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
Transcript
Welcome to Changing Academic Life. I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick and this is a podcast series where academics and others share their stories, provide ideas and provoke discussions about what we can do individually and collectively to change academic life for the better. When I'm talking with PhD students or early career researchers about their career path, There's one podcast episode that I always point them to. And that's my 2017 discussion with Evan Peck. Evan had done his PhD at Tufts university in the US. And he ended up choosing a career path at a liberal arts college called Bucknell university. Where he knew his passion for teaching would be valued. While still being able to do some research. And what was really impressive about that episode was the very reflective and strategic thinking that, that Evan put into making that choice. And the clarity in particular that he had about his values. And as he talked about in that episode, a clarity about the things that he takes joy in doing. I love that. So I was really curious then to see that after nine years at Bucknell, Evan moved to university of Colorado, Boulder. So I wanted to understand how he decided on this next move. Particularly seeing that he'd said in 2017, that it may end up being hard for him to move to somewhere like a research institution having chosen Bucknell, just recognizing the trade offs that all of our choices entail. And so I'm really happy to bring this follow-up conversation with Evan Peck. Evan is now an associate professor and also associate chair of undergraduate studies, which won't surprise you after listening to this episode in the information science faculty at university of Colorado, Boulder. In this episode, he shares how his career at Bucknell has unfolded to get to this point. And this is included things like setting up an impactful jobs board initiative as an advocate for academic careers in art schools. He talks about how he's research interests evolve to focus more around information visualization and computing ethics education. And also this growing feeling of wanting to have more external impact in computer science education. That's sort of triggered some of the, starting to look around. And so the story of how he actually ended up at CU Boulder is one of both, some serendipity and also have some very clear considerations of what was important to him and his family and what sort of impact he did want to have. This episode will be joining my list of recommendations to people about making values led career choices. Enjoy. So great to have you again on the podcast, Evan. I'm really excited to talk to you because we last spoke in May 2017, and I released the episode in August 2017. My trigger for wanting to talk to you again now is that you've recently, or last year, you moved to University of Colorado Boulder. I'm really curious to understand the thinking around that move, given how much thought you put into the first move. For context, Can you introduce yourself a little bit to start with?
Evan:Yeah, so the last time when we, you know, we did this last time, I believe it was in Denver, Colorado,
Geri:Yeah, actually it was. That was the conference. Yeah,
Evan:so I was part of an early career workshop there. And it was really interesting kind of looking back at that is as part of that career workshop, we articulate some of our goals and career goals. And, you know, one of my career goals was to, I think, make more visible some of the kind of more diverse academic paths and in particular at that time, liberal arts colleges.
Geri:mm,
Evan:And, for context, in case folks haven't heard that podcast or read that blog post, you know, liberal arts colleges 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, a heavier priority on teaching. I would say on undergraduate mentorship. We are the very often almost Always the academic advisors of our undergraduate students as well. So there's a close relationship between undergraduates, um, and faculty. But also, there's still a priority on scholarship. So, you know, I was really drawn to these institutions after graduate school, because for me, they created this really nice balance between teaching and research, because I knew I was going to invest in teaching, uh, but at the same time, I didn't want to become invisible in my scholarly community. I still, you know, was really passionate about human computer interaction, increasingly about data visualization, and I wanted the opportunity to still be able to explore that space and have impact in that space. For me, there was this, you know, very multidimensional way of thinking about that. You know, what's important to me. What's important to me was, being valued for teaching, uh, not feeling like my investment into teaching would cause problems for a tenure case, for example. And, obviously there are family dynamics, you know, where can we live? Where can we afford? What does the community look like? What does the quality of life look like? 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:mm. And I remember running into you a couple of years after that and we were just saying it was probably in 2019. And I do remember you saying how you were really loving it, and love the lifestyle there.
Evan:Yeah. And, it's really interesting. I think that actually soon after that podcast. And between I wrote a blog, a whole blog post kind of explaining my rationale for this between that blog post and the podcast, you know, I started getting more and more emails from people looking to go in the job market and wanting advice and how to even find these institutions. So it actually led me to develop this at, at the time was a very ad hoc way of, um, looking at positions online that were coming online and sort of making visible the ones that I felt like aligned, with these similar priorities and balances of teaching and research. And, that whole thing is blown out into a large job board. And, so it's really interesting to just even reflect back and see how that was a catalyst, I think, going forward. Um, I think I said in that career document I wrote for that, that I hoped to make these paths visible. And it was really kind of interesting to read what I was hoping to do then. Some of it came into fruition. It was amazing.
Geri:Yeah. That is amazing. So is the jobs board still active, up to date,
Evan:Yeah. So it used to be, it used to be because basically what would happen is people would email me and they would say things like, Oh, I find this really interesting. I'd like to explore this. I have no idea how to find these institutions. But I realized how challenging it could be if you didn't sort of, if you weren't there already, um, you didn't know what sorts of things to look for in the job, job advertisements, what kind of institutions, you know, what are the signals that might suggest this kind of balance. Um, so it started out just me looking at job boards every year and, I think the first time I made it, it was a Twitter thread, and then it was a Medium blog post. Um, and then I turned it into a website, and so, actually now it's at the point, thankfully, where there are other people helping me. And also, we actually do very little of looking around the job advertisement boards now. Now, for the most part, departments come to us and post things.
Geri:Brilliant.
Evan:Yeah, so it's been wonderful.
Geri: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:Yeah, and given how I think nonlinear most of our careers are, it's very rare that you can, you know, say a goal 5 to 7 years ago and then feel like
Geri:Yeah. But probably just putting in a series of potential job positions or colleges in a Twitter post didn't feel like a big step in that direction. It's only in the looking back that you can see actually it does really do that, the helping make that visible.
Evan:Yeah, for sure. And I think that, I mean, it's one of those things where I invest more when I see that people value it more, so, you know, the Twitter post was because I wasn't going to build a website with something that seemed, that's a lot of time to invest on something that seemed like, I don't know how valuable it was, but, you know, a lot of people found that really valuable and then started passing it along and, know, asking me for more. So, uh, you know, just slowly evolved.
Geri:So that's interesting as well, because one of the things that you really talked about, in both the blog post that you wrote in 17 and our podcast conversation, was how at the beginning you thought it was, Teaching schools or research schools. And it was one or the other. What are you hearing from the people who are coming to you, asking for advice or information or pointers. What are the values that they're looking for also somehow connect in that lovely middle that you've identified?
Evan:Yeah. I mean, I think, I think for many people it'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 mentorship with undergraduates. Other times, I think there is a desire to be in academia, to be a professor, and realizing that maybe the environment I just came out of, let's say a big, very research heavy institution, just seeing that that, that isn't a good fit for me. Uh, so it's almost, I think it's almost like discovering your values through counterexamples in some ways.
Geri:Yeah, because you did reflect on both of those points, both the you did not want to be putting in the hours that you saw some people doing that you recognize they might have been happy doing, but you didn't want to do that. As well as recognising that you really valued teaching and loved that and wanted that valued.
Evan:Yeah, and, you know, it was really interesting re listening to myself from seven years ago, which is just a horrifying 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 a higher teaching load, you know, you're doing a bunch of new prep simultaneously. It's just exhausting. But I remember feeling at the time that those hours did not feel nearly as exhausting as the same hours I was putting in as at a PhD, you know, there was something, uh, I think we talked about like the feedback loops or, or just, I think it was just being more aligned with what I wanted to do at that time. Um, and it has a huge impact on how burdensome a job feels.
Geri:yes, yeah. And that's a lot of what the burnout literature talks about too, that it's not just working hard or long, it's that connection to, or disconnection to, what's important to you, what you care about, or feeling like the works valued are important in some way.
Evan:Yeah, exactly.
Geri:Yeah. What else did you have on the goals on your five to seven year goals on that document. I'm just curious.
Evan:Yeah, there are a couple of really interesting ones. Um, let's see here. I, I know that, yeah, so being an advocate for academic careers in art schools was the, was a big one. Um, there was also thinking about, I remember putting something about sort of broadening computer science to invite a broader diversity also of students, but also Um, and I think this comes from more of the HCI human computer interaction background, thinking about how to integrate those perspectives and do a computer science department that didn't have, you know, a lot of rich background in those perspectives. So I think broadening even the view of what computer science could be was also in there. Um. And then, yeah, it's really interesting to 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 in that document, I was writing about how do I, how do I be known for something other than brain computer interfaces,
Geri:Mm.
Evan: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 hundred brain computer interface papers, um, because I was getting more interested in data visualization and broadly the impact of communicating data to wider audiences at the time, but it was really hard to kind of shift that identity.
Geri:Mm. Was it because you weren't in love with brain computer interfaces as much as you thought you would be and it was a practical job to get it done to completion for a thesis tick? Or what was the desire for a pivot?
Evan:I think there are a couple things. I mean, there are certainly overlapping. I started getting involved in a couple of projects during my PhD that were more related to data visualization. Um, I think there are a lot of pieces going on. I mean, I think I started to have more urgency in short term impact among, you know, people similar to the people I lived 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 do with just undergraduate students. You really need that sort of length of peachy. So there was logistical challenges, practical challenges, but also, you know, I imagine. Okay, let's imagine my research visions come to fruition. That's 20-30 years from now at the time. It, it felt like, and then it would probably be accessible primarily to, you know, the top income earners for another 20 years after that. And, and so it became a little bit more detached, I think, from my values in research. Um, and as I began kind of like doing a little bit more research in data visualization, I thought there was a lot of opportunity there. It was an important moment, you know, as, as we talk about things like misinformation, disinformation, more and more, uh, we lean on data visualization as a very important mechanism to communicate with the public, whether it's pandemics or climate change. And I thought that there were and are clear shortfalls in the way we communicate these things to everyday people, diverse communities with, you know, rich backgrounds, but also, different technology access and educational background. And so to me, it was more of where can I be impactful, impactful in the people around me. Um, and even that changed over 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 really interesting moment because that's when we started, I think, publicly talking about misinformation, disinformation, a lot more, um, and sort of public conversations, you know, I mean, obviously, these scholars have been talking about for forever, but that's really when I entered the public sphere and I remember thinking, I could have this long, rich career in data visualization. Uh, I could, you know, parade around with papers and give talks and, I don't know, win best paper awards and have this lauded career. And I was looking at those voting maps in which, you know, where I lived before in Boston, looked the complete inverse to where I lived currently in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in rural Pennsylvania. And, you know, it became clear to me that, You know, this isn't some dramatic insight, but it's obvious that people there see some kinds of information fundamentally differently. And yet all the research I had been doing, and a lot of the research that comes out in this field comes from places that have very different kind of like socioeconomic and political identities. Um, and so I began to have this kind of scary thought that I could be well lauded in an academic community and have zero impact in anyone that lived within 50 miles of me.
Geri:Right. Oh. Wow. I see an interesting couple of red threads there because having an impact matters to you and having that more immediate feedback loop of the impact that you're having and whether that was from hearing people saying the effort in the jobs board was valuable, which encourage you to do more to also just recognizing that if you're going to do a work in this data viz area, for example, who are you wanting to have impact on and for? And is it just for your CV and for your best paper award? Or, do you actually really want to have impact on the people around? You said that it's hard to do research at 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, like BCI needed a much more sophisticated resource set up to do research in that area, apart from the impact issues? And was this also, this pivot, also a way of connecting to a topic that was pragmatic in the people that you could draw in to help you?
Evan:Yeah, I think so. And I think, you know, I think that I 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 think the reality with most undergraduates and most undergraduates, they want a many undergraduates who are interested in research, very few of them actually want to do it for multiple years. They're exploring their own careers themselves. They want to do research one summer and then an internship next summer. And so the reality is you have them for three months, maybe six months. And so you really have to think, I think, really strategically about, what is really beneficial for them within that time. I can't give them the whole 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 like BCI work, I think part of my mission and sort of broadening the scope of how students think about computing. know, if I think about ways to chunk up some of that. BCI work. One way is okay, let's have you focus on building a model. But that's maybe that's not the broader view of computer science that I'm interested in the moment. You know, I became increasingly interested in the more the social intersections. And so, not only am I personally interested in this in my scholarship, but how can then I help my students see the way that, uh, technology really deeply intersects with their communities and their cultural backgrounds and things like that.
Geri:Can I just reflect back to you how amazing what you've just said is because you did not talk about how can I make best use of these students in their three months, six months working with me to advance my research agenda and help me get my papers out. It was all about how can I think strategically about what's beneficial to them, or how can I expose them to new ideas or advances. That's pretty amazing to have that orientation to your students.
Evan:Yeah. And I, I do think that maybe this is one of those values that I think draws people to these kinds of institutions. I think there are a lot of like minded people at these institutions in which. You know, research with undergraduates is seen as a teaching endeavor. It's part of your research, but it's really fundamentally seen as an amplifier I think of these students. Um, and in fact, I, I, I think there's research that 1 of the most high impact experiences that undergraduates can have in terms of even things like retention and feelings of belonging in a department. Um, and so I think that sort of view of research is different. Um, but I also think that, I mean, I think there are a lot of us who sort of feel our long term impact is probably through our students anyways
Geri:Yeah, yeah,
Evan:That's our amplifying impact.
Geri:yeah. And you certainly sound like you bring a lot of care to how you engage with students. So it sounds like you actually really You enjoyed working at Bucknell and, and also found ways to make it work as well for the impacts that you wanted to have and what you wanted to achieve. And also the lifestyle that you wanted to have in a small community area. Can you talk about the, the move to Colorado then? Okay.
Evan:Yeah. Yeah. I'll start out by telling you what did not motivate it because one of my fears when I made this move
Geri:Mm mm
Evan:is that I have been so vocal publicly for so long about liberal arts colleges. I was really concerned it'd be viewed by a lot of people as sort of a, Uh, I don't know, a rejection of all the, you know, that something had gone wrong in that space. So it wasn't about moving away from a liberal arts college, um, or a small college. And I expect we'll get there in a little bit. But, um, in fact, when I was looking around a little bit the second time through, Colorado is the only non, I would say the only research institution I was looking at, um, and it also wasn't the case that I think the other one that 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 horribly wrong must have happened, right? Um, you must have been part of like a toxic environment. None of that was true either. Um, I had incredibly supportive colleagues, especially, you know, being in human computer interact, uh, in HCI. That's not always the case in an engineering college, but, you know, I had incredible support from my associate dean up to my dean, and so that that also was not the case.
Geri:Yeah.
Evan: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, I think this is something easy for my students to reflect on, where I ask them to think about who they were five to seven years ago. You know, and there's a reason they would feel horrified listening to, like, a podcast of themselves five or seven years ago. Right? Because they shift, and they change. I mean, they change more dramatically than we probably do it. But there are little shifts. Um, you know, soon after, A number of things, both personal and professional, that shifted in slow, in tiny ways, um, soon after our podcast, actually I had, um, a really lovely undergraduate student who worked with me one summer, and, and she was helping me actually recreate my HCI course. She finished her part of the job, like three weeks early. So. In sort of a what do what do I do? I wasn't expecting this. So we had her develop a new activity for introductory computer science class on responsible computing. Um, the integrated programming with sort of more responsible computing social impact. And that led to a years long trajectory with me. In which I became more and more interested in integrating ethics and social impact directly into computing curriculum. And that's been an incredible magnifier of my career. We could spend entire podcasts on that, but it also, I think, changed a little bit how I, my own personal mission in computing education. Um, you know, I did a lot of work in, in, in changing core computer science courses to integrate social responsibility directly into their curriculum.
Geri:Mm.
Evan:And I've been fortunate that that has amplified my career in a number of different ways. And, a lot of folks have used that material, but it also, I think that when I zoomed out and started thinking about this problem more deeply, and how do we make computing a more responsible and socially impactful discipline, I think, yes, changing computer science is necessary, but also, I think it means that computer science can't do it alone. You know, we really desperately need these other disciplines involved in this initiative and the social sciences and humanities. And so I became interested in. You know, what are ways in which education can serve a wider body of students? How can we get students to talk about artificial intelligence without taking two calculus courses in 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're in a computer science department in engineering college, I think that philosophically everyone agrees, but it's really hard to structurally pull off that wider view at the same time, which computer science departments are getting crushed with enrollment and you're barely able to hold down your core courses and 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 larger external impact in this space or to 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 folks at 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 bit of a tension also between do I want my career to be focused on internal impact versus external impact? And what's the balance there? Um, that's really challenging to work out because I believe in both. Um, so that that is certainly one piece. Um. And then I think that, you know, as we were talking about on the data viz research side, I think last time we met in Glasgow, we were actually presenting a best paper award that was really valuable. Um, driven by myself and three undergraduate students in which they went and they did interviews in rural Pennsylvania with people and brought charts and graphs to them and just talk to them. And it really kind of pushed back a little bit on really common ways of conceptualizing or simplifying visualization design like simple rules. We found that, for example, that people, probably not surprisingly, but it didn't matter how you designed a graph. If people found personal resonance with it, if they saw their community, the reflective, they saw their own personal issues reflected in the graph. That's what drew their attention.
Geri:mm
Evan:Um, and so I think that partially through the responsible computing initiatives, which I think we're getting increased external visibility through, you know, that initiative and trying to create data visualization for a wider set of people and data communication for wider set of people. I began to feel like I could have a stronger external voice, um, but it was really, it was increasingly challenging to negotiate that with, I think just the kind of the structural realities of being a computer science department that's overloaded with students. Um, and my core responsibility there is to serve that department and that means, you know, teaching a lot of core CS classes. That means advising more and more students every year because that's what's needed. Um, and I didn't want to, I didn't want to do badly at that job. But that's one way to maintain that, I
Geri:mm.
Evan:External impact is you sort of cut corners other places,
Geri:Yes. Yeah.
Evan: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 feel distance from family more and more. We weren't near either of our families. Um, because the Bucknall's rural setting, you don't aren't an easy access to an airport either. So we began to feel that more. And so it's just, it's an accumulation of little things. Um, my wife would be quick to tell you that I have always adored being near cities. I think probably more than the average person. You know, I think a good way to put it is that when you're an assistant professor, you have this when I wrote that document, right? Tenure is sort of the carrot in front of you. It's this big benchmark. Um, and a lot of your goals are oriented to this really, substantial moment in your life, which your institution decides whether they keep you or not. And then you pass that you pass that hurdle. And then you say, Oh, what, what are the next 30 years of my life look like?
Geri:That's interesting. That is a theme I hear quite often with people that, in terms of career transitions and really important inflection points. It's not just the getting tenure, but it's what happens after tenure, it's because it's that space to go, Oh, now that I've done that, what do I really want to work on?
Evan:Yeah. And it was probably amplified because, I celebrated with my colleagues getting tenure. And then three weeks later, the world shut down with the pandemic. Uh,
Geri:yeah,
Evan: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 was certainly those two things
Geri:Oh, so that's another little coincident. Um, you know, you said the small things that all just added up.
Evan:Yeah.
Geri:Can I just digress very quickly for a tick, and I'm curious about what were the criteria that you had to measure against for your tenure case
Evan:I mean, excellence in teaching is important.
Geri:a core thing? Was it core, given the community, Liberal Arts Community College?
Evan:I think that is common there. I think maybe somewhat surprisingly to some people, I would say the main anxiety that most faculty feel is actually still around the research side, because there's still expected publications and engagement with research. At most liberal arts colleges, there's not an expectation for grants, although that's external funding, although that's considered a bonus and nice to see as just like more evidence. Yeah, there was an expectation of an engagement of engagement there. And scholarly productivity, certainly. Um, and that varies dramatically, I would say, between liberal arts institutions, um, partially depending on how low or high your teaching load is and the institutional resources and things like that.
Geri:Were you stressed about it at all, or was it just a process to go through?
Evan:I probably was less so than most faculty. I had had some. Um, I think some scholarly wins that I think made me feel, I think, pretty comfortable. Um, certainly that, that paper and that, that paper at CHI, that one year won a best paper award with undergraduate students. And so it just felt like a kind of a check mark on that side. Um, so I was really fortunate to not feel the same kind of stress that I think is more common.
Geri:Hmm. So you get your tenure, and I know as you said, a little while after, the world shuts down. And, if I go back to your 2017 blog post, like your data visualization is a lovely strong thread, because even in this blog post, you've got all these lovely visualizations of your hand drawn sort of things. So one of the things that you have there is a bit of a mind map or whatever of all of the questions and criteria you were asking yourself in considering about a next career step. What did you do post tenure then in terms of that sort of reflective process or working out what the criteria for, because it feels like a lot of these little small things were coming together to just say it might be time to start looking somewhere else. Um,
Evan:Yeah And I would say another thing that that helped transition those into maybes into a little bit more action was, I think the last time we on the podcast, I had a, I don't know, a five year old son and a one year old daughter. And now I had a son that was getting close to middle school age and, I had a daughter that was about to enter elementary school. 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 big transition if ever happened in the future. We didn't want to do it while they were partway through middle school or partway through high school. Um, so it actually felt like there was a 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 the moment in which we do explore it.
Geri:So actually lots of things came together in an interesting way.
Evan:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a convergence and, I think that we went into that process, um, very open to the idea and actually probably expecting that we would stay where we were. I think there were a lot of reasons to stay. We had an incredibly lovely community, um, a good institution. I have wonderful colleagues. Um, but you know, I think it was important for me increasingly to, you know, you get those, those grasses, greener itches.
Geri:Um,
Evan: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 think was very true and actually helped inform the way I thought about it. He said, you know, it's probably unlikely the grass is greener. Anywhere. So you probably want to just see if you like the color better.
Geri:The different sort of green rather
Evan:Yeah,
Geri:than or whatever green. Yeah. Yeah. But it is just, I don't know that having the wherewithal to even recognize that there's this little bit of a, um, um, you know, um, there's more you want to do, and also the timing and the opportunity.
Evan:Yeah. I think it's hard to tease out what is factors of my, you know, what will change with my environment changes versus, you know, maybe there's just work I need to do to make sure I'm happier, you know, more content.
Geri:Yeah,
Evan:You know, it reminds me of like being in relationships, you know, sometimes where you know, is this a me problem or is this an us problem?
Geri:yes, yeah. So, you started then actively looking or just keeping an eye or what happened next?
Evan:I decided I went on sabbatical. I did sabbatical with the MIT visualization group at MIT. Um, and I think after that, I decided to at least, you know, this is the time to kind of maybe at least look around to
Geri:And you got your city fix again.
Evan:Yeah. Um, And, uh, we had sort of a checklist, 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 moving unless we're no further away from family. It wouldn't be worth moving unless it was in a place that had, let's say, better access to airports or, or, you know, suburban or urban environments or things like that. Um, it wouldn't be worth moving unless we felt like it was a significant professional change. I think that's partly why we thought we might stay because, you know, it's hard to check off a lot of these boxes. Um, but I had a huge benefit of that, you know, because I've been plugged into these community, you know, you have a lot of benefits after being in academia for a while. You kind of know about a lot of institutions, you know, people there and you have a much, I think, stronger sense of not only places that you would value, but also places that you think would value you as well. Um, so we started out very, very highly selective search process. Um, you know, four or five institutions that I was curious about and almost all of them were liberal arts colleges and some teaching track colleges even. I didn't want to limit it to a particular kind of position. Um, I thought, frankly, if you'd asked me at the beginning, I thought I would end up at another liberal arts college, possibly just in a different location with a slightly different emphasis that might allow me to pursue the social context of computing a little bit more. Um, that's probably what I would have guessed.
Geri:So you weren't, you weren't aiming necessarily to move into a research intensive institution
Evan:No, and in fact, I can tell you at that time, because I'd been at a liberal arts college, and because I hadn't pursued a lot of external funding, I didn't think that was a viable option.
Geri:Right. Because I remember you saying in 17 that you thought that that could be one of the, you know, there are always trade offs to any decision and one of the trade offs in going to a liberal arts may be that it's harder to move then into research institution.
Evan:And in part, particularly because I had already, I was tenured, and I didn't want to reset that clock, um, and go back to being untenured somewhere and go through that whole thing all over again. So I think it probably would have been easier to, to conceptualize if I was willing to kind of concede that, um. But because I wasn't, I actually didn't really have it on the radar. Um, I was interested, I think there are now, you know, very different from last time actually, now there are dedicated teaching track positions at universities that are much more compelling now than they were the first time we talked. Particularly in computer science, I think the pay has gotten better. The opportunities for scholarship has gotten better. The teaching load has gotten better. And so I actually, you know, I was open to some teaching track positions. Um, and, you know, incredible happenstance, I was talking to. You know, a colleague at C.U. Boulder, because I was even open to, you know, if I'm going to just explore my career options, I'd like to just explore what else is out there. So I was talking to a colleague, not thinking about them as a destination, because I didn't think that was viable, because we had similar interests, basically saying, hey, you're pretty plugged into what's going on in the industry, if you see something really cool and interesting, just pass it along my way. What
Geri:In industry. So you were even looking at industry
Evan:I probably not, but I was, you know, I was curious, yeah, there's interesting things along the lines, you know, if, if it checked those boxes of, you know, allowed me to, especially cause I think there are some more educational interesting, there's some like, Apple has some interesting educational initiatives and Microsoft had, so I could imagine myself maybe being in a place like that where you get to these companies that are, you know, molding a little bit of technical education. And if you could have a voice in that would be really interesting and compelling space too. Um, so I think educational mission was a big. A big thing too. So, you know, I, I was looking at, you know, the Bard's college, they've had really interesting, unique educational missions. A couple of teaching track places that really interesting, unique educational missions. So I asked his colleague this and, um, what I didn't, I really realize is, they really needed a visualization person in their department. Um, I think their department, I guess I can say we are a department now, but at the time it was their department that I think values teaching pretty heavily I think for a traditional research department, um, they're folks I'd intersected with for years. And so I mean, the, the, the big curve ball in my process was, they reached out to me, um, and they made the pitch to me initially.
Geri:Mm
Evan:And so it was not something that I could have ever predicted, and this is where my, my, my wife's entire family's from is from the Denver area. It was just a wild set of circumstances and, you know, the shift from being an information science department in which you aren't beholden to the calculus pre reqs or, you know, the physics pre reqs, but you can really sort of envision. And be with a group of people that I think their core value is to envision what is an ethical social, what is an ethical future of computing? And how does that intersect with kind of our social communities. And having people i, you know, seen it from a distance just do incredibly inspiring scholarship in this space for years. And then I think seeing how they value the undergraduate educational experience, and finding out that, you know, what my scholarship and my work could be translated there and I could shift over there with tenure. So it
Geri:mm
Evan:you know, I think the surprising thing to most people is that in the end, I was debating between an offer between a 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 against the things that I was valuing, they were the three most compelling places to me, despite those dramatic structural differences.
Geri:Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I love the, you said about happenstance and that again, like that's a story I just hear so often about, you just never know and just making needs known. That sounds amazing, the way it's worked out and connected to both the pivot that you're making in the, data visualization and the way that you want to play it out, as well as that really strong emphasis still on valuing education and being able to have that broader impact that you want to have.
Evan:Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I'm now the associate chair of undergraduate studies in the department, so it's it's a really a continuity. I don't, I mean, there are things about my job that are very different, but a lot of I think the things I care about, they're still very clear threads from my prior institution. So that's why.
Geri:Did you volunteer for that role?
Evan:They asked me if I'd be interested in it, not during the job hunt, but I sort of suspect that was maybe like an undercurrent of maybe why um, uh,
Geri:Because you've always been clear you've had a passion for computing science education or education.
Evan: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 in which we have very few to no pre reqs in most of these courses, so if you are a student in a different field and you want to get that access to AI or machine learning, and you don't want to compete with the computer science students or take all these technical courses first, um, we are the avenue for that. And I've said that I find also it really compelling being in a public state institution. I think there is an inherent public mission to these institutions that I find really compelling. Um, that doesn't mean that they have less problems in other institutions. That's that's for sure. But I, I find that the core mission of the institution is to serve, you know, all the people in Colorado is really a compelling educational mission for me as well. Um, so I find that really interesting.
Geri:um, that also sounds very inclusive when it's information science and you have the ability to take in people from diverse backgrounds. Which also means it goes to that, um, expanding the impact on different ways of thinking or people with different backgrounds as well and where they might then go off to afterwards.
Evan:Yeah, I think it's really interesting being able to. I think have a curriculum that can serve a student body that isn't going to necessarily end up in software development
Geri:mm, mm,
Evan:engineering positions, but I don't know, they could end up in tech policy. They could end up in, you know, just, I don't know. We've folks from psychology are taking our courses and folks from. You're interested in climate change, taking our courses and folks that are interested in more community organizations, taking our courses. And I think to me, that's a really interesting vision of computing. Um, because yes, it has. I think the change has to happen in computer science, but, um, it has to happen on both sides.
Geri:Yeah. And that, as you said, that sort of impact, the broadening out is really valuable. Like, Engaging more and more people with notions of responsible thinking around these new technologies. What have been some of the biggest differences for you in like moving from one institution to the other in your role, because you're still ostensibly an associate professor in each place. Um, and I know that the one's a computer science, one's an information science, but what are the other sort of key differences?
Evan:There's the, there's the big and obvious ones, which is, so having, you know, PhD students and master's students and, having a research lab. I mean, I had a, an undergraduate research lab, 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:I was just going to say it's the time scale in particular, isn't it? Because you just said three to six months for your undergraduates.
Evan:Yeah. And really thinking about. You know how difficult that journey is for many graduate students and how dramatically advisor relationships impacts that journey. Um, so that's a pretty significant, I think, shift and, uh, you know, responsibility in a whole different direction, I think. Um, thinking about, you know, how do
Geri:How are you engaging in that? Like, are there courses to take or are you reading books or, talking to colleagues? Like, how are you?
Evan:definitely talking a lot to colleagues. you know, one thing that I think is really.. I think there have been some folks who've been really thoughtful and, uh, particularly in HCI. There are a lot of people who write a 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 sort of our values and our vision and things like work life balance. And I think there's been a real recent shift where I think there are a lot of advisors being really much more direct and talking about these things out in the open and in public. So part of it's really, I think, learning from them. There's a shred of it of, you know, based on, my own experience and colleagues around me. I try not to extrapolate that too much. Understanding our own experiences, our own experience. Uh,
Geri:Yeah.
Evan:can certainly resonate with, you know, graduate school is long. And it's, it's probably unlikely you're going to feel great during all of it. And it's unlikely that you're feeling productive during all of it.
Geri:If only.
Evan:I know
Geri:I know that would be an unrealistic world. But have there been any particular challenges?
Evan:I'd say, I mean, it's it's an entirely different context. I mean, this, the scale is for every 1 student at Bucknell. There are 10 students in Boulder
Geri:Mm hmm.
Evan:Um, so you're talking about you know, an institution of, you know, 3000 to more than 30, 000. And that brings opportunities that's why an information science department can exist because of that scale. Um, it'd probably be hard to create something that a tiny institution because you already have computer science and things like that. And so it gives space for that. But it's also, I mean, there is some real benefit to tiny institutions and that you necessarily bump into and our own community with people from all kinds of disciplines because yeah. Those are just the people around you. I think, I mean, there's certainly departmental silos in liberal arts institutions, but almost more from a structural sense. 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 folks from the humanities and social sciences. And, and so I think these are things I have to be a lot more deliberate about, I see, it's much easier just to kind of stay in my building and yeah, it's much easier to kind of create your own little, uh, little palace or, you know, our work environment and not have those sorts of integrations, but those were incredibly valuable to me at Bucknell to see my, see our student experiences through different eyes, to see it the institutional experience or different eyes. Um, so I think that's one piece that will take quite a bit longer to, I think, foster and develop. And I have to be a little bit more, I think, direct about that.
Geri:Because in your role as the director of education or whatever the exact title is, how do you understand the student experience to help shape that as well becomes a scale problem, a scale challenge as well.
Evan:Yeah, and somewhat ironically, where our information science department is still small enough that it's actually size wise, pretty not too much different from what I was used to at Bucknell CS department. So departmental size actually is roughly similar in terms of students and faculty. Um, but you know, another really interesting change on the student experience side. Even though it saves me loads of time and is a relief sometimes, is, big institutions have professional academic advisors. Uh, where I was the academic advisor for my students at Bucknell. Um, and yeah, that took a lot of time, but you learn a lot about student experience when you are their academic advisor, their 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 little more, you might not get as organically, you know, I had to sit down with a group of undergraduates at the end of the semester just to chat with them for a while, you know, and before those were things that just would have happened,
Geri:Yeah. Just, yeah.
Evan:it's like, let's put it on a calendar.
Geri:Yeah. Well, it sounds like things are going amazingly well. And how are the working hours relative, if you're taking on a bigger responsibility as well and setting up a new lab, because I know that that was really important sort of family time and community, how are those aspects working out?
Evan:I think it's, I think it's pretty similar. Um, because you're teaching less, they're less, uh, uh, you know, immovable class time. Things on your schedule. One thing that I think was less common at Bucknell, but more common at CU. And I think among many similar institutions is, you know, I'll work for home from home one day a week. And so that's actually relatively, you know, 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 is a little bit more, I think, a little bit more flexibility in the terms of those. Um, and certainly the start starting up costs are always high, no matter where you are.
Geri:Yeah.
Evan:you know, um, little, little crazy at first, but.
Geri:Yeah. Any regrets at all about any of the choices that you've made along the way as you look back and reflect?
Evan:I don't know and I don't know if that's confirmation bias. Maybe I just want to be the hero of my own story, but
Geri: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 best choice at the time and when you made choices they were so well considered and I think you're a like a role model in making those choices work for you as well, shaped by a clarity about your values and what's important. Um,
Evan:you know, I hope that that's the piece that comes through um, because certainly, you know, I, I certainly still get a fair number of emails and have conversations with people who are entering the job market and just want to chat about these
Geri:Um,
Evan:and I don't know. I don't know how replicable anyone's path is, right? Um, I feel like I always have to say this all the time, because they'll ask me questions like, well, how easy or hard is it to shift from liberal arts schools to research? And it's like, I don't, I'm not completely sure, you know, I mean, I can tell you about my personal experience and the way it worked out and why it worked out the way it did. Um, but, uh, yeah.
Geri:the fact that you can play out your position in either institution in very different ways because you could be coming to a research intensive institution and just be really focused on the research, but you're still finding ways to be really focused on education and impact and all those things you care about. So you're still bringing those things with you. The, the shift of institutions has, sounds like it's just opened up the opportunities or changed the opportunities for the ways that you might express them or the different types of impact you can have that fit with where, how your thinking was evolving as well.
Evan:I mean, like I said at the beginning, you know, I worry that sometimes my shift is interpreted as my values changing or some criticism of some sort of boxer bin, but it's less than I think my, my values were relatively were relatively consistent, maybe reweighted a little bit, you know, um, and like I said, when I was looking at offers at an amazing liberal arts college, this, this teaching track position, which I thought had this incredible educational mission was also incredibly compelling. Had some wonderful, um, research opportunities as well. And, and, and this university, I mean, I think they're so dramatically different. I mean, orders of magnitude of difference in students. The way the positions are conceptualized, but, you know, if I think about almost like mapping things in space, based on my values and not on those structural pieces, they were the cluster that were right, very similar. And it was a, it was a really difficult decision. Um, uh, and that, that's the piece that, you know. I wish was easier for people to navigate. Um, because even I think hearing all that it's, it's still not easy to navigate at all. I mean, we still have this circumstance where even if let's talk about even like research institutions versus liberal arts colleges, they're hiring deadline. They're often offset by four months now. Um, it's actually not possible to think, look at them simultaneously for most graduating PhD students.
Geri:Yeah.
Evan: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 luxury of comparing so directly
Geri:Mm.
Evan:uh, you know, that, that is a privilege by itself. And I'm, I'm sure there are people who hear us professors talk about our job experiences and just roll their eyes into the back of their heads, right? Because of how just brutal and competitive the job market is and how the luxury of choosing between places isn't even a conversation most people get to have.
Geri:Mm. But I think what you've talked about raises attention to the importance of not focusing on, I don't know, like the title or the institution or the structural aspects, but wherever it is, what does it enable me to do? How does it connect to what's important to me?
Evan:Yeah, absolutely. And I also just believe that you'll be most effective and probably long term in those positions anyways. You know, I actually don't think you could have inverted my career. Like, I don't think that I could have started at CU Boulder. And, um, I think Bucknell was the right place for me at that time. Um. And certainly, you know, I think part of the reason that I was able to have choice the second time around was because people knew me for investing in undergraduate experiences in undergraduate education. People knew me for responsible computing and, and, and those initiatives. Um, And I would I have gone down those pathways at another institution? Maybe probably not. But you know, those those open the doors for opportunities to other places later on. Um, because those were important to me. And so in some ways, it was like I was, uh, you know, my work was publicizing my values.
Geri:yes, yes,
Evan: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:mm, mm, lovely. Are there any things that we haven't talked about that you'd want to mention before we wrap?
Evan:Uh, nothing off the top of my head. I feel like I've blathered on quite a bit.
Geri:So, I said before we started recording, I point my PhD students and early career people to your previous podcast episode all the time because of just how you talked about that, the whole decision making process. you know, like the way you reason through what was important to you and how you weighed them up and so on. And, the way that you've been able to make it work. And I think, uh, this will be joining the, the list of recommendations because, yeah, I love just how strategically reflective you are while still being true to you in all of this process. And, and the impact that you're having.
Evan:yeah, I do think that there is, and maybe this is partially because of, you know, when I came out with my PhD, we were at the peak moment in which CS PhDs are getting gobbled up on the industry market. And so I think for me, even making the choice of academia was saying, I really need to have a mission and a set of values behind this position because I'm giving up a lot of material
Geri:Mm. Oh, yes.
Evan:And so I think that that sort of helped that reweighting towards it. This, this needs to be important to me.
Geri:Yeah. Well, Evan, thank you very much for talking with me again and all the very best in this new career path, next
Evan:Yeah, this was, yeah, this was great. It was really interesting reflecting back on seven years ago when we talked before. Um, um, yeah, this was really lovely and thank you for having me.
Geri: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 to Changing Academic Life on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. And I'm really hoping that we can widen the conversation about how we can do academia differently. And you can contribute to this by rating the 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.