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Introduction
I Hope I Get It
Research Question
This ethnographic study was completed during the Spring Quarter 2003 for the Ethnography course at the University of Denver College of Education. The question I determined was of most interest to me at this point in my studies was: What does it take to navigate successfully a career as a university professor?
My Subject
I recognized the opportunity to work with a highly decorated professor in a class running concurrently with my Ethnography class and posed the idea to Dr. Nick Cutforth, my Ethnography professor. Dr. Frank E.X. Dance, the John Evans Professor of Human Communication at the University of Denver, was to be my instructor for Digital Noesis, a course in the Digital Media Studies Program. Sans prior contact, Dr. Dance graciously agreed to be the subject of my study.
Background
I come to my Ph.D. program with a love of, and a strong background in, teaching adults to use technology in their professional endeavors. While this has been an area of study for me for over a decade, I have not considered myself an expert nor intellectual. No one in my family or circle of friends has a career in academia. Therefore, I must work to find professional mentoring for my chosen career as a university professor.
Neither of my parents graduated from college. For financial reasons, my mother went right to work in San Francisco after finishing high school. Her family could only afford college for her brother. My father attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for 3.5 years, but had to leave to go to Korea with the Army. When he returned, he decided to attend Mortuary Science School in San Francisco in order to join the family business in the small Colorado town where both he and I were raised. My father ran Austin Funeral Home in Julesburg, with my grandfather, for 40 years. My mother was home with us as small children, but began working in order to add on to our home when I was in 4th grade. She started as a secretary, learned the insurance business, got her insurance license, and eventually ran her own agency.
My grandmother, Katherine, was a teacher. I was born on her 50th birthday. Her grandmother was also a teacher and Katherine gave me the old school bell that her grandmother wielded to bring the children back into the school house at the end of their outdoor play time. My background has provided me with a strong service ethic, a love of learning, and a sense of entrepreneurialism. As I complete my coursework and consider my dissertation, I feel the need for professional guidance. Thus, my desire to study a successful professor.
On paper, it appears that I have little in common with Dr. Dance. He was raised in Brooklyn, went to a Jesuit high school and college, and his CV is 36 pages long. I grew up in a town of 1500, graduated from public high school with 27 classmates, and attended the University of Colorado with both of my siblings because that was my dad's vision from our early childhood. Dr. Dance proceeded directly through his higher education with only a 3 year lapse between his Masters and his Ph.D. while he served in the US Army as a Vietnamese translator. He held a professor position even before he completed his doctorate. I taught Jr. High for 3 years after college, put myself through night law school, and commenced my Ph.D. program a decade after earning my J.D. I have been a corporate trainer and am currently a university instructor. Even though, from the first contact, Dr. Dance has been responsive, encouraging, and funny, I am intimidated by his intellectual and academic contributions. In Remembering a Mentor: Walter J. Ong, S.J., Dr. Dance states that "the greatest gift of my Jesuit education is self-discipline." I believe the greatest lesson of my rural upbringing is that one can find success through hard work. Perhaps there is common ground.
From A Chorus Line
I Hope I Get It
Zach:
Okay, let's do the ballet combination one more time. Boys and girls together.
Don't kill yourselves. Mark. A one, tow, three, four, five, six!
(Larry demonstrates the combination downstage center. The group marks the combination in various degrees.)
Zach:
Okay, I'm going to put you into your groups now. When I call out your
number, I'll tell you where you're gonna be in the formation.
Judy:
Oh, God, I don't remember my number.
Zach:
Right, when I find a number without a person, it's you.
Zach:
Okay, girls first. Number two, downstage. Number nine, upstage. Number
ten, downstage. And number Twenty-three, upstage. Twenty-three? Judy Turner.
Judy:
Twenty-three.
Zach:
Stage left, girls. Second group. Number Thirty-seven, downstage. Number
sixty, upstage….
(Zach goes into pantomime, continuing to form groups, as the others sing.)
Group: (Note: Cassie
does not sing in the opening number)
God, I hope I get it, I hope I get it!
How many people does he need? How many people does he need?
God, I hope I get it! I hope I get it!
How many boys, how many girls How many boys, how many...
Look at all the people, at all the people
How many people does he need? How many boys, how many girls?
How many people does he ...
Tricia
I really need this job.
Please, God, I need this job.
I've got to get this job.
(Zach comes out of pantomime.)
Zach:
Third group of boys. Number sixty-three downstage. Number sixty-seven,
upstage. Number eighty-one, downstage. And number eighty-four, upstage.
Okay boys, stage left. Let's do the ballet combination. First group of
girls, second group follow. One, two, three, four, five, six…
(First group of girls steps out and begin the ballet combination.)
Zach:
Diana, you're dancing with your tongue again.
Diana:
Sorry….
(She falls out of a turn.)
Diana:
Shit.
Zach:
Next group… and…
(Second group of girls steps out and begins the combination.)
Zach
You! Any ballet?
Vicki:
No.
Zach:
Don't dance… DON'T DANCE!
(Vicki leaves group, the rest of the group finishes the combination.)
Zach:Next group, and….