Reflections on Postdoctoral Life

 I have to admit - the past several years have been busy for me.  Finishing up a Ph.D. will inevitably be a lot of work, so that is to be expected.  As I write this now however, I am basically finalizing the draft of my complete dissertation, and my RD wants to schedule me to defend in just a few weeks, which is perfect.  I started this journey in August of 2020, and I am almost finishing it four years to the day that I started, which is surreal in itself.  Taking a break from my construction of political manifesto this week, I wanted to just reflect upon that journey some today.  First though, our prayers continue to be with President Trump, who as many of you have seen on the news or social media was the target of an assassination attempt.  Miraculously, he just sustained an injury to his ear, but God was definitely watching over him.  Like many others, I will be monitoring that story too as new information comes to surface, but it was definitely a deliberate assassination attempt by an Antifa-affiliated terrorist who I believe was named Mark Violets or something like that.  The terrorist was effectively neutralized (he was shot by a capable marksman who was protecting the President) and is now atoning eternally for his sin of attempted murder.  I wanted to mention that because it has figured prominently in the news cycle the past couple of days. Any rate, back to the subject at hand. 

I am completing my Ph.D. in History at Liberty University.  In all honesty, Liberty was the last place I figured upon getting any degree, but in all honesty, it was an overall good experience.  The coursework was intense but good - although Liberty does get denigrated a lot for being a Christian university, in all honesty its standards are quite high academically, and I would wager on a fellow Liberty graduate against an Ivy Leaguer any day - especially considering that the Ivy League schools are now hotbeds of activist elitism and have long abandoned any academic credibility.  There was a time when a degree from Harvard or Yale was considered something of worth, but in all honesty, I believe Liberty has more quality academic substance than either Harvard or Yale do now.  Even the dissertation process was rigorous in my experience at Liberty, but that is a good thing - the professors there want you to produce an academically excellent work that reflects good scholarship, and I am all about that.  So, I am very grateful to my research chair, Dr. William Skiles, and to my readers who gave me the proverbial "second and third sets of eyes" in finalizing my draft, Drs. Glaze and Broome.  Their advice and input have been invaluable to me, and it helped me to accomplish writing what is essentially a 350-page book.  I plan on making my dissertation a published work later, and when it is I will post more information about how to get a copy of it if anyone is interested.

A doctorate is something I have had my sights on earning for many, many years.  I started planning for it back in my undergraduate classes 30 years ago, and originally I wanted to obtain one in a theological field.  Then, many things happened - I went from being essentially a Pentecostal minister to joining the Catholic Church, so focus changed quickly.  My Master's came from a Catholic college, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and many of you already know that journey.  My Master's from there was in Catechetics, which essentially is Catholic theological education.  The plan I had after Steubenville was to stay on that trajectory and obtain a doctorate from Catholic University of America in DC, but that proved to be a disappointment - I didn't get in there due to that stupid GRE exam, which is pointless in all honesty.  So, in early 2020, I had to re-evaluate a lot of things, and after consulting with my parish priest at the time, I found that Liberty University offered online doctoral programs and so I looked into it.  Obviously, given Liberty is an Evangelical Protestant university (it was actually originally an independent Fundamentalist Baptist school but over the years it thankfully has broadened its focus), any study of theology was out for me as a Roman Catholic.  However, given that a significant part of the student body at Liberty is Catholic now, it was frankly reasonable to think about pursuing another field of study to obtain my much-anticipated Ph.D, and at that time they had just introduced the History program for doctoral-level students and I signed up.  I was accepted in April 2020 actually, although I would not start class until August, and by June I had been awarded a decent financial aid package too - so, it was a go.  However, 2020 in itself was a weird year, and a lot was going on that year which almost derailed my plans.  Thankfully they didn't.  Let me talk some about that now. 

The biggest change to come in early 2020 was the COVID mess - everything was affected by that, and it altered the lives of practically everyone.  But, it had its good side.  Although I had work at the beginning of the pandemic, it ended at the beginning of May, but the good news was I had unemployment compensation and it provided me with a good benefits package for a while. But, in my personal life, trouble happened when my wife and I separated after just over 28 years of marriage - that required a lot of readjusting.  Then, my father passed away that July, and there were some adjustments to make there although thankfully I did get an inheritance from his estate that helped me a lot. By the time August rolled around that year and the dust was beginning to settle from all the upheaval of the previous months, I also was taking a class to get my state driver's license at around the same time my doctoral courses began, so that proved to be somewhat hectic.  As 2020 wrapped up, I was in a totally different place than I was a year previous, but on the positive side I totally aced my first semester in my doctoral program at Liberty, and it made me confident for the rest.  As 2021 dawned, things were pretty secure in the household and the year largely went by smoothly both with classes and also other aspects of life, until December.  At the beginning of December 2021, some challenges hit us when we had to hospitalize my mom, who was living with me at the time, due to a nasty fall she had one night while I was out on an errand.  Mom would be put into a rehab facility to recover from two fractured bones, and while there she developed other health concerns.  Although she was temporarily home in February 2022, and for a while seemed to be OK, on the morning of March 21 Mom had a nasty stroke and had to be taken out to the hospital, and one week later she passed away.  That was a bit of a shock, and it took another very intense readjustment of life for me which I am still coming out of even as I write this now, just over 2 years later.  Yet, my doctoral studies still proceeded and I continued to do well.  A lot of things transpired academically during that period as well.  

My doctoral program was organized such as it had essentially four phases.   The first phase, which essentially covered the first four semesters, was core classes.  Those were like typical graduate-level courses, and nothing really significant about them except they were in a different discipline than my Master's classes were previously.  The second phase, which I completed in the first couple of semesters in 2022, was the electives - all of those except one were what is called 797 Seminar courses, and their purpose was a sort of crash course in the dissertation process, and were a good way to practice those skills.  The third phase, which began in Fall 2022 and ended in May 2023, was my Comprehensive Reading classes, which at first intimidated me but I ended up doing quite well in all four of those.  Then, the final phase, the dissertation itself, began in the Summer 2023 semester and from that point it was all about constructing the dissertation.  That phase was divided into its own phases - gathering research, drafting the chapters, revisions and finalization of the final complete draft, and finally defense and submission to the university library.  I am in the third of these right now, as I am finalizing the draft and Dr. Skiles, my RD, is in the process of scheduling my defense for early August, meaning it is a matter of a couple of weeks away now.  If the dissertation is successfully defended before the committee, you essentially have earned the degree - the submitting to the school library of your final draft is a formality at that point.  I am almost there as of now, and it has been an interesting journey to say the least. 

This Ph.D. will be the terminus of my formal schooling, which has lasted off and on for almost 50 years since starting kindergarten at Stuart Hill Academy in Baltimore in 1974 when I was 5 years old.  In all honesty, I am glad to be finishing this up, and the only education I will be doing after that is just maybe the occasional online course for specific training professionally if required.  All of this schooling encompasses 3 formal degrees (BA earned in 1996, MA earned in 2018, and now the Ph.D. in 2024), three certifications (my culinary certificate I earned in 1992, my paralegal certificate I earned in 2006, and my Executive Cert in History I got at the midpoint of my doctorate in 2022), and of course my high school diploma I earned in 1989.  The fact that I am finally finished with formal university education as a student is surreal. On one hand, I am happy it has happened, but on the other I now have to consider my postdoctoral life.  That is what I want to talk about now. 

When one earns a doctorate, it places them in the top 6% of the world's population that possesses such an achievement. But, what do you do with it?  This is a question I get asked a lot by people, and to be honest I don't have a solid answer - I know what I want to do, but getting to that place is rife with challenges of its own.  Ideally, I would like to teach on the university level, and adjunct work may be an option.  Historians can also be an asset to museums and other cultural venues, and fortunately for me this area is full of those.  At the moment, although I have probably hundreds of resumes of myself floating around out there, not many have responded, so it is a waiting game.  This is a situation where I need to trust God to open the doors, and that is about the best answer I can give at this point.  In the interim, until an opportunity comes up, I at least do have other skills to fall back on, so we'll see what happens. 

Thanks for letting me share today, and look forward to seeing you again soon.