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Featured Student: September 2009

Karen Moore

After 10 years of practicing law, Karen Moore says, she decided she wanted to “resolve differences rather than escalate them, as unfortunately happens sometimes when one takes sides in a lawsuit.”

Indeed, the urban studies doctoral work she began at UWM in 2006 includes seeking win-win solutions for public transit and other cross-governmental public services in the Milwaukee area.

Karen was also motivated to leave her law practice by a penchant for teaching. Since 2002, she’s taught political science, social science, and pre-law courses part-time at MATC and elsewhere, and she’s been a teaching assistant (and project assistant) in the UWM History Department since 2006.

Her academic honors include the 2008 Clubb Scholarship Award to attend Inter-University Consortium for Policy and Social Research (ICPSR), a four-week summer program in Quantitative Historical Analysis at the University of Michigan. She has also made Urban Studies Student Forum presentations on participatory governance in New Zealand and on litigation as a social movement strategy.

Karen has done her Ph.D. work so far with no student loans. Her assistantships, part-time teaching, and writing legal briefs for other attorneys—all while being a single mother of a teenage son—has made ends meet, so far. “Now that I’ve hit the dissertation stage though,” she says, “that will probably have to change—so I can finish.” She hopes to finish her dissertation by 2011.

Karen's greatest inspiration for pursuing her education has been her maternal grandmother, who graduated from Duke University in 1925—the first class that included women—as salutatorian.

1) How would you describe your field of study/research to a friend who is not in your graduate program?

I’m in a cross-disciplinary doctoral program called Urban Studies, co-sponsored by the departments of History, Political Science, Sociology, and Geography. The program allows students to tailor their studies to their particular interests. My interest is in looking at historical legal and public policy decisions that have shaped current realities in metropolitan areas. The particular issue I’m tackling in my dissertation is what state legislation, court decisions, government agencies, and political actors contributed to the demise of public transit in metropolitan Milwaukee, which, at one point in time (the early 20th century) was quite extensive—although privately owned.

2) What brought you to UWM for your graduate studies?

I first moved to Milwaukee in the ‘90s to attend law school at Marquette. I already had a political science degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. I got married and stayed here to raise my family, practicing employment discrimination and personal injury law, and then running my own neighborhood law service (Riverwest Access to Justice). I started teaching employment law at nearby Ottawa University and eventually realized I liked teaching college students and preferred the research and writing aspects of law practice to a conflict-ridden courtroom practice. I started teaching social science and political science classes at MATC and wrote legal briefs for other law firms, then finally decided I should pursue a career in academics. UWM was the natural choice, since my kids were in local schools, and I didn’t want to uproot them.

I was pleasantly surprised by the versatility of the Urban Studies doctoral program and very impressed with the program’s faculty. They are both accessible and very knowledgeable regarding topics of interest to me.

3) What's been your best experience so far?

I would say preparing for and passing my preliminary (or comprehensive) exams, which taught me that I could select topics, find sources, read enormous volumes of information and write something that brought it all together. My committee was very helpful at reining me in so I could focus, without discouraging my natural curiosity.

4) If you were able to merge another discipline with yours, what would that be and why?

I would say “public policy”—since most aspects of urban studies tie into policymaking—whether one is sociologically, geographically, politically, or historically oriented.

5) What is your favorite stress-reduction activity?

Bike riding down the bike trail to the lake—great asset for the city! Also sailing—not as expensive as it sounds through either the UWM Sailing Club or the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center—where you can learn how to sail, use sailboats on your own, and make friends as well. The UWM Sailing Club has some great people in it, but can always use more enthusiasts. And the Sailing Center will adjust its fees according to a person’s income—important to me as a single mother without a large income. And it has a great program for inner-city kids too—so another great Milwaukee asset.

6) What do you most enjoy about Milwaukee?

It really does still feel like a small town in many ways. Also, the festivals are great, and you can’t beat the fact that it really is cooler by the lake. Also the sailing, as I mentioned.

7) Is there anything that you've had to "give up" as a graduate student?

Many, many things—home ownership, cable television, airfare money for trips to see family, a new car…. My car is pretty old but not considered a “cash for clunker” vehicle. I had a beautiful Mustang convertible before returning to school. My teenager isn’t thrilled, but now that he has his first job, I think he’s starting to understand why you have to LIKE the work you do every day—why I went back to school….

8) What are your plans for after graduate school?

Teach at a research institution, hopefully, or work at a public policy “think tank” or for a publisher—using both my Ph.D. and law degrees.

9) What trait do you find most necessary to succeed in graduate school?

Self-motivation coupled with the ability to picture the end result while you struggle through.

10) Do you have any advice that you would give to a new graduate student in your program?

Get to know many professors, not just those you plan to work with the most—wish I did that earlier—and read what they have written. These provide fertile ideas for your own research, to pick up where someone else has left off.

Set up a logical filing system on your computer, because you’ll be saving lots of documents that you’ll want to access later—both papers you write and pdfs (published articles) you download—and you have to be able to find them throughout your career, as you revisit earlier work when doing prelims or your dissertation. Searching your computer can be time consuming.

Also, don’t avoid that one course you’re required to take but are dreading. Instead, find a faculty member you can trust—not necessarily the one teaching the course—who can help you strategize to prepare ahead of time to take it. You may have to take an extra prep course to get you up to speed, but there’s no shame in that. Lots of people do. Then, if you find yourself struggling in that dreaded course (maybe for the first time in your life), own up to it. Even professors with the toughest reputations aren’t out to see you fail. Their reputations are on the line too, and it looks bad for them if students do poorly or if students constantly complain about them. And they’re usually still excited enough about the subject that they’ll try to win you over and to convince you why it’s so important—if you ask for extra help.