my time in the first 12 grades of school with me all of my life but that I would also make other lifelong friends during my life journey. I would not care quite so much about the “sibling” rivalry that springs up in a small private school like mine. Rather, I would realize that when we all grew up, the petty stuff would be gone and we would renew our friendships on an adult level and support each other the rest of our lives.
  4. If I could be 15 years old again, with the wisdom I have now, I would listen to my parents when they advised me not to marry as young as I did. For me, very little good came from marrying so young and, perhaps, a great deal of harm. Marrying young caused me to be unable to know myself as an adult beyond functioning as a half of a couple.
  5. If I could be 15 years old again, with the wisdom i have now, I would spend more time with my parents as they got old. Of course, my dad never got old. He didn’t get that chance and I didn’t get the chance to know him as an adult because, during the few years he lived when I was an adult, he was working hard and I was working hard. We failed to prioritize our relationship – something I will always regret. My mother did get old and spent the last 14 years of her life in my care. Unfortunately, she was beyond strengthening relationships at that point.

IF you could go back to 15 years old, what would you do differently? #amwriting #amblogging #writing #lifestyle

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, education, Higher Education, Lifestyle, Uncategorized

The Millennial Generation: Overtaking the Baby Boomers?

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

The millennial generation is generally defined as that group of individuals in the U.S.  born between 1980 and 2000. We are hearing a lot about the millennials currently, particularly with regard to how they may affect the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and how they are affecting the workplace. My series of articles on the Baby Boom generation, born between 1946 and 1964, would not be complete without drawing some obvious comparisons between that generation and the millennial generation.

  1.  The millennial generation is now the largest generation, in sheer numbers of people. They actually outnumber the huge baby boom generation by about 10 million people, even though their population is increased by immigrants. The Brookings Institute says that by 2020, 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. will be a millennial.
  2. Baby boomers married, in 1970, when the men were about 23.5 yrs of age and women were a little over 20. Millennials marry when men are, on average, 29 and women are 27. Up to 25% of millennials will never marry at all.
  3. Millennials are a more diverse group than baby boomers. Only 57% of millennials are white and 72% of baby boomers are white. Both Hispanic and Asian immigrants have increased the diversity in the U.S.
  4. About 2/3 of millennials ages 25-32 do not have a college degree. Those that do earn almost $20,000 per year more than those with only a high school diploma. It is an impossible comparison in this category with baby boomers since a high school diploma bought much more for them than it does for millennials. You will hear that millennials are over-educated and underemployed. You can see from this statistic that is not necessarily true, though millennials may think it is true. One truth is that, those who sought a higher education, are paying dearly for it in student loan debt.
  5. We often hear about the unemployment rate of the millennials. If the millennials went to college, their unemployment rate is only 3.8%. Without the college degree, it is over 12%. So, if millennials further their education, their unemployment rate is much lower than that of the general population. They are pickier about their jobs than the baby boomers. They will take less money and have a job they enjoy more, unlike the boomers. The baby boomers would work at just about anything in order to survive. Many millennials have had a safety cushion in the form of parents and family to fall back on. That was not necessarily true for the baby boomers.

There is quite a disparity in the characteristics of the baby boomer generation and the millennial generation. The U.S. now has a service economy and we surely need workers for that type of economy. However, with two-thirds of the millennials not having college degrees, this writer wonders who is going to teach our children, do our research and development, be our medical doctors, innovate products, and so many other jobs that need those credentials. Does this mean that we will have to import foreign labor that place a higher value on higher education to do these skilled tasks, such as the Asians? I understand that higher education is expensive and that student loan debt is high. Our politicians must address this if we want our young people to take over our country as the older generations retire. #dailyprompt #writing #blogging #amwriting #millennials #babyboomers

Posted in Appalachia, Creative Nonfiction Essays, education, Higher Education, Uncategorized, Women's Issues

Women and Autonomy: Self-Determination

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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One of my passions is writing about women’s issues. Another one of my passions is thinking about the concept of women and autonomy. Why? Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I decided I wanted a professional career. Not only did I want a professional career, but I wanted a career in a male-dominated field. I wanted to get my doctorate in Business Administration and teach on a university level in a business school, specifically in finance.

During those years, there were very few women in the field of finance. Sorry, guys, but back then, that meant I was fighting an uphill battle. To be fair, I think the men of 2016 are far more accepting of women in previously dominated male professions than some of the men were in 1979, when I embarked on studying for my career.

If you look in the dictionary, you will find that the word “autonomy” has several different meanings that actually all mean the same thing. It is defined as “the freedom to determine one’s own actions” and it does not say one thing that is gender-specific. It isn’t just specific to men…..or women.

When I made the decision to study for and embark on my career, I didn’t feel the need to ask anyone, including my husband, if that was an acceptable decision. I felt like, as an individual human being, that I had the autonomy to make this decision myself. I did. It was my right.

I studied for and obtained my Master’s degree (Master of Business Administration or MBA) and then, I studied for my Doctor of Business Administration or DBA. It wasn’t easy. The coursework was hard. Writing the dissertation was hard. Not only did I work the entire time I was going to school, but I was also married and taking care of my mother. At first, I taught at the school from which I got my doctorate. Later, when I was working on my dissertation, I taught at a school 75 miles away and commuted to work. I always laughed and told my friends that my dissertation was written in the middle of the night because that is the only time when I had the time and quiet to do it.

I had a lot of friends who were also studying for their doctorates. Most of the other students in the program were men. There was only one other woman in my field of finance. We had friends, however, across disciplines — in marketing, management, etc. All the women had a similar life and similar schedule to mine. The men were a different story. Either they were single and could concentrate totally on their studies or they were with a supportive partner who carried the load while they studied. Not so with the women in the program. We had to continue on with our traditional roles as women. We saw this as unfair.

Back in those days, others saw it as fair. After all, we made the decision to seek out a non-traditional role for ourselves. It felt like punishment. Even though we had taken back our autonomy as human beings to seek out our careers, we were being punished for not pursuing our traditional roles as women.

The discrimination continued when we took our newly-minted degrees and started applying for jobs. Of course, the discrimination was unspoken and subtle because laws had already been passed before the 1980s prohibiting such discrimination. The women I knew in finance at my school and other schools were seen as odd to have pursued a degree in an all-male field. Lucky for us, universities needed us at that time. The concept of diversity was becoming important. Universities were being encouraged to have a more diverse faculty and hiring a woman for their finance department fit the bill. We all got jobs.

I could keep talking about this endlessly. About how women in male-dominated fields in universities have to work twice as hard for 3/4 of the pay. About how it is extra hard for us to get promotion and tenure. About how our portfolios for promotion and tenure have to be superior to any male colleagues’ portfolio. About how our salary increases never match those of our male colleagues. About how, by the time  I retired, I still didn’t make as much money as male colleagues who had the exact same credentials as I did. About how the schedules I taught, semester after semester, were more difficult than any male colleague I had.

It all finally burned me out. I was tired of fighting. It was a fight. Right up until the end. When I reached the point where I could retire with most of my pension and my health insurance, I did just that. Retired.

I’ve never looked back. I’ve never been sorry I retired. I’ve never tried to get another teaching job even though I am more than qualified. I decided, 27 years before the time I retired, to reach out, take back my autonomy, and have a professional career. It was the most difficult thing I ever did……and, despite the hardships, the most rewarding. I loved teaching. I taught mostly Appalachian students. I loved seeing their eyes light up when they “got” a concept I was teaching. I miss those students. I miss teaching them.

I don’t miss the discrimination and the politics of academia. I don’t miss the service on unnecessary committees. I also loved to do the research that is required of college professors, but there is not enough time given to professors due to such heavy teaching loads to do good research. If I am going to do research in my field of finance, it is going to be good research or I’m not going to do it.

My point in writing this post is to encourage women to take back their autonomy. If you have a passion to do something — anything — do it! You won’t be a fulfilled person if you don’t. If you aren’t fulfilled, you won’t be any good to your family or your community. I urge you, as strong women, to think about what you want to do with your life, get the education you need to do it, and then go and do it. You will be a better, more fulfilled person for it. #amwriting #writing #blogging #womensissues

 

Posted in education, Funding, Higher Education, The Economy

Cutting Funds for Education: A Declining Future for America

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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It seems fashionable these days to say that not everyone needs a college education. Actually, that’s true. We need people with vocational training — electricians, plumbers, auto mechanics. We need people with specialty training – jewelers and clockmakers. But, we also need college educated people to do research, to teach, to help run our businesses, to be chemists and biologists and anthropologists and financial analysts. It is also fashionable, it seems, to cut the funding for institutions of higher education to the bone and the programs and people right along with them.

Let’s focus on higher education. I was a college professor for 27 years so I do have a bit of insider information and understanding. What happens when funding is cut for a state university? First, tuition goes up for the students. That is one of the primary sources of funds for universities. Of course, there is always fundraising from donors to the university but that money is far less certain than tuition increases. Every time there is a funding cut, if you have college-age children, the money it takes to run the university comes right out of your pocket.

What actually happens inside the university with funding cuts? In the state in which I live, state universities are experiencing funding cuts. The university where I taught had to eliminate some faculty and staff positions. Some were vacant. Some had actual people teaching and serving as support staff in them. There goes the unemployment rate – up. Academic and sports programs were eliminated. There were times when we were under a budget crunch at my university that we had a hard time scrounging up paper and pens, let alone the newest technology. Do you know what happens to faculty and staff morale when that happens? It starts a downward spiral. How effective do you think the faculty are at teaching your children under those circumstances? I can tell you – not very effective. The faculty and staff are worried about losing their jobs and they don’t really have the materials they need to do their jobs. Your children suffer when there are funding cuts to higher education.

Cutting higher education funding is a short-term strategy for state legislatures to use in order to save money. Some think supporting higher education is not a good strategy for stimulating economic growth. Some think that a better strategy for economic growth is enacting tax cuts for the wealthy or for large corporations while raising money by cutting higher education funding. That is a very short-term view. In the long-term, allocating money to reduce tuition and student debt and improve graduation rates would benefit the economy more. There seems to be a disconnect in the minds of our legislators between the value of college-educated young people and what they contribute to our economic growth. Unfortunately, we seem to have entered a period of time in our society in America when we can’t see the forest for the trees. We can’t see that we diminish our future if we don’t invest in education — all education. After all, people clapped and cheered when one of the Presidential candidates this year said that he loved the poorly educated.

So what’s the answer to states looking for money? It seems obvious! Cut something else. Don’t cut education. Education is the future. Education is not only your children’s future, it is our country’s future. Cut the legislators’ travel budgets. Or their expense accounts. I just bet I could find a number of non-essential line items if I went through the state budget and I bet you could too. Cutting education seems to fly in the face of good reason. In fact, it is not only a short-term solution, it is selfish. Would the legislators who vote to cut education rather satisfy their lobbyists, and reap those benefits, than adequately educate their children and contribute to the future of America? Right now, the answer appears to be yes. Let’s elect some legislators who will answer a resounding NO to that question. #amwriting #writing #blogging #bloggersrequired #GdnHigherEd

*Image acquired from Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net