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Situating and Leveling Up Identity Convergence
Shapeshifting Through Academia and Pedagogical Evolution
The Psychological Negotiations Between Authority Figure and Student
How Professional Expertise Shapes and Influences Graduate Studies
The Heavy Hand of Impostor Syndrome
Recommendations and Applications
Situating and Leveling Up Identity Convergence
Professional work inherently brings challenges in the form of work-life balance, mental health, gender, and cultural dynamics. Academia adds its own complexities, particularly for educators like me who lead departments (such as I do for the English and Rhetoric department of my higher ed institution) and teach while pursuing an advanced degree. This is identity convergence. My specific identity convergence means constantly shifting between roles—starting my morning as a mother, moving into department leadership mode, transitioning to teacher for classes, then shifting into a student for evening coursework. Living at the convergence of these multiple roles creates unique opportunities and obstacles, all of which serve to shape my personal, academic, and professional evolution.
I stand in the middle of this whirling dervish of identity convergence, working valiantly on balancing roles while also working to contribute to existing discourse on professional identity. As part of the leadership team for my department, I help oversee faculty development, curriculum design, and interdepartmental collaborations and initiatives. Simultaneously, I teach or have taught (for the last 20 years) first-term, literature, creative, and business/professional writing courses, while pursuing my PhD in technical communication and rhetoric at a different institution. Because the compositional makeup of role convergence varies significantly depending on whether someone serves as administrator/teacher and graduate student within the same institution or works in one setting while studying in another, making this distinction is crucial. That is why it is important to note that I am a graduate student at one institution and work in administration and leadership, while also teaching at a second institution. This creates not only role convergence but institutional convergence as well, adding layers of complexity to the identity navigation process. This cross-institutional identity convergence shapes how I experience shapeshifting, pedagogical evolution, and imposter syndrome, which is very different from those who are graduate students within their employing institution.
While research on academic identity convergence for those who serve as leaders, faculty members, and students is in short supply, existing dual identity research substantiates the existence of key advantages and challenges. Kiesow et al. (2024) explored professional identity development, finding that individuals living multiple professional roles often evolved increased negotiation capabilities, greater credibility, stronger teaching and mentoring skills, and broader positive impact. Within the field of writing studies, scholars have looked closely at how graduate student instructors navigate similar complexities through their unique workload subsequently shaping their identity.
My own experience echoes this research. The positive effects of identity convergence that Kiesow et al. (2024) identified manifest clearly across the multiple roles I live in. Specifically, the enhanced credibility they describe becomes evident in my position as a department leadership team member who also teaches—faculty are more receptive to my guidance because I understand their classroom struggles firsthand rather than administrating from a distance. Osorio et al. (2021) found that this evolution often comes via grappling with “laborious reality” and an “imagined ideal” of their roles, a tension I feel when working to balance my administrative authority with my teaching experience. This "been there, done that" perspective strengthens both my mentoring capabilities and my effectiveness as a leader. Similarly, my dual role as teacher and student creates a unique dynamic with students who appreciate that I share their academic challenges. Pawlowski and Jacobson (2023) refer to this as being a “learning travelers” who must visit and engage with multiple, overlapping communities, within what they call “landscapes of practice,” requiring continuous shapeshifting and evolution to make their different community memberships coexist. They extend greater acceptance and are more willing to receive guidance from someone they perceive as both instructor and peer. Robinson-Zetzer and Smith (2023) take this to the next level by looking at how graduate students in writing center administrative roles also grapple with “embodied praxis,” resulting in the need for responsibility and emotional labor to manage multiple roles simultaneously.
However, as with anything that has two sides, these benefits come with weighty challenges. Both academic research and anecdotal accounts highlight struggles with time management, identity conflicts, and increased responsibilities for educators and graduate students alike. Studies by Misra et al. (2021), who examined faculty survey data on gender and race perceptions of workload, and Allen et al. (2023), who examined faculty time allocation disaggregated by gender, suggested that challenges are exacerbated by gender and racial factors. All of this is compounded by what Lambrecht (2021) describes as the difficulty, or inability, to separate student life from instructor and/or administrator roles, which then leads to problems from one role affecting another.
As a middle-aged, first-generation Mexican-American woman who has been married for over two decades and is raising two neurodiverse children (one who is autistic and one who is diagnosed with ADHD), my identity extends beyond my academic roles. Because of this, it is more accurate to say that I embody four distinct roles: department leader, teacher, student, and family member. While the positive effects of identity convergence are abundant, the challenges and struggles are equally present. Juggling these roles as a woman has resulted in a significant increase in my workload and, more intensely, my stress level. As a mother, the pressures of societal expectations for me to be the primary responder to issues and situations that arise with my children feel considerably greater, which compounds an already demanding schedule and makes the workload overwhelming at times. I particularly identify with what Lambrecht (2021) mentioned regarding the difficulty in separating roles, which causes problems from one role to spill into another. When challenges in each role emerge rapidly and simultaneously, it becomes difficult to compartmentalize and address them separately or more fluidly, and quickly jump from one role to another. While I have made considerable progress thanks to the positive aspects of my identity convergence, navigating so many roles as a woman means that imposter syndrome continues to affect my confidence level, from time to time, when it comes to speaking up, suggesting new initiatives, or advocating for change, for example.
The intertwining of my personal and professional experiences contributes meaningful perspectives that contribute to the discourse of how academics manage multiple roles while developing and evolving their identities. My journey not only reflects my individual path, but it also helps to fill a gap in our understanding of identity convergence in academia.