| This artistically based study explores the meaning of writing in the professional life of a beginning non-tenured faculty member. Prior to this study, I wrote short stories about my experiences as beginning faculty. I use these stories to come to understand my early faculty experience. In Chapter 1, "Prologue," I describe my context in the academy, how I came to write the short stories, and why I chose to study these stories.;In Chapter 2, "Selected Discourses," I explore two discourses that inform my inquiry, the discourse on faculty issues and the discourse on arts-based educational research.;In Chapter 3, "Themes," I explain the process that led me to think about the themes of the stories from my early faculty years. I present several stories as exemplars of the following themes: "Writing Is a Paradox That Reveals and Conceals," "Teaching Is Hands-on Work," "Coming to Know Myself and My Students Was My Quest," and "Guilt, Shame, & Fear Are the Seeds of Angst." Each theme involves a way I came to understand an aspect of my early faculty self through an exploration of my writing.;In Chapter 4, "Coda," I reflect on the connection between the insights I have gained from the interpretations of Chapter 3 and the broader discourses about being faculty at the academy. I name the insight from my interpretations "arts-based insights," for they are generated from an artistic representation.;In Chapter 5, I address what writing has contributed to my coming to know myself as faculty. The two most significant contributions are in the nature of writing as therapy and writing as a mode of understanding. |
