Podcast #5: “There’s definitely a place for Ph.D.s in politics.”

Sharon Blady is an NDP MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) in the Manitoba provincial legislature (for my American readers, this means Sharon is an elected representative in the government of one of Canada’s ten provinces). Sharon has ABD status in her Ph.D. program in women’s studies at York University in Toronto. How did she go from critiquing government policy to forming government policy? I phoned her at her office at the legislature in Winnipeg to find out.

In this podcast, you’ll hear:

1:30 – 2:15: Sharon discusses her dissertation research
2:15 – 4:00: Sharon’s academic research does link to her work as an MLA. But this is not the line of work she thought she was going to go into
4:00 – 7:00 : How she thought she could translate material that she taught into the civil service or working as a consultant in the private sector
7:00 – 9:00: But then someone asked her to run for office. “But I’m an academic!” she thought, and a shit-disturber, to boot
9:00 – 10:00: The transition to politics has had its moments
10:00 – 12:20: Why teaching is still her passion, why she misses her students and why the students are the reason she does the work that she does now
12:20 – 13:45: How she brings her academic experience into policy-making
13:45 – 15:00: Her view on being a woman and a feminist in politics
15:00 – 16:00: Why the transition to politics has been a good fit
16:00 – 17:30: Sharon’s plan to return to academia full-time
17:30 – 20:00: Her advice on thinking through transferable skills