PhD candidate--and Army Lieutenant Colonel--Laura Bozeman knew from age nine that she would serve in the military. It helped that she grew up in Colorado Springs, home of the Air Force Academy, and that her dad was career Army before his retirement when Bozeman was two. But, she muses, "I think I was most influenced by the change in law to allow women to attend the military academies. I followed the debate on whether or not women could 'handle' the academies with interest." She was admitted to both West Point and Annapolis but decided to take a four-year Army ROTC scholarship offer to attend Texas Christian University. Many ROTC students of the time ended up serving in the Army Reserve or National Guard, but the Gulf War had happened by the time Bozeman graduated in 1992, and she was commissioned to active duty. Since then, she's served in Germany, South Korea, Alaska, and Afghanistan, among others--and, yes, at West Point, where she taught English for three years after receiving her MA from English at Minnesota in '01. She's returning to West Point to teach after successfully defending her doctoral dissertation this spring. Read more.1. Your dissertation topic is "The Genteel Frontier: Westward Expansion of Womanly Refinement." Can you briefly describe your focus? How did you become interested in this subject?
I am analyzing the ways [19th century writers] Caroline Kirkland, Eliza Farnham, Margaret Fuller, and Eliza Steele depicted themselves as conforming to established standards of gentility and domesticity (during the years they lived in the Upper Midwest as settlers or the weeks they traveled to the Upper Midwest as tourists), as well as what possible connections exist between their depictions of themselves and what critical things they have to say about the culture of what was then the frontier of the United States.
I have lived all over the world, and I have enjoyed reading classic works of travel literature about the places I've been stationed. I first became interested in travel writing as a research topic when I was working on my MA. I greatly enjoyed the courses I took with Donald Ross, Jr., who is now my adviser. His work establishing the journal Studies in Travel Writing is particularly inspiring to me. I prepared an annotated bibliography on 19th Century Women's Travel Writing in Sub-Sahara Africa as part of my MA coursework. Donald encouraged me to apply for my minor field of study [Composition/Literacy/Rhetoric] and to apply for the PhD program. I appreciate his support and encouragement in my academic endeavors.
2. When you joined the Army were you thinking you would want to earn a PhD in English?
I first considered the goal of a PhD in English when I was an undergraduate at Texas Christian University, but I didn't think I could accomplish it while serving in the Army. I planned to serve four to six years on active duty and to pursue my PhD after. Then I found out that I was not eligible for the GI Bill because I was a four-year Army ROTC scholarship recipient. However, I also learned that the Army had various programs (called advanced civil schooling) where I could earn an MA while on active duty. I was especially interested in teaching English at West Point.
3. What drew you to English at the University of Minnesota?I was impressed by the department's reputation and its talented faculty. Most of the professors whose classes I took from 1999 to 2001 have since retired, but the faculty members who have arrived since I was last here are equally impressive. I was also drawn to the Twin Cities. It is a great place to live while attending graduate school. I especially love that so many theater productions are staged in the Twin Cities each year, as well as the easy access I have to varied outdoor pursuits, including river kayaking and cross country skiing. I didn't want to attend graduate school right by a military base--I wanted exposure to different ideas and political philosophies. The Twin Cities is far more liberal, politically, than most US Army communities. That is a welcome change, for me. My husband [retired from the Army] and I joined a few "Meet-Ups," including Simply Epicurious, where we dine at various restaurants around the Twin Cities. I really enjoy meeting new people. It's a good thing I'm rather extroverted, since I move every two or three years!
4. What have been your Army roles since you finished basic training? What were your duties in Afghanistan?
I've served as a Human Resources officer for most of my career. My primary specialties are enlisted personnel accessions, operational planning, congressional correspondence, military awards and decorations, and personnel actions. I've been a speechwriter for a three-star general. I also have experience with military protocol, including executive engagements and services (general officer's personal staff).
While deployed in Kabul [July 2011-June 2012], I was assigned to NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, and I advised the Afghan National Army's Inspector General on his core staff functions (inspections, investigations, assistance visits, intelligence oversight, and teaching and training). The general I worked with had been the Inspector General for several years and was highly experienced. My role was to facilitate his staff's continued progress toward independent mission accomplishment. I let the general know that I had every confidence in his abilities and those of his staff officers and that I wanted them to impress me. Given the latitude to exercise initiative, they produced exceptional results, including a quarterly inspector general conference that they planned, coordinated, and executed with minimal input from their international advisers. Toward the end of my year in Afghanistan, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan awarded the Inspector General a new capabilities milestone rating--the first time the Inspector General attained an improvement in this rating in four years. This achievement really had little to do with me besides my providing the support and motivation. As an added part of my responsibilities, I was also the Officer in Charge for the other inspector general advisors at NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. These personnel advised the Ministry of Defense Inspector General, the National Military Hospital Inspector General, and their staff chiefs. After redeploying, I was reassigned to Minnesota to complete my PhD studies.
5. What was it like to go from the intense situation in Kabul back to studying English literature here in Minnesota?
The challenge I initially found was putting Afghanistan behind me mentally. At first, I was checking the news each day for information on what was happening in Kabul, and I was in regular contact with the people I served with over there, who had also redeployed home. It was hard on all of us to go from working together seven days a week to dispersing back to our respective duty assignments. By the end of my first semester back in Minnesota, I felt like I was back home mentally, too. I do find I have less patience for complaints about "first world problems" since returning from the combat zone. We have so many opportunities as Americans, and we have such a high quality of life, we often take these things for granted. Just being able to drink water from the tap is something a great many people in the world don't enjoy. My teaching philosophy has become far more pragmatic, too. I've served with some of my former [West Point] students in Korea, Hawaii, and Afghanistan, and I want to prepare my next group of students to excel in complex operational environments.
New faculty member Kim Todd is interviewed in the 2014 spring Creative Writing Program newsletter, along with Q & A with award-winning alums Ethan Rutherford and Amanda Coplin. Plus news about publications and awards from faculty, students, and alumnae/i!