Kylie Seltzer
More than Just a Game: How Sport Historian and Graduate Student Cory Brazile Uses IDPs
April 11, 2019
On the third floor of Posvar, deep within the labyrinth of offices and cubicles, I had the opportunity to speak with third-year history graduate student Cory Brazile. When she began graduate school in 2016, the History Department and the larger Pitt community were fully committed to addressing diverse graduate training and humanities careers. Keeping her ear to the ground for new opportunities, taking a variety of different types of courses, and expanding her mentorship network have all been on the top of Brazile’s mind since day 1. To manage goal setting, balance her responsibilities, and achieve her goal time to degree (BA to PhD in 6 years!), Brazile has used an IDP to take the abstract and make it concrete, and to hold herself accountable.
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Brazile as her peer in Alison Langmead’s DSAM Seminar(a MUST-take seminar for any humanities graduate student!), where I have seen her create stunning visualizations, which are both thoroughly researched and critical in their presentation, analyze statistics like a pro, and develop her scholarly methodology. She is a scholar of sports history, with a focus on soccer, and her research interests are much more serious than any match. Her dissertation boldly re-assesses the implementation and legacy of title IX, with a specific focus on the relationship between gender and economic class in the realm of collegiate sports. Although her MA focused on soccer academies and male soccer players, she realized that, “there was a more compelling and more urgent story for [her] to tell.” As for the choice of soccer, she dabbled in the sport in middle school before moving on to ultimate frisbee and dance. Yet from a scholarly perspective, she has always been interested in soccer’s ambivalent place in American spectator sports, especially in comparison to other countries. Moreover, according to Brazile, soccer attracts a specific kind of American, “soccer is primarily the sport of upper-middle class Americans. Through Title IX, we can read certain racial and economic inequalities into the collegiate sport paradigm that emerges after Title IX.”
The interdisciplinarity of her research, paired with her desire to make a difference, has prepared Brazile to think broadly about career paths. She is particularly passionate about supporting student athletes, both as students who need to balance academic and athletic responsibilities, and as alums, who are former sport stars. Although she is challenged, understandably, by “figuring out how to write a dissertation and exploring other career options,” she has taken full advantage of the opportunities at Pitt to broaden or define her skill set. In her second year, she voluntarily attended the Introduction to Professional Development: Seminar through the Center for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Career Development. “The most valuable thing I learned is that the university is fully committed to the idea of preparing [graduate students] for a non-traditional career path…They gave us many quizzes that help us locate our skills and interest. I had a better idea of the kinds of tools and resources that are available.” Brazile said that she left seminar knowing that the skills she needed to thrive inside or outside academia were the same and that she felt more comfortable pursuing non-academic work.
IDPs have helped Brazile track her progress and to check in with herself about her evolving goals. “I’m breaking down every year as ‘how can I use this year to make a step towards achieving a goal.’ Can I have an internship? Shadow someone? I’ve been thinking very seriously about the alumni network that [the history department] put together, transforming my CV into a resume, thinking about how to transition outside of academia.” To make these goals a reality, Cory has used IDPs to zoom in on the year ahead, while still thinking about the 6-year course of her graduate career. “It does a great job of forcing you to put on paper all of these abstract ideas and skills – it helps you visualize the skills that you want to improve. It helps you get organized in a very abstract and long journey.”
Brazile has also used the IDPs to keep track of and maintain her mentorship network, which is primarily composed of staff, alumni, and athletics administrators. “I’ve been very close with one of the lecturers who has a close relationship with the athletics department and through her I was able to secure a position tutoring at the Peterson Events Center. This position has also given me the opportunity to make connections with the athletics staff.” If her career goals radically changed, she would not only be able to see that from her changing ‘values,’ but also she would be prepared to adjust her experiences to fit her updated career goals.
As for her advice for early career graduate students? “Be very thoughtful about how you plan in the short term and long term – you have a lot of options and you don’t need to commit to anything. If you learn a skill, it can’t hurt you; it will prepare you for a career no matter what and may come in handy whether or not you stay in academia.”