Full Panel
Panelists
Bonne Stewart, University of Prince Edward Island; Melonie Fullick, York University; Trent M. Kays, University of Minnesota; sava saheli singh, New York University
Biographies
Bonnie Stewart is a writer, educator, and researcher fascinated by who we are when we’re online. Her work takes up social media as a cyborg culture of humans, technologies, and capital, and looks at the implications of these contemporary networked practices for higher education. A longtime blogger as well as a Ph.D candidate and lecturer in the University of Prince Edward Island’s Faculty of Education, Bonnie has spent the past fifteen years exploring the intersections of knowledge and technology.
Melonie Fullick is completing a PhD in Education with a focus on university governance, post-secondary policy, and organizational change. She holds a BA in Communication Studies from McMaster University and an MA in Linguistics from York University.
Trent M Kays is a writer, teacher, provocateur, consultant, activist, and rhetoric & writing studies PhD student in the Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota. He serves as a Graduate Instructor in the department’s undergraduate writing program, where he teaches a variety of rhetoric and writing intensive courses.
sava saheli singh is a PhD student, program assistant, and adjunct instructor at NYU interested in telling stories about online communities and how they find and sustain each other. sava holds a BA and an MA in Psychology from the University of Pune, India, and an MA in Learning, Design, and Technology from Stanford University.
Abstract
The current context of institutional and cultural change in higher education and PhD education specifically stems from a number of factors, including increased doctoral enrollment, relatively few new tenure-track academic jobs (and increased competition for these jobs), the demand for greater “impact” from academic research, and new forms of communication and work enabled by digital technologies.
Because of the changing nature of academic (and other post-PhD) work along with larger doctoral cohorts, there tends to be a lack of appropriate mentorship available for the evolving needs of emerging scholars. Traditional venues such as academic conferences do not necessarily work well for sharing research and creating professional networks. In the past it was much more difficult to build a reputation outside existing institutional channels, but now scholars are overcoming intellectual, social and geographic isolation by turning to (online) peers who are doing similar work and facing comparable problems. Technology enables these connections and collaborations, and tools like Twitter offer a means of building eclectic “cohorts” of peers. In the context of emphasis on “public” scholarship, digital tools also allow unknown scholars to develop “new research publics”, building or reaching out to new audiences.
How is doctoral student subjectivity developing in these circumstances? This panel will address the formation of “new doctoral subjects”. The panelists will present narratives about our own experiences, and the value of Twitter for us in our doctoral studies. Each panelist will contribute a narrative of doctoral development that highlights the ways in which early-career scholars take up new technologies.
Bonnie: My experience as a doctoral student has been shaped by a number of intersecting factors related to the networks I’m enrolled in. I am a member of the first cohort of PhD students in my faculty. Only two other students started with me, and neither of them work in areas related to my own. At the same time, my area of research is social media and I started my program already immersed in investigating early Massive Open Online Courses, so I had alternative network options available to me in terms of collaboration and testing of ideas. My online networks, particularly on Twitter, have become complex and rich performative learning spaces wherein I do a great deal of work in the open. I am a new doctoral subject in the sense that, while I am actively supported by my committee, I am mentored into my emergent field primarily by people I meet only online.
Trent: My doctoral experience is profoundly shaped by the use of digital technologies, specifically social media. The connections I’ve made through social media, especially Twitter, allow me to collaborate and ruminate on my teaching and research with both new and old colleagues. There are few peers in my cohort doing work similar to mine, so the opportunities for connections around my interests are tenuous. While still rewarding, many of my cohort interactions around my interests and concerns aren’t always adequate. Through social media, my network has grown to include colleagues all over the world, and these connections are integral in my research and teaching. The complex and rich spaces fostered through social media allow me to talk about my interests in open, productive, and critical ways. As a new doctoral subject, I am supported by both my cohort and my social media networked peers. In this sense, I am both local and global, human and technology.
Melonie: During my PhD studies, I’ve begun to use technology more and more as a means of “finding” and interacting with other academics. My research hasn’t tended to “fit” with what’s happening in the academic environments where I’m spending the most time, and over time Twitter became a means of expanding my intellectual “network”, a place for generating ideas, discussion and support. I also began blogging about my research area. The generosity of other academic bloggers has spurred me on to producing more “public” writing, helping me to create a public profile and to imagine myself professionally in new ways. As an early-career researcher I’ve been able to contribute to the ongoing public debates about my research area, but to do this I had to use social media to step outside institutional channels.
sava: I was envious of my doctoral cohort because they all seemed to have found their niche, their topic. I felt crippled by my many interests. my cohort’s input was useful, loving, and important, but I was left wanting. I was tiring of Facebook and was looking to Twitter to fill the void. and then I stumbled upon #phdchat – a group of PhD students from all over the world coming together on Twitter to converse, commiserate, and collaborate. I took great comfort in finding others who understood the conflict of my soul. #phdchat has grown from a handful of people in the UK to a robust global network which has given me deep and lasting personal and professional relationships that I am able to tap into as I feel the need. when I found my online cohort, I also found my research topic.
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