Mare Grohowski and Megan Adams
(Published June XX, 2020)
Introduction
We present audio interviews with five women, feminist scholars of rhetoric and composition at very different points in their careers. Like Danforth and Stedman (2018), we think “there’s something inherently interesting [listening to] different voices.” We also know there’s tremendous power in stories. Recorded in fall 2017, Steph Ceraso, Andrea Lunsford, Katie Manthey, Laura Micciche, and Jackie Rhodes share their journeys to rhetoric and composition, and reflect on the importance of mentoring and on how no one is immune to imposter syndrome.
Our work parallels Gesa E. Kirsch’s Women Writing the Academy (1993). Her book-length study features interviews with five academic women from different disciplines and at different places in their academic careers—some faculty, some students (xvii). Although Kirsch was particularly interested in “women’s interpretations of their writing experiences” to show how her interviewees “position themselves in the academic context, how they address and represent audiences, and how they negotiate and establish their authority in written discourse” (xvii), we were more interested in how women scholars perceived their role in the field of rhetoric and composition. As active teacher-scholars (presenting at conferences, publishing scholarship in journals and presses), these women have shaped and are shaping the field. Nothing better illustrates the lived realities of women “making it” than their personal narratives, and the affordances of audio reveal the nuances of affect—the lived experiences of their journeys.
We conducted these interviews at the start of the #MeToo movement. Women in Hollywood and mainstream media were openly discussing the challenges women face and hide. As Kirsch also noted, often women’s successes and failures—including their tips and strategies used to navigate complicated, political roles and awkward, sometimes hostile environments—are only shared in private, one-on-one conversations. We wanted to bring women’s stories out in the open much like the #MeToo movement did. But instead of sharing stories about how women were sexually assaulted or harassed, these conversations are about how successful women “made” it or are “making it,” including which obstacles they overcame to get where they are today. While Hollywood was reeling from decades of silence, we found ourselves eager to hear successful women’s stories, to understand their life journeys and how those journeys impact their work in academia. We believe listening to these women—at various stages in their academic careers—can inspire other women and men to share their strategies for success. As our interviewees note, sharing and mentoring are valuable feminist acts—acts we hope our work perpetuates and inspires.
Methods
Our unfunded study was deemed exempt by both the Internal Review Boards (IRB) at both authors’ universities, as the only potential participant risk was in exposing our participants’ identities. We sent out our IRB-approved recruitment-email script to a dozen individuals whose names appeared on the 2017 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference (FRC) program and who we knew identified as 1) female, 2) feminist, and 3) employed in post-secondary/higher education. Interviewing at the conference just made sense. Mare was living in Indiana at the time, and Megan was in Ohio; both were planning to attend the conference and had wanted to collaborate on a project since their days as graduate students at Bowling Green State University.
We excluded individuals on the FRC program who we knew identified as male, as feminist, and as employed in post-secondary/higher education. We also excluded women feminists not employed in post-secondary/higher education. Our rationale for limiting participants was selfish: both authors identify as female and feminist and, at the time of data collection, were both employed in post-secondary/higher education. Selfishly, we were looking for answers from those who we believed to have been in positions similar to our own. We were looking for guidance about our futures by learning about others’ pasts.
Who we were going to interview, though, was less clear. We scanned presenters in the FRC program. We made up a list of individuals who met our participant criteria and who were on the FRC program. Fifteen names made the shortlist. We used Google Search to access their institutional email addresses to share our study’s recruitment script. We emailed all fifteen individuals two weeks prior to the conference (held in Dayton, Ohio). We heard back from five of the fifteen on our list. Next we faced the challenge of aligning schedules to accommodate in-person, audio-recorded interviews.
Our recruitment email invited potential participants to participate in a 45-60-minute audio-recorded, semi-scripted interview during the FRC. Initially, we toyed with the idea of conducting video interviews; we had IRB approval to do so. The email made mention of video recording, which never actually happened because we were more interested in the affordances of sound. Like Stedman, we thought about how listening can elicit sensations akin to “a connection.” As we were listening to these women we felt the kind of connections Stedman writes about in “Listening Like a Fan”; we, too, want others to benefit—to listen and feel connections—and we feel the best way for doing this was to conduct long-form interviews.
The recruitment email invited: 1) potential participants to review the interview questions before agreeing to an interview; 2) asked them to identify when they were likely to be available for an interview during the dates of the conference; and 3) solicited any questions that they might have about the interview process or our project in general. We asked these folks to email us both back. We heard back from the five individuals whose voices you’ll hear. We were lucky in that each individual who agreed to be interviewed also agreed to have her interview shared widely for the purpose of this project. These were not to be “closed” interviews—but public tellings of how these women got to the field of rhetoric and composition and how they carry on. As you listen to the women speak you will hear their emotions, you will also hear our (the interviewees’) emotions. It is hard not to feel the connection Stedman speaks of because we hear the women’s emotions as they tell their stories. We believe this deeply personal work has the potential to impact our listeners and to spark valuable conversation because they are unedited and emotional.
We conducted each of the audio interviews in person at the 2017 Feminisms and Rhetorics conference in Dayton, Ohio. The conference organizers were kind enough to provide a quiet room for us to record two of our five interviews. The other interviews took place in interviewee’s hotel rooms, and one took place in a “relaxation room.” Everyone was asked the same fifteen questions. The questions allowed us to learn about interviewees’ backgrounds, how and where they grew up, and how they came to the field of rhetoric and composition. Truly, we were interested in origin stories; we wanted to hear the stories that aren’t usually shared in interviews with scholars. Our questions ask about how place (i.e., where they grew up) may have shaped them and about their childhoods. We’ve included our interview questions in the appendix for reference and replicability. We sincerely hope other scholars will pick up where we left off and will interview a more diverse set of teacher-scholars. We emailed the interview questions to interviewees prior to conducting the interviews so that there were no surprises. Before interviewing began, all participants received a physical copy of the informed-consent document that required their written signature. All interviews were recorded using a Zoom H4n audio recorder. Meg was responsible for recording, adjusting the volume, and ensuring we were recording. Our methods could be described as amateur. We did not use microphones or headphones, and our interviews took place in hotel rooms instead of sound booths.
One procedure we used to minimize risk of over-exposing participants’ identities was to provide each participant a written transcript of their interview—prior to any edits to the audio tracks or any thematic coding we were to do—for their review and consent. We provided each participant with a written transcript of the full interview within two weeks of their interview. One of us (Mare) transcribed each audio interview. It was important to us to transcribe the interviews by hand to be well-acquainted with the interviews. Transcribing the interviews ourselves allowed us to immerse ourselves in the project. Transcripts are not entirely verbatim: we take out some “like”s,“umm”s, “and”s, and “ya know”s to have cleaner transcripts—and to not embarrass ourselves or our interviewees by the inevitable filler words we all use when thinking on our toes. After transcription was complete, we sent transcripts to the interviewees via email. By asking participants to review the interview, we knew we could minimize risk of “over-exposure” or any other potential risks to our participants, as they were asked to point to any content that they felt could put them at risk. We honored participants’ requests to redact information that may have come up organically during an interview and that they felt uncomfortable sharing publicly. Mostly, these requests for modifications came mid-interview and not in a participant’s review of the written interview transcript. In fact, none of the five participants asked for any portion of the interview to be left out during transcript review (i.e., post-interview). However, several interviews would begin or end a story mid-interview with “this is off the record,” or “please cut this part out,” followed by the situational information. Still, we shared the written transcripts with the interviewee to make sure they still felt comfortable sharing their entire interview with a wider audience. Interviewees emailed us back with corrections (e.g., spelling, misheard words) and minor editing requests. Surprisingly, only one interviewee asked us to make cuts to the audio and written transcript. We happily complied and took the liberty to make minor cuts to all of the audio to shorten and spruce up some less-than-ideal soundbites. Months later, we added the introductions you’ll hear before each interview. Again, edits to the audio are minimal in all five interviews. Listeners will hear much of what we heard while interviewing; you’ll even hear an air conditioner come on during our interview with Jackie and Katie’s pen clicking while she’s talking. We think these idiosyncrasies are special. They are why we chose to present our work through audio. It is also why we chose not to analyze our interviews in any rigorous manner. We just wanted to let the audio play. We think listeners will appreciate our long-form interviews when they hear Andrea Lunsford talk about imposter syndrome—yes, even she has felt it—or Laura Micciche talk about being a first-generation college student.
Our interviews remain unedited because they are deeply personal; to cut and clip them into documentary or more news-styled stories robs them of their humanity. Capturing the spirit of the conversation and bringing our audience as up close and personal with our interviewees was our purpose in recording. We want listeners to come into conversation with us, to share as intimately as possible in the words of these women as they hopefully become as challenged and inspired as we were as we conducted the interviews. Not only are we aiming to adjust to industry standards for podcasts, but we also want to put these audio stories out in a way that has a positive and lasting effect on listeners.
Post-2014, research on podcasting formats indicates that a new, more informal genre of audio narrative is fomenting across the industry (McHugh). This new format centers on the relationship between host and listener, with content that is “talkier and less crafted” (McHugh 65). Although podcasts traditionally have followed formats similar to news editing, such as the infamous Serial podcast, creators of podcasts have been free to make up their own rules in regards to delivering creative content. With the hyperspeed of new producers and content composing happening in the podcasting industry, it’s personal content that makes the most impact. Radiotopia Executive Producer Julie Shapiro notes that the best audio storytelling is “[d]eeply personal work—there isn’t a ton of that out there.”
We’re not alone in advocating for long-form interviews. Like Cynthia L. Selfe and Gail E. Hawisher (2012), our work promotes a “feminist understanding of interviewing as a process not of extracting information but of sharing knowledge” (36). The process of sharing knowledge is “participatory” (37), is “less formal and predictable [than traditional interviews], and more like conversations” (38). Indeed, as you will hear, these audio recordings sound to us as much more than interviews and more like narratives that the women are developing through the process of speaking with us. Unlike the traditional interview then, our conversations with feminist scholars are long-form to allow listeners to experience as close to what we experienced when conducting these conversations. We agree with Selfe and Hawisher that such exchanges “yield richer and more-insightful understandings” than what comes out of more formal interviews (42). Another reason we decided to keep these audio recordings long-form was also inspired by Selfe and Hawisher; they note that sharing full conversations “can have the added benefit of supporting readers in performing their own validity checks on the information and interpretations we provide” (45). This adds yet another participatory or “collaborative” element to our work that we are excited about sharing; like Selfe and Hawisher, we want listeners to draw their own interpretations and to hear the idiosyncrasies of speakers’ voices. As Selfe and Hawisher argue:
how scholars engage with the findings of their colleagues . . . [c]ould also help de-emphasize a tendency to rely on received knowledge from authors who have arrived at one interpretation of research-based information and could encourage a more active and open engagement through the creation of multiple alternative interpretations of interview conversations. (Selfe and Hawisher 46)
Limitations
By identifying the limitations of our project, we hope to help future scholars proceed from where we faltered. Perhaps the biggest limitation of our efforts is in the lack of racial or ethnic diversity of our participants. We did try to recruit individuals who we knew identified as being of a minority race or ethnicity, but we never heard back from any of them in time to set up an interview during the conference. Admittedly, we could have tried sending multiple emails to more potential participants. We could have also approached individuals in person at the conference; however, like our conference-attending peers, our time was limited and occupied by other events (i.e., the conference), which prevented us from doing more interviews than we did within our short timeframe.
We started but did not complete a grounded-theory approach to analyzing our audio interviews. Once the written transcripts were complete, we both took turns coding the interviews to find themes—some of which we share below, albeit not in any rigorous manner. We understand that some readers will find our hands-off approach off-putting. We felt the strength of the project was story-driven not “data driven” (Haswell). Truly, the affordances of sound—of listening to these women tell their stories from our interview prompts (see Appendix)—are more powerful to us than quantifying qualitative data about how often an interviewee spoke about place or imposter syndrome. We hope, too, that listeners will appreciate the interviews are presented at face value and are not colored by analysis.
Another aspect of our project some may consider a limitation are the minimal edits we’ve made to each interview/conversation. For example, our conversation with Jackie Rhodes has a runtime of 65 minutes. Some listeners may find this to be too long, but we stand by the importance of keeping the audio long; listen and let each woman’s stories speak for themselves.
Themes
In the stories discovered in the interviews, we discovered inspiration and recognition. As female scholars in academia, we are aware of the multiple roles we represent inside and outside of the academy. We hope that in illustrating the pathways intertwined between personal and professional spheres and the journeys women take throughout the academy, the women (and men) listening to these stories will find the courage to share their own. We believe stories are powerful.
Scholars contend that personal narratives, such as the ones shared in these interviews, serve as modes of constituting self through language (Selfe and the DALN Constortium). Madeleine R. Grumet (1987) observes, “Our stories are the masks through which we can be seen . . . and with every telling we stop the flood and swirl of thought so someone can get a glimpse of us, and maybe catch us if they can” (322). We know that these narratives are interesting accounts, glimpses into the lifeworlds of the scholars who chose to share time with us.
As referred to in the methods section, the following themes arose:
- Connections to Place: In addition to asking these five women about current scholarship and teaching, we were also interested in learning more about the places they come from. Everyone comes from somewhere, and the places we inhabit for a time—as well as the spaces we work in—inevitably affect the work we do (Flannery). The places inhabited by the interviewees (some past and present) provide an interesting insight into how culture and place impact the work created in the field. These stories provide glimpses of the “long view,” a term Jacqueline Jones Royster (2000) coined as a historical narrative that references “institutional, collective patterns in broad scope” (83).
- Mentorship: Feminists scholars have long noted and written about the importance of mentorship (Ballif et al.; Gutiérrez y Muhs et. al.; Goodburn et al.); for example, Michelle Eble and Lynee Lewis Gaillet’s (2008) collection Stories of Mentoring: Theory and Practice provides rich context to understand how mentoring is enacted in the field. Both of us are deeply grateful for the positive mentoring experiences we’ve had in the academy under the preview of Dr. Kris Blair, Dr. Lee Nickoson, and Dr. Sue Carter Wood. We sought to find out if others had similar experiences and how mentoring does and does not occur in the field. We also hoped to find encouragement in how to become better mentors ourselves.
- Imposter Syndrome: Anxiety about writing and belonging in the academy is something many scholars in rhetoric and composition share as a common experience. As psychologists widely note, imposter syndrome adversely affects women. In fact, the phenomenon and its consequences date back to 1978 when a pair of psychologists used the term to describe it in high-achieving women (Bahn). Because we hear about this feeling consistently from other women and because we continue to thwart symptoms ourselves, we asked these successful women how they accommodate, deal with, and understand imposter syndrome. Our hope is that in listening to them describe their struggles in their voices, others will be inspired and uplifted to work past them as we try to do.
- Collaboration: In following the footsteps of feminists in rhetoric and composition that have come before us, we were interested in learning more about how the women we interviewed view and manage collaboration in all aspects of their work. We appreciated the practical advice and tangible takeaways we discovered through the course of the interviews.
- Teaching: The value and honor of working with students is a takeaway each woman mentioned in her interview. The growth and opportunity that come from working with energetic students often came up in conversation amid stories of collaboration and mentorship, stitching themes together in ways we hadn’t imagined when we worked up our guiding questions. Especially helpful for us were the words of wisdom regarding handling large teaching loads; balancing teaching, service, and research; and maintaining self-care.
- Serendipity: Inspired by how feminist scholars perceive their own professional successes and failures (Kirsch), we wanted to learn from their individual journeys and processes, hoping that —along with our audience—we could learn by listening to feminist scholars’ lived experiences and histories. We hypothesized that women feminist scholars would share unique and varied experiences, but that a consistent theme may be serendipity. (Flynn and Bourelle) In other words, interviewees perceived that serendipity played a role in their professional success and development. Although the explicit mention of “serendipity” was never uttered by our five interviewees, the theme is one possible interpretation.
Our Stories
In our interviews with Andrea, Laura, Steph, Jackie, and Katie, we were careful not to over-share; we were careful to keep the focus on their experiences. But maybe we should tell you a bit about ourselves since the goal of our project is to share a variety of women's experiences in rhetoric and composition.
Mare
I came to this project at a time of uncertainty; in the third semester of my second tenure-track assistant-professor position of teaching writing. I felt extremely fortunate to be in the position I was in but also felt extremely distressed. By conducting these interviews with Megan, in which we spoke with Andrea, Katie, Steph, Jackie, and Laura over the course of the four days of the conference, I had a lot of time to compare my position to the positionalities of our interviewees. In the interviews, I think you’ll be able to hear that—despite feeling stretched with committee work, research, and personal life—teaching is what keeps many of these women in academia. What I heard from speaking with these women was a joy in teaching and working with students—something I, unfortunately, did not share.
I left a faculty position at one university at the end of the fall 2017 semester to take a staff position at another university at the beginning of the spring 2018 semester. I left academia because I was desperately seeking a lifestyle that I felt I could not achieve in my current position, in that particular geographic location, and at that period of my life. I made a choice to leave academia to improve my mental and physical health. My decision to leave was not just because of talking to these five women, but these interviews definitely played a role in encouraging my decision. Learning by listening to the experiences of women academics I genuinely admire, helped me to make a difficult, radical, life-altering decision to leave a career I had wanted but was affecting my health.
Meg
As a former journalist, I have always been interested in stories. In that position, I also learned that if you don’t know the answer to something, there are usually other people who do. Like Mare, the idea for “HerStory” came to me at a period of uncertainty in my life and career. Having been hired at a small liberal arts university, I was struggling to navigate the political roles and challenges that came with the job. I was always asked to take on more, and, like many women I know, had difficulty saying “no.” I felt like the proverbial “hamster on the wheel,” and I sought more for myself.
I wanted an excuse to talk to other women, to have real conversations about who they were, where they were from, and how they made it or are making it in rhetoric and composition. I also believed podcasting was the best format for these interviews because it brings you closer to a person—there is so much power in voice, so much richness.
After speaking with Andrea, Laura, Jackie, Steph, and Katie, I felt like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. I woke up. I began to see the road out of my predicament and how to push through the challenges that were keeping me down. I saw my own role more clearly; I saw it not so much as a struggle anymore, but as a chance to grow—personally and professionally.
I am honored to share these stories with listeners. I hope that they inspire you on your journey—wherever you are on it—that you see your own path with refreshed eyes, and that your way becomes a little clearer.
Conclusion
We are incredibly grateful for the stories shared by Andrea, Laura, Jackie, Steph, and Katie. We know that this work will impact many women and men in the field as we work together to reveal how we “make it” each day in the academy. As the themes show, although we come from different cultures, backgrounds, and places, some of our struggles are the same. It is through struggles we find strength, through brokenness we find beauty, and through stories we find each other. Stories have the power to shape our lives in the telling and the listening. Our personal experiences make us who we are and in sharing them we create bridges of understanding (Gallo).
As we departed Dayton, Ohio, at the end of the 2017 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, we remarked that these interviews gave us renewed hope. We felt less alone in a crowded conference because we knew these women we looked up to, whose scholarship we had quoted and studied, were working through some of the same “stuff” we were. Stuff like navigating tenure and promotion policies, finding a passion for research, connecting with like-minded scholars in a field seemingly so large, and discovering best practices for building relationships with students and colleagues.
Our sincerest hope is that when you listen to these interviews you receive that same inspiration, that you feel the energy and enthusiasm of these women, that you are invigorated and ready to carry on with all the work on your heart. As practitioners at StoryCenter note, when people listen deeply, space is created to “journey into the heart of the matter at hand.” We also hope that, like these women, you pay it forward: you buy a new scholar a cup of coffee at the next conference; you give a little grace to the student who needs it; and maybe, just maybe, you pick up an audio recorder and capture a conversation that renews you. Although this series of interviews is edited and shared here, we hope that other scholars will carry this work forward. We believe that the power captured in the voices and the knowledge exhumed in storytelling propels the field forward in critical ways.
Works Cited
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Ballif, Michelle, et al. Women’s Ways of Making It in Rhetoric and Composition. Routledge, 2008.
Danforth, Courtney S. et al, editors. Soundwriting Pedagogies. Computers and Composition Digital P/Utah State UP, https://ccdigitalpress.org/book/soundwriting/.
Eble, Michelle F. and Lynee Lewis Gaillet. Stories of Mentoring: Theory and Practice. Parlor P, 2008.
Flannery, Kathryn T. “Levittown Breeds Anarchists! Film at 11.” Placing the Academy: Essays on Landscape, Work, and Identity, edited by Jennifer Sinor and Rona Kaufman. Utah State UP, 2007.
Flynn, Elizabeth A., and Tiffany Bourelle, editors. Women’s Professional Lives in Rhetoric and Composition: Choice, Chance, and Serendipity. Ohio State UP, 2018.
Gallo, Carmine. The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch on and Others Don’t. St. Martin’s, 2016.
Goodburn, Amy et al., editors. Rewriting Success in Rhetoric and Composition Careers. Parlor P, 2013.
Grumet, Madeleine R.“The Politics of Personal Knowledge.” Curriculum Inquiry, vol.17, no. 3, Autumn 1987, pp. 319-329.
Gutiérrez y Muhs, Gabriella, et. al. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Utah State UP, 2012.
Haswell, Richard. NCTE/CCCC’s Recent War on Scholarship. Written Communication, Vol 22, Issue 2, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088305275367
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StoryCenter. “Core Principles.” StoryCenter, 2016, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55368c08e4b0d419e1c011f7/t/5ac44e182b6a28 217e135233/1522814488726/Principles_Rev_3-
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Appendix
Interview Questions for “Herstory” Participants
After answering any/all questions about the study and once they have read and signed the consent document, begin by prefacing the interview by inviting our interviewee to share as little or as much as they feel comfortable—or they may decline to answer any question.
● Tell us about where you are from?
● How it has or has not your region/community shaped who you are today?
● Tell us about your childhood, what did you want to be when you grew up?
● How did you find the field of rhetoric and composition? What interested you?
● Did/Do you have an academic mentor? How did the person assist you in entering into the field?
● What is your relationship like today with your mentor?
● How important is mentoring to you? Do you mentor others?
● Do you have any suggestions for young women entering the field? How can they be successful?
● Who has been particularly inspirational to you?
● Can you recommend someone (a grad student, a colleague) for us to interview?
● Can you talk about overcoming imposter syndrome, failure?
● How have you balanced work/life, activism, etc.?
● What are your best writing tips?
● How do you balance publishing/teaching, and maintain a personal life?
● Who else should we interview?