Stephen Writes a Blog

 

I'm Stephen Stewart and I recently made friends with this Blue Morpho butterfly at a conservatory on a recent trip to Michigan's upper peninsula. 

Blue Morphos in the wild are exceedingly rare, though not so much rare at a conservatory. I'm approaching this blog in the same way - I'm not usually one for this sort of public communication (it's rare from me in the wild), but perhaps I can find some safety in doing this for class, to start (our conservatory). 

I'm a 5th year (or, maybe 3rd year, or maybe 10th year - depends on how you count) PhD student in Purdue's Curriculum Studies program. I've been in the Curriculum Studies program since Spring 2022, and transferred in from the Higher Education program which I began in Fall 2020. All of this, of course, was borne out of the stubbornness I developed after leaving a Media Psychology PhD program at IU in 2016. Okay, it's not all stubbornness, but as I'm diving into learning more about narrative inquiry, I'm trying my hand at the dramatic. Here in the Curriculum Studies program, I'm nearly finished with my coursework and have a solid grasp on where I expect my dissertation to go - I plan to explore the role of student leadership in the curricula machine that is Purdue's College of Engineering, and whether those leadership roles can serve as humanizing/liberator curriucla (In the Friere-Giroux-hooks sense) in what is otherwise a relatively dehumanizing educational experience. Likewise, I'm interested in how these students learn to navigate, and in some cases wield, institutional power.

Outside of my doc program, I have a full-time (often more-than) position as Assistant Director for Student Success and Leadership Development in the College of Engineering at Purdue. In my work, I serve as advisor for the Purdue Engineering Student Council, which hosts the largest student-run career fair in the nation as well as several other events to support the engineering student body. I also advise the Purdue Engineering Presidents' Council, which is comprised of student leaders from all of our engineering student orgs, along with a long list of other duties as assigned. In short, I get to spend a lot of time working with some of our best and brightest students. Prior to this position, I worked in academic advising. Prior to Purdue, I taught public speaking courses at Ivy Tech and Ball State, and also worked for a non-profit called the Financial Health Institute, who provides training and professional development for social workers and other human services professionals - I learned quite a bit there about supporting people through challenges and still carry much of that into the work I do today.

Educationally, I completed a BS in Psychological Sciences at Ball State and an MA in Communication Studies also at BSU. I actually started undegrad as an English Education major - I've always had an interest in being in the classroom, but quickly realized that I preferred the college classroom to the high school setting, and that I was also deeply interested in the human condition and human behavior. Part of this interest in human conditions/behaviors stems from own struggles with ADHD, depression and anxiety - my experience navigating the world with these has dramatically shaped how I teach, research, and otherwise do my job. 

As far as teaching and learning, I've taught several college-level courses: public/presentational speaking, human communication, media literacy, academic and career planning, writing, and recently I've helped support the development of a student-led and student-designed leadership seminar in engineering. I thoroughly enjoy being in the classroom. In fact, one of my struggles in my first PhD program was that I was far more interested in teaching than in doing some of the research I had been recruited to do. Apparently, it's a no-no to tell your very prestigiously published advisor that you're targeting an R2 institution because you'd rather teach than publish - lesson learned: find an advisor who supports your goals! Nowadays, I'm pretty comfortable in my administrative role - but there is a ceiling in administration you can only break through with a PhD; thus why I'm here! Of course, I would potentially be open to other type of roles, especially those focused on teaching, but I think I've pretty firmly decided I'm not interested in the tenure-track gauntlet. 

I hope the previous paragraph doesn't imply I'm not interested in research - although the topics on my research list have varied greatly as function of the several programs I'm in as well as my ADHD (I tend to lose interest in a topic quickly). In my Media Psych program, I studied the cognitive impacts of competitive video games and also of pornography. I have some great cocktail party stories and facts from that time. Here at Purdue, my research interests have veered toward the more pragmatic: I've focused on ways the university can be more accessible to students with ADHD or other mental health concerns as well as how pedagogy can be more responsive. As I've neared my dissertation, I've shifted my focus to closely align with my work for a few reasons: 1) there's only so much time in the day, and doing a PhD on top of a full-time position means that if I can find ways to get that work to synergize, I need to and 2) this help prevent my ADHD from flinging me into a new topic, as my day-to-day work grounds me in that sense. My ADHD also makes due dates difficult for me - I struggle to find motivation until it's absolutely crunch time, so finding ways to align my academic work with my professional work also helps curtail that. I've presented papers at the National Communication Association, International Communication Association, the National Educational Finance Academy, and the American Educational Research Association - but still working on getting a peer-reviewed journal publication.

I'm looking forward to wrapping up my final batch of coursework and getting started on the writing!