PhD | Rosetta Thurman

“Life is the experiencing of the experience.” – Sarah Susanka

One of my favorite R&B/soul artists is Maxwell, who just released BLACKsummers’night, a long-awaited album after taking an eight-year hiatus from the music scene. The first day it came out on iTunes, I snapped that baby up, and it’s been on repeat in my iPod ever since. One of my favorite songs on the new album is “Stop the World”, a song about being with the one you love while the world rages outside. The lyrics conjure up an image of a couple making the most of their moment together, ignoring whatever is going on around them. The message is so powerful for me – to be present in the moment, that the only time that really exists is Now. That’s been my theme song for the past week while I was on vacation in Hawaii with my boyfriend Jim. We relaxed on the beach on the beautiful island of Oahu, enjoying the sun and the sand and the salt on our faces.

About halfway through the week, I received my final grade from my first PhD class: a big fat C+. Despite earning “A” grades on all my papers, the rest of the coursework – SPSS, research jargon, weekly online discussions – didn’t come to me as easily as I had expected. I’ve never been a C+ student. Ever. I was crushed, but I knew why I didn’t do as well as I could have. I wasn’t willing able to sacrifice enough time to devote to the program like our professors had warned us. I still wanted to hang out with my friends, hit up the happy hours, and go on dates instead of studying constantly. There were times I fell asleep in the library or at 4am propped up in my bed with my laptop tangled up in the blankets after reading what seemed like a gazillion peer-reviewed articles. It probably didn’t help that I also held down four part-time jobs in the process, which is way more flexible, but demands a ton of mental energy. Ordinarily, a C+ wouldn’t be so bad – in undergrad, you just average that sucker out with a few As and Bs. But with a PhD, you only have 2 chances to maintain a 3.0 GPA – meaning next semester I would have to earn an A- just to stay in the program. Instead of putting on additional pressure by killing myself to try to get perfect grades next time, I decided to do something that I have never done in an academic setting before. I hate to even write it down for you dear readers, but then I remember that one of the reasons I write is to find truth.

I quit. Well, not exactly. I took a leave of absence until next May, which is kind of like a deferral, since I won’t have to pay again. I have to thank all of you that sent me such sweet, encouraging messages and emails telling me I could succeed in this new educational journey. You were right to believe in me, but maybe what I learned in this first semester is that maybe I’m not yet ready to begin the journey. I love leadership studies, but maybe this is just my brain telling me an online degree program isn’t for me. Maybe I need to be in the classroom just like my students do, to ask questions and see the expression on my professor’s face when we both learn something from each other.

Or maybe I just need to take a page from my boy Maxwell’s book. When asked why it took him eight years to release his newest album, he said he just needed to “take time off.” All I know is that when I was supposed to be researching, all I wanted to do was have fun and blog and teach and be present. I just wanted someone to come and stop the world so I could look around for a minute. Hopefully by next May I will have figured out a way to reconfigure my life so I can hold it all and start school all over again – on the right foot this time. Right now I feel like I’m saying “no” to school so I can say “yes” to living my best life.

So what am I going to do now? What happens tomorrow, when I should have been starting my second PhD semester? I don’t know. I will probably not go back to working full-time, but read and write and watch all the movies in my Netflix queue instead. What do you do when you don’t know what to do next? I suppose you just be - until the right answer comes and sits down beside you. Because even when you face the potential of failure and take the leap off that cliff, you still have to figure out how to build your wings so you can make it all the way down.

For me, for now, there is still the fresh memory of that one afternoon on Oahu last week when the world stopped for me. We went to the North Shore of the island and it was just the mountains and the palm trees swaying in the wind with infinite possibility. I’m remembering blue-green waves crashing into white sea foam and flat gray rocks kissing the shore. I’m still thinking of the grit of sand in my hair, salt on my lips, and the sky – the sky a great blue wonder smiling down over everything.

Life is a Journey That Parallels: My First Month as a PhD Student

“I believe the single most important thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare. ” – Maya Angelou

Most of you know that I’ve recently gone back to school as a full-time PhD student at Regent University’s School of Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship. I am pursuing the PhD in Organizational Leadership. It’s been about a month since I started my first semester, and it’s high time I gave all of you dear readers an update. In just a month, I’ve learned a lot not only from my PhD program, but about leadership and life itself. I’m grateful to have this blog as a space to reflect.

The Privilege

The first day of my PhD residency, I sat in orientation wondering what in the hell I had gotten myself into. The rigor of the program as presented by our program director and professors was enough to make even the most zealous student turn and run screaming out of the room. It was definitely impressed upon me the serious commitment I had made by accepting the challenge of a PhD program. As the week progressed, however, I began to see the work as both a challenge and a privilege. Only one percent of Americans have PhDs, and now I see why. It is an intense personal and professional endeavor. There would be sacrifices necessary and my already busy lifestyle would become even more hectic with the addition of reading, coursework and research. Our professors indicated that we’d need at least 24 hours per week to complete the reading and coursework related to the program. I was glad I had already made the decision to decrease my hours at work to become a part-time employee at the Nonprofit Roundtable. I wondered how the other students who worked full-time with families would handle the workload. Then I realized that if they could do it, I would be absolutely crazy to complain.

The Challenge(s)

I quickly realized that this PhD program is probably one of the hardest things I will ever do. In undergrad and grad school, I was always an “A” student and pretty much breezed through my time in college. But in this program, my pride is being challenged by having to study much longer and harder just to obtain comprehension of the leadership and research concepts we are studying.Much of the reading has been arduous, since it is all theory-based, and my passion is for the application of it all. One of the texts I really like is Leadership in Organizations by Gary Yukl. I highly recommend it because it nicely blends both leadership theory AND application.

Since Regent University is a Christian school, I’ve also been challenged with applying biblical principles to support ideas about leadership. I had not studied the Bible seriously in many years, though I took both religious studies and philosophy in college and read the entire Bible – Old and New Testaments – many times. But I never had to examine it as critically as I do now in applying Scripture to how people lead their lives. I’ve learned a lot about my own relationship with God through this process. It is difficult, but rewarding.

There’s No Such Thing as School/Work/Life Balance

I’ve learned that there is no such thing as balance, especially when you’re in a PhD program. The best thing is to try as much as possible to integrate each part of your life so that they all work together without sacrificing one for the other. This has been hard for me to swallow, in part because when I first applied to the program, my focus was on getting the degree so that I could do other things to fulfill my purpose, like teaching full-time and publishing research to help nonprofit leaders and people of color. My problem was that I kept thinking of going back to school as a stepping stone to get somewhere else, to this mythical place of professional & financial success. I say mythical because I realized that if I just saw this PhD program as simply a means to get to some higher echelon of my life, I’d be demoralized pretty quickly. There is no instant gratification in pursuing a PhD. It will take two-three years just to finish your coursework, and then at least a year after that to complete your dissertation. I told myself I would have to learn to appreciate both the joys and frustrations of studying in a PhD program. It’s a long-term journey, not something I can just check off my list and be done with it in a year or two.

I was just remarking on Twitter that I feel like I have more time now that I work three part-time jobs versus one full-time job. My time is divided up the way I want it to be, and it’s much easier to set boundaries when you work part-time. I still serve as Director of Development & Special Programs for 20 hours a week. I teach one class a semester on Thursday nights at Trinity University in DC. I get paid to blog career advice for young nonprofit professionals on Jobs for Change through Change.org. In all of these part-time roles, I set my own hours that probably add up to about 30-35 a week, but in the end I get paid about the same salary I was making in my full-time job. And I was also able to negotiate keeping full healthcare benefits. The beauty is that I don’t have to be in an office all the time, and I can still provide value to three organizations with my fundraising, writing, and teaching skills. I remember there were times at my full-time job in fundraising when I felt completely overwhelmed in my office under constant email and piles of to-do lists. There was so much to do, I tended to eat lunch at my desk trying to get it all done. But when you only have 20 hours to spare in a week, all of the must-dos become so clear. My to-do lists became shorter and more impactful for the organization. I focus on writing grant proposals, donor stewardship, and building relationships with current and prospective donors. I take lunch breaks away from the office or take a walk in the park near my job. And when the clock strikes 5pm, I go home.

What I’m trying to get at is the reality that my PhD program, while time-consuming and challenging, is just one part of my life journey that parallels. You live, love, and learn all at once. Your life isn’t out there, after you finish your degree. It’s right here, right now, waiting for you to enjoy each day of it. And sometimes, when you look too far ahead, you can’t see all the great things right in front of you. Once I changed my outlook, I embraced the fact that this life can be an amazing daily journey. It is really up to us to make it so.

My First PhD Research Paper

I told you that I would be posting my research as I go through my program. This first paper was for an assignment to write a popular press article about a leadership issue in organizations. I will probably look back at this amateur effort and laugh. But here it is. It’s really hard for a blogger to become an academic writer! Please feel free to share if you find this article useful. Thank you for growing with me in my PhD journey!

Decentralize or Die: Reshaping Organizational Culture to Maximize Innovation (May 2009)

Photo credit: Chris Seufert