"I Wish I Knew That I Could Be a Professor" by Dr. Jason K. Wallace

Dr. Jason K. Wallace is an accomplished professor, education researcher, practitioner, and co-founder of @FirstGenDocs, a virtual platform that seeks to affirm the experiences, amplify the voices, and celebrate the brilliance of first-generation doctoral students.

As a first-gen college student, Dr. Wallace seeks to strengthen the pipeline to graduate education for first-generation Students of Color. I’m so grateful he wrote this guest blog post below, and believe you will be inspired by his authenticity and dedication to access, equity, and research. I am honored to have called him a friend for more than a decade, and for his voice that he so eloquently expresses through this piece.

I Wish I Knew That I Could Be a Professor

I am a professor. A Black, working-class, first-generation, tenure-track assistant professor, to be precise. Though I am only in my second semester of my first year, I feel like I have secured my dream job. Only three years ago if someone asked me, as a second-year doctoral student, if I wanted to be a professor, I would have emphatically said “no.” The truth is, I did not want to become a professor because I did not believe that I could be a professor. Though I frequently excelled in school, there were messages embedded within institutions of higher education which communicated that I was not enough.

After nearly 10 years of post-secondary schooling, achieving three degrees from two universities, I had only taken four courses from Black professors – two of which I did not take until my doctoral studies. Having attended historically white institutions (HWIs) for each of my degrees, the campus environment and culture never reflected me nor my identities. Paintings of white men, and a few women, decked the walls of every building with names of white donors prominently placed atop the entrances. Pedagogy centered upper-middle-class experiences, with cultural references that were often foreign to me, and readings by mostly white scholars accompanied each lesson.

Institution traditions, songs, and campus activities rarely reflected my culture nor fostered a sense of community for me. Further, the lack of Black students, faculty, staff, and administrators on campus exacerbated my isolation and the perpetual questioning from white people about which sport I played, though I did not play sports, clearly communicated that they could only justify my presence by athleticism and not intellect. HWIs never centered me and, therefore, I felt like a permanent visitor. These implicit messages communicated that I was not enough. I was not smart enough. I did not have enough money. I did not have the cultural capital to be a real member of the higher education enterprise. 

And yet, I am here – teaching, researching, serving, and thriving. I sometimes wonder where I would be today if I knew that I was enough from the beginning. Who would I be if higher education leaders sought to reflect my identities in the academic landscape? Who would I be if the people on the walls of every academic building looked like me? Who would I be if my ancestor’s names adorned the front of those buildings? What might I have become if campus traditions and activities centered my culture?

Had I studied under the tutelage of Black faculty or if curriculum centered working-class experiences, what might my possibilities have been? How might I have viewed myself if my professors had assigned the works of Black scholars or decoded the academic jargon that constantly confused me as a first-generation student? Who could I have become if my peers did not ask me questions that assumed why I was admitted to the institution, but instead, questioned how I sought to change the world? 

Who would I be? Who would Black, working-class, and first-generation students be?

To the working-class undergraduate who does not see her experiences reflected in curriculum, to the Black student pursuing his master’s degree who still has not taken a course from a Black professor, to the Black, working-class, first-generation doctoral student who is committed to producing scholarship that centers us because they have not yet read a piece that does, I see you. Keep going. Higher education institutions continue to fail many minoritized students, but we must press on. I want you to know that you can make it through. You are smart. You are powerful. You are capable. You can be whatever it is those implicit messages say you cannot. I wish I knew this three years ago. I wish I knew this as an undergraduate. I wish I knew that I was enough. I wish I knew that I could be a professor.

I am a professor. You can be, too.
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Dr. Wallace holds a bachelor’s degree in Advertising and Public Relations and a master’s degree in Educational Administration from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX — his hometown. He received a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in College Student Affairs Administration and a graduate certificate in Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies from the Mary Frances Early College of Education at the University of Georgia.