Carol Dewet
Interview Posted By: Ashley Smith
1. Can you tell us a little about your background? i.e. Where you grew up, what education do you have, a summary of your resume, did you always want to do what you are doing now, when did you start to become interested in STEM, what internships/ volunteering
I grew up in Charlottesville, VA and Wellesley, MA. My father was a professor of Astronomy first at University of Virginia and then at Wellesley College. We lived on or near the campus of both institutions for most of my school-age years so I have been associated with academia for my whole life.
I went to Smith College in Northampton, MA for my undergraduate studies. I knew I wanted to study English literature but took a geology course my freshman year to broaden my studies. I loved the class and ended up double majoring in both Geology and English since I couldn't decide which I preferred. I recall the days right before graduation having to make up my mind about which field to go on to graduate school in. I decided to go with Geology and attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for my Master's of Science degree. My field area was in Nova Scotia, Canada, which was a beautiful place to study rocks. I completed my M.Sc. degree and went to the University of Cambridge in England for my Ph.D. While living there I met my husband to be, and we were married in England. We moved to the USA and I did a post-doc for a year while my husband taught at University of Kentucky. Our first child was born in Kentucky.
Then my husband and I applied to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. It is an excellent small liberal arts college with a highly ranked Geoscience Department. We share or split a position in the department there which gave us flexibility in raising our children while both maintaining our careers. We have three children, all now in graduate school or college. We have been at F&M for 25 years as of 2015.
I have served in a number of roles at the college in addition to being a professor. I was chair of the department for four years, served as a Special Assistant to the President and Provost for Women and Family Issues and also for Sustainability Issues, spent three years as Associate Dean of the Faculty, and a year as the Associate Director of the Faculty Center. One of my primary interests has been in supporting faculty in their role as teacher, scholar, and parent.
I became interested in STEM as an undergraduate because I liked learning how things work. I was intrigued with how much we could understand about the earth through geology, and then, by how much we still have to learn about our planet when I began my own research. I am still fascinated by how powerful it is to combine careful observation with detailed data collection, and integrate it with background knowledge. Such is the way science moves forward and it is great to watch this play out in my discipline and in my own research and scholarship. One of the highlights of my job is watching this click with undergraduates as they begin to understand the geosciences.
One of my first research experiences was going out on a research ship in the Mediterranean Sea after my first year in college. We took cores off of north Africa looking for submarine turbidite currents that had broken telephone cables. I had many other field excursions (Bahamas, South Florida, Yucatan in Mexico) to study modern carbonate producing environments and field trips around the UK and Europe to study ancient limestone counterparts. This juxtaposition of modern and ancient is a key element in sedimentology, my sub-field within geology.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
My job consists of teaching undergraduate students, conducting my own research, often with students and colleagues at other institutions, plus serving on committees, working with alumni, and helping with departmental issues such as hiring new faculty, facilities and instrument upgrades etc.
Every day is slightly different, but most days I teach a class and/or a lab, work with students on their research, or work on my own research. I may go to a Faculty Meeting or a Department Meeting, or attend a committee meeting. If I am preparing to give a presentation on my research at a national or international geology meeting then I will likely work in the evening to get it done in a timely fashion.
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
I use my science background every day in my job. Geology is a broad field, encompassing environmental issues that touch all our lives so there are always ways that my training and education impact my job. I use my STEM education in my teaching and research on a constant basis.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
There are challenges for women in the geosciences, mostly relating to being in the field. This can be difficult when you are pregnant or caring for very young children. Since my husband is also a geologist we typically brought our children with us in the field, even while they were quite young. Safety was paramount, of course, but they loved being outdoors in places like the Australian outback, Scottish highlands, or Atacama Desert, Chile.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
The best part of my job is working with wonderful students. It has been an honor and pleasure to collaborate with many terrific students on research projects, as well as to spend semesters together in the courses I teach. Also, there is a great sense of satisfaction in working out a geological problem and bringing it together in a publication. Although it is not easy to get papers published, when one's research is going well, and you get a paper out, there is a strong sense of accomplishment and hopefully your work will help someone else understand another geological problem more fully.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
Balance is a challenging word for the ebb and flow of one's career. There are particularly difficult times, such as working to get tenure while managing a young family, that will take every ounce of strength one can muster, but over the span of a long career, there are other times when the pace slows down a bit and there is more time to reflect or tackle new research directions. In terms of advice, I'd say to be aware that there are periods of intense work, tempered with times of a more measured pace, and to be patient as you go through your career.
7. What do you define success as?
Success to me is defined as being able to make choices to do the things that matter the most to one's self. For example, being able to spend time with your children while they are growing up is really important because those years speed by and cannot be recaptured. For me it mattered to be able to keep a career going through those years, but not to lose my sense of self, or my family, in the process. It was also very interesting to serve in an administrative capacity for a number of years. I learned a great deal about the institution and higher education, and about myself as well.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
It is important to be enthusiastic about your career choice, and to keep a positive outlook about it. Self-discipline is crucial in an academic career because you have to manage your time carefully to successfully teach and maintain your scholarly work.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
A few colleagues (almost all men) have served as mentors to me in that they encouraged me and supported me (nominating me for awards etc), helped me navigate the early years in an academic job, and saw the best in me. One person in particular has a gift for seeing people's potential, or capacity, as he calls it, and finding ways to nurture and grow that potential. I am very grateful for his ability to see things in myself before I was aware of them, and give me opportunities to grow in those directions. My female role model has this same ability and was influential in helping me move forward in new ways.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
Two pieces of advice: One from the Association of Women Geoscientists newsletter years ago: "Learn what it is you need to do to succeed in your career, and then do it, very well." The other piece of advice is a saying from my father: "patience and perseverance generate success".
I grew up in Charlottesville, VA and Wellesley, MA. My father was a professor of Astronomy first at University of Virginia and then at Wellesley College. We lived on or near the campus of both institutions for most of my school-age years so I have been associated with academia for my whole life.
I went to Smith College in Northampton, MA for my undergraduate studies. I knew I wanted to study English literature but took a geology course my freshman year to broaden my studies. I loved the class and ended up double majoring in both Geology and English since I couldn't decide which I preferred. I recall the days right before graduation having to make up my mind about which field to go on to graduate school in. I decided to go with Geology and attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for my Master's of Science degree. My field area was in Nova Scotia, Canada, which was a beautiful place to study rocks. I completed my M.Sc. degree and went to the University of Cambridge in England for my Ph.D. While living there I met my husband to be, and we were married in England. We moved to the USA and I did a post-doc for a year while my husband taught at University of Kentucky. Our first child was born in Kentucky.
Then my husband and I applied to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. It is an excellent small liberal arts college with a highly ranked Geoscience Department. We share or split a position in the department there which gave us flexibility in raising our children while both maintaining our careers. We have three children, all now in graduate school or college. We have been at F&M for 25 years as of 2015.
I have served in a number of roles at the college in addition to being a professor. I was chair of the department for four years, served as a Special Assistant to the President and Provost for Women and Family Issues and also for Sustainability Issues, spent three years as Associate Dean of the Faculty, and a year as the Associate Director of the Faculty Center. One of my primary interests has been in supporting faculty in their role as teacher, scholar, and parent.
I became interested in STEM as an undergraduate because I liked learning how things work. I was intrigued with how much we could understand about the earth through geology, and then, by how much we still have to learn about our planet when I began my own research. I am still fascinated by how powerful it is to combine careful observation with detailed data collection, and integrate it with background knowledge. Such is the way science moves forward and it is great to watch this play out in my discipline and in my own research and scholarship. One of the highlights of my job is watching this click with undergraduates as they begin to understand the geosciences.
One of my first research experiences was going out on a research ship in the Mediterranean Sea after my first year in college. We took cores off of north Africa looking for submarine turbidite currents that had broken telephone cables. I had many other field excursions (Bahamas, South Florida, Yucatan in Mexico) to study modern carbonate producing environments and field trips around the UK and Europe to study ancient limestone counterparts. This juxtaposition of modern and ancient is a key element in sedimentology, my sub-field within geology.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
My job consists of teaching undergraduate students, conducting my own research, often with students and colleagues at other institutions, plus serving on committees, working with alumni, and helping with departmental issues such as hiring new faculty, facilities and instrument upgrades etc.
Every day is slightly different, but most days I teach a class and/or a lab, work with students on their research, or work on my own research. I may go to a Faculty Meeting or a Department Meeting, or attend a committee meeting. If I am preparing to give a presentation on my research at a national or international geology meeting then I will likely work in the evening to get it done in a timely fashion.
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
I use my science background every day in my job. Geology is a broad field, encompassing environmental issues that touch all our lives so there are always ways that my training and education impact my job. I use my STEM education in my teaching and research on a constant basis.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
There are challenges for women in the geosciences, mostly relating to being in the field. This can be difficult when you are pregnant or caring for very young children. Since my husband is also a geologist we typically brought our children with us in the field, even while they were quite young. Safety was paramount, of course, but they loved being outdoors in places like the Australian outback, Scottish highlands, or Atacama Desert, Chile.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
The best part of my job is working with wonderful students. It has been an honor and pleasure to collaborate with many terrific students on research projects, as well as to spend semesters together in the courses I teach. Also, there is a great sense of satisfaction in working out a geological problem and bringing it together in a publication. Although it is not easy to get papers published, when one's research is going well, and you get a paper out, there is a strong sense of accomplishment and hopefully your work will help someone else understand another geological problem more fully.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
Balance is a challenging word for the ebb and flow of one's career. There are particularly difficult times, such as working to get tenure while managing a young family, that will take every ounce of strength one can muster, but over the span of a long career, there are other times when the pace slows down a bit and there is more time to reflect or tackle new research directions. In terms of advice, I'd say to be aware that there are periods of intense work, tempered with times of a more measured pace, and to be patient as you go through your career.
7. What do you define success as?
Success to me is defined as being able to make choices to do the things that matter the most to one's self. For example, being able to spend time with your children while they are growing up is really important because those years speed by and cannot be recaptured. For me it mattered to be able to keep a career going through those years, but not to lose my sense of self, or my family, in the process. It was also very interesting to serve in an administrative capacity for a number of years. I learned a great deal about the institution and higher education, and about myself as well.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
It is important to be enthusiastic about your career choice, and to keep a positive outlook about it. Self-discipline is crucial in an academic career because you have to manage your time carefully to successfully teach and maintain your scholarly work.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
A few colleagues (almost all men) have served as mentors to me in that they encouraged me and supported me (nominating me for awards etc), helped me navigate the early years in an academic job, and saw the best in me. One person in particular has a gift for seeing people's potential, or capacity, as he calls it, and finding ways to nurture and grow that potential. I am very grateful for his ability to see things in myself before I was aware of them, and give me opportunities to grow in those directions. My female role model has this same ability and was influential in helping me move forward in new ways.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
Two pieces of advice: One from the Association of Women Geoscientists newsletter years ago: "Learn what it is you need to do to succeed in your career, and then do it, very well." The other piece of advice is a saying from my father: "patience and perseverance generate success".