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But I’m holding my own, despite my sleep deprivation and my inability to find even thirty seconds for myself. In fact, I even have a good shot at the extra graduate fellowship that’s announced in November, a five thousand dollar cash award to the most promising grad student entering second year. We have until the beginning of February to submit an application packet that includes grades from the first semester, three letters of recommendation, and a writing sample.
In some ways, it’s just another thing to do. It’s another project that keeps me up after Scott’s asleep, and it’s another distraction that occupies my mind when I’m playing with Morgen. But it’s worth it, I tell Scott. This is what I’ve been working for. This will be recognition and compensation for my hard work, and it will help support us as I pursue this path. So, I gather my straight-A transcripts, my glowing letters of recommendation, and the article I had published in Feminisimos. Then, on the last day of January, I submit my application.
“Of course you’re going to get it,” Scott assures me. “You’ve been published! No other graduate students have had their articles published.”
But the announcement comes via e-mail in late February. This is all it says: “Rachel wins. Thanks to everyone who entered. Please join us in congratulating Rachel.”
That’s it. No explanation, no feedback. I’m shocked. I read it again, actually expecting the words to change, really believing that I misread. Then, without stopping to think, I hit reply, and I type: “Will you please send some more details regarding the selection process?”
That evening, when I check my e-mail from home, there’s a reply from Dr. Terrill. It states, simply, “Melanie: Rachel was selected because the committee decided that she is the most academic overall.”
I hold myself back from hitting reply because I know the worst thing you can do is send an email when you’re upset, especially to the head of the graduate department. So I hold back, but the words roll over in my mind. The most academic. The most academic.
What does that mean, the most academic? I mean, I am academic, so how are they defining that, exactly? I’ve been published in an academic journal. Obviously I was academic enough for that. I attend every class, turn in every assignment, and participate in every discussion. I think deeply and critically, I get straight-A’s, and I integrate academic discourse into my writing. I’m academic.
It just doesn’t make sense to me until a few weeks later when I have to run up to school at ten o’clock to grab a book I forgot. Our house is twenty minutes from campus, a rough drive on snowy nights like this. Tonight the lot is practically empty and I’m able to pull up next to the English Department. I pull my jacket closed, bracing myself from the wind and snow, and I make my way to the door. All is quiet inside. The graduate student office is the third door in, and it’s open. I step in and (I should have known) there’s Rachel sitting at her computer.
She looks over with a big smile and greets me with her “radio voice,” which she developed while working for a radio station in southern Minnesota. It’s clear and confident, hearty and even. We all notice it when she reads her papers to the class. She stands up tall, lifts her chin, and smiles as she reads using all the right inflections and pauses. Everyone pays just as much attention to how she reads as to what she reads. One time, as we were all applauding, Dr. Terrill commented that Rachel must have been great on the radio.
After class I asked her about her experience and she told me it was wonderful. She met so many community members through that job, and the work was so real, so important, and so homegrown.
“There aren’t many places,” she told me, “where you can do honest work and build community at the same time.”
“Why’d you leave?” I asked.
“I wanted to push myself. Everyone said I could go far, so I thought I’d give grad school a try. See if I could do it.”
“Are you going to go back to work at the radio station when you’re done?”
“Of course not!” She was surprised. “I’ll get something better. At least I hope I will.”
So here she is now, sitting alone in front of a computer screen in a florescent-lit office space at ten-thirty at night. Is she better off than she was at the radio station, building community? Who knows. Maybe proving something to herself is worth it to her.
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