After Academics

A new project (I know, I know...)

I met with Tracy Gustilo earlier this week, when I was in the Twin Cities. Tracy was visiting extended family in the area, so we had lunch at a charming little Cuban café in South Minneapolis called Victor's 1959. The time flew by, although we probably chatted for two hours. Along the way Tracy mentioned that she is developing a community of practice called Sojourners that will be focused on Lifelong Learning to become a better human in the Anthropocene. I have been involved in groups in my job that called themselves communities of practice, but I had not really looked that closely into the details of what makes them different from other ways people can organize themselves to collaborate. I imagine the most salient feature is that a group of people with similar interests or experiences are focused on practice: on actually doing something specific. I am going to resist calling this type of habitual or customary practice a praxis. Because as Tolkien said about allegory (while engaging in allegory in his own way), I cordially detest the term; because I find it pompous and needlessly confusing.

So I'm going to dig into the features of communities of practice a bit and maybe develop one that I'll call “After Academics”. It will deal with the shift in Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and the experiences of “recovering academics” who have either recently left the academy or who never managed to find a satisfying position after completing their MAs or PhDs. Or even in some cases, BAs. I think there are plenty of people at each of these levels who pursued a subject and did work that they valued, but who then left the academy and had to put that work aside. Or who made the hard decision that despite success in an academic pursuit, they were going to make a more practical choice and pursue a path with better employment prospects at its end (I'm thinking of you, Kate). Or who went all the way to the pinnacle, wrote and defended the dissertation, and then have lived the precarious life of contingent employment ever since (thinking of you, Chris). Or who got the dream job and found themselves laid off when they reached the verge of tenure (thinking of myself in this case).

There are many others who fit other slightly different post-academic niches. People who spent their careers in the academy but are now retiring. People who never had the opportunity to pursue academic studies, but have spent the "$1.50 in late fees" Matt Damon famously talked about in Good Will Hunting, to become well-read or expert in a field that fascinates them. People for whom Higher Ed is failing, either due to affordability or access. People who have busy lives and responsibilities, but who would nonetheless love to learn. People who believe (or hope) that all the affordances of today's technology will spark a shift in creating, spreading, consuming, and discussing ideas as revolutionary as that enabled by the printing press five hundred years ago.

"After Academics" will begin as a series of posts in a new subject "tab" on MakingHistory and Lifelong Learning. In time, if I remain interested and if others share my interest, it may become a separate thing with a dedicated site of its own. As there is with many of my subject categories, there will probably be some significant overlap with my other interests. But I think this is enough of a "thing" to warrant having its own project name. Let me know what you think, especially if you have suggestions. Thanks! --Dan