How Do You Spell "Success"? A-M-B-I-T-I-O-N
When some seventies graduate students in the English Department at University of Southern California (USC) decided to act as if they were still living in the sixties, the graduate coordinator and chair of the department put us in our place. Led by one of my friends, we had signed a petition, listing complaints and demands for change in the graduate program. At the meeting called to address our complaints, the coordinator and chair angrily told us that we were not the "cream of the crop" among graduate students because if we had been we would be at Harvard or Yale. We high-achieving graduate students were too stunned to ask the obvious question: "Did you two get lost on your way to Harvard or Yale?"
After that meeting a few students were amused by the "cream of the crop" comment, but many of us were enraged. I considered taking my Ford Fellowship to a "less mediocre" school. And one of my friends, a frugal woman who was paying the expensive tuition because she thought she was at a good school, went to the chair's office to confront him about wasting her money. He assured her that he did not mean to say that USC was not a good school and blah, blah. Eventually, most of us went back to the business of earning our doctorates, but we never forgot that we had been told that we were mediocre.
Then, a year or two after that confrontational meeting, another black woman from Kentucky entered the graduate program. Her name at the time was Gloria Watkins; she later became bell hooks. When Gloria heard about the "cream of the crop" dig, she wondered why we USC students were so upset. Weren't the professors just telling us the truth? Didn't the top students go to those top schools? I thought about Gloria's comments. I never considered going to Harvard or Yale. And I picked USC because of its location and because UCLA required graduate students in English to know two languages. Since I had taken only French and that was in high school (I was in the School of Education at Northwestern, and we weren't required to take a foreign language), I didn't want to spend years learning another language. Also, as I admitted in my memoir, I didn't really know much about USC when I chose to attend that school; I thought it was a liberal school like Berkeley, and I didn't realize how important USC football was until I arrived on campus. So despite being an award-winning student at Northwestern and having earned a Ford Fellowship, I was kind of a second-rate student; that's why I didn't even apply to Harvard and Yale.
Of course, Gloria wasn't at those schools either. And she was at USC for an even more ridiculous reason than I was--her boyfriend at the time had a teaching position there. She and the boyfriend met at Stanford when she was an undergraduate and he was a graduate student. When he took a teaching position at Wisconsin, she followed him there and earned her M.A. Then when he moved to USC, she entered the Ph.D. program there; when he left USC for UC Santa Cruz, she took the Ph.D. qualifying exams after studying for just a few weeks and failed, so she had to start over at Santa Cruz where she earned her Ph.D.
I would say that Gloria was more second rate or maybe even third rate than the rest of us USC graduate students except as bell hooks she actually taught at Yale, and she published over twenty books. How did she become so successful? I think the key difference between her and me was that Gloria was always more ambitious. She caught my attention at the first teaching assistants (T.A.) meeting, not just because she was the only other black person in the room (most of the time that I was at USC I was the only black graduate student) but because when she introduced herself she said she was a poet and wasn't sure she wanted to teach composition. I thought, "She's a nervy little thing!" But I remembered her comments a few weeks later when I was offered a second semester 200-level black literature course. I was picked over Gloria because I was the senior black T.A. But because I enjoyed teaching composition, I let Gloria take the literature course. That same year a woman who attended church with my mother and had a radio show wanted me to come on it and talk about my life as a graduate student and teacher; again I passed the baton to Gloria, and again she gladly grabbed it. When I listened to her confidently talking to my mother's fellow church member, I said to myself, "Good call, Mary. Gloria knows how to talk on the radio." Of course, some years later, Gloria, renamed bell, would talk on television.
Probably what most stood out about Gloria in those early years when we were graduate students is she had already written a couple of books. She and her boyfriend self-published collections of their poems. But she had also written a non-fiction book about being a black woman. When I read the book, I enjoyed the content but was not impressed with her writing style. I don't remember what other complaints I had, but when I returned the manuscript to her, I asked, "Have you ever heard of a pronoun?" A few years later, after I had completed my Ph.D., taught one year at Tufts, and then returned to California to teach at Cal Poly Pomona, Gloria and I reunited in Santa Cruz. I was presenting a paper at a conference held at Stanford, and she was still completing her doctorate at UC Santa Cruz. On the day we met, the book with no pronouns had just been published, and she was signing it at a Santa Cruz bookstore. When I read the revised book, I was surprised by how much better written it was and noticed over the years how Gloria's writing improved.
When I try to explain why Gloria from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was more successful than Mary from Henderson, Kentucky, I start with our undergraduate experiences. Gloria went to Stanford from Kentucky; Mary went to Northwestern because she was living in Evanston at the time. I had moved to Evanston at fifteen, so Northwestern was my hometown school. If I had still been living in Kentucky, I would have gone to one of the universities in that state. And when she looked for jobs after earning her Ph.D., Gloria applied to Yale. I applied to schools in the Boston area but didn't even consider Harvard. We also viewed ourselves and our careers very differently; I always saw myself as a teacher. In fact, when I was being interviewed for the Ford Fellowship and one person asked if I would write a novel some day, I quickly responded, "Oh, no, I'm not that creative." When I first met her, Gloria saw herself as a writer, a poet.
Don't misunderstand me; I'm not suggesting that I'm timid and have no ambitions. I described myself in my memoir as "self-assured" and also said that I responded to my high school counselor's warning that I would not do as well in college as I did in high school by overachieving in college. I was just not as competitive and ambitious as the most successful academics. I was happy to be at Cal Poly Pomona instead of Tufts or a UC (University of California) school because I could concentrate on teaching and not worry about publishing. Having overachieved my way to a Ph.D., I was satisfied with what I had accomplished and didn't need to prove that I was the best scholar (although I did want to be a really good teacher), and so I wasn't.
I also didn't want to be famous, and so I wasn't. In some ways, I identify with the actors in Independent films. Like them, I just wanted to do good work and make enough money to live comfortably. I didn't need to win awards or give lectures to thousands of people (equivalent to the movie blockbuster). But now that I have retired as a teacher and have become a writer, I find myself with a dilemma. I want more people to read my books but still don't want to promote myself.
As I prepare to publish my second book, however, I'm going to try to be more like bell hooks, more ambitious and more willing to self-promote. If Madonna, who is not even close to being a great singer/dancer/actress, can stay famous for decades, and if the Kardashians can remain famous for years when even they admit they have no real talents, why shouldn't I, who knew how to use pronouns even when I was an undergraduate, be a famous writer? Why shouldn't I be "the cream of the crop"?
After that meeting a few students were amused by the "cream of the crop" comment, but many of us were enraged. I considered taking my Ford Fellowship to a "less mediocre" school. And one of my friends, a frugal woman who was paying the expensive tuition because she thought she was at a good school, went to the chair's office to confront him about wasting her money. He assured her that he did not mean to say that USC was not a good school and blah, blah. Eventually, most of us went back to the business of earning our doctorates, but we never forgot that we had been told that we were mediocre.
Then, a year or two after that confrontational meeting, another black woman from Kentucky entered the graduate program. Her name at the time was Gloria Watkins; she later became bell hooks. When Gloria heard about the "cream of the crop" dig, she wondered why we USC students were so upset. Weren't the professors just telling us the truth? Didn't the top students go to those top schools? I thought about Gloria's comments. I never considered going to Harvard or Yale. And I picked USC because of its location and because UCLA required graduate students in English to know two languages. Since I had taken only French and that was in high school (I was in the School of Education at Northwestern, and we weren't required to take a foreign language), I didn't want to spend years learning another language. Also, as I admitted in my memoir, I didn't really know much about USC when I chose to attend that school; I thought it was a liberal school like Berkeley, and I didn't realize how important USC football was until I arrived on campus. So despite being an award-winning student at Northwestern and having earned a Ford Fellowship, I was kind of a second-rate student; that's why I didn't even apply to Harvard and Yale.
Of course, Gloria wasn't at those schools either. And she was at USC for an even more ridiculous reason than I was--her boyfriend at the time had a teaching position there. She and the boyfriend met at Stanford when she was an undergraduate and he was a graduate student. When he took a teaching position at Wisconsin, she followed him there and earned her M.A. Then when he moved to USC, she entered the Ph.D. program there; when he left USC for UC Santa Cruz, she took the Ph.D. qualifying exams after studying for just a few weeks and failed, so she had to start over at Santa Cruz where she earned her Ph.D.
I would say that Gloria was more second rate or maybe even third rate than the rest of us USC graduate students except as bell hooks she actually taught at Yale, and she published over twenty books. How did she become so successful? I think the key difference between her and me was that Gloria was always more ambitious. She caught my attention at the first teaching assistants (T.A.) meeting, not just because she was the only other black person in the room (most of the time that I was at USC I was the only black graduate student) but because when she introduced herself she said she was a poet and wasn't sure she wanted to teach composition. I thought, "She's a nervy little thing!" But I remembered her comments a few weeks later when I was offered a second semester 200-level black literature course. I was picked over Gloria because I was the senior black T.A. But because I enjoyed teaching composition, I let Gloria take the literature course. That same year a woman who attended church with my mother and had a radio show wanted me to come on it and talk about my life as a graduate student and teacher; again I passed the baton to Gloria, and again she gladly grabbed it. When I listened to her confidently talking to my mother's fellow church member, I said to myself, "Good call, Mary. Gloria knows how to talk on the radio." Of course, some years later, Gloria, renamed bell, would talk on television.
Probably what most stood out about Gloria in those early years when we were graduate students is she had already written a couple of books. She and her boyfriend self-published collections of their poems. But she had also written a non-fiction book about being a black woman. When I read the book, I enjoyed the content but was not impressed with her writing style. I don't remember what other complaints I had, but when I returned the manuscript to her, I asked, "Have you ever heard of a pronoun?" A few years later, after I had completed my Ph.D., taught one year at Tufts, and then returned to California to teach at Cal Poly Pomona, Gloria and I reunited in Santa Cruz. I was presenting a paper at a conference held at Stanford, and she was still completing her doctorate at UC Santa Cruz. On the day we met, the book with no pronouns had just been published, and she was signing it at a Santa Cruz bookstore. When I read the revised book, I was surprised by how much better written it was and noticed over the years how Gloria's writing improved.
When I try to explain why Gloria from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was more successful than Mary from Henderson, Kentucky, I start with our undergraduate experiences. Gloria went to Stanford from Kentucky; Mary went to Northwestern because she was living in Evanston at the time. I had moved to Evanston at fifteen, so Northwestern was my hometown school. If I had still been living in Kentucky, I would have gone to one of the universities in that state. And when she looked for jobs after earning her Ph.D., Gloria applied to Yale. I applied to schools in the Boston area but didn't even consider Harvard. We also viewed ourselves and our careers very differently; I always saw myself as a teacher. In fact, when I was being interviewed for the Ford Fellowship and one person asked if I would write a novel some day, I quickly responded, "Oh, no, I'm not that creative." When I first met her, Gloria saw herself as a writer, a poet.
Don't misunderstand me; I'm not suggesting that I'm timid and have no ambitions. I described myself in my memoir as "self-assured" and also said that I responded to my high school counselor's warning that I would not do as well in college as I did in high school by overachieving in college. I was just not as competitive and ambitious as the most successful academics. I was happy to be at Cal Poly Pomona instead of Tufts or a UC (University of California) school because I could concentrate on teaching and not worry about publishing. Having overachieved my way to a Ph.D., I was satisfied with what I had accomplished and didn't need to prove that I was the best scholar (although I did want to be a really good teacher), and so I wasn't.
I also didn't want to be famous, and so I wasn't. In some ways, I identify with the actors in Independent films. Like them, I just wanted to do good work and make enough money to live comfortably. I didn't need to win awards or give lectures to thousands of people (equivalent to the movie blockbuster). But now that I have retired as a teacher and have become a writer, I find myself with a dilemma. I want more people to read my books but still don't want to promote myself.
As I prepare to publish my second book, however, I'm going to try to be more like bell hooks, more ambitious and more willing to self-promote. If Madonna, who is not even close to being a great singer/dancer/actress, can stay famous for decades, and if the Kardashians can remain famous for years when even they admit they have no real talents, why shouldn't I, who knew how to use pronouns even when I was an undergraduate, be a famous writer? Why shouldn't I be "the cream of the crop"?
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