December 11, 2024 • 63 mins
Evan Peck returns to discuss his career evolution since our last conversation in 2017. The focus is on his initial choice to join a liberal arts college post-PhD, emphasizing the balance between teaching and research, how his research evolved, and on his career goals then. Evan then talks through his move to the University of Colorado Boulder, detailing his motivations and the strategic thinking behind the transition. He reflects on the impact of his work in responsible computing and data visualization and the importance he places on aligning career choices with personal values and goals. Evan also discussed the nuances of working in different academic environments and how he continues to prioritize student mentorship and educational impact.
Overview
00:00 Intro
03:21 Welcome Back, Evan!
04:33 The Appeal of Liberal Arts Colleges
06:26 Making Academic Paths Visible
09:31 Balancing Teaching and Research
13:21 Shifting Research Interests
22:40 The Move to Colorado
24:40 Integrating Ethics in Computing and Wanting More External Impact
33:50 Reflecting on Post-Tenure Decisions
37:16 Exploring New Opportunities
40:46 The Unexpected Offer
43:34 Transitioning to a Research Institution
47:26 Adapting to a Larger Institution
53:18 Balancing Work and Family
54:30 Reflecting on Career Choices
01:00:16 Final Thoughts and Advice
01:03:05 End
Related Links:
Evan's CU Boulder web page and his personal web page and LinkedIn profile
2017 podcast episode with Evan and his blog post
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Geri (00:05):
Welcome to Changing Academic Life.
I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick and this isa podcast series where academics and
others share their stories, provideideas and provoke discussions about what
we can do individually and collectivelyto change academic life for the better.
(00:29):
When I'm talking with PhD students orearly career researchers about their
career path, . There's one podcastepisode that I always point them to.
And that's my 2017discussion with Evan Peck.
Evan had done his PhD atTufts university in the US.
(00:51):
And he ended up choosing a careerpath at a liberal arts college
called Bucknell university.
Where he knew his passionfor teaching would be valued.
While still being ableto do some research.
And what was really impressive aboutthat episode was the very reflective
and strategic thinking that, thatEvan put into making that choice.
(01:14):
And the clarity in particularthat he had about his values.
And as he talked about in thatepisode, a clarity about the
things that he takes joy in doing.
I love that.
So I was really curious then to see thatafter nine years at Bucknell, Evan moved
to university of Colorado, Boulder.
(01:36):
So I wanted to understand howhe decided on this next move.
Particularly seeing that he'd said in2017, that it may end up being hard
for him to move to somewhere likea research institution having chosen
Bucknell, just recognizing the tradeoffs that all of our choices entail.
(01:58):
And so I'm really happy to bring thisfollow-up conversation with Evan Peck.
Evan is now an associate professor andalso associate chair of undergraduate
studies, which won't surprise youafter listening to this episode in
the information science faculty atuniversity of Colorado, Boulder.
In this episode, he shareshow his career at Bucknell has
(02:20):
unfolded to get to this point.
And this is included things likesetting up an impactful jobs board
initiative as an advocate foracademic careers in art schools.
He talks about how he's researchinterests evolve to focus more
around information visualizationand computing ethics education.
(02:41):
And also this growing feeling ofwanting to have more external impact
in computer science education.
That's sort of triggered someof the, starting to look around.
And so the story of how he actuallyended up at CU Boulder is one of both,
some serendipity and also have somevery clear considerations of what was
(03:04):
important to him and his family andwhat sort of impact he did want to have.
This episode will be joining my listof recommendations to people about
making values led career choices.
Enjoy.
So great to have you againon the podcast, Evan.
I'm really excited to talk to youbecause we last spoke in May 2017, and
(03:32):
I released the episode in August 2017.
My trigger for wanting to talkto you again now is that you've
recently, or last year, you movedto University of Colorado Boulder.
I'm really curious to understand thethinking around that move, given how
much thought you put into the first move.
(03:54):
For context, Can you introduceyourself a little bit to start with?
Evan (04:00):
Yeah, so the last time when we, you know, we did this last time, I
believe it was in Denver, Colorado,
Geri (04:06):
Yeah, actually it was.
That was the conference.
Yeah,
Evan (04:10):
so I was part of an early career workshop there.
And it was really interesting kindof looking back at that is as part of
that career workshop, we articulatesome of our goals and career goals.
And, you know, one of my career goalswas to, I think, make more visible
some of the kind of more diverseacademic paths and in particular at
that time, liberal arts colleges.
Geri (04:32):
mm,
Evan (04:33):
And, for context, in case folks haven't heard that podcast or read
that blog post, you know, liberal artscolleges are undergraduate institutions.
They tend to be smaller.
You have no PhD students.
You have smaller classes.
So there's a real sort of focus, aheavier priority on teaching.
I would say on undergraduate mentorship.
(04:53):
We are the very often almostAlways the academic advisors of
our undergraduate students as well.
So there's a close relationshipbetween undergraduates, um, and faculty.
But also, there's still apriority on scholarship.
So, you know, I was really drawn tothese institutions after graduate
school, because for me, they createdthis really nice balance between teaching
(05:17):
and research, because I knew I wasgoing to invest in teaching, uh, but at
the same time, I didn't want to becomeinvisible in my scholarly community.
I still, you know, was really passionateabout human computer interaction,
increasingly about data visualization,and I wanted the opportunity to
still be able to explore that spaceand have impact in that space.
For me, there was this, youknow, very multidimensional
(05:40):
way of thinking about that.
You know, what's important to me.
What's important to me was, being valuedfor teaching, uh, not feeling like my
investment into teaching would causeproblems for a tenure case, for example.
And, obviously there are familydynamics, you know, where can we live?
Where can we afford?
What does the community look like?
What does the quality of life look like?
(06:01):
Uh, and for all those reasons,uh, you know, I found these
institutions incredibly compelling.
And I, I still think that's the case.
Geri (06:08):
mm.
And I remember running into you acouple of years after that and we were
just saying it was probably in 2019.
And I do remember you sayinghow you were really loving it,
and love the lifestyle there.
Evan (06:25):
Yeah.
And, it's really interesting.
I think that actuallysoon after that podcast.
And between I wrote a blog, a whole blogpost kind of explaining my rationale
for this between that blog post and thepodcast, you know, I started getting more
and more emails from people looking togo in the job market and wanting advice
and how to even find these institutions.
So it actually led me to develop thisat, at the time was a very ad hoc way
(06:49):
of, um, looking at positions onlinethat were coming online and sort of
making visible the ones that I felt likealigned, with these similar priorities
and balances of teaching and research.
And, that whole thing is blownout into a large job board.
And, so it's really interesting tojust even reflect back and see how that
was a catalyst, I think, going forward.
(07:10):
Um, I think I said in that careerdocument I wrote for that, that I
hoped to make these paths visible.
And it was really kind of interestingto read what I was hoping to do then.
Some of it came into fruition.
It was amazing.
Geri (07:22):
Yeah.
That is amazing.
So is the jobs boardstill active, up to date,
Evan (07:30):
Yeah.
So it used to be, it used to be becausebasically what would happen is people
would email me and they would say thingslike, Oh, I find this really interesting.
I'd like to explore this.
I have no idea how tofind these institutions.
But I realized how challenging itcould be if you didn't sort of, if you
weren't there already, um, you didn'tknow what sorts of things to look
for in the job, job advertisements,what kind of institutions, you
(07:51):
know, what are the signals thatmight suggest this kind of balance.
Um, so it started out just melooking at job boards every year
and, I think the first time I madeit, it was a Twitter thread, and
then it was a Medium blog post.
Um, and then I turned it into awebsite, and so, actually now it's
at the point, thankfully, wherethere are other people helping me.
And also, we actually do verylittle of looking around the
(08:13):
job advertisement boards now.
Now, for the most part, departmentscome to us and post things.
Geri (08:20):
Brilliant.
Evan (08:21):
Yeah, so it's been wonderful.
Geri (08:23):
So one of your goals back in 17 about making more visible diverse academic
paths, you can really do a tick on that.
Doesn't mean a complete done tick,but a big step in that direction
then from the sounds of it.
Evan (08:39):
Yeah, and given how I think nonlinear most of our careers are, it's
very rare that you can, you know, say agoal 5 to 7 years ago and then feel like
Geri (08:47):
Yeah.
But probably just putting in aseries of potential job positions or
colleges in a Twitter post didn't feellike a big step in that direction.
It's only in the looking back thatyou can see actually it does really do
that, the helping make that visible.
Evan (09:06):
Yeah, for sure.
And I think that, I mean, it's one ofthose things where I invest more when I
see that people value it more, so, youknow, the Twitter post was because I
wasn't going to build a website withsomething that seemed, that's a lot of
time to invest on something that seemedlike, I don't know how valuable it was,
but, you know, a lot of people found thatreally valuable and then started passing
it along and, know, asking me for more.
(09:27):
So, uh, you know, just slowly evolved.
Geri (09:31):
So that's interesting as well, because one of the things that you
really talked about, in both theblog post that you wrote in 17 and
our podcast conversation, was howat the beginning you thought it was,
Teaching schools or research schools.
And it was one or the other.
(09:54):
What are you hearing from the peoplewho are coming to you, asking for
advice or information or pointers.
What are the values that they'relooking for also somehow connect in that
lovely middle that you've identified?
Evan (10:09):
Yeah.
I mean, I think, I think for many peopleit's, it's, it's often hard to articulate
specifically what the values are.
And maybe it's more I mean,sometimes there's a clear desire for
more teaching oriented positions,a clear desire for more sort of
(10:31):
mentorship with undergraduates.
Other times, I think there is a desireto be in academia, to be a professor, and
realizing that maybe the environment Ijust came out of, let's say a big, very
research heavy institution, just seeingthat that, that isn't a good fit for me.
(10:51):
Uh, so it's almost, I think it'salmost like discovering your values
through counterexamples in some ways.
Geri (10:56):
Yeah,
because you did reflect on both ofthose points, both the you did not
want to be putting in the hours thatyou saw some people doing that you
recognize they might have been happydoing, but you didn't want to do that.
As well as recognising that youreally valued teaching and loved
(11:18):
that and wanted that valued.
Evan (11:20):
Yeah, and, you know, it was really interesting re listening to myself
from seven years ago, which is just ahorrifying exercise for any of us, I
think, but, you know, I think it was true.
I remember that first semester,I mean, your first year
teaching is Really difficult.
You know, you're, especially with ahigher teaching load, you know, you're
doing a bunch of new prep simultaneously.
(11:43):
It's just exhausting.
But I remember feeling at the timethat those hours did not feel nearly
as exhausting as the same hours I wasputting in as at a PhD, you know, there
was something, uh, I think we talkedabout like the feedback loops or, or just,
I think it was just being more alignedwith what I wanted to do at that time.
Um, and it has a huge impacton how burdensome a job feels.
Geri (12:07):
yes, yeah.
And that's a lot of what the burnoutliterature talks about too, that it's
not just working hard or long, it'sthat connection to, or disconnection
to, what's important to you, what youcare about, or feeling like the works
valued are important in some way.
Evan (12:27):
Yeah, exactly.
Geri (12:28):
Yeah.
What else did you have on thegoals on your five to seven
year goals on that document.
I'm just curious.
Evan (12:37):
Yeah, there are a couple of really interesting ones.
Um, let's see here.
I, I know that, yeah, so being anadvocate for academic careers in
art schools was the, was a big one.
Um, there was also thinking about, Iremember putting something about sort of
broadening computer science to invitea broader diversity also of students,
(13:00):
but also Um, and I think this comesfrom more of the HCI human computer
interaction background, thinking abouthow to integrate those perspectives
and do a computer science departmentthat didn't have, you know, a lot of
rich background in those perspectives.
So I think broadening even theview of what computer science
could be was also in there.
Um.
(13:21):
And then, yeah, it's really interestingto see, I also was talking about, at the
time, I did my PhD at Tufts University,I was working on, during my PhD, I
did brain computer interfaces, and inthat document, I was writing about how
do I, how do I be known for somethingother than brain computer interfaces,
Geri (13:38):
Mm.
Evan (13:39):
You know, how do I pivot my research so people don't just see me as the, I
don't just get reviews for a hundredbrain computer interface papers, um,
because I was getting more interestedin data visualization and broadly the
impact of communicating data to wideraudiences at the time, but it was really
hard to kind of shift that identity.
Geri (14:01):
Mm.
Was it because you weren't in lovewith brain computer interfaces as
much as you thought you would beand it was a practical job to get it
done to completion for a thesis tick?
Or what was the desire for a pivot?
Evan (14:20):
I think there are a couple things.
I mean, there are certainly overlapping.
I started getting involved in a coupleof projects during my PhD that were
more related to data visualization.
Um, I think there are alot of pieces going on.
I mean, I think I started to have moreurgency in short term impact among,
(14:42):
you know, people similar to the people Ilived among my my local communities, and
I thought about brain computer interfaces.
I mean, there are a couple of things.
One is just very logistically.
It's really challenging to dowith just undergraduate students.
You really need thatsort of length of peachy.
So there was logisticalchallenges, practical challenges,
but also, you know, I imagine.
Okay, let's imagine my researchvisions come to fruition.
(15:05):
That's 20-30 years from now at the time.
It, it felt like, and then it wouldprobably be accessible primarily
to, you know, the top income earnersfor another 20 years after that.
And, and so it became a littlebit more detached, I think,
from my values in research.
(15:26):
Um, and as I began kind of likedoing a little bit more research in
data visualization, I thought therewas a lot of opportunity there.
It was an important moment, you know,as, as we talk about things like
misinformation, disinformation, more andmore, uh, we lean on data visualization
as a very important mechanism tocommunicate with the public, whether
(15:49):
it's pandemics or climate change.
And I thought that there wereand are clear shortfalls in the
way we communicate these things toeveryday people, diverse communities
with, you know, rich backgrounds,but also, different technology
access and educational background.
And so to me, it was moreof where can I be impactful,
(16:11):
impactful in the people around me.
Um, and even that changedover time, frankly.
Um, you know, when I give talks,I talk about, you know, it's
really interesting looking at
the 2016 election.
The United States is a reallyinteresting moment because that's
when we started, I think, publiclytalking about misinformation,
(16:33):
disinformation, a lot more, um, andsort of public conversations, you
know, I mean, obviously, these scholarshave been talking about for forever,
but that's really when I enteredthe public sphere and I remember
thinking, I could have this long,rich career in data visualization.
Uh, I could, you know, paradearound with papers and give talks
(16:55):
and, I don't know, win best paperawards and have this lauded career.
And I was looking at those voting mapsin which, you know, where I lived before
in Boston, looked the complete inverseto where I lived currently in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, in rural Pennsylvania.
And, you know, it became clear tome that, You know, this isn't some
(17:16):
dramatic insight, but it's obviousthat people there see some kinds of
information fundamentally differently.
And yet all the research I had beendoing, and a lot of the research that
comes out in this field comes from placesthat have very different kind of like
socioeconomic and political identities.
Um, and so I began to have this kindof scary thought that I could be
(17:38):
well lauded in an academic communityand have zero impact in anyone
that lived within 50 miles of me.
Geri (17:44):
Right.
Oh.
Wow.
I see an interesting couple of red threadsthere because having an impact matters
to you and having that more immediatefeedback loop of the impact that you're
having and whether that was from hearingpeople saying the effort in the jobs
(18:08):
board was valuable, which encourageyou to do more to also just recognizing
that if you're going to do a work inthis data viz area, for example, who are
you wanting to have impact on and for?
And is it just for your CVand for your best paper award?
Or, do you actually really want tohave impact on the people around?
(18:31):
You said that it's hard to do researchat a liberal arts college in, not, you
didn't say it was hard to do research.
You said you don't have PhD students.
And so, did that also factor in, likeBCI needed a much more sophisticated
resource set up to do research in thatarea, apart from the impact issues?
(18:55):
And was this also, this pivot,also a way of connecting to a topic
that was pragmatic in the peoplethat you could draw in to help you?
Evan (19:06):
Yeah, I think so.
And I think, you know, I think thatI probably would have ended up there
anyways, but it was certainly a catalyst.
Um, it probably expedited that process.
You know, thinking about what can I thinkthe reality with most undergraduates
and most undergraduates, they want amany undergraduates who are interested
(19:28):
in research, very few of them actuallywant to do it for multiple years.
They're exploring theirown careers themselves.
They want to do research one summerand then an internship next summer.
And so the reality is you have themfor three months, maybe six months.
And so you really have to think,I think, really strategically
about, what is really beneficialfor them within that time.
(19:49):
I can't give them thewhole history of the field.
It's, you know, how do we,um, look at projects that are
doable within that context.
And also how can I expose them to.
Even with I think something likeBCI work, I think part of my mission
and sort of broadening the scope ofhow students think about computing.
(20:09):
know, if I think about waysto chunk up some of that.
BCI work.
One way is okay, let's haveyou focus on building a model.
But that's maybe that's not thebroader view of computer science
that I'm interested in the moment.
You know, I became increasingly interestedin the more the social intersections.
And so, not only am I personallyinterested in this in my scholarship,
(20:30):
but how can then I help my studentssee the way that, uh, technology
really deeply intersects withtheir communities and their cultural
backgrounds and things like that.
Geri (20:41):
Can I just reflect back to you how amazing what you've just said is
because you did not talk about howcan I make best use of these students
in their three months, six monthsworking with me to advance my research
agenda and help me get my papers out.
It was all about how can I thinkstrategically about what's beneficial
(21:05):
to them, or how can I exposethem to new ideas or advances.
That's pretty amazing to havethat orientation to your students.
Evan (21:15):
Yeah.
And I, I do think that maybe this isone of those values that I think draws
people to these kinds of institutions.
I think there are a lot of like mindedpeople at these institutions in which.
You know, research with undergraduatesis seen as a teaching endeavor.
It's part of your research, butit's really fundamentally seen as an
(21:38):
amplifier I think of these students.
Um, and in fact, I, I, I think there'sresearch that 1 of the most high impact
experiences that undergraduates can havein terms of even things like retention
and feelings of belonging in a department.
Um, and so I think that sort ofview of research is different.
(22:00):
Um, but I also think that, I mean,I think there are a lot of us who
sort of feel our long term impact isprobably through our students anyways
Geri (22:08):
Yeah, yeah,
Evan (22:10):
That's our amplifying impact.
Geri (22:12):
yeah.
And you certainly sound likeyou bring a lot of care to
how you engage with students.
So it sounds like you actually reallyYou enjoyed working at Bucknell and,
and also found ways to make it work aswell for the impacts that you wanted
(22:33):
to have and what you wanted to achieve.
And also the lifestyle that you wantedto have in a small community area.
Can you talk about the,the move to Colorado then?
Okay.
Evan (22:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll start out by telling you whatdid not motivate it because one
of my fears when I made this move
Geri (22:52):
Mm mm
Evan (22:53):
is that I have been so vocal publicly for so long
about liberal arts colleges.
I was really concerned it'd be viewedby a lot of people as sort of a,
Uh, I don't know, a rejection ofall the, you know, that something
had gone wrong in that space.
.So it wasn't about moving away from a liberal arts college,
(23:14):
um, or a small college.
And I expect we'll getthere in a little bit.
But, um, in fact, when I was lookingaround a little bit the second
time through, Colorado is the onlynon, I would say the only research
institution I was looking at, um,
and it also wasn't the casethat I think the other one that
(23:35):
the other simple explanation.
I think that that people not hope for,but it's easy to wrap your mind around.
It's, like, Oh, something horriblywrong must have happened, right?
Um, you must have been partof like a toxic environment.
None of that was true either.
Um, I had incredibly supportivecolleagues, especially, you know, being
in human computer interact, uh, in HCI.
(23:56):
That's not always the case in anengineering college, but, you know,
I had incredible support from myassociate dean up to my dean, and so
that that also was not the case.
Geri (24:04):
Yeah.
Evan (24:05):
Um, I think the reality is it's, it's not big, dramatic moments.
It's, I think, slow shifts.
It's really interesting, even, Ithink this is something easy for
my students to reflect on, whereI ask them to think about who
they were five to seven years ago.
(24:27):
You know, and there's a reasonthey would feel horrified
listening to, like, a podcast ofthemselves five or seven years ago.
Right?
Because they shift, and they change.
I mean, they change moredramatically than we probably do it.
But there are little shifts.
Um, you know, soon after, A number ofthings, both personal and professional,
(24:47):
that shifted in slow, in tiny ways,um, soon after our podcast, actually I
had, um, a really lovely undergraduatestudent who worked with me one
summer, and, and she was helpingme actually recreate my HCI course.
She finished her part of thejob, like three weeks early.
(25:10):
So.
In sort of a what do what do I do?
I wasn't expecting this.
So we had her develop a new activityfor introductory computer science
class on responsible computing.
Um, the integrated programmingwith sort of more responsible
computing social impact.
And that led to a yearslong trajectory with me.
(25:30):
In which I became more and more interestedin integrating ethics and social impact
directly into computing curriculum.
And that's been an incrediblemagnifier of my career.
We could spend entire podcasts onthat, but it also, I think, changed
a little bit how I, my own personalmission in computing education.
(25:51):
Um,
you know, I did a lot of work in, in, inchanging core computer science courses
to integrate social responsibilitydirectly into their curriculum.
Geri (26:03):
Mm.
Evan (26:05):
And I've been fortunate that that has amplified my career
in a number of different ways.
And, , a lot of folks have used thatmaterial, but it also, I think that
when I zoomed out and started thinkingabout this problem more deeply, and how
do we make computing a more responsibleand socially impactful discipline, I
think, yes, changing computer scienceis necessary, but also, I think it means
(26:32):
that computer science can't do it alone.
You know, we really desperatelyneed these other disciplines
involved in this initiative andthe social sciences and humanities.
And so I became interested in.
You know, what are ways in which educationcan serve a wider body of students?
How can we get students to talkabout artificial intelligence
(26:53):
without taking two calculus coursesin a linear algebra course first?
It's impacting their jobs.
It's going to impact their communities.
We need to give them avenues to do that.
Um, and you know, I think when you'rein a computer science department in
engineering college, I think thatphilosophically everyone agrees, but
it's really hard to structurally pull offthat wider view at the same time, which
(27:16):
computer science departments are gettingcrushed with enrollment and you're barely
able to hold down your core coursesand your fundamental goal is to be an
engineering computer science program.
So I think increasingly, I felt that
it was hard for me to have the largerexternal impact in this space or to
(27:38):
explore different iterations of courses,and so I think that that was just
little, you know, little friction points.
If I kind of pitch the same ideas to folksat my institution, I think we'd all agree.
Right?
Um, so this wasn't people saying, Oh,no, we don't believe in this vision.
But it's really challenging.
And so I think there's a little bitof a tension also between do I want
(28:01):
my career to be focused on internalimpact versus external impact?
And what's the balance there?
Um, that's really challenging towork out because I believe in both.
Um, so that that is certainly one piece.
Um.
And then I think that, you know, aswe were talking about on the data viz
research side, I think last time we metin Glasgow, we were actually presenting a
(28:27):
best paper award that was really valuable.
Um, driven by myself and threeundergraduate students in which
they went and they did interviewsin rural Pennsylvania with people
and brought charts and graphsto them and just talk to them.
And it really kind of pushed backa little bit on really common ways
of conceptualizing or simplifyingvisualization design , like simple rules.
(28:50):
We found that, for example, that people,probably not surprisingly, but it
didn't matter how you designed a graph.
If people found personal resonancewith it, if they saw their community,
the reflective, they saw their ownpersonal issues reflected in the graph.
That's what drew their attention.
Geri (29:05):
mm
Evan (29:06):
Um, and so I think that partially through the responsible computing
initiatives, which I think we'regetting increased external visibility
through, you know, that initiative andtrying to create data visualization
for a wider set of people and datacommunication for wider set of people.
(29:26):
I began to feel like I could have astronger external voice, um, but it was
really, it was increasingly challengingto negotiate that with, I think just
the kind of the structural realitiesof being a computer science department
that's overloaded with students.
Um, and my core responsibility there is toserve that department and that means, you
(29:48):
know, teaching a lot of core CS classes.
That means advising more and more studentsevery year because that's what's needed.
Um, and I didn't want to, I didn'twant to do badly at that job.
But that's one way to maintain that, I
Geri (30:05):
mm.
Evan (30:06):
External impact is you sort of cut corners other places,
Geri (30:10):
Yes.
Yeah.
Evan (30:11):
I felt like that was the core mission of the institution
that didn't settle with me.
So I began to feel those tensions.
I think more and more.
Personally, we began to feeldistance from family more and more.
We weren't near either of our families.
Um, because the Bucknall's ruralsetting, you don't aren't an
easy access to an airport either.
(30:32):
So we began to feel that more.
And so it's just, it's anaccumulation of little things.
Um, my wife would be quick totell you that I have always
adored being near cities.
I think probably morethan the average person.
You know, I think a good way toput it is that when you're an
assistant professor, you have thiswhen I wrote that document, right?
(30:55):
Tenure is sort of thecarrot in front of you.
It's this big benchmark.
Um, and a lot of your goals are orientedto this really, substantial moment
in your life, which your institutiondecides whether they keep you or not.
And then you pass thatyou pass that hurdle.
And then you say, Oh, what, what arethe next 30 years of my life look like?
Geri (31:18):
That's interesting.
That is a theme I hear quiteoften with people that, in terms
of career transitions and reallyimportant inflection points.
It's not just the getting tenure,but it's what happens after tenure,
it's because it's that space togo, Oh, now that I've done that,
(31:39):
what do I really want to work on?
Evan (31:41):
Yeah.
And it was probably amplifiedbecause, I celebrated with
my colleagues getting tenure.
And then three weeks later, theworld shut down with the pandemic.
Uh,
Geri (31:49):
yeah,
Evan (31:50):
So, you know, in terms of times in which people get really reflective about
their careers and where they're headed.
I think that that wascertainly those two things
Geri (31:58):
Oh, so that's another little coincident.
Um, you know, you said the smallthings that all just added up.
Evan (32:05):
Yeah.
Geri (32:07):
Can I just digress very quickly for a tick, and I'm curious about
what were the criteria that you had tomeasure against for your tenure case
Evan (32:20):
I mean, excellence in teaching is important.
Geri (32:22):
a core thing?
Was it core, given the community,Liberal Arts Community College?
Evan (32:29):
I think that is common there.
I think maybe somewhat surprisinglyto some people, I would say the main
anxiety that most faculty feel isactually still around the research
side, because there's still expectedpublications and engagement with research.
At most liberal arts colleges, there'snot an expectation for grants, although
that's external funding, althoughthat's considered a bonus and nice
(32:50):
to see as just like more evidence.
Yeah, there was an expectation ofan engagement of engagement there.
And scholarly productivity, certainly.
Um, and that varies dramatically,I would say, between liberal arts
institutions, um, partially dependingon how low or high your teaching
load is and the institutionalresources and things like that.
Geri (33:11):
Were you stressed about it at all, or was it just a process to go through?
Evan (33:17):
I probably was less so than most faculty.
I had had some.
Um, I think some scholarlywins that I think made me feel,
I think, pretty comfortable.
Um, certainly that, that paperand that, that paper at CHI, that
one year won a best paper awardwith undergraduate students.
(33:37):
And so it just felt like a kindof a check mark on that side.
Um, so I was really fortunate tonot feel the same kind of stress
that I think is more common.
Geri (33:48):
Hmm.
So you get your tenure, and Iknow as you said, a little while
after, the world shuts down.
And, if I go back to your 2017 blogpost, like your data visualization
is a lovely strong thread, becauseeven in this blog post, you've got
all these lovely visualizationsof your hand drawn sort of things.
(34:09):
So one of the things that you havethere is a bit of a mind map or
whatever of all of the questions andcriteria you were asking yourself in
considering about a next career step.
What did you do post tenure thenin terms of that sort of reflective
process or working out what the criteriafor, because it feels like a lot of
(34:32):
these little small things were comingtogether to just say it might be
time to start looking somewhere else.
Um,
Evan (34:40):
Yeah And I would say another thing that that helped transition those into
maybes into a little bit more actionwas, I think the last time we on the
podcast, I had a, I don't know, a fiveyear old son and a one year old daughter.
And now I had a son that wasgetting close to middle school age
and, I had a daughter that wasabout to enter elementary school.
(35:02):
And, In talking to my wife, you know,it was really important to us to not,
like for us, we didn't want to do a bigtransition if ever happened in the future.
We didn't want to do it while theywere partway through middle school
or partway through high school.
Um, so it actually felt like there wasa little bit of a, at least for us, a
little bit of a ticking clock of, well,if we explore this, maybe now is actually
(35:25):
the moment in which we do explore it.
Geri (35:28):
So actually lots of things came together in an interesting way.
Evan (35:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was a convergence and, Ithink that we went into that
process, um, very open to the ideaand actually probably expecting
that we would stay where we were.
I think there were alot of reasons to stay.
We had an incredibly lovelycommunity, um, a good institution.
I have wonderful colleagues.
(35:52):
Um, but you know, I think it was importantfor me increasingly to, you know, you
get those, those grasses, greener itches.
Geri (36:02):
Um,
Evan (36:04):
And I was like, I need to make sure the grass isn't greener.
Although it's interesting, you know,one of my good friends, at the time
he said to me something which I thinkwas very true and actually helped
inform the way I thought about it.
He said, you know, it's probablyunlikely the grass is greener.
Anywhere.
So you probably want to just seeif you like the color better.
Geri (36:26):
The different sort of green rather
Evan (36:28):
Yeah,
Geri (36:29):
than or whatever green.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it is just, I don't know that havingthe wherewithal to even recognize that
there's this little bit of a, um, um, youknow, um, there's more you want to do,
and also the timing and the opportunity.
Evan (36:49):
Yeah.
I think it's hard to tease out whatis factors of my, you know, what will
change with my environment changesversus, you know, maybe there's
just work I need to do to make sureI'm happier, you know, more content.
Geri (37:02):
Yeah,
Evan (37:03):
You know, it reminds me of like being in relationships, you know,
sometimes where you know, is this ame problem or is this an us problem?
Geri (37:11):
yes, yeah.
So, you started then activelylooking or just keeping an
eye or what happened next?
Evan (37:23):
I decided I went on sabbatical.
I did sabbatical with the MITvisualization group at MIT.
Um, and I think after that, I decidedto at least, you know, this is the time
to kind of maybe at least look around to
Geri (37:36):
And you got your city fix again.
Evan (37:38):
Yeah.
Um, And, uh, we had sort of achecklist, you know, it wouldn't,
you know, we're generally happy.
It wouldn't be worth moving unless right.
So, like, it wouldn't be worth movingunless we're no further away from family.
It wouldn't be worth moving unlessit was in a place that had, let's
(38:00):
say, better access to airports or,or, you know, suburban or urban
environments or things like that.
Um, it wouldn't be worth movingunless we felt like it was a
significant professional change.
I think that's partly why we thoughtwe might stay because, you know, it's
hard to check off a lot of these boxes.
Um, but I had a huge benefit ofthat, you know, because I've been
(38:20):
plugged into these community, youknow, you have a lot of benefits
after being in academia for a while.
You kind of know about a lot ofinstitutions, you know, people there
and you have a much, I think, strongersense of not only places that you
would value, but also places thatyou think would value you as well.
Um, so we started out very, veryhighly selective search process.
(38:43):
Um, you know, four or five institutionsthat I was curious about and almost
all of them were liberal arts collegesand some teaching track colleges even.
I didn't want to limit it toa particular kind of position.
Um, I thought, frankly, if you'd askedme at the beginning, I thought I would
end up at another liberal arts college,possibly just in a different location
(39:06):
with a slightly different emphasis thatmight allow me to pursue the social
context of computing a little bit more.
Um, that's probably whatI would have guessed.
Geri (39:15):
So you weren't, you weren't aiming necessarily to move into
a research intensive institution
Evan (39:24):
No, and in fact, I can tell you at that time, because I'd been at a liberal
arts college, and because I hadn'tpursued a lot of external funding, I
didn't think that was a viable option.
Geri (39:35):
Right.
Because I remember you saying in 17that you thought that that could be
one of the, you know, there are alwaystrade offs to any decision and one of
the trade offs in going to a liberalarts may be that it's harder to move
then into research institution.
Evan (39:52):
And in part, particularly because I had already, I was tenured, and I didn't
want to reset that clock, um, and goback to being untenured somewhere and go
through that whole thing all over again.
So I think it probably would have beeneasier to, to conceptualize if I was
willing to kind of concede that, um.
But because I wasn't, I actuallydidn't really have it on the radar.
(40:16):
Um, I was interested, I think there arenow, you know, very different from last
time actually, now there are dedicatedteaching track positions at universities
that are much more compelling now thanthey were the first time we talked.
Particularly in computer science,I think the pay has gotten better.
The opportunities forscholarship has gotten better.
The teaching load has gotten better.
And so I actually, you know, I wasopen to some teaching track positions.
(40:39):
Um, and, you know, incrediblehappenstance, I was talking to.
You know, a colleague at C.U.
Boulder, because I was even opento, you know, if I'm going to just
explore my career options, I'd like tojust explore what else is out there.
So I was talking to a colleague, notthinking about them as a destination,
because I didn't think that wasviable, because we had similar
(41:02):
interests, basically saying, hey,you're pretty plugged into what's
going on in the industry, ifyou see something really cool and
interesting, just pass it along my way.
What
Geri (41:12):
In industry.
So you were even looking at industry
Evan (41:16):
I probably not, but I was, you know, I was curious, yeah, there's
interesting things along the lines, youknow, if, if it checked those boxes of,
you know, allowed me to, especially causeI think there are some more educational
interesting, there's some like, Applehas some interesting educational
initiatives and Microsoft had, so Icould imagine myself maybe being in a
place like that where you get to thesecompanies that are, you know, molding
(41:40):
a little bit of technical education.
And if you could have a voice inthat would be really interesting
and compelling space too.
Um, so I think educationalmission was a big.
A big thing too.
So, you know, I, I was lookingat, you know, the Bard's college,
they've had really interesting,unique educational missions.
A couple of teaching trackplaces that really interesting,
unique educational missions.
(42:01):
So I asked his colleague this and,um, what I didn't, I really realize
is, they really needed a visualizationperson in their department.
Um, I think their department, I guessI can say we are a department now, but
at the time it was their departmentthat I think values teaching pretty
(42:22):
heavily I think for a traditionalresearch department, um, they're
folks I'd intersected with for years.
And so I mean, the, the, the bigcurve ball in my process was, they
reached out to me, um, and theymade the pitch to me initially.
Geri (42:39):
Mm
Evan (42:39):
And so it was not something that I could have ever predicted, and
this is where my, my, my wife's entirefamily's from is from the Denver area.
It was just a wild set of circumstancesand, you know, the shift from being an
information science department in whichyou aren't beholden to the calculus pre
reqs or, you know, the physics pre reqs,but you can really sort of envision.
(43:02):
And be with a group of people that Ithink their core value is to envision
what is an ethical social, whatis an ethical future of computing?
And how does that intersect withkind of our social communities.
And having people i, you know,seen it from a distance just do
incredibly inspiring scholarshipin this space for years.
And then I think seeing how theyvalue the undergraduate educational
(43:24):
experience, and finding out that,you know, what my scholarship and my
work could be translated there and Icould shift over there with tenure.
So it
Geri (43:33):
mm
Evan (43:34):
you know, I think the surprising thing to most people is that in the end,
I was debating between an offer betweena teaching track position, a liberal
arts college and a research institution.
Um, and they are so structurally,they are so radically different.
But, when I measure them againstthe things that I was valuing,
they were the three most compellingplaces to me, despite those
(43:59):
dramatic structural differences.
Geri (44:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
I love the, you said about happenstanceand that again, like that's a story
I just hear so often about, you justnever know and just making needs known.
That sounds amazing, the way it'sworked out and connected to both the
(44:24):
pivot that you're making in the, datavisualization and the way that you
want to play it out, as well as thatreally strong emphasis still on valuing
education and being able to have thatbroader impact that you want to have.
Evan (44:39):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I'm now the associate chair ofundergraduate studies in the department,
so it's it's a really a continuity.
I don't, I mean, there are thingsabout my job that are very different,
but a lot of I think the things Icare about, they're still very clear
threads from my prior institution.
So that's why.
Geri (44:56):
Did you volunteer for that role?
Evan (45:00):
They asked me if I'd be interested in it, not during the job hunt, but
I sort of suspect that was maybe likean undercurrent of maybe why um, uh,
Geri (45:11):
Because you've always been clear you've had a passion for computing
science education or education.
Evan (45:18):
yeah, and, and I, I love the vision of the department, you
know, I love, um, it's really.
Interesting to be in a department inwhich we have very few to no pre reqs
in most of these courses, so if youare a student in a different field and
you want to get that access to AI ormachine learning, and you don't want to
(45:39):
compete with the computer science studentsor take all these technical courses
first, um, we are the avenue for that.
And I've said that I find alsoit really compelling being in
a public state institution.
I think there is an inherentpublic mission to these institutions
that I find really compelling.
Um, that doesn't mean that they haveless problems in other institutions.
(46:01):
That's that's for sure.
But I, I find that the core mission of theinstitution is to serve, you know, all the
people in Colorado is really a compellingeducational mission for me as well.
Um, so I find that really interesting.
Geri (46:14):
um, that also sounds very inclusive when it's information
science and you have the ability totake in people from diverse backgrounds.
Which also means it goes to that, um,expanding the impact on different ways
of thinking or people with differentbackgrounds as well and where they
might then go off to afterwards.
Evan (46:34):
Yeah, I think it's really interesting being able to.
I think have a curriculum that canserve a student body that isn't going to
necessarily end up in software development
Geri (46:45):
mm, mm,
Evan (46:46):
engineering positions, but I don't know, they could end up in tech policy.
They could end up in, youknow, just, I don't know.
We've folks from psychology aretaking our courses and folks from.
You're interested in climate change,taking our courses and folks that
are interested in more communityorganizations, taking our courses.
And I think to me, that's a reallyinteresting vision of computing.
(47:07):
Um, because yes, it has.
I think the change has to happenin computer science, but, um,
it has to happen on both sides.
Geri (47:13):
Yeah.
And that, as you said, thatsort of impact, the broadening
out is really valuable.
Like, , Engaging more and more peoplewith notions of responsible thinking
around these new technologies.
What have been some of the biggestdifferences for you in like moving from
one institution to the other in yourrole, because you're still ostensibly
(47:38):
an associate professor in each place.
Um, and I know that the one'sa computer science, one's an
information science, but what arethe other sort of key differences?
Evan (47:49):
There's the, there's the big and obvious ones, which is, so having,
you know, PhD students and master'sstudents and, having a research lab.
I mean, I had a, an undergraduate researchlab, but it's a different sort of, it's
a different flavor of research, I think,and thinking about mentorship on the scale
of five years instead of five months, I
Geri (48:06):
I was just going to say it's the time scale in particular, isn't it?
Because you just said three to sixmonths for your undergraduates.
Evan (48:13):
Yeah.
And really thinking about.
You know how difficult that journeyis for many graduate students
and how dramatically advisorrelationships impacts that journey.
Um, so , that's a pretty significant,I think, shift and, uh, you
know, responsibility in a wholedifferent direction, I think.
Um, thinking about, you know, how do
Geri (48:32):
How are you engaging in that?
Like, are there courses to take or are youreading books or, talking to colleagues?
Like, how are you?
Evan (48:42):
definitely talking a lot to colleagues.
you know, one thingthat I think is really..
I think there have been some folkswho've been really thoughtful
and, uh, particularly in HCI.
There are a lot of people who writea lot of really detailed almost
lab manuals for their labs now.
But it gets across not only the,you know, what we do here, but it's
(49:02):
sort of our values and our visionand things like work life balance.
And I think there's been a realrecent shift where I think there are
a lot of advisors being really muchmore direct and talking about these
things out in the open and in public.
So part of it's really, Ithink, learning from them.
There's a shred of it of, youknow, based on, my own experience
and colleagues around me.
(49:24):
I try not to extrapolate that too much.
Understanding our ownexperiences, our own experience.
Uh,
Geri (49:32):
Yeah.
Evan (49:32):
can certainly resonate with, you know, graduate school is long.
And it's, it's probably unlikely you'regoing to feel great during all of it.
And it's unlikely that you'refeeling productive during all of it.
Geri (49:45):
If only.
Evan (49:46):
I know
Geri (49:47):
I know that would be an unrealistic world.
But have there been anyparticular challenges?
Evan (49:55):
I'd say, I mean, it's it's an entirely different context.
I mean, this, the scale is forevery 1 student at Bucknell.
There are 10 students in Boulder
Geri (50:04):
Mm hmm.
Evan (50:05):
Um, so you're talking about you know, an institution of, you
know, 3000 to more than 30, 000.
And that brings opportunities that'swhy an information science department
can exist because of that scale.
Um, it'd probably be hard to createsomething that a tiny institution
because you already have computerscience and things like that.
And so it gives space for that.
(50:27):
But it's also, I mean, there is somereal benefit to tiny institutions and
that you necessarily bump into andour own community with people from
all kinds of disciplines because yeah.
Those are just the people around you.
I think, I mean, there's certainlydepartmental silos in liberal
arts institutions, but almostmore from a structural sense.
(50:48):
And I'd say almost a little less.
So from a community sense,you're in meetings with folks
from all over the place.
You're probably on committees from folksfrom the humanities and social sciences.
And, and so I think these are things Ihave to be a lot more deliberate about,
I see, it's much easier just to kind ofstay in my building and yeah, it's much
easier to kind of create your own little,uh, little palace or, you know, our work
(51:13):
environment and not have those sorts ofintegrations, but those were incredibly
valuable to me at Bucknell to see my, seeour student experiences through different
eyes, to see it the institutionalexperience or different eyes.
Um, so I think that's one piecethat will take quite a bit longer
to, I think, foster and develop.
(51:34):
And I have to be a little bitmore, I think, direct about that.
Geri (51:38):
Because in your role as the director of education or whatever
the exact title is, how do youunderstand the student experience to
help shape that as well becomes a scaleproblem, a scale challenge as well.
Evan (51:53):
Yeah, and somewhat ironically, where our information science
department is still small enough thatit's actually size wise, pretty not
too much different from what I wasused to at Bucknell CS department.
So departmental size actually is roughlysimilar in terms of students and faculty.
Um, but you know, anotherreally interesting change on
(52:14):
the student experience side.
Even though it saves me loads oftime and is a relief sometimes,
is, big institutions haveprofessional academic advisors.
Uh, where I was the academicadvisor for my students at Bucknell.
Um, and yeah, that took a lot oftime, but you learn a lot about
student experience when you aretheir academic advisor, their
(52:36):
experience for different classes.
I was telling a colleague, you know,this is the first year I haven't had a
student cry in my office about calculus.
Um, um, but I feel like you know,I think that that's another thing
you have to be more, I think.
You know, directly chased down a littlemore, you might not get as organically,
(52:58):
you know, I had to sit down with a groupof undergraduates at the end of the
semester just to chat with them for awhile, you know, and before those were
things that just would have happened,
Geri (53:05):
Yeah.
Just, yeah.
Evan (53:07):
it's like, let's put it on a calendar.
Geri (53:09):
Yeah.
Well, it sounds like thingsare going amazingly well.
And how are the working hoursrelative, if you're taking on a
bigger responsibility as well andsetting up a new lab, because I
know that that was really importantsort of family time and community,
(53:32):
how are those aspects working out?
Evan (53:35):
I think it's, I think it's pretty similar.
Um, because you're teachingless, they're less, uh, uh,
you know, immovable class time.
Things on your schedule.
One thing that I think was less commonat Bucknell, but more common at CU.
And I think among many similarinstitutions is, you know, I'll work
(53:59):
for home from home one day a week.
And so that's actually relatively, youknow, I can kind of shift all my, you
know, get, you know, assign my meeting.
So it's not, it's not less meetings.
It's not less scheduled time, but there isa little bit more, I think, a little bit
more flexibility in the terms of those.
Um, and certainly the startstarting up costs are always
(54:21):
high, no matter where you are.
Geri (54:22):
Yeah.
Evan (54:23):
you know, um, little, little crazy at first, but.
Geri (54:27):
Yeah.
Any regrets at all about any of thechoices that you've made along the
way as you look back and reflect?
Evan (54:42):
I don't know and I don't know if that's confirmation bias.
Maybe I just want to be thehero of my own story, but
Geri (54:47):
Well, I know, and I'm, as I'm asking that question, I'm thinking
that's a really dumb question
because you only can ever make the bestchoice at the time and when you made
choices they were so well consideredand I think you're a like a role model
in making those choices work for youas well, shaped by a clarity about
(55:09):
your values and what's important.
Um,
Evan (55:12):
you know, I hope that that's the piece that comes through um,
because certainly, you know, I, Icertainly still get a fair number of
emails and have conversations withpeople who are entering the job market
and just want to chat about these
Geri (55:30):
Um,
Evan (55:31):
and I don't know.
I don't know how replicableanyone's path is, right?
Um, I feel like I always have to saythis all the time, because they'll
ask me questions like, well, howeasy or hard is it to shift from
liberal arts schools to research?
And it's like, I don't, I'm notcompletely sure, you know, I mean,
I can tell you about my personalexperience and the way it worked out
(55:53):
and why it worked out the way it did.
Um, but, uh, yeah.
Geri (55:58):
the fact that you can play out your position in either institution in
very different ways because you could becoming to a research intensive institution
and just be really focused on theresearch, but you're still finding ways to
be really focused on education and impactand all those things you care about.
(56:18):
So you're still bringingthose things with you.
The, the shift of institutions has,sounds like it's just opened up the
opportunities or changed the opportunitiesfor the ways that you might express
them or the different types of impactyou can have that fit with where, how
your thinking was evolving as well.
Evan (56:43):
I mean, like I said at the beginning, you know, I worry that
sometimes my shift is interpreted as myvalues changing or some criticism of some
sort of boxer bin, but it's less than Ithink my, my values were relatively were
relatively consistent, maybe reweighteda little bit, you know, um, and like
I said, when I was looking at offers atan amazing liberal arts college, this,
(57:05):
this teaching track position, which Ithought had this incredible educational
mission was also incredibly compelling.
Had some wonderful, um,research opportunities as well.
And, and, and this university, I mean, Ithink they're so dramatically different.
I mean, orders of magnitudeof difference in students.
The way the positions are conceptualized,but, you know, if I think about
(57:27):
almost like mapping things in space,based on my values and not on those
structural pieces, they were thecluster that were right, very similar.
And it was a, it was areally difficult decision.
Um, uh, and that, that'sthe piece that, you know.
I wish was easier for people to navigate.
(57:47):
Um, because even I think hearingall that it's, it's still
not easy to navigate at all.
I mean, we still have this circumstancewhere even if let's talk about even like
research institutions versus liberalarts colleges, they're hiring deadline.
They're often offset by four months now.
Um, it's actually not possible tothink, look at them simultaneously
(58:07):
for most graduating PhD students.
Geri (58:10):
Yeah.
Evan (58:11):
And like I said before, you know, I entered job market in a field that
was under high demand at the time.
And so, Even having the luxuryof comparing so directly
Geri (58:22):
Mm.
Evan (58:23):
uh, you know, that, that is a privilege by itself.
And I'm, I'm sure there are people whohear us professors talk about our job
experiences and just roll their eyesinto the back of their heads, right?
Because of how just brutal and competitivethe job market is and how the luxury
of choosing between places isn't evena conversation most people get to have.
Geri (58:43):
Mm.
But I think what you've talked aboutraises attention to the importance
of not focusing on, I don't know,like the title or the institution or
the structural aspects, but whereverit is, what does it enable me to do?
(59:04):
How does it connect towhat's important to me?
Evan (59:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I also just believe that you'llbe most effective and probably long
term in those positions anyways.
You know, I actually don't thinkyou could have inverted my career.
Like, I don't think that I couldhave started at CU Boulder.
And, um, I think Bucknell was theright place for me at that time.
(59:28):
Um.
And certainly, you know, I think part ofthe reason that I was able to have choice
the second time around was because peopleknew me for investing in undergraduate
experiences in undergraduate education.
People knew me for responsible computingand, and, and those initiatives.
Um, And I would I have gone downthose pathways at another institution?
(59:49):
Maybe probably not.
But you know, those those openthe doors for opportunities
to other places later on.
Um, because those were important to me.
And so in some ways, it waslike I was, uh, you know, my
work was publicizing my values.
Geri (01:00:04):
yes, yes,
Evan (01:00:06):
Um, so I knew that places interested in those things would
probably be interested in, you know,I would be interested in them as well.
Geri (01:00:12):
mm, mm, lovely.
Are there any things that wehaven't talked about that you'd
want to mention before we wrap?
Evan (01:00:24):
Uh, nothing off the top of my head.
I feel like I've blathered on quite a bit.
Geri (01:00:31):
So, I said before we started recording, I point my PhD students and
early career people to your previouspodcast episode all the time because
of just how you talked about that,the whole decision making process.
you know, like the way you reasonthrough what was important to you and
(01:00:55):
how you weighed them up and so on.
And, the way that you'vebeen able to make it work.
And I think, uh, this will be joiningthe, the list of recommendations because,
yeah, I love just how strategicallyreflective you are while still being
true to you in all of this process.
(01:01:16):
And, and the impact that you're having.
Evan (01:01:20):
yeah, I do think that there is, and maybe this is partially because of, you
know, when I came out with my PhD, we wereat the peak moment in which CS PhDs are
getting gobbled up on the industry market.
And so I think for me, even makingthe choice of academia was saying,
I really need to have a mission anda set of values behind this position
(01:01:43):
because I'm giving up a lot of material
Geri (01:01:45):
Mm.
Oh, yes.
Evan (01:01:48):
And so I think that that sort of helped that reweighting towards it.
This, this needs to be important to me.
Geri (01:01:54):
Yeah.
Well, Evan, thank you very much fortalking with me again and all the very
best in this new career path, next
Evan (01:02:03):
Yeah, this was, yeah, this was great.
It was really interesting reflecting backon seven years ago when we talked before.
Um, um, yeah, this was reallylovely and thank you for having me.
Geri (01:02:15):
It's my pleasure.
Thank you.
You can find the summary notes,a transcript, and related
links for this podcast on www.
changingacademiclife.
com.
You can also subscribe toChanging Academic Life on iTunes,
Spotify, and Google Podcasts.
(01:02:36):
And I'm really hoping that we canwiden the conversation about how
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And you can contribute to this by ratingthe podcast and also giving feedback.
And if something connected with you,please consider sharing this podcast
with your colleagues together.
We can make change happen.
Welcome to Changing Academic Life.
I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick and this isa podcast series where academics and
others share their stories, provideideas and provoke discussions about what
we can do individually and collectivelyto change academic life for the better.
(00:29):
When I'm talking with PhD students orearly career researchers about their
career path, . There's one podcastepisode that I always point them to.
And that's my 2017discussion with Evan Peck.
Evan had done his PhD atTufts university in the US.
(00:51):
And he ended up choosing a careerpath at a liberal arts college
called Bucknell university.
Where he knew his passionfor teaching would be valued.
While still being ableto do some research.
And what was really impressive aboutthat episode was the very reflective
and strategic thinking that, thatEvan put into making that choice.
(01:14):
And the clarity in particularthat he had about his values.
And as he talked about in thatepisode, a clarity about the
things that he takes joy in doing.
I love that.
So I was really curious then to see thatafter nine years at Bucknell, Evan moved
to university of Colorado, Boulder.
(01:36):
So I wanted to understand howhe decided on this next move.
Particularly seeing that he'd said in2017, that it may end up being hard
for him to move to somewhere likea research institution having chosen
Bucknell, just recognizing the tradeoffs that all of our choices entail.
(01:58):
And so I'm really happy to bring thisfollow-up conversation with Evan Peck.
Evan is now an associate professor andalso associate chair of undergraduate
studies, which won't surprise youafter listening to this episode in
the information science faculty atuniversity of Colorado, Boulder.
In this episode, he shareshow his career at Bucknell has
(02:20):
unfolded to get to this point.
And this is included things likesetting up an impactful jobs board
initiative as an advocate foracademic careers in art schools.
He talks about how he's researchinterests evolve to focus more
around information visualizationand computing ethics education.
(02:41):
And also this growing feeling ofwanting to have more external impact
in computer science education.
That's sort of triggered someof the, starting to look around.
And so the story of how he actuallyended up at CU Boulder is one of both,
some serendipity and also have somevery clear considerations of what was
(03:04):
important to him and his family andwhat sort of impact he did want to have.
This episode will be joining my listof recommendations to people about
making values led career choices.
Enjoy.
So great to have you againon the podcast, Evan.
I'm really excited to talk to youbecause we last spoke in May 2017, and
(03:32):
I released the episode in August 2017.
My trigger for wanting to talkto you again now is that you've
recently, or last year, you movedto University of Colorado Boulder.
I'm really curious to understand thethinking around that move, given how
much thought you put into the first move.
(03:54):
For context, Can you introduceyourself a little bit to start with?
Evan (04:00):
Yeah, so the last time when we, you know, we did this last time, I
believe it was in Denver, Colorado,
Geri (04:06):
Yeah, actually it was.
That was the conference.
Yeah,
Evan (04:10):
so I was part of an early career workshop there.
And it was really interesting kindof looking back at that is as part of
that career workshop, we articulatesome of our goals and career goals.
And, you know, one of my career goalswas to, I think, make more visible
some of the kind of more diverseacademic paths and in particular at
that time, liberal arts colleges.
Geri (04:32):
mm,
Evan (04:33):
And, for context, in case folks haven't heard that podcast or read
that blog post, you know, liberal artscolleges are undergraduate institutions.
They tend to be smaller.
You have no PhD students.
You have smaller classes.
So there's a real sort of focus, aheavier priority on teaching.
I would say on undergraduate mentorship.
(04:53):
We are the very often almostAlways the academic advisors of
our undergraduate students as well.
So there's a close relationshipbetween undergraduates, um, and faculty.
But also, there's still apriority on scholarship.
So, you know, I was really drawn tothese institutions after graduate
school, because for me, they createdthis really nice balance between teaching
(05:17):
and research, because I knew I wasgoing to invest in teaching, uh, but at
the same time, I didn't want to becomeinvisible in my scholarly community.
I still, you know, was really passionateabout human computer interaction,
increasingly about data visualization,and I wanted the opportunity to
still be able to explore that spaceand have impact in that space.
For me, there was this, youknow, very multidimensional
(05:40):
way of thinking about that.
You know, what's important to me.
What's important to me was, being valuedfor teaching, uh, not feeling like my
investment into teaching would causeproblems for a tenure case, for example.
And, obviously there are familydynamics, you know, where can we live?
Where can we afford?
What does the community look like?
What does the quality of life look like?
(06:01):
Uh, and for all those reasons,uh, you know, I found these
institutions incredibly compelling.
And I, I still think that's the case.
Geri (06:08):
mm.
And I remember running into you acouple of years after that and we were
just saying it was probably in 2019.
And I do remember you sayinghow you were really loving it,
and love the lifestyle there.
Evan (06:25):
Yeah.
And, it's really interesting.
I think that actuallysoon after that podcast.
And between I wrote a blog, a whole blogpost kind of explaining my rationale
for this between that blog post and thepodcast, you know, I started getting more
and more emails from people looking togo in the job market and wanting advice
and how to even find these institutions.
So it actually led me to develop thisat, at the time was a very ad hoc way
(06:49):
of, um, looking at positions onlinethat were coming online and sort of
making visible the ones that I felt likealigned, with these similar priorities
and balances of teaching and research.
And, that whole thing is blownout into a large job board.
And, so it's really interesting tojust even reflect back and see how that
was a catalyst, I think, going forward.
(07:10):
Um, I think I said in that careerdocument I wrote for that, that I
hoped to make these paths visible.
And it was really kind of interestingto read what I was hoping to do then.
Some of it came into fruition.
It was amazing.
Geri (07:22):
Yeah.
That is amazing.
So is the jobs boardstill active, up to date,
Evan (07:30):
Yeah.
So it used to be, it used to be becausebasically what would happen is people
would email me and they would say thingslike, Oh, I find this really interesting.
I'd like to explore this.
I have no idea how tofind these institutions.
But I realized how challenging itcould be if you didn't sort of, if you
weren't there already, um, you didn'tknow what sorts of things to look
for in the job, job advertisements,what kind of institutions, you
(07:51):
know, what are the signals thatmight suggest this kind of balance.
Um, so it started out just melooking at job boards every year
and, I think the first time I madeit, it was a Twitter thread, and
then it was a Medium blog post.
Um, and then I turned it into awebsite, and so, actually now it's
at the point, thankfully, wherethere are other people helping me.
And also, we actually do verylittle of looking around the
(08:13):
job advertisement boards now.
Now, for the most part, departmentscome to us and post things.
Geri (08:20):
Brilliant.
Evan (08:21):
Yeah, so it's been wonderful.
Geri (08:23):
So one of your goals back in 17 about making more visible diverse academic
paths, you can really do a tick on that.
Doesn't mean a complete done tick,but a big step in that direction
then from the sounds of it.
Evan (08:39):
Yeah, and given how I think nonlinear most of our careers are, it's
very rare that you can, you know, say agoal 5 to 7 years ago and then feel like
Geri (08:47):
Yeah.
But probably just putting in aseries of potential job positions or
colleges in a Twitter post didn't feellike a big step in that direction.
It's only in the looking back thatyou can see actually it does really do
that, the helping make that visible.
Evan (09:06):
Yeah, for sure.
And I think that, I mean, it's one ofthose things where I invest more when I
see that people value it more, so, youknow, the Twitter post was because I
wasn't going to build a website withsomething that seemed, that's a lot of
time to invest on something that seemedlike, I don't know how valuable it was,
but, you know, a lot of people found thatreally valuable and then started passing
it along and, know, asking me for more.
(09:27):
So, uh, you know, just slowly evolved.
Geri (09:31):
So that's interesting as well, because one of the things that you
really talked about, in both theblog post that you wrote in 17 and
our podcast conversation, was howat the beginning you thought it was,
Teaching schools or research schools.
And it was one or the other.
(09:54):
What are you hearing from the peoplewho are coming to you, asking for
advice or information or pointers.
What are the values that they'relooking for also somehow connect in that
lovely middle that you've identified?
Evan (10:09):
Yeah.
I mean, I think, I think for many peopleit's, it's, it's often hard to articulate
specifically what the values are.
And maybe it's more I mean,sometimes there's a clear desire for
more teaching oriented positions,a clear desire for more sort of
(10:31):
mentorship with undergraduates.
Other times, I think there is a desireto be in academia, to be a professor, and
realizing that maybe the environment Ijust came out of, let's say a big, very
research heavy institution, just seeingthat that, that isn't a good fit for me.
(10:51):
Uh, so it's almost, I think it'salmost like discovering your values
through counterexamples in some ways.
Geri (10:56):
Yeah,
because you did reflect on both ofthose points, both the you did not
want to be putting in the hours thatyou saw some people doing that you
recognize they might have been happydoing, but you didn't want to do that.
As well as recognising that youreally valued teaching and loved
(11:18):
that and wanted that valued.
Evan (11:20):
Yeah, and, you know, it was really interesting re listening to myself
from seven years ago, which is just ahorrifying exercise for any of us, I
think, but, you know, I think it was true.
I remember that first semester,I mean, your first year
teaching is Really difficult.
You know, you're, especially with ahigher teaching load, you know, you're
doing a bunch of new prep simultaneously.
(11:43):
It's just exhausting.
But I remember feeling at the timethat those hours did not feel nearly
as exhausting as the same hours I wasputting in as at a PhD, you know, there
was something, uh, I think we talkedabout like the feedback loops or, or just,
I think it was just being more alignedwith what I wanted to do at that time.
Um, and it has a huge impacton how burdensome a job feels.
Geri (12:07):
yes, yeah.
And that's a lot of what the burnoutliterature talks about too, that it's
not just working hard or long, it'sthat connection to, or disconnection
to, what's important to you, what youcare about, or feeling like the works
valued are important in some way.
Evan (12:27):
Yeah, exactly.
Geri (12:28):
Yeah.
What else did you have on thegoals on your five to seven
year goals on that document.
I'm just curious.
Evan (12:37):
Yeah, there are a couple of really interesting ones.
Um, let's see here.
I, I know that, yeah, so being anadvocate for academic careers in
art schools was the, was a big one.
Um, there was also thinking about, Iremember putting something about sort of
broadening computer science to invitea broader diversity also of students,
(13:00):
but also Um, and I think this comesfrom more of the HCI human computer
interaction background, thinking abouthow to integrate those perspectives
and do a computer science departmentthat didn't have, you know, a lot of
rich background in those perspectives.
So I think broadening even theview of what computer science
could be was also in there.
Um.
(13:21):
And then, yeah, it's really interestingto see, I also was talking about, at the
time, I did my PhD at Tufts University,I was working on, during my PhD, I
did brain computer interfaces, and inthat document, I was writing about how
do I, how do I be known for somethingother than brain computer interfaces,
Geri (13:38):
Mm.
Evan (13:39):
You know, how do I pivot my research so people don't just see me as the, I
don't just get reviews for a hundredbrain computer interface papers, um,
because I was getting more interestedin data visualization and broadly the
impact of communicating data to wideraudiences at the time, but it was really
hard to kind of shift that identity.
Geri (14:01):
Mm.
Was it because you weren't in lovewith brain computer interfaces as
much as you thought you would beand it was a practical job to get it
done to completion for a thesis tick?
Or what was the desire for a pivot?
Evan (14:20):
I think there are a couple things.
I mean, there are certainly overlapping.
I started getting involved in a coupleof projects during my PhD that were
more related to data visualization.
Um, I think there are alot of pieces going on.
I mean, I think I started to have moreurgency in short term impact among,
(14:42):
you know, people similar to the people Ilived among my my local communities, and
I thought about brain computer interfaces.
I mean, there are a couple of things.
One is just very logistically.
It's really challenging to dowith just undergraduate students.
You really need thatsort of length of peachy.
So there was logisticalchallenges, practical challenges,
but also, you know, I imagine.
Okay, let's imagine my researchvisions come to fruition.
(15:05):
That's 20-30 years from now at the time.
It, it felt like, and then it wouldprobably be accessible primarily
to, you know, the top income earnersfor another 20 years after that.
And, and so it became a littlebit more detached, I think,
from my values in research.
(15:26):
Um, and as I began kind of likedoing a little bit more research in
data visualization, I thought therewas a lot of opportunity there.
It was an important moment, you know,as, as we talk about things like
misinformation, disinformation, more andmore, uh, we lean on data visualization
as a very important mechanism tocommunicate with the public, whether
(15:49):
it's pandemics or climate change.
And I thought that there wereand are clear shortfalls in the
way we communicate these things toeveryday people, diverse communities
with, you know, rich backgrounds,but also, different technology
access and educational background.
And so to me, it was moreof where can I be impactful,
(16:11):
impactful in the people around me.
Um, and even that changedover time, frankly.
Um, you know, when I give talks,I talk about, you know, it's
really interesting looking at
the 2016 election.
The United States is a reallyinteresting moment because that's
when we started, I think, publiclytalking about misinformation,
(16:33):
disinformation, a lot more, um, andsort of public conversations, you
know, I mean, obviously, these scholarshave been talking about for forever,
but that's really when I enteredthe public sphere and I remember
thinking, I could have this long,rich career in data visualization.
Uh, I could, you know, paradearound with papers and give talks
(16:55):
and, I don't know, win best paperawards and have this lauded career.
And I was looking at those voting mapsin which, you know, where I lived before
in Boston, looked the complete inverseto where I lived currently in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, in rural Pennsylvania.
And, you know, it became clear tome that, You know, this isn't some
(17:16):
dramatic insight, but it's obviousthat people there see some kinds of
information fundamentally differently.
And yet all the research I had beendoing, and a lot of the research that
comes out in this field comes from placesthat have very different kind of like
socioeconomic and political identities.
Um, and so I began to have this kindof scary thought that I could be
(17:38):
well lauded in an academic communityand have zero impact in anyone
that lived within 50 miles of me.
Geri (17:44):
Right.
Oh.
Wow.
I see an interesting couple of red threadsthere because having an impact matters
to you and having that more immediatefeedback loop of the impact that you're
having and whether that was from hearingpeople saying the effort in the jobs
(18:08):
board was valuable, which encourageyou to do more to also just recognizing
that if you're going to do a work inthis data viz area, for example, who are
you wanting to have impact on and for?
And is it just for your CVand for your best paper award?
Or, do you actually really want tohave impact on the people around?
(18:31):
You said that it's hard to do researchat a liberal arts college in, not, you
didn't say it was hard to do research.
You said you don't have PhD students.
And so, did that also factor in, likeBCI needed a much more sophisticated
resource set up to do research in thatarea, apart from the impact issues?
(18:55):
And was this also, this pivot,also a way of connecting to a topic
that was pragmatic in the peoplethat you could draw in to help you?
Evan (19:06):
Yeah, I think so.
And I think, you know, I think thatI probably would have ended up there
anyways, but it was certainly a catalyst.
Um, it probably expedited that process.
You know, thinking about what can I thinkthe reality with most undergraduates
and most undergraduates, they want amany undergraduates who are interested
(19:28):
in research, very few of them actuallywant to do it for multiple years.
They're exploring theirown careers themselves.
They want to do research one summerand then an internship next summer.
And so the reality is you have themfor three months, maybe six months.
And so you really have to think,I think, really strategically
about, what is really beneficialfor them within that time.
(19:49):
I can't give them thewhole history of the field.
It's, you know, how do we,um, look at projects that are
doable within that context.
And also how can I expose them to.
Even with I think something likeBCI work, I think part of my mission
and sort of broadening the scope ofhow students think about computing.
(20:09):
know, if I think about waysto chunk up some of that.
BCI work.
One way is okay, let's haveyou focus on building a model.
But that's maybe that's not thebroader view of computer science
that I'm interested in the moment.
You know, I became increasingly interestedin the more the social intersections.
And so, not only am I personallyinterested in this in my scholarship,
(20:30):
but how can then I help my studentssee the way that, uh, technology
really deeply intersects withtheir communities and their cultural
backgrounds and things like that.
Geri (20:41):
Can I just reflect back to you how amazing what you've just said is
because you did not talk about howcan I make best use of these students
in their three months, six monthsworking with me to advance my research
agenda and help me get my papers out.
It was all about how can I thinkstrategically about what's beneficial
(21:05):
to them, or how can I exposethem to new ideas or advances.
That's pretty amazing to havethat orientation to your students.
Evan (21:15):
Yeah.
And I, I do think that maybe this isone of those values that I think draws
people to these kinds of institutions.
I think there are a lot of like mindedpeople at these institutions in which.
You know, research with undergraduatesis seen as a teaching endeavor.
It's part of your research, butit's really fundamentally seen as an
(21:38):
amplifier I think of these students.
Um, and in fact, I, I, I think there'sresearch that 1 of the most high impact
experiences that undergraduates can havein terms of even things like retention
and feelings of belonging in a department.
Um, and so I think that sort ofview of research is different.
(22:00):
Um, but I also think that, I mean,I think there are a lot of us who
sort of feel our long term impact isprobably through our students anyways
Geri (22:08):
Yeah, yeah,
Evan (22:10):
That's our amplifying impact.
Geri (22:12):
yeah.
And you certainly sound likeyou bring a lot of care to
how you engage with students.
So it sounds like you actually reallyYou enjoyed working at Bucknell and,
and also found ways to make it work aswell for the impacts that you wanted
(22:33):
to have and what you wanted to achieve.
And also the lifestyle that you wantedto have in a small community area.
Can you talk about the,the move to Colorado then?
Okay.
Evan (22:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll start out by telling you whatdid not motivate it because one
of my fears when I made this move
Geri (22:52):
Mm mm
Evan (22:53):
is that I have been so vocal publicly for so long
about liberal arts colleges.
I was really concerned it'd be viewedby a lot of people as sort of a,
Uh, I don't know, a rejection ofall the, you know, that something
had gone wrong in that space.
.So it wasn't about moving away from a liberal arts college,
(23:14):
um, or a small college.
And I expect we'll getthere in a little bit.
But, um, in fact, when I was lookingaround a little bit the second
time through, Colorado is the onlynon, I would say the only research
institution I was looking at, um,
and it also wasn't the casethat I think the other one that
(23:35):
the other simple explanation.
I think that that people not hope for,but it's easy to wrap your mind around.
It's, like, Oh, something horriblywrong must have happened, right?
Um, you must have been partof like a toxic environment.
None of that was true either.
Um, I had incredibly supportivecolleagues, especially, you know, being
in human computer interact, uh, in HCI.
(23:56):
That's not always the case in anengineering college, but, you know,
I had incredible support from myassociate dean up to my dean, and so
that that also was not the case.
Geri (24:04):
Yeah.
Evan (24:05):
Um, I think the reality is it's, it's not big, dramatic moments.
It's, I think, slow shifts.
It's really interesting, even, Ithink this is something easy for
my students to reflect on, whereI ask them to think about who
they were five to seven years ago.
(24:27):
You know, and there's a reasonthey would feel horrified
listening to, like, a podcast ofthemselves five or seven years ago.
Right?
Because they shift, and they change.
I mean, they change moredramatically than we probably do it.
But there are little shifts.
Um, you know, soon after, A number ofthings, both personal and professional,
(24:47):
that shifted in slow, in tiny ways,um, soon after our podcast, actually I
had, um, a really lovely undergraduatestudent who worked with me one
summer, and, and she was helpingme actually recreate my HCI course.
She finished her part of thejob, like three weeks early.
(25:10):
So.
In sort of a what do what do I do?
I wasn't expecting this.
So we had her develop a new activityfor introductory computer science
class on responsible computing.
Um, the integrated programmingwith sort of more responsible
computing social impact.
And that led to a yearslong trajectory with me.
(25:30):
In which I became more and more interestedin integrating ethics and social impact
directly into computing curriculum.
And that's been an incrediblemagnifier of my career.
We could spend entire podcasts onthat, but it also, I think, changed
a little bit how I, my own personalmission in computing education.
(25:51):
Um,
you know, I did a lot of work in, in, inchanging core computer science courses
to integrate social responsibilitydirectly into their curriculum.
Geri (26:03):
Mm.
Evan (26:05):
And I've been fortunate that that has amplified my career
in a number of different ways.
And, , a lot of folks have used thatmaterial, but it also, I think that
when I zoomed out and started thinkingabout this problem more deeply, and how
do we make computing a more responsibleand socially impactful discipline, I
think, yes, changing computer scienceis necessary, but also, I think it means
(26:32):
that computer science can't do it alone.
You know, we really desperatelyneed these other disciplines
involved in this initiative andthe social sciences and humanities.
And so I became interested in.
You know, what are ways in which educationcan serve a wider body of students?
How can we get students to talkabout artificial intelligence
(26:53):
without taking two calculus coursesin a linear algebra course first?
It's impacting their jobs.
It's going to impact their communities.
We need to give them avenues to do that.
Um, and you know, I think when you'rein a computer science department in
engineering college, I think thatphilosophically everyone agrees, but
it's really hard to structurally pull offthat wider view at the same time, which
(27:16):
computer science departments are gettingcrushed with enrollment and you're barely
able to hold down your core coursesand your fundamental goal is to be an
engineering computer science program.
So I think increasingly, I felt that
it was hard for me to have the largerexternal impact in this space or to
(27:38):
explore different iterations of courses,and so I think that that was just
little, you know, little friction points.
If I kind of pitch the same ideas to folksat my institution, I think we'd all agree.
Right?
Um, so this wasn't people saying, Oh,no, we don't believe in this vision.
But it's really challenging.
And so I think there's a little bitof a tension also between do I want
(28:01):
my career to be focused on internalimpact versus external impact?
And what's the balance there?
Um, that's really challenging towork out because I believe in both.
Um, so that that is certainly one piece.
Um.
And then I think that, you know, aswe were talking about on the data viz
research side, I think last time we metin Glasgow, we were actually presenting a
(28:27):
best paper award that was really valuable.
Um, driven by myself and threeundergraduate students in which
they went and they did interviewsin rural Pennsylvania with people
and brought charts and graphsto them and just talk to them.
And it really kind of pushed backa little bit on really common ways
of conceptualizing or simplifyingvisualization design , like simple rules.
(28:50):
We found that, for example, that people,probably not surprisingly, but it
didn't matter how you designed a graph.
If people found personal resonancewith it, if they saw their community,
the reflective, they saw their ownpersonal issues reflected in the graph.
That's what drew their attention.
Geri (29:05):
mm
Evan (29:06):
Um, and so I think that partially through the responsible computing
initiatives, which I think we'regetting increased external visibility
through, you know, that initiative andtrying to create data visualization
for a wider set of people and datacommunication for wider set of people.
(29:26):
I began to feel like I could have astronger external voice, um, but it was
really, it was increasingly challengingto negotiate that with, I think just
the kind of the structural realitiesof being a computer science department
that's overloaded with students.
Um, and my core responsibility there is toserve that department and that means, you
(29:48):
know, teaching a lot of core CS classes.
That means advising more and more studentsevery year because that's what's needed.
Um, and I didn't want to, I didn'twant to do badly at that job.
But that's one way to maintain that, I
Geri (30:05):
mm.
Evan (30:06):
External impact is you sort of cut corners other places,
Geri (30:10):
Yes.
Yeah.
Evan (30:11):
I felt like that was the core mission of the institution
that didn't settle with me.
So I began to feel those tensions.
I think more and more.
Personally, we began to feeldistance from family more and more.
We weren't near either of our families.
Um, because the Bucknall's ruralsetting, you don't aren't an
easy access to an airport either.
(30:32):
So we began to feel that more.
And so it's just, it's anaccumulation of little things.
Um, my wife would be quick totell you that I have always
adored being near cities.
I think probably morethan the average person.
You know, I think a good way toput it is that when you're an
assistant professor, you have thiswhen I wrote that document, right?
(30:55):
Tenure is sort of thecarrot in front of you.
It's this big benchmark.
Um, and a lot of your goals are orientedto this really, substantial moment
in your life, which your institutiondecides whether they keep you or not.
And then you pass thatyou pass that hurdle.
And then you say, Oh, what, what arethe next 30 years of my life look like?
Geri (31:18):
That's interesting.
That is a theme I hear quiteoften with people that, in terms
of career transitions and reallyimportant inflection points.
It's not just the getting tenure,but it's what happens after tenure,
it's because it's that space togo, Oh, now that I've done that,
(31:39):
what do I really want to work on?
Evan (31:41):
Yeah.
And it was probably amplifiedbecause, I celebrated with
my colleagues getting tenure.
And then three weeks later, theworld shut down with the pandemic.
Uh,
Geri (31:49):
yeah,
Evan (31:50):
So, you know, in terms of times in which people get really reflective about
their careers and where they're headed.
I think that that wascertainly those two things
Geri (31:58):
Oh, so that's another little coincident.
Um, you know, you said the smallthings that all just added up.
Evan (32:05):
Yeah.
Geri (32:07):
Can I just digress very quickly for a tick, and I'm curious about
what were the criteria that you had tomeasure against for your tenure case
Evan (32:20):
I mean, excellence in teaching is important.
Geri (32:22):
a core thing?
Was it core, given the community,Liberal Arts Community College?
Evan (32:29):
I think that is common there.
I think maybe somewhat surprisinglyto some people, I would say the main
anxiety that most faculty feel isactually still around the research
side, because there's still expectedpublications and engagement with research.
At most liberal arts colleges, there'snot an expectation for grants, although
that's external funding, althoughthat's considered a bonus and nice
(32:50):
to see as just like more evidence.
Yeah, there was an expectation ofan engagement of engagement there.
And scholarly productivity, certainly.
Um, and that varies dramatically,I would say, between liberal arts
institutions, um, partially dependingon how low or high your teaching
load is and the institutionalresources and things like that.
Geri (33:11):
Were you stressed about it at all, or was it just a process to go through?
Evan (33:17):
I probably was less so than most faculty.
I had had some.
Um, I think some scholarlywins that I think made me feel,
I think, pretty comfortable.
Um, certainly that, that paperand that, that paper at CHI, that
one year won a best paper awardwith undergraduate students.
(33:37):
And so it just felt like a kindof a check mark on that side.
Um, so I was really fortunate tonot feel the same kind of stress
that I think is more common.
Geri (33:48):
Hmm.
So you get your tenure, and Iknow as you said, a little while
after, the world shuts down.
And, if I go back to your 2017 blogpost, like your data visualization
is a lovely strong thread, becauseeven in this blog post, you've got
all these lovely visualizationsof your hand drawn sort of things.
(34:09):
So one of the things that you havethere is a bit of a mind map or
whatever of all of the questions andcriteria you were asking yourself in
considering about a next career step.
What did you do post tenure thenin terms of that sort of reflective
process or working out what the criteriafor, because it feels like a lot of
(34:32):
these little small things were comingtogether to just say it might be
time to start looking somewhere else.
Um,
Evan (34:40):
Yeah And I would say another thing that that helped transition those into
maybes into a little bit more actionwas, I think the last time we on the
podcast, I had a, I don't know, a fiveyear old son and a one year old daughter.
And now I had a son that wasgetting close to middle school age
and, I had a daughter that wasabout to enter elementary school.
(35:02):
And, In talking to my wife, you know,it was really important to us to not,
like for us, we didn't want to do a bigtransition if ever happened in the future.
We didn't want to do it while theywere partway through middle school
or partway through high school.
Um, so it actually felt like there wasa little bit of a, at least for us, a
little bit of a ticking clock of, well,if we explore this, maybe now is actually
(35:25):
the moment in which we do explore it.
Geri (35:28):
So actually lots of things came together in an interesting way.
Evan (35:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was a convergence and, Ithink that we went into that
process, um, very open to the ideaand actually probably expecting
that we would stay where we were.
I think there were alot of reasons to stay.
We had an incredibly lovelycommunity, um, a good institution.
I have wonderful colleagues.
(35:52):
Um, but you know, I think it was importantfor me increasingly to, you know, you
get those, those grasses, greener itches.
Geri (36:02):
Um,
Evan (36:04):
And I was like, I need to make sure the grass isn't greener.
Although it's interesting, you know,one of my good friends, at the time
he said to me something which I thinkwas very true and actually helped
inform the way I thought about it.
He said, you know, it's probablyunlikely the grass is greener.
Anywhere.
So you probably want to just seeif you like the color better.
Geri (36:26):
The different sort of green rather
Evan (36:28):
Yeah,
Geri (36:29):
than or whatever green.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it is just, I don't know that havingthe wherewithal to even recognize that
there's this little bit of a, um, um, youknow, um, there's more you want to do,
and also the timing and the opportunity.
Evan (36:49):
Yeah.
I think it's hard to tease out whatis factors of my, you know, what will
change with my environment changesversus, you know, maybe there's
just work I need to do to make sureI'm happier, you know, more content.
Geri (37:02):
Yeah,
Evan (37:03):
You know, it reminds me of like being in relationships, you know,
sometimes where you know, is this ame problem or is this an us problem?
Geri (37:11):
yes, yeah.
So, you started then activelylooking or just keeping an
eye or what happened next?
Evan (37:23):
I decided I went on sabbatical.
I did sabbatical with the MITvisualization group at MIT.
Um, and I think after that, I decidedto at least, you know, this is the time
to kind of maybe at least look around to
Geri (37:36):
And you got your city fix again.
Evan (37:38):
Yeah.
Um, And, uh, we had sort of achecklist, you know, it wouldn't,
you know, we're generally happy.
It wouldn't be worth moving unless right.
So, like, it wouldn't be worth movingunless we're no further away from family.
It wouldn't be worth moving unlessit was in a place that had, let's
(38:00):
say, better access to airports or,or, you know, suburban or urban
environments or things like that.
Um, it wouldn't be worth movingunless we felt like it was a
significant professional change.
I think that's partly why we thoughtwe might stay because, you know, it's
hard to check off a lot of these boxes.
Um, but I had a huge benefit ofthat, you know, because I've been
(38:20):
plugged into these community, youknow, you have a lot of benefits
after being in academia for a while.
You kind of know about a lot ofinstitutions, you know, people there
and you have a much, I think, strongersense of not only places that you
would value, but also places thatyou think would value you as well.
Um, so we started out very, veryhighly selective search process.
(38:43):
Um, you know, four or five institutionsthat I was curious about and almost
all of them were liberal arts collegesand some teaching track colleges even.
I didn't want to limit it toa particular kind of position.
Um, I thought, frankly, if you'd askedme at the beginning, I thought I would
end up at another liberal arts college,possibly just in a different location
(39:06):
with a slightly different emphasis thatmight allow me to pursue the social
context of computing a little bit more.
Um, that's probably whatI would have guessed.
Geri (39:15):
So you weren't, you weren't aiming necessarily to move into
a research intensive institution
Evan (39:24):
No, and in fact, I can tell you at that time, because I'd been at a liberal
arts college, and because I hadn'tpursued a lot of external funding, I
didn't think that was a viable option.
Geri (39:35):
Right.
Because I remember you saying in 17that you thought that that could be
one of the, you know, there are alwaystrade offs to any decision and one of
the trade offs in going to a liberalarts may be that it's harder to move
then into research institution.
Evan (39:52):
And in part, particularly because I had already, I was tenured, and I didn't
want to reset that clock, um, and goback to being untenured somewhere and go
through that whole thing all over again.
So I think it probably would have beeneasier to, to conceptualize if I was
willing to kind of concede that, um.
But because I wasn't, I actuallydidn't really have it on the radar.
(40:16):
Um, I was interested, I think there arenow, you know, very different from last
time actually, now there are dedicatedteaching track positions at universities
that are much more compelling now thanthey were the first time we talked.
Particularly in computer science,I think the pay has gotten better.
The opportunities forscholarship has gotten better.
The teaching load has gotten better.
And so I actually, you know, I wasopen to some teaching track positions.
(40:39):
Um, and, you know, incrediblehappenstance, I was talking to.
You know, a colleague at C.U.
Boulder, because I was even opento, you know, if I'm going to just
explore my career options, I'd like tojust explore what else is out there.
So I was talking to a colleague, notthinking about them as a destination,
because I didn't think that wasviable, because we had similar
(41:02):
interests, basically saying, hey,you're pretty plugged into what's
going on in the industry, ifyou see something really cool and
interesting, just pass it along my way.
What
Geri (41:12):
In industry.
So you were even looking at industry
Evan (41:16):
I probably not, but I was, you know, I was curious, yeah, there's
interesting things along the lines, youknow, if, if it checked those boxes of,
you know, allowed me to, especially causeI think there are some more educational
interesting, there's some like, Applehas some interesting educational
initiatives and Microsoft had, so Icould imagine myself maybe being in a
place like that where you get to thesecompanies that are, you know, molding
(41:40):
a little bit of technical education.
And if you could have a voice inthat would be really interesting
and compelling space too.
Um, so I think educationalmission was a big.
A big thing too.
So, you know, I, I was lookingat, you know, the Bard's college,
they've had really interesting,unique educational missions.
A couple of teaching trackplaces that really interesting,
unique educational missions.
(42:01):
So I asked his colleague this and,um, what I didn't, I really realize
is, they really needed a visualizationperson in their department.
Um, I think their department, I guessI can say we are a department now, but
at the time it was their departmentthat I think values teaching pretty
(42:22):
heavily I think for a traditionalresearch department, um, they're
folks I'd intersected with for years.
And so I mean, the, the, the bigcurve ball in my process was, they
reached out to me, um, and theymade the pitch to me initially.
Geri (42:39):
Mm
Evan (42:39):
And so it was not something that I could have ever predicted, and
this is where my, my, my wife's entirefamily's from is from the Denver area.
It was just a wild set of circumstancesand, you know, the shift from being an
information science department in whichyou aren't beholden to the calculus pre
reqs or, you know, the physics pre reqs,but you can really sort of envision.
(43:02):
And be with a group of people that Ithink their core value is to envision
what is an ethical social, whatis an ethical future of computing?
And how does that intersect withkind of our social communities.
And having people i, you know,seen it from a distance just do
incredibly inspiring scholarshipin this space for years.
And then I think seeing how theyvalue the undergraduate educational
(43:24):
experience, and finding out that,you know, what my scholarship and my
work could be translated there and Icould shift over there with tenure.
So it
Geri (43:33):
mm
Evan (43:34):
you know, I think the surprising thing to most people is that in the end,
I was debating between an offer betweena teaching track position, a liberal
arts college and a research institution.
Um, and they are so structurally,they are so radically different.
But, when I measure them againstthe things that I was valuing,
they were the three most compellingplaces to me, despite those
(43:59):
dramatic structural differences.
Geri (44:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
I love the, you said about happenstanceand that again, like that's a story
I just hear so often about, you justnever know and just making needs known.
That sounds amazing, the way it'sworked out and connected to both the
(44:24):
pivot that you're making in the, datavisualization and the way that you
want to play it out, as well as thatreally strong emphasis still on valuing
education and being able to have thatbroader impact that you want to have.
Evan (44:39):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I'm now the associate chair ofundergraduate studies in the department,
so it's it's a really a continuity.
I don't, I mean, there are thingsabout my job that are very different,
but a lot of I think the things Icare about, they're still very clear
threads from my prior institution.
So that's why.
Geri (44:56):
Did you volunteer for that role?
Evan (45:00):
They asked me if I'd be interested in it, not during the job hunt, but
I sort of suspect that was maybe likean undercurrent of maybe why um, uh,
Geri (45:11):
Because you've always been clear you've had a passion for computing
science education or education.
Evan (45:18):
yeah, and, and I, I love the vision of the department, you
know, I love, um, it's really.
Interesting to be in a department inwhich we have very few to no pre reqs
in most of these courses, so if youare a student in a different field and
you want to get that access to AI ormachine learning, and you don't want to
(45:39):
compete with the computer science studentsor take all these technical courses
first, um, we are the avenue for that.
And I've said that I find alsoit really compelling being in
a public state institution.
I think there is an inherentpublic mission to these institutions
that I find really compelling.
Um, that doesn't mean that they haveless problems in other institutions.
(46:01):
That's that's for sure.
But I, I find that the core mission of theinstitution is to serve, you know, all the
people in Colorado is really a compellingeducational mission for me as well.
Um, so I find that really interesting.
Geri (46:14):
um, that also sounds very inclusive when it's information
science and you have the ability totake in people from diverse backgrounds.
Which also means it goes to that, um,expanding the impact on different ways
of thinking or people with differentbackgrounds as well and where they
might then go off to afterwards.
Evan (46:34):
Yeah, I think it's really interesting being able to.
I think have a curriculum that canserve a student body that isn't going to
necessarily end up in software development
Geri (46:45):
mm, mm,
Evan (46:46):
engineering positions, but I don't know, they could end up in tech policy.
They could end up in, youknow, just, I don't know.
We've folks from psychology aretaking our courses and folks from.
You're interested in climate change,taking our courses and folks that
are interested in more communityorganizations, taking our courses.
And I think to me, that's a reallyinteresting vision of computing.
(47:07):
Um, because yes, it has.
I think the change has to happenin computer science, but, um,
it has to happen on both sides.
Geri (47:13):
Yeah.
And that, as you said, thatsort of impact, the broadening
out is really valuable.
Like, , Engaging more and more peoplewith notions of responsible thinking
around these new technologies.
What have been some of the biggestdifferences for you in like moving from
one institution to the other in yourrole, because you're still ostensibly
(47:38):
an associate professor in each place.
Um, and I know that the one'sa computer science, one's an
information science, but what arethe other sort of key differences?
Evan (47:49):
There's the, there's the big and obvious ones, which is, so having,
you know, PhD students and master'sstudents and, having a research lab.
I mean, I had a, an undergraduate researchlab, but it's a different sort of, it's
a different flavor of research, I think,and thinking about mentorship on the scale
of five years instead of five months, I
Geri (48:06):
I was just going to say it's the time scale in particular, isn't it?
Because you just said three to sixmonths for your undergraduates.
Evan (48:13):
Yeah.
And really thinking about.
You know how difficult that journeyis for many graduate students
and how dramatically advisorrelationships impacts that journey.
Um, so , that's a pretty significant,I think, shift and, uh, you
know, responsibility in a wholedifferent direction, I think.
Um, thinking about, you know, how do
Geri (48:32):
How are you engaging in that?
Like, are there courses to take or are youreading books or, talking to colleagues?
Like, how are you?
Evan (48:42):
definitely talking a lot to colleagues.
you know, one thingthat I think is really..
I think there have been some folkswho've been really thoughtful
and, uh, particularly in HCI.
There are a lot of people who writea lot of really detailed almost
lab manuals for their labs now.
But it gets across not only the,you know, what we do here, but it's
(49:02):
sort of our values and our visionand things like work life balance.
And I think there's been a realrecent shift where I think there are
a lot of advisors being really muchmore direct and talking about these
things out in the open and in public.
So part of it's really, Ithink, learning from them.
There's a shred of it of, youknow, based on, my own experience
and colleagues around me.
(49:24):
I try not to extrapolate that too much.
Understanding our ownexperiences, our own experience.
Uh,
Geri (49:32):
Yeah.
Evan (49:32):
can certainly resonate with, you know, graduate school is long.
And it's, it's probably unlikely you'regoing to feel great during all of it.
And it's unlikely that you'refeeling productive during all of it.
Geri (49:45):
If only.
Evan (49:46):
I know
Geri (49:47):
I know that would be an unrealistic world.
But have there been anyparticular challenges?
Evan (49:55):
I'd say, I mean, it's it's an entirely different context.
I mean, this, the scale is forevery 1 student at Bucknell.
There are 10 students in Boulder
Geri (50:04):
Mm hmm.
Evan (50:05):
Um, so you're talking about you know, an institution of, you
know, 3000 to more than 30, 000.
And that brings opportunities that'swhy an information science department
can exist because of that scale.
Um, it'd probably be hard to createsomething that a tiny institution
because you already have computerscience and things like that.
And so it gives space for that.
(50:27):
But it's also, I mean, there is somereal benefit to tiny institutions and
that you necessarily bump into andour own community with people from
all kinds of disciplines because yeah.
Those are just the people around you.
I think, I mean, there's certainlydepartmental silos in liberal
arts institutions, but almostmore from a structural sense.
(50:48):
And I'd say almost a little less.
So from a community sense,you're in meetings with folks
from all over the place.
You're probably on committees from folksfrom the humanities and social sciences.
And, and so I think these are things Ihave to be a lot more deliberate about,
I see, it's much easier just to kind ofstay in my building and yeah, it's much
easier to kind of create your own little,uh, little palace or, you know, our work
(51:13):
environment and not have those sorts ofintegrations, but those were incredibly
valuable to me at Bucknell to see my, seeour student experiences through different
eyes, to see it the institutionalexperience or different eyes.
Um, so I think that's one piecethat will take quite a bit longer
to, I think, foster and develop.
(51:34):
And I have to be a little bitmore, I think, direct about that.
Geri (51:38):
Because in your role as the director of education or whatever
the exact title is, how do youunderstand the student experience to
help shape that as well becomes a scaleproblem, a scale challenge as well.
Evan (51:53):
Yeah, and somewhat ironically, where our information science
department is still small enough thatit's actually size wise, pretty not
too much different from what I wasused to at Bucknell CS department.
So departmental size actually is roughlysimilar in terms of students and faculty.
Um, but you know, anotherreally interesting change on
(52:14):
the student experience side.
Even though it saves me loads oftime and is a relief sometimes,
is, big institutions haveprofessional academic advisors.
Uh, where I was the academicadvisor for my students at Bucknell.
Um, and yeah, that took a lot oftime, but you learn a lot about
student experience when you aretheir academic advisor, their
(52:36):
experience for different classes.
I was telling a colleague, you know,this is the first year I haven't had a
student cry in my office about calculus.
Um, um, but I feel like you know,I think that that's another thing
you have to be more, I think.
You know, directly chased down a littlemore, you might not get as organically,
(52:58):
you know, I had to sit down with a groupof undergraduates at the end of the
semester just to chat with them for awhile, you know, and before those were
things that just would have happened,
Geri (53:05):
Yeah.
Just, yeah.
Evan (53:07):
it's like, let's put it on a calendar.
Geri (53:09):
Yeah.
Well, it sounds like thingsare going amazingly well.
And how are the working hoursrelative, if you're taking on a
bigger responsibility as well andsetting up a new lab, because I
know that that was really importantsort of family time and community,
(53:32):
how are those aspects working out?
Evan (53:35):
I think it's, I think it's pretty similar.
Um, because you're teachingless, they're less, uh, uh,
you know, immovable class time.
Things on your schedule.
One thing that I think was less commonat Bucknell, but more common at CU.
And I think among many similarinstitutions is, you know, I'll work
(53:59):
for home from home one day a week.
And so that's actually relatively, youknow, I can kind of shift all my, you
know, get, you know, assign my meeting.
So it's not, it's not less meetings.
It's not less scheduled time, but there isa little bit more, I think, a little bit
more flexibility in the terms of those.
Um, and certainly the startstarting up costs are always
(54:21):
high, no matter where you are.
Geri (54:22):
Yeah.
Evan (54:23):
you know, um, little, little crazy at first, but.
Geri (54:27):
Yeah.
Any regrets at all about any of thechoices that you've made along the
way as you look back and reflect?
Evan (54:42):
I don't know and I don't know if that's confirmation bias.
Maybe I just want to be thehero of my own story, but
Geri (54:47):
Well, I know, and I'm, as I'm asking that question, I'm thinking
that's a really dumb question
because you only can ever make the bestchoice at the time and when you made
choices they were so well consideredand I think you're a like a role model
in making those choices work for youas well, shaped by a clarity about
(55:09):
your values and what's important.
Um,
Evan (55:12):
you know, I hope that that's the piece that comes through um,
because certainly, you know, I, Icertainly still get a fair number of
emails and have conversations withpeople who are entering the job market
and just want to chat about these
Geri (55:30):
Um,
Evan (55:31):
and I don't know.
I don't know how replicableanyone's path is, right?
Um, I feel like I always have to saythis all the time, because they'll
ask me questions like, well, howeasy or hard is it to shift from
liberal arts schools to research?
And it's like, I don't, I'm notcompletely sure, you know, I mean,
I can tell you about my personalexperience and the way it worked out
(55:53):
and why it worked out the way it did.
Um, but, uh, yeah.
Geri (55:58):
the fact that you can play out your position in either institution in
very different ways because you could becoming to a research intensive institution
and just be really focused on theresearch, but you're still finding ways to
be really focused on education and impactand all those things you care about.
(56:18):
So you're still bringingthose things with you.
The, the shift of institutions has,sounds like it's just opened up the
opportunities or changed the opportunitiesfor the ways that you might express
them or the different types of impactyou can have that fit with where, how
your thinking was evolving as well.
Evan (56:43):
I mean, like I said at the beginning, you know, I worry that
sometimes my shift is interpreted as myvalues changing or some criticism of some
sort of boxer bin, but it's less than Ithink my, my values were relatively were
relatively consistent, maybe reweighteda little bit, you know, um, and like
I said, when I was looking at offers atan amazing liberal arts college, this,
(57:05):
this teaching track position, which Ithought had this incredible educational
mission was also incredibly compelling.
Had some wonderful, um,research opportunities as well.
And, and, and this university, I mean, Ithink they're so dramatically different.
I mean, orders of magnitudeof difference in students.
The way the positions are conceptualized,but, you know, if I think about
(57:27):
almost like mapping things in space,based on my values and not on those
structural pieces, they were thecluster that were right, very similar.
And it was a, it was areally difficult decision.
Um, uh, and that, that'sthe piece that, you know.
I wish was easier for people to navigate.
(57:47):
Um, because even I think hearingall that it's, it's still
not easy to navigate at all.
I mean, we still have this circumstancewhere even if let's talk about even like
research institutions versus liberalarts colleges, they're hiring deadline.
They're often offset by four months now.
Um, it's actually not possible tothink, look at them simultaneously
(58:07):
for most graduating PhD students.
Geri (58:10):
Yeah.
Evan (58:11):
And like I said before, you know, I entered job market in a field that
was under high demand at the time.
And so, Even having the luxuryof comparing so directly
Geri (58:22):
Mm.
Evan (58:23):
uh, you know, that, that is a privilege by itself.
And I'm, I'm sure there are people whohear us professors talk about our job
experiences and just roll their eyesinto the back of their heads, right?
Because of how just brutal and competitivethe job market is and how the luxury
of choosing between places isn't evena conversation most people get to have.
Geri (58:43):
Mm.
But I think what you've talked aboutraises attention to the importance
of not focusing on, I don't know,like the title or the institution or
the structural aspects, but whereverit is, what does it enable me to do?
(59:04):
How does it connect towhat's important to me?
Evan (59:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I also just believe that you'llbe most effective and probably long
term in those positions anyways.
You know, I actually don't thinkyou could have inverted my career.
Like, I don't think that I couldhave started at CU Boulder.
And, um, I think Bucknell was theright place for me at that time.
(59:28):
Um.
And certainly, you know, I think part ofthe reason that I was able to have choice
the second time around was because peopleknew me for investing in undergraduate
experiences in undergraduate education.
People knew me for responsible computingand, and, and those initiatives.
Um, And I would I have gone downthose pathways at another institution?
(59:49):
Maybe probably not.
But you know, those those openthe doors for opportunities
to other places later on.
Um, because those were important to me.
And so in some ways, it waslike I was, uh, you know, my
work was publicizing my values.
Geri (01:00:04):
yes, yes,
Evan (01:00:06):
Um, so I knew that places interested in those things would
probably be interested in, you know,I would be interested in them as well.
Geri (01:00:12):
mm, mm, lovely.
Are there any things that wehaven't talked about that you'd
want to mention before we wrap?
Evan (01:00:24):
Uh, nothing off the top of my head.
I feel like I've blathered on quite a bit.
Geri (01:00:31):
So, I said before we started recording, I point my PhD students and
early career people to your previouspodcast episode all the time because
of just how you talked about that,the whole decision making process.
you know, like the way you reasonthrough what was important to you and
(01:00:55):
how you weighed them up and so on.
And, the way that you'vebeen able to make it work.
And I think, uh, this will be joiningthe, the list of recommendations because,
yeah, I love just how strategicallyreflective you are while still being
true to you in all of this process.
(01:01:16):
And, and the impact that you're having.
Evan (01:01:20):
yeah, I do think that there is, and maybe this is partially because of, you
know, when I came out with my PhD, we wereat the peak moment in which CS PhDs are
getting gobbled up on the industry market.
And so I think for me, even makingthe choice of academia was saying,
I really need to have a mission anda set of values behind this position
(01:01:43):
because I'm giving up a lot of material
Geri (01:01:45):
Mm.
Oh, yes.
Evan (01:01:48):
And so I think that that sort of helped that reweighting towards it.
This, this needs to be important to me.
Geri (01:01:54):
Yeah.
Well, Evan, thank you very much fortalking with me again and all the very
best in this new career path, next
Evan (01:02:03):
Yeah, this was, yeah, this was great.
It was really interesting reflecting backon seven years ago when we talked before.
Um, um, yeah, this was reallylovely and thank you for having me.
Geri (01:02:15):
It's my pleasure.
Thank you.
You can find the summary notes,a transcript, and related
links for this podcast on www.
changingacademiclife.
com.
You can also subscribe toChanging Academic Life on iTunes,
Spotify, and Google Podcasts.
(01:02:36):
And I'm really hoping that we canwiden the conversation about how
we can do academia differently.
And you can contribute to this by ratingthe podcast and also giving feedback.
And if something connected with you,please consider sharing this podcast
with your colleagues together.
We can make change happen.
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