It Really Does Take a Village

There is nothing like hearing your full name announced as you walk across the stage in front of thousands. Earning my PhD from National University has been one of the hardest things I have ever done and as I walked that stage in acknowledgement...the people who love me the most were there to see it.

My dissertation defense was a little anticlimactic. It was virtual, and I spent two hours defending five years of blood, sweat, tears, growth, sacrifice, and persistence. Then suddenly, it was over. I did it. I closed my computer and...started a load of laundry.

There was no dramatic movie moment. No sweeping soundtrack. Just the quiet reality that my life had changed in an ordinary moment. Nine months passed in what felt like a flash after earning my degree, and suddenly I was walking across a graduation stage to receive it…again. But this time felt different. I was wearing the fancy robes and the poofy hat. I was surrounded by thousands of other graduates. My friends and family were screaming from the stands. There was music, ceremony, applause, photographs, movement, and collective acknowledgment.

And I realized something important in that moment that I teach often about rituals: 

There is something deeply human and beautiful about ceremony. Ritual slows us down long enough to recognize transformation. It gives shape to transitions that otherwise pass quietly by. It allows us to witness one another. To honor effort. To celebrate survival, growth, resilience, and becoming.  

I think about how much I really defied the odds. Only about 23% of people earn a college degree when their parents do not hold a bachelor’s degree. Roughly 1.8% of adult women in the United States hold a doctorate. And only about 16% of PhD earners are first generation students whose parents’ education ended with a high school diploma or less.

I am also the result of generations of sacrifice, resilience, grit, love, and survival. I carry people with me who never had access to the opportunities I did, people who worked hard in ways that will never appear on a CV or diploma.

I am an anomaly. I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.

A moment on an airplane

Days after the ceremony, I was on a flight home. A woman younger than me was struggling to fit her luggage into the overhead bin. It wouldn't go, but if one bag shifted over, hers would slide right in, and she wouldn't have to stow it farther back and fight the deplaning crowd later. Easier for everyone.

So I tried to help. I have a knee brace on from an injury, and I couldn't quite reach the bag. I told her to go ahead three times. No one else offered. No one looked up from their phones.

So I leaned in as far as I could, grabbed a corner of the bag, and yanked until my feet lifted off the floor and my knee screamed. But it worked. The bag moved. Her suitcase slid in.
A man made eye contact and said, "That was really nice of you."
"It really does take a village," I replied.
As I made my way to my seat, I heard his wife say something I haven't been able to shake:

"The irony is that she was the village for that woman, but no one was the village for her."

What the PhD actually taught me

When you earn your master's, you step into learning what it means to be an expert. With a PhD, you learn that you are not an expert at all, that you have to seek out other experts who teach you how much more there is, and help you realize how little you actually know.

It teaches you to be quiet and listen. To observe. To stay curious. To keep looking for new understanding and new evidence. 

And through all of it, through every sleepless revision, every moment of doubt, every breakthrough. The lesson that mattered most wasn't methodological. It wasn't statistical. It was this:

Love and care must be integrated into every decision I make.

The research question, the framework, the findings, the application — all of it flows from whether you genuinely care about the people your work is meant to serve.

That woman on the plane didn't need my credentials. She needed someone to notice her, to care enough to try. The village isn't built on solely expertise. It's built from love that moves even when it's inconvenient, even when your knee is screaming, even when no one else is watching.

I will keep being the village. And I will keep believing that somewhere, someone will be the village for me too.

With love and care,

Dr. Christine