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VOICEOVER: This is Alumni Aloud, a podcast by Graduate Center students for Graduate Center students. In each episode, we talk with the GC graduate about their career path, the ins and outs of their current position, and the career advice they have for students. This series is sponsored by the Graduate Center’s Office of Career Planning & Professional Development. 

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JACK DEVINE, HOST: Welcome to another edition of Alumni Aloud. I’m Jack Devine, and I’m here with Professor Nugent. Thank you so much for joining us. 

DANA NUGENT, GUEST: You’re welcome. Happy to be here. 

DEVINE: We’re very glad to have you. So we like to begin with to kind of focus on the Graduate Center before moving on to your career and then we’ll return a little bit later as well. But what questions drove your research at the CUNY Graduate Center? 

NUGENT: So I had a long career in accounting before I decided to pursue a PhD, and as you’re doing that kind of work where I did tax work specifically, you’re doing tax work and it’s always in response to something, and you’re always, it’s always a moving target in terms of the work that you do. I started to kind of like wonder… there are questions that you can’t ask because they’re not practical and it’s not part of getting the work done. What motivated businesses to do certain things? Why owners made certain choices? And some of the tax implications of those choices that people don’t always think about. Also, they’re regulatory implications. So when you change tax law, you change the way that people live their lives. And I thought being able to kind of answer some of the questions that came up in doing the work that I was doing. Would be very cool and I ran across a I was in contact with Professor I had in grad school who I would talk to about all these questions, and she said, “Go back and do research. There is a way to do this.” I did not know that people got PHD’s in business. I knew people got PHD’s in neuroscience and like chemistry I did not know and history. But I did not know that people got PhDs in business. And so I was inspired. Definitely inspired. 

DEVINE: That’s really fascinating. So you had a career as an accountant and while you’re working all these questions start to percolate and you’re thinking of all these things. Why are all these things happening? What’s the political economic incentive structure? Why are businesses behaving this way? How does law impact things? But you can’t really do that on the job. So you figured you were inspired to go and look kind of seek out another route. You found out you can get a PhD in business and you did that and you kind of focused on those questions while you’re at the CUNY Graduate Center. So when did you first make the decision to pursue a career at Fairfield University and what steps did you take along your path to end up as an assistant professor? 

NUGENT: So my program at the at CUNY was five years and towards the end really. It’s it sounds terrible, but I’m a practical person, so I always knew that there was a drop on the other side. For me, it was really about finding the correct fit in terms of where I wanted to go because over the course of the five years at the grad center, while I came in with all these, like fantastic research questions, I also fell in love with teaching. The students that come to CUNY will inspire. For me, we’re inspirational in terms of wanting to pass on what I knew about accounting, share my experiences, and inspire students into business programs and help them to change their lives. And so for me, I ended up knowing I wanted to be a professor when I came into the program, but thinking I wanted to be like this big research, I was going to get like an R1. Where you just did a fantastic, amazing research and got to work with and during my five years at my program, my focus shifted. And I really wanted a more balanced career for myself that was included a research piece, but also how to focus on teaching and student experience. And so when I went on the job market, my program is five years. You go on to the job market at the end of the fourth year. If you really, if your dissertation committee, if you feel like you’re really on the course to graduate. So I did. I went on to the job market knowing that I was looking for a real balanced institution that gave me the opportunity to do research as well as teaching. So the steps along my path were really about making sure that I networked with a lot of people and talk to people about their different experiences at different institutions because. My higher education institution was curious. That was what I knew, and so I knew teachers were at CUNY and that was and professors from CUNY and their expertise. So I made sure to network when I went to conferences to talk to different people about their different experiences at R1 institutions or two institutions. Small, tiny little colleges, community colleges to see if I could find the career path that felt right for me that blended that teaching and research. And the type of research that I wanted to do. 

DEVINE: So you initially came in. You had all these big research questions about kind of the nature of accounting and how it fit in with business and the law. And but as your time went on at CUNY, I think a great thing about getting your PHD’s at CUNY is it offers so many opportunities to teach. And I’ve taken advantage of that as well. And it was inspirational. You loved working with the students, connecting them and making them understand accounting and think about things in a different way and kind of prepare them for that next step in your life. So you wanted to make sure as you moved on to the next step in your career that you focused on teaching now that it was a part of what you’re doing, that you weren’t just kind of a research professor, but that teaching was a major part of your job and you’d already spent time as an accountant. But were there any other career paths that you considered? 

NUGENT: So my passed to an accountant was not very linear. I took a lot of detours. I was a nanny for a little while. I thought I wanted to run a restaurant for a time. I loved traveling, so I thought I wanted to be a flight attendant for a while, so I kind of took a very different path, but I always knew I always liked being involved with people, younger people and just different mixes of people. That was what I really enjoyed about being an accountant. Was that I moved from a large firm to a smaller firm for the opportunity to work in my community and really get a chance to work with people that you run into at the supermarket and have an impact on their lives. So I did accounting is where I ended up because it’s a solid career that gave me the things that I wanted. And then teaching takes it. Teaching accounting takes it one step further. You get all. 

DEVINE: You’re jumping around different jobs. You’re trying to figure out. You land on accounting and you move in to help your community. You wanna help your neighborhood and work with people there. But then you’ve kind of taken to the next level. You’ve become a professor. You’re actually teaching people accounting so they can go and help their neighborhoods with their taxes and everything that comes along with that starting a business. Things of that nature. So what role did the Graduate Center have in your intellectual development, and how do your experiences of the GC transform you into the assistant professor that you are today? 

NUGENT: So for me, I think that being at the graduate center and being surrounded by like so many smart people, and the fact that the Graduate Center is the senior college for CUNY, is where all of the PHD’s go. So you have this chance to interact with people from different disciplines. And you know, it just sparks something in you when everybody around you is asking questions. I think there’s just an intellectual curiosity that comes out in this environment and different questions from different disciplines. It, you know, really makes it such an interesting experience. So when you take classes at the GC, you might be in there with. And even though I’m a business professor and that my PC track was very business focus. I took classes in economics and was able to take class work. That was a little bit outside, so I got a chance to interact with a lot of different people. It was really, really great. The other part of the GCC that I think is so very, very special is the support that they provide. So it is not just the fact that there’s this knowledge. Sharing and this intellectual curiosity and this great, you know, sense of scholarship amongst all of the faculty and the grad students. But they also acknowledge that it is an experience and a journey that you go through getting a PhD and therefore provide support for that and understand that everybody has a different situation, you know different needs and different ways that they need to be accommodated. And I think the Graduate Center has done such a good job at supporting students and that has inspired me to make sure that I go on to support my students. So I have extended office hours, I have zoom hours. I help them form study. Groups and I help you know, I take on undeclared students to help them find their path. You don’t have to become an accountant, but if you’re undeclared and unsure, let’s talk about who you are and what you want. You know your future to look like and the Graduate Center provided me space to do that as well. Even though I sort of knew I want to be a professor. They gave me the space to really be able to explore as a whole person, so the Wellness programs that are available and the academic support that I got at the Graduate Center, honestly, I would not be here without that and it’s maybe the professor I am because. I do I look at the whole student and try to help in every way, not just make them better accountants or make them accountants. I help to try to help them grow into, you know, the people that they’re meant to pay. 

DEVINE What you really seem to be emphasizing is that the Graduate Center is really is like a center. It’s a center of learning, a center of intellectual curiosity, kind of a center of a network that’s bringing all these scholars and people who are curious about the world together, but it’s also a center of support. It kind of. It’s a place that you can rely on, gives you kind of what you need to succeed and kind of move forward eventually in your career, but also kind of thrive while you were there. So what were some of the challenges you encountered as you transition from Graduate School to your career at Fairfield University? 

NUGENT: It’s a different balance. So as a PhD student while you’re teaching, there is a teaching responsibility. Then teaching responsibility isn’t as big. Like I was a graduate assistant for my time at CUNY assisting in a very large lecture that was very structured. And this is what they needed my part to be. I ran labs and helped students with homework, the projects, but I wasn’t responsible for like structuring lectures and deciding how to deliver certain concepts and things like that. While CUNY did a really great job of training me as a researcher, there was and giving me the experience of being with students and teaching. There’s like a whole magic that goes on. Behind making a syllabus and like making it work and deciding how to deliver concepts to study. That I have gotten to explore that isn’t so much it it it is a challenge, but it’s like the best challenge because there’s so much freedom in the ability to some somebody I went to a school that didn’t package and say this is what you have to do because it’s a little bit smaller, right? So CUNY is a huge school, the accounting classes at Baruch, I work specifically at Baruch College. The accounting classes there are 1000 students now. My classes are 30 to 40 students, and I have multiple sections, so I have the opportunity to kind of explore different pedagogy and different methods of delivery that I didn’t before, so it’s a challenge but not the end of the world. Not a bad challenge, something that really is almost inspiring and it’s inspiring my research and kind of reinvigorating. So there’s this whole your PhD. And then the bubble and the last, especially for me, that race to dissertation I was really closed off. I actually did not teach those semesters so that I could focus and try to get finished. And so you come out of that shell as this, like newer person that is now the professor in the room. And so my first day of class, I’m saying, Professor, I was like, is somebody else coming? Realizing that you were the 1. So there’s just that transition of going from student. Three months later, you’re the one in front of the classroom. So for me, that was a little bit but fun challenge. 

DEVINE: You become the center of attention in the room and all eyes are on you and they’re waiting for your expertise. That’s a really fascinating way of describing kind of the path that you’re taking. And I think it’s different for everyone at the Grad Center as well, cause I’ve done both. I’ve. I’ve both been a TA where I’ve been assisting in the classroom, a graduate assistant where the syllabus is already made. And I’m just there to lead discussion or something else, but I’ve also been in the position where I’m kind of the head of the class or I’m the lecturer and I’m I have to design the syllabus. So I’ve had both. So it’s interesting to kind of compare people’s different experiences in their PhD. But it is something different when you are kind of at the head of the classroom and learning how to kind of handle that. But it’s really fun. It’s great putting together a syllabus and designing the class and doing the readings that you want to do and emphasizing how you want to structure it. So it’s great it. Seems like you fully embrace that challenge and really loving and thriving in that environment. So what would you recommend to current graduate students interested in pursuing a career working in academia? 

NUGENT: So I think it is important to be open, open to the experience, good and bad, the experience of pursuing work in a career in academia has, you know, challenges to it. And there’s a lot of opportunity for growth. So being open to the challenges and open to the idea that it does, it’s a little bit of a recreation of who you are in the academy versus who I was as a business person, right? So there’s a definitely being open to the experience of that transformation of changing and being open to asking questions, being a researcher and an academic. The rest of my life is getting to ask questions which I think is so, so great. But you have to be open to that experience to a lifetime of learning a lifetime of, you know, some of it is news and being open to being rejected for publication and things like that. So there’s definitely new experiences that wash over you and you must be open for that and ready for that. So definitely, you know, talking to someone and knowing sort of what you’re getting into a little bit and being open to the experience. Most important. 

DEVINE: Being open minded, being prepared to learn a lot of things to ask questions, be prepared to be rejected and be told no to understand what you’re getting into. Talk to people and network before you do it. That’s a really great advice. I just want to thank you so much for joining us on Alumni Aloud. I really appreciated our conversation. 

NUGENT: Yeah, no problem. Thank you so much for the chance.