At this point in my journey, I’ve finally been able to take a smaaaallll, tiny, minuscule breather. For the last year or so I have been writing my dissertation, embarking on a journey to try and secure a tenure-track faculty position, defend my dissertation, be a better friend, and show up for my loved ones and myself. I think I’m doing okay in some of those areas, and in others there’s always room to grow. Some quick updates:
I defended and passed my dissertation defense, meaning I am now dr. kaleb germinaro !!!! 🥲
I went on 3 job talks (faculty interviews) in the winter of 2023 and although exhausting, I should have some good news coming in a subsequent post 😮💨
lennie is happy and healthy 🌵
the library just secured a large grant to purchase property up here in Seattle so that we can build affordable housing 👻
I’ve been finding my academic community and been able to build and continue healthy relationships in this space that is often extremely challenging 🕺🏾
I think this is about it for now. This year has been a whirlwind, as I was coaching in the fall while writing what’s called a 3 paper dissertation. This is essentially writing 3 separate journal articles with an introduction ‘chapter’ that ties it all together and sets me up to submit these papers for journal publication later on. Some folks do the traditional, book-like dissertation, including length.
More on job talks — these are similar to student-athletes who are getting recruited and the official visit to a school. Often over 2-3 days, I met with people across the university system who are affiliated with the colleges of education that I interviewed with. One of the main things I do during this time is give about an hour presentation of the research I get to do and that was nice to share it with folks. Although terribly exhausting, this process allowed for me to connect with some brilliant folks across the universities and kinda share my name and the research, which this whole industry is built off of relationships (a strange game that privileges certain identities and schools).
For transparency, I applied to 11 faculty jobs across the country and across geography, Black studies and education, got initial phone interviews at 6 and received 3 campus visits. I also applied to 6 postdocs and lowkey, those were also great to hone in on how my interests connect to various types of scholarship. I share this to highlight how fortunate I am to have the prospects and opportunities I have had, which at this point a year ago, I really had no confidence I would be in the position I’m in. With that said, there’s so many folks to thank and uplift across the country who have supported me from academics, friends, mentors, mentees, family, the pup, and more as I took on this journey. Wouldn’t be here without yall, and thankful I still get to grow. This is an exciting start to the next journey, although my dream job is still to be a marine ecologist and photographer so if anyone tryna help me gain the skills for that lmk 👀.
Lastly, I’ll graduate on June 6, 2023 and yall, feel free to support ya boi in moving (somewhere tbd) or just support me in trying to go on a guided photo tour to photograph Sea Wolves in British Columbia this summer here (Venmo: kaleb-germinaro-1). Here are some photos that I’ll leave you with:
GO DR. GERMINARO! Happy for you!! :))