Charity Gibson

I honestly believe the Lord has laid the path that I'm on, and I'm grateful for that. I've always been able to live in community and work with people that I feel like are uplifting, to work in an environment that's uplifting, which has grown my appreciation and enjoyment for what I'm doing. I'm also in a supportive marriage, which is so beneficial for personal and professional well-being. Community has been essential to my journey - even though I'm a writing teacher and sometimes people think of writing or reading as solitary activities, it all leads to communication, which should be communal. It's important to remember that we are not just supposed to be on an individualistic path, but it should be intersecting with others, and we should be thinking about how to communicate and engage well with them and to give back for the common good.

The best advice I've received, which I've heard again and again in education, is the importance of being a lifelong learner and not feeling like you've ever arrived. It can be tempting, especially after being in a field for a while, to become complacent once milestones have been reached. But continuously learning and growing has been essential to staying engaged and effective in my work.

A large part of my journey has been recognizing that work-life balance is something worth pursuing if one does have a family. I think it can be easy to land on either extreme - to think that you have to sacrifice professional ambitions to be a good parent, or perhaps to take a job that doesn't really fit your interests and your desires just because it aligns well with a family schedule. I'm passionate about encouraging young women to recognize that there is space in the work field for women who want to have families. There are many skills and talents that come through the things that we cultivate in a home that are also useful in the public sphere. I'm also a big proponent of the element of choice - I would never want someone to feel obligated to be a professional if she did not feel that that is what was best for her situation. Women must recognize element of choice many of us have in deciding whether to pursue a career and what that might look like. Yet, having options also includes being willing to make hard choices in order to prioritize and design the path for the work-life balance that is useful for us and our families.

A huge challenge is changing technology, specifically AI. It is important to be aware of changes that are happening in society and be open to advancements but at the same time to hold on to those things that are essential to critical thinking and being connected to our labor. I have concerns that people are losing confidence in their own voice and are not recognizing the value of the hard work that it takes to cultivate a strong written voice. There are also concerns about academic ownership and giving credit to original creators, as AI does not give credit to the sources from which it draws information. I fear we are losing the ability to retain ownership of our own ideas and creativity.

Creativity is an important value to me. I seek to find ways in my job and in the way I teach my students to be creative, to help them discover what is life-giving to them. In the teaching of writing, even within technical and academic writing, I try to show them ways to put their stamp of personality on their work. I'm trying to do the same in my own scholarship and writing.