UC Davis English PhD Alumni on the Tenure Track

The first of a three-part series by Heather Ringo interviewing UC Davis English PhD
program alumni, this article follows three former students who landed tenure-track
professor roles after completing their degrees. These professors reflect on their
memories of UC Davis and how their time here prepared them for their future career,
share the exciting work they are doing in their new roles, and offer sage advice for those
seeking to follow in their footsteps.

Jonathan Radocay (ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ | Cherokee Nation) |
Assistant Professor, American Indian and Indigenous
Literary Studies, Department of English, University of
Washington

Caption: Assistant Professor Jonathan Radocay stands at a lectern speaking to a
crowd. Photograph courtesy of Jonathan Radocay, used with permission.

Could you share some highlights of your experiences at UC Davis?

UC Davis offered a sense of community through Voorhies Hall. I have such fond
memories sitting around [the Voorhies 126] seminar table—whether it be from the series
of seminars and workshops from the Mellon Initiative on Racial Capitalism that Mark
Jerng co-chaired with Justin Leroy, or as Co-Chair of the English Graduate Student
Association (EGSA). We held EGSA meetings around that table. So much community in
that space, and fond memories from before the pandemic when there was a lot more in-
person culture.

Other proud memories include my time as Head Steward with UAW 2865 [the graduate
student union, now called UAW 4811] before I became active in EGSA. I would talk to
other departments, especially Native American Studies, about union business. I had a
lot of proud moments helping fellow graduate students. This included helping graduate
students through the COVID crisis transition. During those days, students were trying to
find vaccine availability and resources, and as department organizers we were really
trying to spread that word. We also held town halls during the wildcat strike in 2020. [My
community-building work] started with the union, and I had a strong vision about what
graduate student organizing could look like both within the union and the department
level.

It’s so easy to get focused on our own work. We like to think that if we just keep our
heads down and finish our work, then our work will be better for it. I truly think that the
university—especially English—needs to be a place with more collaboration, more
community, and more support. There needs to be more gatherings, more visiting. That
remains a problem here at the University of Washington, and I suspect that might still be
a challenge at UC Davis.

In what ways, if any, do you feel UC Davis supported you in your successes in
your new role at UW?

My dissertation co-chairs, Hsuan Hsu and Mark Jerng, were incredibly supportive as
mentors. Mark’s 2018 seminar on Cultures of Racial Capitalism has had a big impact on
my work. Among other scholars and writers, he introduced me to Tiffany King, who has
worked to bring Black Studies and Native Studies together. I learned a lot about Native
literary and Indigenous Studies through Mark’s disciplinary perspective. I continue to
return to the reading list of Hsuan’s 2017 seminar on Geographies of Risk, and I’ve
used some of those readings, along with some from Mark’s seminar, in my first
graduate seminar, Environments and Epistemologies of Extractivism. My interests in the
land, geography, and the production of space stretch all the way back to a reading
group that Hsuan organized on Space and the Spatial Turn in the humanities during my
first quarter as a graduate student in 2016. Hsuan also advocated for the department to
create a new preliminary exam list for me on just American Indian literature. He worked
with Desirée Martín and Mike Ziser to develop that list. To this day, that list has
informed the kinds of courses in American Indian and Indigenous Literary Studies that I
teach here at the University of Washington.

They always were supportive of whatever direction I wanted to take. They opened
doors, they helped me build relationships with Native American Studies. I did the
Designated Emphasis (DE) in Native American Studies, to nobody’s surprise. I got to
know Beth Rose Middleton Manning, who also sat on my dissertation. Her work in
allotment—the ways certain tools of private conservation and easements and the ways
that tribes were leveraging private property law to achieve Land Back and Land
Rematriation efforts—really informed my interest in thinking expansively in terms of
texts and method and approach.

During my second year, I was introduced to this whole community of Native graduate
students. I feel blessed that Jessica Bissett Perea (Dena'ina), who was in the UC Davis’
Native American Studies department when I was a graduate student, was hired at the
University of Washington in the same Indigenous Studies cluster as I was, in 2023. She
continues to provide a continuity of mentorship that connects UW to UC Davis. I took
her Introduction to Native American Studies seminar. She is a reminder of Davis in
many ways. Josh Reid (Snohomish Indian Nation) in the University of Washington
history department did his PhD in the history department of UC Davis. There’s an entire
community here [at the University of Washington] that started at UC Davis.

On my dissertation committee was also Mike Ziser. He was always supportive of a more
literary-historical approach that I used in my dissertation. I appreciate his perspective on
Environmental History—of thinking about allotment as a historical, political, and
environmental phenomenon in its specificity. Not just thinking about it as another policy
of land dispossession or assimilation, but of also looking carefully at its literary history.
In 2017 I took Mike’s proseminar on the History of the Book, Publishing, Authorship, and
Reading. That was really helpful for doing research on publication history, and how that
matters when we see how texts circulate—how editions are republished, where these
books end up in archives. The seminar has informed how I approach my own archival
works, including how oral history narratives of Elders talking about the early decades
after allotment and Oklahoma statehood in 1907. How do we read these oral history
narratives often collected under unethical circumstances? Indigenous materials from
settler salvage anthropology and ethnography projects–how do we use them in a good
way? How do we bring them home? Mike’s book history class informed my approach to
this work in amazing ways.

What has it been like adapting from graduate student at Davis to tenure-track
professor at UW?

I have been at UW for 2.5 years. I’ll probably go up for tenure sometime during the 5th
year. By that time, I’ll have my forthcoming book, Stories in Severalty: Allotment and
Indigenous Modernisms in production at the very least... I’m in the middle of pivoting
towards the book and rewriting my dissertation.

One major challenge to adapting to the tenure track: how to manage time well. I have
even more plates spinning now. I serve on dissertation committees of graduate students
and I sit on the undergraduate education committee. That kind of service work takes up
a lot of time.

You have to learn to prioritize what really matters. I’ve realized that relationships matter
even more. As much as it’s easy to just focus on the book, I found that it’s really
important to develop mentorship relationships with others—with more senior faculty and
to get to know faculty in other departments. That’s something I pursued at UC Davis as
well. Relationships were the reason I found success at all. I continue to lean into that. I
also think for me it’s been making consistent but slow progress on the variety of
research projects I’ve got going on. That’s something .. I guess I’m better at it in terms
of the ball keeps on rolling. But it doesn’t seem to get easier… there’s always just more
work to be done.

What are your favorite parts of your job at UW?

I am often asked to emcee at Sacred Breath, an Indigenous Storytelling and Writing
Series that brings Indigenous authors and storytellers to UW from the community. I
don’t know why they always ask me. Probably because they know I’ll always say yes
[laughs]. I introduce speakers, community members, and Elders. I run the Q&A session.

There’s this one Sacred Breath event that took place in the Fall of 2025. We had Coast
Salish Elders lead the event. Barbara Lawrence (Suquamish Tribe) lead a
basketweaving, cedar bark weaving workshop during the first half. This was followed by
traditional stories from both Barbara and Roger Fernandes (Lower Elwha S’Klallam).
Barbara first led the workshop on weaving cedar basket hearts. She showed us how to
weave cedar strips into these patterns. I had to constantly get up and down from my
work to complete my emcee duties. My cedar weaving kept drying out because I was
making sure everyone was comfortable and the event was going well.

Eventually I had to abandon my cedar weaving because I had to get ready for the
transition from workshop to storytelling. I came back to my seat where I left my cedar
weaving… and found it was completed. I looked around. At first I thought my colleague
Rae Paris in Creative Writing had finished it for me. I asked around.
“No, no, no. Barbara finished it for you.”

Caption: woven cedar heart against a white background. Photograph courtesy of
Jonathan Radocay, used with permission.

What advice would you give to someone aspiring to follow in your footsteps?

Professionalize in multiple places. I did not just professionalize to be an academic. In
the last couple years of my PhD, I worked as a Communications and Development
manager for the California Indian Heritage Center Foundation, a Native-led non-profit
set up to support the California Indian Heritage Center at the confluence of the
Sacramento and American Rivers. This space will eventually replace the State Indian
Museum in downtown Sacramento.

I would also say: find ways of imagining and leveraging your dissertation experience in
the program in other professional settings. That’s where relationships are so important.
Developing relationships outside of campus and academia helps you think about the
legibility of your work in other professional spaces.

For academia and the tenure track, I think that… it’s easy to think that you have to go to
conferences or pursue publication opportunities for their own sake. True, you want to
build out a CV that shows your research activity. But the most important part of these
early conference presentations or articles is that…you’re there to actually meet people
who will remember you. For me there was a snowball effect of people who reached out.

“So and so’s work really reminds me of this—I think they would be a good fit for this.”

Or “this person is so likeable, such a good colleague, great to talk with. Great
interlocutor, I could imagine them as a good culture fit for my department.”

I think we underestimate that kind of relational part of professionalizing work—what lies
beyond the actual work of developing research writing and conferencing.

Tell us more about your book-in-progress, Stories in Severalty: Allotment and
Indigenous Modernisms.

The book focuses on Indigenous literatures and texts primarily in the United States but
also gestures to other global Indigenous contexts shaped by colonial privatization. I’m
looking at texts from all over Indian Country that reflect the unevenness of Indigenous
experiences with allotment. Indigenous authors in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries critique allotment as a colonial geography and policy, yes, but they are also
thinking about what nation building, community building, and Indigenous futures look
like in a post-allotment, privatized world. The book follows the unexpected, imaginative
places that Indigenous literary and cultural production takes place.

The DNA of UC Davis is very much present in the book: Beth Rose Middleton Manning,
my dissertation committee member in Native American Studies, encouraged me before
I went on [a research] trip, “You should keep a journal of your experiences going to visit
your grandmother’s allotment and home places and document and reflect on those
experiences.”

That kind of approach continues to be important to me. In 2021, I was a Mellon Public
Scholar, a program run by the UC Davis Humanities Institute. It was a program where
you could pitch a partnership with an organization outside the university and imagine
what a public humanities or community-engaged research project looks like. I did that
with the Cherokees of North Central Valley. This is an at-large community organization
that has a relationship with the Cherokee Nation. That kind of public humanities
partnership found its way into my dissertation and really attuned me to the importance
of Indigenous Studies methods in my work. I am always asking myself, “Am I handling
these stories in a good way? Am I researching in a way that is aligned with the desires
of the community?”

I think a lot about Eve Tuck’s call in her open letter, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to
Communities,” for more desire-based research. This method continues to inform my
thinking about Indigenous histories and literatures threading through the 1920s to the
present. I try to follow a research trajectory of desire, of connection, of continuity. In that
time period, in the early 20th century, it’s easy to fixate on narratives of loss and
assimilation. The dissertation chapter that I wrote based on my experience as a Mellon
Public Scholar challenged me to research different forms of futurity. It lives with me to
this day.

Breanne Weber | Assistant Professor in the Department of
English at James Madison University

Caption: Assistant Professor Breanne Weber guides James Madison University students
through a workshop. One of the students is actively engaged in the process as other students
and Weber look on. Photograph courtesy of Halley Conrad, used with permission.

Could you share some highlights of your experiences at UC Davis?

The best thing to come of my time there were the friends I made. To this day I still
regularly talk to the very small handful of friends that were there for me the entire time,
and even some that I didn't get to spend much time with at Davis but we have since
become close. It's so nice to get to celebrate all of our successes together even now.

I loved my initial years working for the Writing Fellows program and in the DataLab for
my Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) role. I got to meet so many students outside of
the [English] department doing interesting projects, and to support their successes in
grant applications, dissertations, and article placements. It was really helpful in
preparing me to do high-level thought work with my students, especially my M.A.
students at James Madison University (JMU), as well.

In what ways do you feel UC Davis supported you in your successes in your new
role at JMU?

My dissertation committee was the best one I could have possibly landed. I feel so lucky
that I got to be Fran Dolan's final dissertation advisee; she is even more incredible than
everyone says she is, and one of the most generous people I've ever met. Even as
recently as a few weeks ago, I needed advice about how to navigate a tricky
professional situation. She sat down with me to help me figure out what to do. I have
had lovely chats with Tiffany Werth since my graduation, as well, and she also remains
incredibly supportive post-Davis. My entire committee (Fran, Tiffany, and Carl Stahmer)
went above and beyond while I was at Davis to ensure that I got the experience I
needed in a variety of avenues to pursue whatever career I wanted.

JMU is, like UC Davis, very interdisciplinary—we have a long list of minors housed in
the English department, including in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Book Arts,
Queer Studies, Digital Studies, and more, and my committee supporting me through my
interdisciplinary pursuits while at Davis certainly helped prepare me to both market
myself as someone able to contribute to many areas and actually live up to those
contributions on the ground. I was so well-prepared because Fran, Tiffany, and Carl
encouraged me to work out how early modern literature, book history and arts, and
digital and environmental humanities fit together in my research. And beyond that, they
gave me creative opportunities—working in the DataLab, being a teaching assistant
(TA) for book arts/Digital Humanities/Shakespeare classes, writing letters of support for
trainings in book history and bibliography...the list goes on.

Caption: Assistant Professor Breanne Weber leading students through a papermaking
process outside. Photograph courtesy of Halley Conrad, used with permission.

What has it been like adapting from graduate student at Davis to tenure-track
professor at JMU?

The shift from graduate student to tenure-track professor is tough! I was highly involved
in the workings of graduate life at Davis—I was on the Chancellor's Graduate and
Professional Student Advisory board, worked in both TA and GSR capacities, served
some in the EGSA, and more, and I was still not prepared for the amount of work it
takes to understand the bureaucracy of a state university while balancing a much higher
teaching/research load and service requirements. That said, the JMU English
Department has been extraordinarily supportive during this transition. My colleagues
here are wonderful, and have really ensured that I'm not overcommitting while balancing
completion of tasks required for tenure.

What are your favorite parts of your job?

I love working at JMU so much. One of the best parts of the job is my junior faculty
cohort in the department. JMU is so lucky to have a whole group of us—right now, there
are five—so I don't feel adrift trying to learn things or find people to share stresses with
or ask questions. We're all very close, and we meet regularly to chat and write and
support each other through the pre-tenure process.

What I also love about my job is getting to work with so many students from
backgrounds similar to my own. I encounter a lot of first generation and queer students
at JMU, and it is such a joy getting to be the person for them that my faculty mentors
were for me. And the students at JMU are so willing to roll with the punches. I integrate
a lot of creative projects and art-making in my classes, and every single time they rise to
the challenge, producing some incredible work that processes early modern literature in
newly translated forms. One of the best projects I've seen was from a student in my
Early Modern Women's Writing course: they designed and stitched an entire cross-stitch
art piece representing Margaret Cavendish's poem "A world in an ear-ring." The tiny
cross-stitches represent the atomic theories Cavendish was exploring in the poem. It's
incredible, and hanging now in my office.

What advice would you give to someone aspiring to follow in your footsteps? Or
what advice would you give to yourself back when you were a grad student at UC
Davis?

I really wish I could go back and tell myself that if I just kept my focus on my work and
the people who actively support and encourage me that everything would work out in
the end. I got distracted by a lot of things that were happening both within the
department and at the university level while I was at Davis, and it wasn't until I decided
that I was there for a purpose and that I needed to commit to completing what I set out
to do that I finally started to see success—winning grants, placing articles I pitched, and
getting a book contract. I also made a decision part of the way through the program to
refuse the hustle and overwork aspect of academic culture. I prioritized building
friendships outside of the department, volunteering at a museum, spending time with
family and friends, and pursuing my hobbies. For nearly the entire last half of my time at
Davis I didn't work past 6pm or on weekends, with a few exceptions for finals grading
and putting finishing touches on the dissertation. It took a lot of focus and effort, but it
was so worth it for my mental health (which in turn really helped my focus while I was
applying and interviewing for jobs). To this day, I maintain these boundaries, and I'm
ahead of schedule with my tenure plans.

So what I would tell any aspiring or current graduate student is to keep the focus on
your why: why do you want this, beyond just the opportunity to have a great career?
Your "why" has to be much deeper and more personal if you're going to succeed. And,
frankly, it is possible to help create some of your own luck if you are relentless in your
pursuit of that and don't allow yourself to get distracted by things that don't have any
bearing on your career whatsoever. And in all of that, you can and should include
connection with your community: specifically, the people around you who love you and
want you to succeed, whether they're in the program or not. It helps prevent you from
getting lost in chaos. Remember that there is life outside of academia, and there always
will be, no matter what happens with your career.

Mario Girón | Instructor in the Humanities Division at
Fresno City College

Caption: Professor Mario Girón smiles while pointing to a white board covering a lesson on
“The PIE method.” Photograph courtesy of Mario Girón, used with permission.

Could you share some highlights or fond memories of your experiences at UC Davis?

One of the highlights during my time at UC Davis was the mentorship provided by my advisors,
Professor Desirée A. Martín from the English Department and Professor Michael Lazzara from
the Spanish Department. Both of their insights and guidance encouraged me to finish my
dissertation while also pursuing a designated emphasis in Human Rights. I also enjoyed my
time exploring the different alt-ac positions I had on campus. From working at the Internship and
Career Center, to being a success coach, to working at the Humanities Institute, and working at
a local non-profit…all these experiences developed my professional skills to help me achieve
the position I now have at Fresno City College (FCC).

In what ways do you feel UC Davis supported you in your successes in your new role at Fresno City College?

I felt the most support from my advisor [Desirée Martín]. After having a frank conversation about
where I saw myself at the end of my graduate education, she helped me take the necessary
steps to finish my PhD. As you know, it is common for many PhD students to experience
burnout, sometimes for days and, at worst, years. She helped me see a light at the end of the
tunnel, especially when I wanted to support my family when we were about to have our first
child.

Another aspect where I felt supported was through the pedagogy I learned from professors such
as Dan Melzer. His instruction in teaching UWP 1 really influenced my teaching. It is through his
influence that I learned to apply a multi-draft approach in my composition courses, providing
plenty of moments to give feedback to my students. This is helpful given that my student
population at FCC is so diverse in their experiences and learning levels.

What has it been like adapting from graduate student at Davis to tenure-track professor at Fresno City College?

Honestly, I feel like I am finally flourishing as a professor. During my time at UC Davis, I married
my wife of almost 8 years now (wow!), took multiple positions to stay afloat and explore job
paths, and had my first child. All these aspects impacted my teaching ability at UC Davis and
made me feel like teaching at a college was not for me. For a time, I felt that I did not belong in
a college space or did not deserve to be at UC Davis. This was clearly imposter syndrome, but
at the time I did not recognize it. However, when I started teaching as an adjunct at Sierra
College, I realized that I did belong and that I could have a positive influence on my students.
So, when it came to my position at Fresno City College, I realized my potential and ability to
help my students in the same way that my community college professors helped me. It feels
natural and I am much happier now that graduate school is behind me.

What are your favorite parts of your job?

I enjoy lecturing and making my students laugh while teaching them the importance of style in
writing or revision. It has given me a reason to stay current on TikTok to make my lectures
relevant to them and laugh at the same time.

I also enjoyed the moments I had with my students one on one. A student of mine needed help
applying to UCs. He worried about his ability to write a personal statement that would appeal to
the application committees. I offered my help and we would regularly meet. I guided him on
what to share in his statement and helped him craft it. He later returned in the next semester
and notified me of his acceptance to UC San Diego, thanking me for all the help and kindness I
showed to him. It helped me see the wealth of information I can provide for my community and
the impact my role has in helping students. It reminded me of how my community college
professors helped me see my own potential. This is what I want my students to see as well.

As a fellow community college instructor — and former community college student — I am so appreciative of you pursuing this career path. Can you share with us why you
chose to teach community college over teaching at a university or other institution?

There are two factors as to why I chose to teach at a community college. First, I will give the
answer that accounts for our current job market and national landscape. Closer to the end of my
PhD degree I had my first child. I needed a secure position that would allow me to provide for
my growing family. Though working at a research institution was a dream I had, the path
towards achieving that dream would not provide the financial security I needed. More than likely,
I would need to pursue a fellowship to be marketable to research universities. These fellowships
often only provide two-year appointments. Additionally, I did not want to have to move to any
other state where my wife’s or daughters’ health and wellbeing would be infringed upon or
restricted due to state laws. That is why community college — and in particular, California
community colleges — sounded appealing to me. This path provided more financial security and
gave me the ability to stay in California, near my extended family. It offered more protection of
my wife’s and daughter’s rights.

The more altruistic answer is that the community college experience I had was so seminal for
me. Community college professors helped me see my potential as a student and scholar— that
I belonged on a college campus. Though both research universities and community colleges
have the same goal of helping students achieve academic success, I feel that community
colleges allow professors and staff to put the needs of students first. I saw myself as caring
more for students than for research, and teaching at a community college helps me stay
student-centered in my teaching. It also allows me to help a similar community to the one I grew
up in. FCC is a mostly working class, first generation [college] student population. I see myself
in these students and I want to be a role model for them to show them what they can achieve
while helping them accomplish their goals.

What advice would you give to someone aspiring to follow in your footsteps?

The advice I would give to an undergraduate or graduate following in my footsteps is to know
that they belong in the spaces they are in. Many universities, though they may have a
welcoming message, the institutions they are built upon still need to change. Sometimes they
make you feel like you are not able to accomplish your degree. That is false, you can
accomplish and finish your degree. I would also encourage [those pursuing English degrees] to
explore multiple career paths. This will help them determine whether academia is right for them
while helping them develop transferable skills for any position. Also, I suggest students network
with their professors and peers. It is important to have a support system on and off campus.

To my younger self I would tell myself to seek resources that help uplift you. Something that
happens to many graduate students is that [graduate school] is a grueling process that takes a
lot out of you. Seeking help such as mental health resources can help stabilize your perception
of yourself and help you see the positive aspects of a PhD journey. In addition to professional
support, it’s important to find friends to commiserate with, laugh with, collaborate with to
accomplish your goals.