How seizing Opportunities can lead to an Unexpected Career – an Interview with Professor Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla

Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla is the Head of the School for Cross-Faculty Studies at the University of Warwick, where she is also a Professor in Global Sustainable Development. In addition, she is co-director of the Oral History Network and of the ESD Network at Warwick. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to Caribbean Studies, linking areas of Cultural Studies, International Relations, and Oral History.

Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS Editor-in-chief, asked Stéphanie about her professional and academic experiences and the role sustainability has played throughout her career. Read on to find out more about the unexpected turns Stéphanie’s career has taken and how she has approached the difficulties she has faced on the way.

What is your current role and what does it involve?

My current role is twofold: on the one hand, I’m a professor in Global Sustainable Development (GSD) and, on the other hand, I’m the Head of the School for Cross-Faculty Studies. The former involves teaching and research; the latter is about making sure that everything runs smoothly in the school for both staff and students, line managing some of our staff within the school, and overseeing the different projects that are happening to further the growth and strategy of the school.

What made you want to take these roles?

I’ll start with my role as an academic. I never thought I would become an academic. I went to university in Belgium and studied Romance Philology, which covers languages (Spanish and French in my case), linguistics, history and culture. I chose that degree because I liked languages and cultures. I didn’t think at that time what I would end up doing with this degree afterwards. Then I ended up in teaching because it was common when you were doing languages and culture at university that you would do your teaching qualification. So, I taught French as a Foreign Languages for several years in a secondary school in Brussels. When I was doing my Erasmus in Spain as part of my degree, I met a professor there who asked me whether I had ever considered doing a PhD. He then told me about what it entailed and we had several discussions about this. After finishing my degree in Belgium, I decided to do a masters, but we stayed in touch and I applied to do a PhD in Hispanic Studies in Granada. During my PhD, I spent some time teaching at Princeton University, where I was also doing archival research. One thing led to the other and this is how I became an academic. It certainly wasn’t planned, but I’m very happy with the decisions that I ended up making, in some cases due to several coincidences, throughout my life.

The role of Head of School was not expected either. I had been Head of Department in a previous role at another university and when I joined Warwick, the School for Cross-Faculty Studies was a very new school. I was, at that time, one of the most senior colleagues after the Head of School. After my second year at Warwick, the Head of School approached me as she had been headhunted and had decided to leave Warwick. She asked me whether I would like to take over her role. It wasn’t part of the plan and I was very sad to see her go but I felt like it made sense in some way because of my previous experience and I felt committed to it. The School’s first years were dedicated to the launch and running of our new innovative transdisciplinary programmes (Liberal Arts and GSD), which had been a success. When I became Head of School, it was about considering the next phase of development of the School; about looking at developing new programmes (PGT and PGR, new joint degrees), new projects, and even look into the possibility of hosting a new division. It felt like an exciting challenge to take on, which is why I agreed to take on this role. Although would you have asked me when I was your age whether I could imagine ever doing something like this, the answer would have been no. It certainly wasn’t part of the plan.

When you were doing your PhD did you know that you wanted to go into academia or were you thinking of going into a different sector?

You know, I think it’s very different because I did my PhD in Spain, which is very different context. In the sense that I did my PhD out of passion, without considering at all whether a career in academia would be a potential outcome. As I said earlier, I spent some of my PhD at Princeton University in the US. I was researching a Cuban author, Reinaldo Arenas, that had all his manuscripts at Princeton University’s Library. In order to spend time there and be able  to access all these manuscripts, I applied for a job in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. This is when I started teaching at university level. I was teaching Spanish to university students in the morning and spending the afternoons in the library going through Arenas’ manuscripts and correspondence. That was my first job in academia. I had always been teaching secondary school kids up to then and that would have been my logical career with the experience I had, but then I really enjoyed the experience of teaching university students  and that‘s why, when I finished my PhD, I applied for an academic job in the US and became an Assistant Professor in North Carolina. It all happened because opportunities came up and those led to another decision being made and then another and that led to me being here today. 

When we moved to the UK, for example, the idea was to be closer to family because we had just had our first child. We never planned to stay longer than one year in the UK. It was supposed to be the jump back to Europe to then find a job in Europe. Yet, we’re still here, fourteen years later, and it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere now (laughs).

What do you like most about your current roles?

If I look at being a professor, I love the two aspects of my job. I love teaching and the contact with the students. I love talking about what I’m passionate about and then seeing how I can share that with students who then become passionate about it as well. I have had students emailing me years after leaving University to tell me what they had become and how my teaching had inspired them or played a role in the professional decisions they made. That’s what I really love about the teaching part of my role. At the same time, I really love engaging with research too. My research is about giving a voice to the voiceless and so I get very attached to the research that I do. I get very attached to the participants, doing qualitative research with them and seeing the impact it has is hugely enriching. These are the reasons why I enjoy my work and why I’m still in academia, despite the many challenges that come with such a professional career.

There are also many aspects that I enjoy in my role as Head of School. I would say I really like the strategic part. I enjoy supporting the development of new projects and then seeing how they evolve and become a success, or how we can tackle the challenges to ensure they become a success. Over the past four years, I also really loved discovering how a university works and what’s happening behind the scenes, making sure that everything runs smoothly. This is something that I discovered when I started as Head of School and I keep learning something new every day. I also enjoy the variety of the tasks that come with this role – one day is never the same as the previous one. Something else that I appreciate about being Head of School is the opportunity to allow people to develop in their professional career. I like talking to them about their goals and figuring out how I can help them get to the next step. It’s really satisfying to see how grateful they are afterwards for how their work has been recognised or how it has allowed them to grow. This is definitely something I enjoy a lot about my role.

How did you get to where you are today?

As I said, academia is not an easy career. It’s very intense and it never stops. You get told many times that you’re not good enough. For example, with publications you often get rejected and criticised multiple times and you will have that with other areas of the job too. For me I would say working hard has definitely helped me get where I am today. Resilience is very important as well. You need to have this ability of getting up again after falling and trying again and again. In some way, I am quite resilient and this is an advantage in this type of professional career. Things will hurt me but then the next day I’ll get up again and I’ll try again. I think not everyone has that though and for some people it can be more of a challenge than for others. In my case, it has certainly helped me that it‘s in my nature to just keep fighting and move on. I always quote this phrase from the movie Finding Dory to my colleagues when we have a tough moment: ‘just keep swimming’. I say to my colleagues ‘Come on, just keep swimming. We will find a solution. It might not be the best solution, but we’ll find a way to get through this.’ Finally, it is also about the people you meet on the way, and who will inspire and support you. I can count them on the fingers of one hand and these are the people whose influence led to key professional changes in my career. So, I think this is what has allowed me to get where I am today: working hard, never giving up and the support and guidance of these few people in my life.

What role does sustainability play in your work?

Well, it’s everywhere, isn’t it? I think in my teaching and research it’s quite obvious. This year, I teach on my module on  human rights and social justice in Latin America. I’m really interested in the social aspect of sustainability, so this is integrated in every part of the human rights module. The same applies to my research. The SDGs that are linked to my research are SDG3 on Good Health and Wellbeing, SDG10 on Reduced Inequalities, and SDG17 on Partnerships for the Goals. So, here again sustainability is at the centre of what I do.

In my role of Head of School, I really try to focus on providing good working conditions to my colleagues, which is part of SDG8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth. It’s not easy and there are challenges, but I try my best to have them happy in the workplace. Otherwise, I also do quite some work around Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Last year, I was the co-lead of the common theme on ESD of the Institutional Teaching and Learning Review (ITLR). I led on the development of an ESD webpage for the university and also set up with my co-lead, Jo Lee (SMLC) the ESD at Warwick network. The aim is to get the Warwick community to understand what ESD entails and to engage with it, whether you teach in Chemistry, Languages or GSD. Education for Sustainable Development is at the heart of what Warwick does in terms of their sustainability strategy. I also sit on the University’s ESSAG committee (Environment and Social Sustainability Action Group), where I represent the Education strand of Warwick’s sustainability strategy. This is a role that I took on last year which I find very interesting. 

What were the most valuable lessons that you’ve learned throughout the course of your career?

I think I already talked about one lesson: this idea of never giving up. This is very important in my opinion. There was a point in my career where I had a really tough time and I was about to give up academia. But then I got up again and I decided to apply for a different job, still in academia just in a very different area. This actually led me to Warwick in the end. I took the risk of changing my career – I had been in languages up until that point (in a Spanish or Hispanics department) – and I applied for a job in a different field. This was after I had been teaching for 15 years and it changed my life. So, I think a huge lesson that I‘ve learnt is to remain flexible and be open to change  and opportunities. When I think back now, I think thank god I didn’t give up because I really enjoy what I’m doing and I would have missed it. I mean I studied languages and cultures and started teaching secondary school children and look what I‘m doing today. You would never think that what I studied would lead me to what I’m doing today. So, it’s really just about being open to opportunities when they arise and being flexible – if you feel that things might need to change, then change them. 

Leading on from that, what advice would you give to students who are thinking about what career they would like to go into after university?

I think the advice I would give to students is very much in my previous answer to the previous question. Remain flexible and be open to opportunities, even if they aren’t what you had originally in mind. I think in GSD (and in Liberal Arts!) in particular it’s so important because you can go in so many directions with these degrees after graduating. It was similar with the people who did my degree. We could go into teaching, which was the logical career, but we could also go into so many other areas. I would also advise to try things out as the different experiences will tell you what you do and don’t enjoy in a role. Do not think that this first choice you’re making now will decide what you’ll be doing in twenty years’ time. Every job will provide you with skills that knowledge that will guide your future choices. That’s why I think this flexibility and openness is really important. And don’t worry, sometimes you will take a job because at that time in your life it makes sense and five years later you would probably not have made that same choice but, in fact, making that choice was an important step on your journey to finding the job that suits you. It’s a bit like other life choices that you make as well. I’ve learned something in every role I took on, and each of them taught me something that has led me to where I am today. Make sure you learn from every experience as each of these will shape who you will become in the future. You might find your dream job when you’re twenty-five, but you might also find it only when you’re forty – and that’s fine. 

In my opinion, it’s about not putting too much pressure on yourself. Engage with different experiences and opportunities because it’s through those experiences that you will discover who you are and what works for you. It is impossible to know when you’re twenty where you’ll be at forty-five but don’t worry about that. Just think about what you can do now, what jobs are available now and if after one year the job isn’t the right one for you, just move on. Don’t stay in a job when you’re not happy because it rarely gets much better. If you’re not happy there’s a reason why you’re not happy. Don’t hesitate to look for something else and then one day you’ll find the right job for you. That’s my advice, which I hope is helpful for students thinking about their professional career.

If you would like to know more about Stéphanie‘s research, you can visit her departmental staff page via the following link: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/schoolforcross-facultystudies/gsd/aboutus/peoplenew/stephaniepanichelli/