Dr. Stefanie Sevcik and Michael Sevcik

00:00 Tell us who you are.

00:03 Hi. My name is Michael Sevcik. I'm married to doctor Sevcik since 2014, and we moved to Milledgeville, Georgia, in 2018 when Stephanie took a job at Georgia College and State University. And we have two daughters who are now seven and eight years old.

00:27 Yeah, great. So what is an element of your identity that you feel is very important to how you live and exist in Georgia? Middle Georgia? We live in Milledgeville in 2023.

00:44 Well, a couple of things come to mind immediately. The first is sort of being married to an academic and having constant exposure to that world of academia and then also of recent being a master's degree student myself. You know, it's difficult for me to picture us being here outside of sort of existing in that little kind of bubble of a world. And it's something I become more and more aware of, I think, as time goes by and the longer we've spent here, just what it means to be a part of that and sort of the privilege that comes along with that. And it is something, I think, quite a bit about.

01:41 So just what? Like, living in a kind of academic environment that you can't ever get out of because of me and now because you're doing your own master's degree?

01:51 Well, I mean, I think of it as sort of a positive thing in the sense that it was always something I felt drawn toward, just in terms of being around people who are thinking about things and questioning things constantly, regardless of discipline. But, you know, I never felt like that was that unattainable for me. I didn't go directly to college when I graduated from high school. I worked for a couple of years, and I think having that experience kind of got me to a place in my life where I felt so strongly about wanting to pursue my education that I didn't experience a whole lot of difficulty in doing that. But that being said, the only reason I was able to kind of take that path was because of the family support, financially and otherwise, that was provided to me at that point.

02:54 And you mean when you were an undergraduate or once you. You and I met and you became attached to an academic?

03:03 Well, both. Both when I started my undergrad, which, oh, gosh, seems like a lifetime ago now would have been like 2002. So we're talking 20 plus years ago, and we're not for my.

03:20 In New England, in Massachusetts, Rhode island.

03:24 Which, if y'all never been up that part of the country, quite a few. Quite a few films are filmed in Rhode Island. I don't know if you guys have seen dumb and dumber, but that's one of my personal favorites. That is actually filmed right in Providence, where we moved from where we met. Yeah, we didn't meet there too, as well. Yes, but just, you know, my parents were able to support me financially, and I actually, I went to a school that was quite expensive and could not afford on campus housing.

03:58 Rhode Island School of Design.

04:00 Yes. Which is obscenely expensive and kind of a ridiculous place in many ways, although I did love the experience as well. But I actually could not afford to live on campus or in my own housing, and I had to actually live with my parents while I was a student there, which was not easy in many regards, but that was kind of a sacrifice, sacrifice I had to make.

04:28 So does that actually, does that, like, sense of dependence on your parents, does that play into your feelings about academia now, having, like, a wife who's an academic who you've kind of had to follow around the country for work?

04:42 Well, yes and no. I mean, one of the funniest things about being a grad student is that I'm now a grad student at the school where Doctor Sevcik formerly taught. And being the very gregarious, that's me, by the way, being the very gregarious person that she is. And Georgia College being a relatively small kind of cohort of people, everybody knows her quite well. And a lot of times I'm introduced to people as Doctor Sepczyk's husband. So I kind of live in her shadow. Not in like a bad way. I don't mean that, but just sort of it is what it is. And, you know, going back to my years as an undergraduate student, you know, part of going to. Well, I went to an art school, which in of itself is maybe not the most practical path to go down. But do you have regrets about going.

05:38 Into going to an art school? Like, what are your feelings about that first encounter with academia? Do you feel like it was time well spent or.

05:48 Well, look, if I had not gone to art school, I probably would not have succeeded. I don't know if you all are creative types, but we kind of have our own way of doing things. We need to be in an environment where that's encouraged and appreciated, and if we're not, you know, things can be a struggle. That being said, the particular school I went to was not the most socioeconomically diverse, even less so than it probably is these days. But, you know, it was definitely a socially awkward experience for me to be around mostly upper middle class to upper class students and for me to be sort of living in my parents basement, commuting to class every day now, you know, don't get me wrong, everybody was nice and whatever, and I even went to a few parties, you know, while I was there, if you can believe that. But, you know, definitely being there. And then upon graduation, I was not in the same boat as many folks I knew who could pretty much have their families bankroll, you know, moving to New York for them and, you know, experiencing what a place like that has to offer. That's very expensive to live. But, you know, there are always reasons why people want to go to certain places.

07:15 So you kind of experienced undergraduate life or your undergraduate career a little bit non traditionally, you were a little bit older than the rest of the students, weren't you?

07:27 Yeah, by living years, and you didn't.

07:29 Live in the dorms. So there's things that kind of put you, set you apart from your classmates.

07:37 Right now, I was in it for me in getting to my goal, which was to learn something and get my degree. And so in a way, I was able to really just focus on that. But there's a price to that as well. And when I did graduate in 2007, I was kind of left in a sort of purgatory of not knowing what to do with my fancy art degree and being from a family of relatively modest means and started trying to figure out how to exist on my own. I ended up having two roommates who were both graduate students in neuroscience who were actually from China originally. And I just remember they were sort of like perfect roommates in a lot of ways because they almost never had people over or parties. One of them would get up at the crack of dawn and leave and be gone all day until maybe about 11:30 p.m. and the other would stay in his room and study until maybe like five, six pm and then go out briefly and then come back. And they loved me because I also did not have much of a social life. I kind of just worked and did my thing.

09:01 What's the most, though, RISD Rhode island school of design experience that you had as an undergrad? Like, what's the kind of quintessential RISD experience that you did have?

09:13 Um.

09:15 Like, was there some kind of event or, you know.

09:18 Well, I mean, I don't mean this in like, a mean way, but just being around a lot of, like, really spoiled kids who have a lot of money and live in a different reality.

09:28 That was the quintessential.

09:30 That's kind of like the experience in a nutshell, although I will say that everybody I knew was also very, very talented and smart, and just the students are amazing in every way imaginable.

09:46 And when I taught there about, what was it, ten years after you had graduated or so?

09:51 Yeah. Which I don't know what it was like. It was a little different.

09:56 Yeah. By 2016, when I was teaching there, it wasn't. It was. There was definitely a divide. There were some people who had, you know, paid full price for tuition and then a lot of students who were in on financial aid, and everybody was really talented, but it might have been a little bit less.

10:13 Well, and here's the thing. I mean, the studio, you know, my friends when I was there, they were smart enough to also be somewhat aware of their own privilege, and it wasn't like they always felt great about that. But it's kind of just like, you know, you have what you have, and if you have it power to you and if you don't, whatever. But, you know, really, the quality of the education was tremendous. If I had to do it over again, I would. But that was kind of my trajectory, if you will, into sort of post graduation existence and kind of not having any idea what the hell to do and then sort of finding a way to just be content in existing and working part time job that I found tolerable that did actually expose me to a lot of theater and writing and art and just kind of finding the things that seem to have meaning or that could have meaning to cling to.

11:11 So you were, you did your BFA in studio art and painting, but now you're doing your MFA in poetry. So totally different medium or genre. I mean, just a totally different kind of way of thinking about art. What to you from RISD, really helped you to, you know, or inspired you to do an MFA in poetry?

11:41 Well, I think work ethic is something you learn quickly there. And if you don't, you almost don't have any reason to stick around. You know, there's a lot of.

11:53 It's very demanding, the education.

11:55 Yeah. And not like, in a crazy way, it's not like going to like MIT and studying engineering or something like that. But, you know, within exploring your own creative process, you're encouraged to kind of find a way to make that individually meaningful to you. But there was. They also expect a lot from you in doing that. You can't just kind of float through and not do the work either. So I appreciate that now a lot because I know I did get something out of it. And another thing of about having to work hard in that regard is it can kind of force you to really think about, what is it about what I'm doing that is actually meaningful? You know, what is. What is just fluff, and what is really at the heart of why I want to do this. And, you know, material success usually is something that people have to accept, you know, not necessarily coming with that. And so you do have to sort of find other reasons why I. You feel inspired to continue creating and even just appreciating what other people are doing when they're creating.

13:21 Go ahead.

13:22 I was just gonna say, I mean, that really is the biggest thing I think, that I could say I took away from the experience of being at RISD.

13:30 So what changed? Or what maybe first, why did you decide to pursue an advanced degree after? So you graduated in 2007, and you started your master's degree in 2023, in the spring semester, 2023. What inspired you to do that? And how have things changed in that span of time? It's a pretty long break that you took from academia.

14:05 It is. And the grad school thing is complicated. And what I mean by that is, I think, in a similar way as I experienced wanting to pursue a. An undergraduate degree. Everybody has to kind of come to their own place where they want to, you know, undertake graduate study for their own sort of reason. And there are an awful lot of programs out there, many of them very reputable, and they're all very difficult to get into. Graduate programs in general are pretty tricky. Most of them are relatively small, and more and more people are applying to them. So to get a spot off the bat, you know, your odds are not great. You really have to find a way to stand out. Then when it comes to something like writing or art, I mean, what are people going to be judging you on? It all comes down to stuff that's pretty subjective, honestly. So there's definitely some luck involved. You can always research programs and, you know, look at what the people who teach there who comprise the program are doing, and ask yourself, are these folks who I can see myself learning something from? And that's one way to approach it. I think, for me, I was missing the sort of intellectual stimulation that comes from being in a demanding academic environment that requires you to sort of have an immersive experience in terms of thinking and creating and learning. And, you know, when I met Stephanie, well, it was complicated because it was also at a point in my life where I was kind of, like, existing, but living sort of a lonely existence, you could say. And I think when it did come to wanting to meet certain kinds of people, which, I don't know if you all know this, but we actually met online, and if you all have gone down that road before, you probably know that. Part of what's great and also kind of terrifying about some of these online platforms is that they do a lot of the work for you, you know, in that they tend to suggest certain people based on information you've given them. And for some reason, I would always, you know, get a whole roster of, you know, women who are currently in their undergoing PhD study. And so I was like, oh, well, I guess it means I need to meet someone who's intelligent and wants to talk about things. A lot of that are not just, you know, I have my boring job and I like to do stuff, but, like, I really need to be with somebody who is, you know, willing to exercise a more intense curiosity about the world around them. And I think meeting Stephanie not only cultivated that in myself, but it also sort of made graduate study seem a little more attainable to me. And, you know, the time was kind of never right because we kind of got married and had children right away. And, you know, that obviously takes a lot of time. And Stephanie working full time and whatnot.

17:56 How do you think that what did you being. So, when we got married and had two children who are now seven and eight, you were the primary stay at home caregiver, the stay at home parent. How do you think that experience of, you know, six years being the stay at home parent, what impact did that have on your decision to return to academics and to pursue a master's? And, you know, what does it help you bring to the table that other students might not have?

18:32 Well, you know, that's a really great question because time is of the essence when one is trying to create something meaningful. I'm pursuing an advanced degree in poetry right now, so I'm expected to produce a fair amount of work. And, you know, I don't know anybody else who's in the program who's married and has children. There are quite a few people who are divorced or just sort of single who have pets, which is fine. And, you know, what? I'm sorry. Getting at here is I've been thinking a lot about this lately in terms of what do I have to bring to the table? Because I think a lot of times with art and writing, there can be a kind of belief that the artist is somebody who has to give everything of themself to, you know, their work and their act of creating. And if you can't do that. You aren't willing to make the sacrifice and kind of let your process absorb your life. You're not going to end up producing anything that's worthwhile. And I just. I've had to come to terms with how untrue I think that that notion is. You know, I think, if anything, we need more people who are parents who are actively involved with raising children to find a way to have a voice that incorporates all of those aspects of their life and not necessarily view those things as being outside of their practice. And of course, you know, also being like a middle aged, you know, white man, it's 42, 43 middle aged for sure. I think it is, anyway. I mean, there are things that a lot of guys, you know, grad students are not. Stay at home parents are not sort of start to think about an experience. You know, this is like a phase of life, if you will. And, you know, I just. I want to be able to give voice to some of those experiences in the hopes that, you know, other people out there who have gone through their own situations, you know, sort of can appreciate, you know, what I'm expressing, and maybe they'll feel like, you know, they're somehow represented in some way that they weren't before. Now, you know, I understand that of all the perspectives that are lacking right now, you know, that of a middle aged white dude who's middle class and married to an academic is maybe not the most, you know, profound, but I.

21:21 Feel like there aren't that many men who have that experience of being the primary caregiver in their family.

21:27 Well, you know, I think, you know, at times, too, I have moments where I'm like, the best thing I can do is, like, move out of the way and let somebody else speak, you know, that being.

21:37 But I feel like there's no voice of, you know, stay at home men or stay at home parents hardly at all in poetry world.

21:45 Well, yeah, and look, I'm in class with one young man. I say young man. Cause he's in his maybe young, mid to late twenties, right? And we're in a writing class together, and he was writing a piece from last week that kind of. It was sort of all over the place. You know, it was a first draft, but one of the things he did in it was he kind of, you know, snuck around this sort of theme of, like, what's like to be a young man in your mid twenties who's, like, trying to figure out, like, how to have a meaningful relationship, and, like, all he's got all these things that he's dealing with in terms of his spirituality and his upbringing and, like, you know, things online and technology and expectations of men and intimacy and desire, verse, love and lust and all these themes that are universally experienced, but they're not always represented in a way that's not very dumbed down, especially when, as pertains.

22:49 To men having, like, emotions that are meaningful.

22:53 And I just. I wrote him a note because we do. We're supposed to write each other feedback, you know, for the pieces we workshop in class. And I just. I told him, you know, I really encourage you to explore some of this stuff, you know, at length because there aren't a lot of, you know, nuanced representations of what you're talking about out there. There's a lot of stuff that kind of relies on dumbed down, toxic sort of stereotypes having to do with, you know, male relation relationships as experienced by men. And so, you know, I do like to try to at least try to exercise an awareness of some of the blind spots that do exist, you know, culturally, as a society, regardless of medium. I mean, and, you know, here's the thing is, I'm not, you know, I don't have, like, a Netflix deal. Like, I'm not, like, actively producing stuff that's going to be consumed, you know, on a wide scale or anything like that. But, you know, I am part of a community, being a grad student, and I do have a voice, and I am among others who are striving to have a voice. And so I feel it's very important for me to, you know, consider a lot of these things.

24:08 Yeah. So I guess to kind of get back to this, like, thinking about your identity in terms of the way that you're inhabiting academics, what do you see happening with that in the future? Do you think that it's always going to be a part of your life? I mean, as long as you're married to me, it probably is always gonna be around.

24:33 Yeah. It's kind of like being in the military family. Never know what state we're gonna end up in. But it's exciting, too. And I think, I mean, part of why it's exciting is I always sort of have access to that world, and I try not to take that for granted because, you know, and believe me, it's not all just a walk in the park. Academia, it can be really annoying, too. It can really get in your nerves.

25:04 And hard, like, in demoralizing.

25:06 Oh, yeah.

25:07 Debilitating.

25:09 But there's a lot of good that comes out of it, too. I think ultimately, if I didn't believe that, I, not only would I be pursuing an advanced degree, but, I may note, enjoy being with somebody who has chosen that as a path for themselves.

25:26 Do you think that you, like, in terms of your future path, do you see yourself participating more in the academic community? Do you want to eventually find a position in a university? What do you envision your own relationship to academics to be in the future?

25:45 Well, look, if I could graduate two years from now with the manuscript and get it published and just, you know, sit in the porch and write poetry for the rest of my life and have it somehow bring in a paycheck, you know, that would be the way to go. But next best thing is, you know, teaching, because I'm already going to have that experience.

26:07 You'll start teaching next semester in the summer?

26:09 Well, yeah, college writing. And you could possibly go from there. But I think what I'm getting at is, you know, sort of once an academic, always an academic, and once you sort of get a taste and find your. Your way into that world, it can be very easy to not want to leave. I don't know if that's good, healthy thing or not, but at least the.

26:32 Summers we get, the summer is a lot more free than most professions. So, yeah, we can go to Minnesota to see my family and you can fish and do all these other things in your life, whatever.

26:45 And when, you know, when I'm. When it's. When it's summertime, I don't even read books. I'm pretty bad. Like, I. It's not like I'm somebody who has to.

26:52 I don't. Like. I don't read books either. In the summer.

26:54 No, I am on vacation. I'm eating ice cream and, you know, fishing and having family time. I don't. I don't care to work unless I have to. But, you know, and as Stephanie says, that that is one of the perks of being in academia, as you get that time off and, you know, it's important to always, you know, integrate, you know, time for life, regardless of your profession. And, you know, especially when you create and, you know, you kind of. I mean, you can have a voice, but you don't want to just represent all of the things in life that require your attention. You also want to get to a place where you're speaking clearly and truthfully and with, you know, some degree of transparency because you want to, not because somebody's telling you that it has to be done. And I just. I think it's important to remember that regardless of what, you know, profession you end up pursuing.

28:13 Yeah. And what, what do you hope that our girls, you know, who are seven and eight right now, what do you hope that this life of academia and academics provides them in terms of, you know, benefits or challenges that you foresee for them as living in this academic world with us?

28:39 Well, I hope it will facilitate them having choices so that when they're at the right age, they can think about what they want to do and hopefully have enough choices where they can, you know, start down the road that is going to be meaningful for them personally. And if they want to study business and that's what really makes them happy, I'm not going to tell them they can't. But, you know, one does, you know, suspect that, you know, who your parents are and what they do can influence what you think and learn about yourself and what your strengths and weaknesses are. But it doesn't have to be completely determined by parents as well. I know that from experience. So I certainly encourage them to think about these things even now. And I don't see myself pushing, really for one particular path over another. I want them to be able to figure it out on their own and hopefully have access to decisions that will facilitate them doing that.

30:11 So in a lot of, you know, in families with artists and actors, you often hear that the parents don't want the children to follow in their footsteps. Do you feel that way with academics or do you feel like it's a path that even though for us it was difficult in a lot of ways and it took almost a decade basically, for us to get our stride, is it something that you would want the girls to pursue themselves if they felt inclined to, or would you warn them against it?

30:46 I don't think I would warn. I think any field you go into can be a crapshoot. People tend to look at what they're doing and think what if? And focus on what makes their lives challenging at times. But I think I've talked to enough people to know that regardless of what you end up doing as a profession, everything has its, its challenges and things that are not so pleasant or fair. And, you know, there's no, I wouldn't have the knowledge to tell them to do one thing over another. All I. All I can give them is based off of my own experience. And, you know, I can certainly share some of that with them, but I don't see myself discouraging them pursuing, you know, one thing over another. I don't think that would be fair, really, to anybody. So.

32:06 Yeah. Well, and just to kind of close everything up with this interview, what is the best thing that living kind of all of these different existences in and around academia has brought you? Like, what's the best part of it all?

32:28 Well, if I think about that and think of, you know, different periods of my life, it kind of varies a little bit. And I think when we first met, I'd kind of been out of that world looking into it for a while, and it was exciting to be able to tag along with somebody who was going to literature conferences and traveling and writing a dissertation and socializing with other people who are doing similar things. And, you know, at other points in my life, I've also kind of relished having, like, a break from that. And I think, on the whole, really what it comes down to for me is, you know, having access to communities of people where I feel like I don't have to pretend to be somebody I'm not. I can be sincere and express my curiosity about certain things and my thinking and feel genuinely appreciated for doing that. And I think that's something anybody needs wherever they end up, is to feel that acceptance and that kind of informs a sense of worth and value that I think is important.

33:58 Great. Thank you so much.

34:00 Yeah, thanks for listening.

34:06 All right, so.