Just Doing It

Just Doing It

My colleague and I often talk about the “trifecta” for us as women in student affairs- career advancement, a doctoral degree, and personal success (i.e. partnership, and having children). As mid-level scholar/practitioners we talk about looking for female mentors who have the trifecta or are completing the trifecta and can often count these women on one hand. I am married to my partner and we have one son together. Having recently finished my Ph.D., I am now pregnant with our second child and currently job searching for a new position. Because I am doing a place-bound search, it is well known to my supervisor and colleagues I am looking for a new position. When I also announced I was pregnant again, many people asked if I would continue my search. This question baffled me and left me reflecting on the question, why as women must we choose between pieces of the trifecta rather than striving for the whole thing?

When I started my professional career, I was lucky enough to be hired by a woman who at the time was the Director of our department, had a successful partnership, had four kids, and was completing her Ed.D. Her ability to integrate all of these identities into practice was something I wanted to soak up like a sponge as a young professional. One day we started talking about how she integrated it all, she looked at me and said, “I don’t know. I just do it.” As an inexperienced young professional who was newly married with no kids, and at the time, no aspirations to pursue a doctoral degree, I was hoping her answer would be the secret to her success. Some nugget of wisdom that would allow me future success in creating my own trifecta. My face must have conveyed my confusion to her answer because she followed her statement with, “You may not understand this right now, but there will come a time where you will have kids, an advance degree, and a mid-to-senior level position, and this will make sense.”

My career and marriage moved forward. My decision to pursue a doctoral degree was never in my long term career plans. I wanted to be a practitioner and saw no need for a degree advancement. I should never say never because a few experiences led me to applying for programs, and five years later, I had completed a dissertation and walked for graduation. Because getting a Ph.D. was not something I had dreamed about, life also kept going while I was pursuing the degree. I had our first son during my third semester in the program and became a new mom while establishing my scholar identity.  I am lucky to have a wonderfully supportive partner, a fantastic advisor, a stable job that allowed flexibility for completing the degree, and these definitely contributed to my successful completion.

About a year after our son was born, other female colleagues interested in the trifecta started asking me if we could talk about my experiences and how I was working full time, balancing motherhood, and pursuing a doctoral degree. I believe strongly in building positive female relationships founded on supporting and strengthening each other and was very willing to have the conversations. I suddenly found myself on the other side of the table, the same side my mentor was on before, and found it odd. Who was I to be representing this “trifecta” side of the table? Was I actually doing all of those things? Turns out I was without even knowing it.

The words came back to me, “I just do it,” and it all made sense. There is no magic recipe for integrating all the roles and values I want as a woman in student affairs- I just keep moving forward.  I’ve had women in my life tell me it’s not possible to have it all- a message I think is not only part of student affairs culture but for career women across all professions. My stubborn, feisty Italian identity desperately wants to prove them wrong and even with striving to have the trifecta, I still have to make choices. I’ve passed up career advancing opportunities because I wanted to finish my doctoral degree. I am currently weighing the job search process and maternity leave. I am supporting my partner, now pursuing a doctoral degree and their scholar development while constantly trying to develop my own. For me, having values like being a mom, partner, and an advancing career is never absent of figuring out which advances and at what time, and still with the vision of having and keeping the trifecta in front of me.

I reflect back to that conversation with my mentor a lot. Every time I hit a road block, every time my son is having a meltdown, every time I have to choose between a work responsibility and a conflict with my partner or son’s schedule and remember one important piece, she never said it would be perfect. She never said there would not be glass ceilings or issues of gender bias. I’ve experienced them. I think as women, we can romanticize the trifecta because the honest, real world examples who are completing the trifecta, are also dealing with awful and ugly situations because of it. At some point, I’ve watched my own peers lose sight of the trifecta because they hit a road block and lose hope that it is all possible.

What if we supported each other in “just doing it”? Listening when the challenges arise, allowing each other to be honest about our realities, and supporting each other towards whatever we chose to be our goals both personally and professionally. Could that change people’s hope in wanting or realizing their trifecta can be possible? I don’t have the answers to these questions and don’t know what could result. All I know is that without that conversation long ago, I probably would have given up hope at some point too.

 Amy Dinise-Halter, Ph.D.

Metropolitan State University of Denver

Assistant Director, New Student Orientation

adhalter@gmail.com

@msudenveramy