Faye Farmer is applying lessons from her job in Daniels’ Executive PhD program
Faye Farmer is no stranger to academic research. In her day job, she supports university-wide strategic initiatives at Arizona State University.
Working in higher education stoked Farmer’s interest in a PhD about a decade ago. But her previous degrees pigeonholed her options. Farmer’s academic expertise is in plant biology and, while she loves molecular biology, she couldn’t imagine embarking on a six- or seven-year journey to a PhD.
Plus, she’s down a different career path now in the academic world. On the advice of a faculty member in business at Arizona State, she began exploring alternative paths to a doctorate.
“In 2019, I discovered that an Executive PhD program would advance my career goals, while allowing me to complete research that I wasn’t formally trained in (i.e., not laboratory based),” she said.
After a bit of research, Farmer enrolled in the Executive PhD program at Daniels and is on track to graduate this fall. She’s taking on an important research topic as well: How does identity influence academic research collaborations?
Her research is diving deep on how an identity as a first-generation college graduate intersects with other aspects of identity—more specifically, how this identity influences the diversity of collaborative teams. She’s completed interviews with 12 current or former faculty members with collaboration experience at U.S. research universities who are from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups.
Why this topic? It came from Farmer’s job at Arizona State.
“I worked with large groups of faculty members as part of my work at Arizona State,” she said. “I saw how these teams were formed and created. I was interested in how individuals were called into the collaboration and responded to requests to collaborate. I wondered if their identity factored into these experiences in any way.”
Farmer’s research has led to a model of collaboration activity that reflects identity.
“First-generation college graduate faculty have to navigate their collaborations differently than others with more familiarity of the systems. Their identity often shapes the choices they make when cultivating collaborators, seeking collaborators and finding partners in research,” she said.
In work environments where peer-to-peer collaboration is important, such as the U.S. academic research enterprise, contextualizing identity matters.
“This finding can contribute to designing more inclusive recruitment and promotion paths for faculty members,” she added.
The research process has taught Farmer important lessons that she’s applying to her job and her life. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.
“I go through cycles of imposter syndrome and not feeling like my question is right. Then also feeling like I really don’t know anything or maybe it’s the best question in the whole wide world, and I’m so glad I’m asking it. So, there’s a lot of rollercoasters,” she said. “I’m happy to go through it finally for myself because it’s also adding to this empathy factor where I can see now how faculty think. It’s an eye-opening experience in my real-world job, and I can think critically now as well.”
Farmer has made these discoveries despite never previously taking a business course. Her biology background never crossed paths with the business world, but she has embraced the challenge.
“You’re in this cohort with a bunch of different people with very different backgrounds, and they’re all having the same epiphany. ‘I did this thing at work, and this is what I want to research.’ And then Daniels gives you the tools to examine it,” she said.
The Executive PhD at Daniels is a three-year blended program that allows candidates to complete their doctorate degree while continuing their full-time career. Students gain key research skills to address the complex problems facing business today, and the curriculum is designed to integrate students’ career experiences into the work.
Outside of the hard skills she’s learned in the program, Farmer’s career trajectory has changed. Her eyes have been opened, and she’s thinking bigger than ever before. She compares her view to that of a camera lens.
“The aperture is much wider now in what I can do. All of a sudden, I can see problems differently. I can think differently,” she said. “I’m thinking bigger, that’s what education does. It makes you think differently and bigger about your own wants and needs and the impact you can have.”