For Lisbeth Gant-Britton, graduate education at UCLA has provided a bridge from a career in journalism to a future back in academia, along with a return ticket to her alma mater, Kalamazoo College, where she will fill the first trustee professorship in the college's history. A tenure track assistant professor, Lisbeth will be teaching American, African American, and world literature as the Martene Crandell Francis Trustee Professor of the Humanities in the English Department.

Lisbeth's dissertation in comparative literature examines an interesting corner of that vast field: how women writers of color construct subjectivity towards the future; that is, how they envision ways in which women of color may create more empowered futures for themselves. Lisbeth uses works by Toni Morrison, an African American novelist who has won awards for her large body of futuristic fiction; and Cynthia Kadohata, a Japanese American whose second novel is set in the Los Angeles of the future.

This subtext of overcoming obstacles was also present in a book Lisbeth wrote before her doctoral studies began. African American History: Heroes in Hardship presents information on African American culture in a more accessible style, which Lisbeth developed from her years as a journalist and teaching periodically on the college level. Her 1992 book received a commendation from the City of Los Angeles for contributing to racial understanding in the city.

In writing it, she made use of skills she developed as an editor for Essence Magazine and a news writer and producer for Westinghouse and ABC-TV. But while she wrote, Lisbeth "had been thinking for some time that I wanted to go back into teaching full-time," and she'd had some strong encouragement. UCLA was attractive because it provided a great deal of flexibility for interdisciplinary work in the humanities, she says. Now about to file her dissertation, Lisbeth credits her professors with being outstanding "in the sense of being skilled in the classroom and also being energetic themselves in terms of their writing and research, so that the dynamic example and the information they've been able to provide me has been very useful."

Thanks to the advice of professors, including her dissertation chair Valerie Smith of the English department, she will begin teaching at Kalamazoo College in January. Early on, faculty advisers had encouraged her to publish and present papers, so that she would be an attractive candidate in the overcrowded job market. Kalamazoo caught up with its alumnus at last year's MLA conference in Washington, D.C.

Kalamazoo College is one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the Midwest, and is a pioneer in innovative academic programs, Lisbeth says. Her appointment is an example of their departure from tradition. Trustee professorships are usually awarded to academicians who have taught for many years and achieved eminence in their field. Instead, Kalamazoo's first appointment will go to Lisbeth, a "newcomer and an old timer at the same time;" an alumnus coming home with new credentials.

Published in Fall 1997, Graduate Quarterly