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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 Dr. Pierre Losson. Thank you so much for joining us. 

PIERRE LOSSON, GUEST: Thanks for inviting me. 

DEVINE: Of course. So, we like to begin with kind of your time at the CUNY Graduate Center and what you were invested in there. So, what questions drove your research at the CUNY Graduate Center? 

LOSSON: So for my dissertation in Political Science, I worked on the topic of returns and restitutions for cultural heritage to their country of origin, particularly countries of the Global South and more particularly Latin America. It’s a topic that I have been interested in since I first did a Master’s Degree many, many years ago, almost 25 years ago now. At the time my research was really focusing on the legal aspects of this processes of restitution. And I remember at the time feeling like a little frustrated. I knew I had only scratched the surface of the topic by somehow limiting my study to the study of international law on the questions and so when I started the PhD at the Graduate Center I thought it would be interesting to revisit the topic but this time by thinking about returns and restitutions as political processes, particularly to explore what was happening in the countries that claimed objects that are held in museums in the US or Western Europe. 

What I really wanted to do was to avoid naturalizing returns. And I mean by that if we think of cultural heritage as a social construction rather than something that we naturally care for then comes up a series of questions like why do some countries want stuff that is in a museum? Why do they want this stuff back? Why do countries care about certain objects more than others? And so that led to a lot of really good questions and I started digging up deeping into the topic. And when I started was like ten years ago now. The topic was still not as much a focus in mainstream media as it has become for the past few years. So it’s been really exciting to see all the developments in the world of museums happening like at the same time that I was doing my research. Because many curators in museums started thinking about the history of the collections that they were caring for which is often linked to colonial and imperial history of that country. And at the same time as more and more countries were starting to claim the growing number of objects. 

And then another important aspect and related question for my work was to focus on Latin America because it was a region that had been understudied when it came to this particular question of return of cultural heritage. There was like literally almost like nothing to read on this topic about Latin America in the English academic literature ten years ago. So I really wanted to, I guess, bring this region back into a growing worldwide conversation about the topic. 

DEVINE: You began this research as part of getting your Master’s Degree and you wanted to expand and dive deeper. That you were looking at the legal aspects, but you wanted to get into kind of the political context, placing cultural heritage and returns and restitutions within this broader imperial and colonial context, in particular focusing on the history of Latin America. That sounds really fascinating. So, when did you first make the decision to pursue a career at City College? What steps did you take along your path to end up as an Associate Director? 

LOSSON: Yeah, so, when I started the PhD I had already been working for more than ten years, mostly in Latin America, not in academia, I was actually for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time in French cultural centers. And also throughout my time as a PhD student I was also working full time as a fundraiser for a non-profit. So in a way it’s not that I, I had a career I guess, professional career, besides my research. 

So when I finished my PhD it made sense for me to go work in academia. That’s one of the reasons why you do a PhD, right? And I had this idea that I could go maybe either for traditional teaching position or, but also maybe for an administration job because in the end my professional career were really more administrative than teaching. So, but I guess for me it was more important to be an institution and the nature of the position. So, for example, with my experience in Latin America and my research topic, I knew that for sure I wanted a job that will allow continue working in and with the region. 

But I also had like another constraint which is I think is something that everybody has when you do a PhD and you spend so many years which is that other things happen in your personal life. So, well, I’m married, by the time I finished the PhD I also knew that I had to find a job in New York or in the metropolitan area because we had no plans or no desire to go live somewhere else which is fine with me but when you go look for an academic job it very much reduces the pool of jobs that you could apply to even though there are many universities in the metropolitan area here. So anyway that’s how I started looking into options. I found the job description for the job I have now at City. 

But I have to say that when I saw that job description in particular one very important thing for me was that it was within the CUNY system. Because I think that the work that our university does is so extremely important. We all know that sometimes it’s difficult. There’s never enough money. Our university never seems to be considered as important or prestigious as those elite private universities, but I think that the work that we do is invaluable and so, yeah, for me that was really important and I was really happy to be able to find a job at CUNY, within the CUNY system.

DEVINE: So you already had a career, you were working full time prior to getting PhD, while you getting your PhD, working in Latin America in French cultural institutions and in non-profits and this, so you wanted kind of to stay in this sphere but you thought that with the PhD it opened up opportunities in academia. And I can relate this restraint as someone who is married and lives in New York, and wants to continue living in New York, and would preferably continue to work for the CUNY system in one way or another. You wanted to continue to be here and you thought, you felt as if the CUNY system was preferable. You like sort of the work that the CUNY system does in uplifting people, the way that it helps of a more wide swath of the population than the elite private institutions that you were comparing it to. So that kind of that create this desire and when you saw this job, you saw this opportunity you felt as if it was the perfect fit for you. Were there any other career paths that you considered? 

LOSSON: I continue being interested in the work that so many non-profits do. From my experience as a fundraiser I think I also got interested in the world of philanthropy and the work that many foundations do. And at that time, definitely for me an option was, I don’t discard the possibility to do that one day, not now, because now I’m happy where I am but maybe one day joining one of those foundations. And reversing, I guess, my role from the fundraiser to the funder. Because I think this is, maybe my background not having been raised here in the US makes this whole world of philanthropy and foundations really interesting for me. This funding system is quite specific to the US with so much private money that funds a whole range of initiatives from the most socially progressive to the most conservative. So you can really do a lot of different work in that world. So yeah, maybe I’ll explore that. 

DEVINE: So you’ve worked in the non-profit sector prior to this and kind of returning to that but maybe in a more foundational aspect and thinking about how things are getting funded rather than receiving the funds that you do here at City College. That’s really interesting. The way that the US system works is very different than the way other countries operate so there’s a lot of ways that you could plug in. That sounds really great. So what role did the Graduate Center have in your intellectual development? And how did your experiences at the GC transform you into the Associate Director that you are today? 

LOSSON: I think that for me now, with a few years of distance, cause I finished the PhD in 2019, I think for me the most important thing at the Graduate Center was the complete academic freedom to research the topic that I wanted. I had no pressure to specifically focus on something that one of my advisors would have had been working on. I really had this freedom. I was very lucky to find in the Department of Political Science an advisor, Professor Woodward, who was not a specialist on my topic but she was really just committed to helping me succeed. She mentored me. She pushed through the different steps, you know, like taking the Comp exams, preparing the dissertation proposal, doing the research, doing the writing. She was always there in pushing me and encouraging me. Also telling me when things were not going as well as she thought they should go. But it’s good. For me, that’s why I think you need an advisor to go through this whole process. So that for me was extremely important. 

And then, I think also this idea of academic freedom at the Graduate Center you find it in the chance or occasion you have to meet professors who work in very different disciplines. And I was actually able to include a professor from History and a professor from Anthropology in my dissertation committee. And I feel that interdisciplinary focus that really informed my work. And that was, for me, it was really enriching. I loved that. I really loved that. 

And so how it informs my, maybe my professional career today is to make me, having made me more open and more aware to what happens in other disciplines. And not just political science which was my background. So for example now I work in Dominican Studies which is really an area of studies focusing specifically on the Dominican Republic but it is a multidisciplinary field. So I think in this sense it really helps me having this opening to others.

DEVINE: The academic freedom at the Graduate Center empowered you to do the research that you wanted so you were passionate about the subject that you were diving deeply into and you didn’t feel constrained and you felt really encouraged by your advisor who played a role in telling you when you needed constrain yourself in a certain sense but take the work in the right direction, but giving you a lot of great advice and people to work with. So you also expanded into this interdisciplinary approach which gave you different perspectives on your research which really kind of helped you today work in your role working with different fields at City College. That’s really great. So what were some of the challenges you encountered as you transitioned from graduate school to your career at City College? 

LOSSON: So in a way it didn’t feel so much as a transition, I guess, because, again, I was working throughout the PhD so I had a job. I continued working in the same job for a few years after I defended my dissertation then I moved on to a new job. So I think this transitions was a little less abrupt for me than for other people who suddenly have to find a job when they finish their PhD or have to think about that in their final year as they finish up their dissertation. 

That said I think that the main challenge was that there are simply not enough academic positions for all the PhD students who graduate each year. And I think especially with the levels of specialization or the specializations of our research topics that makes us a difficult match for most positions that are advertised. You kind of have to make the case for yourself that you can be more of a generalist in certain cases or maybe that your specialization can also speak to a specific job description. I found that really difficult. 

And another thing honestly, again working in a non-profit at the time, I found salaries in academia to be a little discouraging because they are really low. And for so many years dedicated to a PhD you would like to make a little more money than what is advertised most of the time. I think it’s particularly true in New York because the cost of living is so high. 

DEVINE: Part of your transition was easier because you were already working. You were at a non-profit so you had consistent employment so you didn’t have to be worried in the same sense that a lot of graduates are but you still wanted a job in academia in some sense. But the academic job market is really rough. There’s not enough available positions. You were already limiting yourself to New York, in the metropolitan area, so you had to think along those terms so that places another limitation. But in general there’s not enough jobs available for PhDs and they don’t, most of them don’t pay well enough, it’s hard to get a tenure track position, you were kind of wide ranging, looking for things that weren’t typical teaching or teaching and research. You were looking at this center that you ended up working at, but still it can discouraging when you’re not getting offered to get paid as much when you’re doing all this specialized training and all this work, and working at the same time while you’re doing that. So I could understand why that would be really frustrating. So I guess to continue along those lines, what would you recommend to current graduate students interested in pursuing a career working in academia? It can kind of be more broadly or in the kind of specific sphere that you are working in. 

LOSSON: So definitely do not get into academia if what you want is to make money. Do something else. But seriously, to the extent possible, find your own topic. Become the specialist in your topic and don’t let someone else impose a topic on you. Because if you are going into academia you’re going to live with this topic for your time as a PhD student, but then beyond for your whole career. So like make it a passion topic. And don’t let anyone pick this topic but you.

Also maybe something else, I would tell people if and when you get tired of academia think of two things. One, that you can always leave. There is a whole world out there and there are opportunities for you if you feel that academia is not your thing anymore. But, and that’s the thing and to keep in mind, academia has its downside which we just discussed it, but the rest of the world does too. So like after so many years in academia you may think that it’s like a paradise out there but really it’s not like it’s a tough world. So in whatever industry or job that you take there will be a downside. So at some point we have to find your own balance and think whether you can live with the downside in academia because then again if you go take a different job you will find downsides to that job as well so I guess that would be my two cents on this. There’s no perfect job, I guess is what I’m saying. 

DEVINE: That’s a really great point. That there are pros and cons to everything. That in academia you may be able to pursue your passion in a way that you wouldn’t be able to in another industry but it comes at the cost as not always making the most amount of money. Especially for someone who has as much schooling and training as someone with a PhD. So, but to keep in mind there are other opportunities out there, you know, if you’re feeling constrained or you wanna make more money or other things come in mind. So in way, keep an open mind and understand that there’s always gonna be positives and negatives about anything that you’re doing. I think that’s really smart advice. I just want to thank you so much for joining us on Alumni Aloud. We really appreciated hearing your perspective. 

LOSSON: Thank you so much for inviting me. 

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