In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, 'VAP' writes:
I'm a new PhD and a VAP at a teaching-focused, undergraduate institution. I find teaching meaningful, but I also found myself over-worked and under-stimulated. My students are great! But they're undergraduates. How do other people deal with this experience, particularly long term? Of course, more teaching experience/more experience with a heavier teaching load will, I'm sure, help – but I'm not sure how significant that help will be.
This is a great query. I was in VAP at my current institution for 6 years before being hired tenure-track, and I faced roughly the situation described here. In fact, I still face something like this situation now that I'm tenured–as I'm still a member of a very small (four-person) department at a school where most of the philosophical discussion I engage in is with undergraduates.
So let me offer a few suggestions on the basis of my own experience. I don't pretend that my strategies will work for everyone. But I hope they at least get a good discussion started, and I am curious to hear how others have handled similar situations!
One thing I learned from my experience as a VAP is that one can learn to appreciate working alone. In fact, I actually found the experience liberating. As a graduate student and in my one-year VAP at a research school, I was always worried what other people would think of my ideas. I'd share ideas with people in conversation or in a draft, and if they got shot-down, sometimes I would give up before I really got started. Working alone in my VAP–with basically no one to get feedback from–was strange at first. But, over time, I found it to be something of a transformative experience. I began trusting myself as a philosopher, following my philosophical whimsy wherever it took me–including to strange (but I think cool) places in physics and metaphysics, and to unexpected places in ethics. To put it another way, working alone encouraged me to take more philosophical risks, and above all, to enjoy it. Would some of my work have been better if I had more feedback? Maybe – but this is something I'm working on now (see below), and I'm not sure I would have ever taken risks I'm happy I took had I not worked so alone. Consequently, I guess my first piece of advice is to try to embrace the level of isolation you may face as a VAP. You may well find it liberating, and it may change your intellectual path in ways you like!
Another strategy I found helpful in my VAP was to treat the classroom as an exciting place to explore ideas–and as a place to refine one's ability to make complex arguments clear and intuitive. Here are a couple of personal examples. My first book-project actually began in a curious way. In my intro to philosophy classes and various ethics classes (both Ethics itself, as well as courses in Business Ethics and Biomedical Ethics), I tended to teach Kantian ethics–for fairly obvious reasons: its an approach to ethics that, at least ideally, undergraduate philosophy students should have some understanding of. Alas, I faced the problem that many of us face: Kant's works are pretty impenetrable, particularly for undergraduates, not to mention professional philosophers (a fair number who have spent entire careers trying to make sense of and justify what in the world Kant is after). Anyway, because I've always been fond of the saying, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it", I made it one of my tasks early in my VAP to put together a lecture on Kant that explained in simple, intuitive terms what in the world I thought Kant is up to. That lecture turned into Section 1 of this paper, which in turn morphed into a much broader research program. My work on free will, simulations, and philosophy of physics came about in a similar way. That, then, is my second suggestion: consider diving into undergraduate teaching in a new way–one that you find stimulating. Chances are, your undergrads will find it stimulating too!
What else can one do in a VAP to increase one's level of intellectual stimulation. A third thing I tried was getting more philosophically involved online. Although I don't discuss philosophy on this blog as much as I used to (for a variety of reasons), for a number of years it was my main outlet for sharing ideas and arguments I thought interesting–and it was stimulating (and rewarding) to be engaged in those discussions.
Finally, last but not least, I have a fourth suggestion–based on something I am now trying for the first time: getting groups of otherwise-isolated philosophers together to hang out, talk shop, and share work. About a year ago (I think), an early-career philosopher at a nearby university sent me an email out of the blue asking if I wanted to meet up for a beer. I said, "Sure", we met up, we became friends, and now, along with some other people in my department and people he knows in the area, we've put together a Tampa Bay philosophers group of sorts–which we've playfully nicknamed 'the New Olympia Academy' (side-note: any Tampa Bay peeps interested in the group should feel free to contact me – the more, the merrier!). As a pretty introverted person, I never would have thought of organizing a group like this on my own–but once my friend mentioned it, it occurred to me that it's a great idea!
Anyway, these are just a few of my suggestions for finding greater intellectual stimulation as a VAP. We're all different, though, so the same strategies might not work for everyone. What about the rest of you who have been in VAPs, particularly at undergraduate-only teaching institutions? Do you have any tips of your own?
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