While I cannot expect to know Clive Butler’s actual thoughts about my performance as a student, he treated me as though I was not worthy of the resultant title. He bestowed no kind words upon me, provided no comfort before my final examinations, and never went out of his way to forward my resume to colleagues. I left Carolina Tech believing I could not count on my advisor to provide a convincing letter of recommendation for employment or future professional endeavors. This probably hurt me more than any other incident during my graduate school experience. I had devoted over four years of my life to that inane research and Dr. Butler treated my efforts as a substandard service that he was just as glad to be rid of and not acknowledge again. I accept that I may not have been one of his best students, and probably would never become a brilliant scientist, but I had more than fulfilled the requirements to earn that diploma and deserved some support from my reluctant mentor.
An unfortunate by-product of the final crunch was an absolute absence of free time. This meant little or no skating. I tried to get to the rink once per week, but this eventually was not possible. Occasionally I found myself with an empty evening but no energy to drive to Martinsville and skate. Whenever I made the trip and attempted to skate under these circumstances, I wandered purposelessly around the ice disconnected, tired and confused. I accomplished nothing more than wasting time that would have been better spent resting or enjoying the company of friends. My skating certainly did not improve and I could not even maintain my meager level of skill. Arranging lessons with Willa became impossible due to my unpredictable schedule. After February, I took no more lessons at the Martinsville Community Arena.
Stress made me a difficult person to live with. Although I needed friends like Talbert and Gwen more than ever, I was so nervous and upset most of the time that I had trouble relating to them. My temper had become volatile from a combination of exhaustion, stress and uncertainty. If I had an unpleasant encounter with Clive Butler, which often consisted of him loading another task upon my weary shoulders then implying that I still might not pass my final exam, I came home venomous with anger and self-doubt. I hated Butler and condemned myself for choosing this idiotic path. Dr. Butler seemed to relish his deleterious effect on me. His manipulative words could bring me to the edge of tears, which I visibly struggled to control in his office. He might later catch me crying in the laboratory or in the midst of a heated explanation that I quickly discontinued as soon as his footfalls could be heard in the hallway. He would smirk with what I believed was satisfaction at his power to obliterate my self-possession. Had I been more in control of my emotions, I might have pitied Butler as a pathetic dictatorial individual who elevated himself by hurting helpless subordinates who looked to him for guidance and support.
I was not the only victim of faculty abuse in my department. Several of the professors openly admitted that recipients of high level degrees must be able to endure stress and deal with politics. While this may be true, including mind games in the curriculum seemed perverse, particularly when the inflictor seemed to enjoy the task more than actually teaching his students. Gregory, the young man who caught my eye for a couple of days one summer, eventually quit the program after a series of disagreements with his advisor. He believed those experiences left a black mark on his record. Other professors did not want to accept him into their research groups when he decided to leave his previous mentor. He felt the advisor had blackballed him, making Gregory politically untouchable. Gregory left Carolina Tech for another graduate school without a letter of recommendation from anyone in the Consumer Sciences department.
Another young woman was ejected from the program for failing her qualifying exam. Oddly, the woman earned good to excellent grades in the classes whose material was covered on the cumulative examination. She felt the subjective reasons for her failure were based on politics. She had been outspoken about department policies and believed the faculty decided to punish her for her insolent behavior. This woman left Carolina Tech immediately.
Both Gregory and the expelled female student were probably more intellectually capable people with better academic backgrounds than I had. However, I was blessed with an uncanny ability to keep my mouth shut. Of course, I got angry or felt psychological effects of mistreatment, but I never told Dr. Butler and his minions what I thought of them. Butler could probably see the contempt in my eyes, but I always maintained a tightly locked jaw even if I had to bite the side of my mouth until bleeding. I was no stranger to verbal abuse, and managed to survive my mother’s negativity by skating in the garage. I attribute my self-preservation instinct to skating. As a child, I roller skated; as an adult I took to the ice. The therapeutic effects of skating meant more to me during my developmental and educational years than mastering a given battery of skills.
When my skating time evaporated, my ability to cope also deteriorated and I suffered severe personality degradation. I had difficulty dealing with other people, even those who posed no threat, and I struggled to work through the most minor inconvenience. Arriving at the laundry room to find every machine occupied, nearly sent me into a frenzy. I had lost perspective, and petty annoyances elicited the same exaggerated emotional response as more serious altercations.
Through tears muffled by a damp bed pillow, I heard Gwen’s sweet voice calling my name through the door to my small room. Gwen always meant well, but I was so depressed, I wished she would just go about her business and leave me alone.
“Kate?” she persisted.
Actually, I did not really want Gwen to go away. I needed compassion from someone. I needed Gwen’s friendship. Wiping my swollen eyes, I finally invited her to come in.
“Talbert is in the living room. We are going out for a few drinks. Maybe you would like to join us?”
With that, I turned to face my roommate, who realized the enormity of my despair. “Come on, Kate,” she insisted without asking for explanation. “Wash your face, and let’s go. You need to get out of here and have some fun.”
“Oh, Gwen,” I sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Gwen sat on the bed and listened to me complain about my most recent exchange with Clive Butler. “And I can’t even get an interview,” I added miserably. “I’ve sent out so many resumes and gotten so few calls. Maybe I’ll finish this horrible degree and not even be able to get a job! All of this will have been for nothing.”
That was probably my worst fear. I would have worked so hard and suffered through Dr. Butler’s chicanery to no avail. Scrounging for a few bucks to pay for a twenty-minute skating lesson would present the same challenge to Kate, Ph.D. as it did to Kate, the pitiful student. Of course, graduating unemployed students did not bode well for professors or the department and university in general. It was in Butler’s best interest to recommend me for employment, especially since I was certainly worthy of a chance in the professional world. Many graduate students linger in school until an offer of employment appears, providing a common reason for the extended tenure of some pupils. Had I been in a healthier situation with my advisor, I might have been happy to continue to work at a sensible pace, teach a laboratory course, attend a few conferences, and interview for the job of my dreams over another semester or two. However, that was not the case, nor was it an option. I had to escape Clive Butler before he killed me.
“Jobs are hard to find,” Gwen soothed. “Especially first jobs.”
Gwen was right, as usual, and consciously I knew this to be true. Employers rarely queued to hire any new graduate. There were exceptional cases, but they were either truly extraordinary or qualified for high demand fields. I was neither.
Whenever I did have a rare interview, it felt like a vacation. I experienced none of the nervousness associated with vying for a job. In spite of Clive Butler’s intimidation, I felt reasonably confident about my abilities as a consumer scientist. I enjoyed discussing my research, a topic I knew very well and eventually took to heart, though it never stimulated me as much as my original ideas about bridal consumer behavior. Stress did not cause me to interview poorly. These trips provided an escape and a hopeful view of future possibilities. Unfortunately, they took time away from my mind-boggling schedule. When I came home, I had more work to do and less time to complete it.
“Even if you don’t get a job right away, you will find one. The worst that can happen is you will go to England with me this summer and then return to California. Maybe you will find employment there.”
Gwen certainly frosted that situation with a rosy glow. “I can come home with you?”
“Of course,” Gwen assured happily.
I had not even thought about California. My father and Howard Millbank would like to see me stepping off an airplane with diploma in hand. Howard and I could get married and I would look for a position of some sort in Northern California. I could always work temporarily in the bridal shop until I found something in my field. Ordinarily, the thought of returning to the bridal shop where I had made many friends, grown as a person, and developed my own scholarly ideas evoked pleasant feelings. However, crawling back to that job as a doctor of philosophy would be far more disheartening than working there after my bachelor’s degree. I absolutely would not accept a bridal consultant position again unless I became a manager or owned a boutique. I could at least take that much control over my destiny.
Gwen smiled warmly at me. “Come on, Kate. Let’s get going. Talbert is waiting.”
As a side effect of not skating, I suddenly had extra money for beer.
The very next day, I received an unexpected telephone call. Not for an interview or an irresistible offer of employment but from my friend, Chen Xue. Xue had graduated with a Master of Science degree in Textile Physics the previous December, before I flew home for Christmas. She got a job working in a textile testing laboratory and planned to gain a few years of experience before deciding whether she wanted to pursue a doctoral degree. I had not heard from Xue since her graduation.
Gwen had contacted Chen Xue and gave her a brief synopsis of my situation. Sympathetic, Xue called at her earliest convenience. As a master’s student, these problems did not befall her, though she did hear of several unpleasant incidents from her network of Chinese friends. Chen Xue came to the United States intending to earn a doctoral degree, but these stories encouraged her to work for a few years while reevaluating her options.
“Once you get your job,” Xue began, “You will be happy. It will be worth your effort. I love my job. I am very happy,” my friend assured. She wanted to convince me that my efforts would not be in vain, and contentment awaited on the other side of the graduation ceremony. I pictured sweet Chen Xue dressed in one of her little skirted suits with a dainty embroidered collar poking out from behind the lapels. She was such a calm, patient and knowledgeable person; a credit to her new employer. She had her first solo apartment and was living the life of a favorably employed single girl. I was happy for Xue and wanted the same experience for myself.
Because Xue was not a doctoral graduate, I was not completely convinced that similar good fortunate would shine upon me. Doctoral jobs were rarer than those at master’s level. Our degrees were more specialized, and we required higher starting salaries.
“It will be worth it,” Xue continued. She described a colleague who suffered emotional turmoil earning his doctoral degree but emerged with a decent job and positive personal situation. He said it was definitely worth the grief. He liked his job and was satisfied with his salary.
“You will be happy, Kate. You will be someone special,” Xue added awkwardly.
Someone special? Where did she get that conclusion? Although my evening with Gwen and Talbert lifted my spirits considerably, I was still skeptical of the graduate school ‘hardship-reward’ trade-off. In the absence of flattering offers of employment, I certainly did not think I was guaranteed a position that would make me feel special or would distinguish me from my contemporaries.
“Come on, Xue. How do you know I’m going to be someone special?” Then I felt badly for questioning her. She only wanted to offer kind worlds of encouragement. Although Chen Xue spoke very good English, she occasionally used a phrase that may not have translated directly from Chinese, or she had difficulty expressing complex personal feelings.
My friend paused for a moment as though the answer to my pointed query were so self-evident that the question might have been rhetorical. Finally, her soft voice traveled through the earpiece.
“Because you already are.”
Although I expected to be ridiculously busy during my last semester of doctoral study, I never anticipated the hellish reality of the ordeal. In addition to long days of dedicated work, I also dealt with mental cruelty inflicted by my advisor and other faculty members. Doctoral degrees are not handed out lightly, and their recipients automatically become colleagues qualified to hold professorships and compete for the same coveted grant funding. Many professors like to keep the competitive pool small by screening doctoral candidates during the admission and testing processes throughout the graduate program. Others want cheap hired hands in their laboratories and prolong their period of indentured servitude. While I was not the most outstanding applicant to any graduate program, I was certainly qualified and did not deserve to be weeded out during application review. However, until my last day at Carolina Tech, Dr. Butler never gave me the impression that he thought I deserved or even earned my degree. He treated it as an act of charity, a donation to someone who worked too hard to be denied. He awarded a Ph.D. to my shear determination.
Chapter 47 posted 3/5/02
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