Dr. Jessica Albrent, EdD in Entrepreneurial Leadership in Education | Assistant Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences

In this episode, we discuss Jessica’s journey from the Peace Corps, to unexpectedly working in international education, pursing her doctorate in education, and entering academia, her value-driven approach to making decisions about her career, and her advice for taking breaks when needed and being ok with following your own timeline.

Hosted by  Lois Dankwa

To connect with Jessica and to learn more about her story, visit her page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

Lois Dankwa

Hi! I'm cohost, Lois Dankwa, and this is the 100 alumni voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today, we're joined by Jessica Albrent, EdD in entrepreneurial leadership in education and current Assistant Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences. Hi Jessica.

Jessica Albrent

Hi.

Lois Dankwa

How are you today?

Jessica Albrent

Very good, happy to be here. Thank you, Lois.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, well, I'm I'm glad to have you here. I'm excited to dive in and learn a little about you. So, I think I first want to start by hearing about what made you interested in your doctoral program and doing entrepreneurial leadership in education and just what your graduate work experience was like.

Jessica Albrent

Sure. Well, I came into graduate work late in life. I was an international school teacher. So, a teacher working in IB and American schools in different international settings across the world. So different areas of Africa and the Middle East mostly, and, as you know, part of my professional development and work, I had done a masters at George Mason University in education leadership and there my professor really encouraged me to consider graduate studies. I wanted originally to become a leader in international schools, and I saw a lot of leaders that became school heads, school principals because they were well connected or in the right place at the right time rather than that they had the experience and the background to really understand the needs of the community and so I decided to continue my education with the intention of eventually becoming a leader in in international schools. That that's not how my career worked out, but that was my original intention.

Lois Dankwa

That's so interesting. So, I, what you do is completely different than how I understand things. So I think I just overall have a lot of curiosity about the type of work you do and like how, how you were drawn to that, and then how you saw parts of that show up in the work that you did for your research?

Jessica Albrent

Yeah, yeah. So I was, I grew up in a very small town in Northern Nevada, and I always wanted to go and explore more and see more. I felt it was a great community to grow up in. It was very supportive in a lot of ways. I have a lot of great memories of my childhood, but I also desperately wanted to see the world, but financially, that just wasn't a possibility. So, after I did my bachelor's degree, I joined the Peace Corps, and I was sent first to Togo, and then I got quite ill, and I had to be evacuated, and then I was sent to Gabon, also in West Africa, and I loved it. I had anticipated doing my 2 years of service, which peace corps service is typically 2 years. And within about 3 months I knew that I was not going back. I knew I wasn't going back to the US. I wasn't sure what my life would look like, but I knew that I wasn't going back, so I was eager to explore the world some more, and you know I fell into education by accident. There was a position open at the American International School of Lieberville, and I was basically the the person with a degree that applied. They were pretty desperate for teachers, I did not have an education background, and from there my my career grew in into that profession. I I did get my qualifications. I am a certified teacher, and qualified now, but it the career started completely by accident and just by serendipity, whatever kind of occurred to me there, and I loved it. 

Lois Dankwa

Wow! That's so. Well, I think that a lot of our careers start by accident, even if it looks very planned. So, you're not alone in that. But I think it's also it's almost like a movie where you went to you were in Togo, and then other places in West Africa for your Peace Corps time. But then you realized I'm staying here, and I think that even if for some of us it's not realize it, or maybe it's moving from the east coast to the west coast, or I guess in the Hopkins case, West coast of the east coast, or moving somewhere completely different, and realizing your life is different than you imagined. And I'm curious what what that was like for you like in terms of how do, how do you? How did you manage recognizing like, oh, things are gonna be different than how you planned? And then also, how did that show up with how you approached your doctoral study?

Jessica Albrent

Yeah, you know, I think part of the problem was that I didn't really know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I I pursued an undergraduate degree in English and economics, because I loved the subjects and I wasn't quite sure where I wanted to do, but I knew I wouldn't. Nothing seemed like it was a fit for me. You know, the typical career paths after that really didn't seem like what I wanted to do. And so once I got out there and was abroad, and I realized that education was a career that I could go into and be international and have mobility, and that I loved it. That was, I think, the big thing. I tried teaching with the intention of seeing what, okay, let's see how this goes, because it was never really a career consideration for me. But then I loved it. I loved it. I had a really supportive community teaching community when I first started, and so it became something about which I was really passionate, and that ties into the doctoral studies because you know ultimately I I have a value system, and my value system says that I have to contribute something to the world, and education was a great way to do that. You can really inspire people, change people's lives at a very basic level. Especially teaching kindergarten, which is where I started, and so, you know, and now I see my students, and they're graduating from university, those students that I taught. They're graduating from university. And they're graduating from these prestigious places. And I'm like I taught you to tie your shoes, right? So, it's a it's a great career in that you can, for me it was a great career, because it aligned with my values. And when I ultimately decided to go into my doctoral studies, and what I did research, it also aligned with my values. And for me, I think a lot of my movements and my decisions have been very very value driven.

Lois Dankwa

I understand that. I certainly view myself as someone who's both mission driven as well as value driven. So I understand how just a lot of the choices you're making through your work are are guided by that, and sometimes it's hard to explain what the motivation is, because it feels innate to you.

Jessica Albrent

Yes.

Lois Dankwa

I'd love to hear a little bit about what like what your studies and research like what you did in that, knowing that it's it's funny. Well from my perspective, so as a PhD Candidate for me, it's like I came with a topic idea that I wanted to dig into more, and then I was like, okay, like diving into this question more. But it's it's not that that's not what you experience, but it's also for you it almost feels a little bit more applied, and I'm curious, then I'm curious about what you did. But then, also, how does that influence what you're doing now?

Jessica Albrent

Yeah. So, when I applied for the program, and EdD is different traditionally than a PhD because you are, the intention is that you are a practitioner scholar, and so you don't typically need to find a supervisor or it's usually self-funded as well. The EdD is typically self-funded. So therefore, you apply for the program, and I applied with an idea of what I wanted to do. But it's ultimately not what I did. So, what I researched was building data use practices to support the learning of culturally and linguistically diverse students. So, data has typically been used to rank students to exclude students from educational opportunities. I mean, if we think of the SATs, ACTs, GREs, other large-scale exams, they basically determine somebody's educational future, right? So instead of using data in ways to rank and exclude children, or in typically in the US, it's used for accountability measures. Instead of using data in this way, using data in a productive way to support children who normally feel marginalized and excluded in classrooms for various cultural and linguistic reasons or learning reasons, and this was really born out of my international school experience. So currently, I'm in Lahore, and 15 years ago I was in Lahore as well. I was a teacher here at the American school, and I came back here. I I left, and I came back. And we were giving our students—I was teaching third grade—and we were giving our students a standardized assessment to kind of understand the learning that you know that our students were experiencing, maybe where we needed to improve. But we gave students a standardized assessment from Middle America, normed against middle class, middle American students, and it was completely inappropriate for them. So, I remember watching my students take this this is this exam, this assessment, and there was questions like identifying it was a vocabulary question where they had to identify a church steeple and so you keep in mind, we're in Pakistan and there's no church steeple. Or there was a really complex mathematics question or problem, problem solving question that had a little girl taking a bus to go to the Aquarium with her mother. There are no aquariums in Lahore. There are no, at that time, there are no bus routes, and certainly my students weren't involved. They were using dollars in it. We use rupees here. The the entire problem, the linguistics behind the problem, they were just completely unsuited to our students and the school got the results, and of course it wasn't what they were expecting, and they're like, Oh, we're not teaching right. We're not. The kids aren't learning right. You know, they were finding blame for it, and I was like, maybe the problem isn't what we're doing here in school or our students. Maybe it's the tools that we're using to assess them and how we interpret it. And so, years later, that became the subject of my dissertation.

Lois Dankwa

That's so interesting. As so I appreciate that you did that as your research and you were motivated by diving into that more because I'm certainly someone that historically has struggled with standardized tests. So, I'm glad that yeah, I'm glad that there are people that are going these tests aren't ideal. And even if you're smart, they're your your brain just doesn't think like that. So.

Jessica Albrent

Right? Yeah. Eventually, my work went into, you know, the dissertation focus focused not necessarily on the creation of the assessment. But what you do with the data. What what teachers do with the data. How they work with it to inform their their future planning. But definitely, there's a lot of work being done, especially in the American context, in in better developing assessments for people who have diverse experiences and backgrounds.

Lois Dankwa

That's so cool. So, I'm curious then, while you were in your program, did you know that you wanted to come back to Lahore, or did you have thoughts about directions you wanted to go in and did you pivot later? I'm curious.

Jessica Albrent

Well, I started wanting to be a leader in international schools and the international school experience, and how you recruit for jobs, you know your it's it's not one link of of schools. It's not like one company. So, you get contracts with various schools and you're expected to move around. So, I've moved around a lot. It's not seen as a negative thing. So, I didn't really know where I would end up afterwards. That wasn't the plan. It was more the position that was the plan. But then that changed part way through the program. There were several social factors that that went into that change in in my decision in terms of career. But Lahore, I always wanted to go back. I lived in, let's see, I lived in for a sustained period of time Gabon, Egypt. Then I'd come to Pakistan and then I moved to Tanzania. Then I'd gone to Iraq and Oman. So Oman is where I was doing my degree, and of all the places that I had lived Lahore was my favorite. So, the opportunity to return was always on my mind.

Lois Dankwa

I understand that. I am glad that you mentioned that for you it wasn't necessarily a specific place that you just knew what role you wanted to be in after you finish. And I I can even sort of identify with that, too, and I'm sure that there are others who also they don't necessarily know where in the States or the world they would want to live, or what company or organization or school that would they would want to work in but that they know what they want to be doing. And I'm curious then how you were able to deal with thinking through the reality that you only really cared about what you were doing, but knowing that you would have to pick where you were doing it. I I know I struggled to be able to filter out how to get get beyond the I know what I want to do, but I don't know where I want to do it.

Jessica Albrent

Well, so I'm fortunate in that I have plenty of experience with moving, so I'm not necessarily attached to a certain place. There were lots of opportunities. I'm also extremely privileged. I'm an American. I carried a great degree from from Johns Hopkins. I'm white, there's a lot of privilege in the educational space internationally for white Americans. So, I've always had a lot of flexibility in that in that way where place wasn't really a concern. Again, that flexibility, that privilege, led me to be able to choose more of my, a job based on my values rather than the location or place or even exactly the job title, when I eventually did pivot from school leadership to something else. I was also fortunate that my husband still maintained a job in the same school that I was working at before, and after I finished my doctorate, I could take off a year. And I took off a year, and my doc—I completed my doctorate during Covid. So, it was an extremely stressful time. I was working full-time, doing my doctorate in a full-time program, and doing it during Covid and teaching during Covid. So, I was quite burned out. I was exhausted. I knew that I didn't want to continue in international schools. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do. So, I was extremely fortunate that I could take a year off and still not have to suffer for it and take time to explore what I wanted, and to really find the right position for both my husband and myself.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah. And for just a question. So, for the time that you took off, was it something that like that's what happens at the end of an EdD? Or it was like a choice that you made for yourself?

Jessica Albrent

It was a choice of needs, yeah.

Lois Dankwa

Okay, and I'm glad that you mentioned that, because it's so easy to forget that we can just choose to take a break.

Jessica Albrent

Yes.

Lois Dankwa

It's not me stopping forever. And if you stop forever, there's something else you'll do. But it's it's so important to remember that we have to prioritize like our peace. And I'm glad that you mentioned that, and I am curious what advice you would have for people who have all of the things that they need to juggle, and would be in situations like yours, where it was like I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this, and my dissertation. Like what advice would you have?

Jessica Albrent

Oh, that one's tough. You know, I always tell people that this is one thing that I really learned, I think a lot of people learned in Covid is that the job really, jobs come and they go. The work comes and goes, but if you're not healthy, if your family is not healthy, if the dynamic in your family is not healthy, then it's it's very hard to progress forward, and so prioritizing those, they're essential. And again, I'm saying that from a place of privilege, having the ability to stop and take time. There are people who financially would not be able to do that. So, I say that with recognition that that's not always possible. But wherever it is possible to take those breaks when they're needed to reprioritize yourself and really understand where you want to go in the future.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, that's such a, it's such an important thing. If you, if you have room in your life to do that, it's if things don't need to be rushed, then it's fine for them not to be.

Jessica Albrent

Right. I feel a lot of times like I'm really far behind, because I I earned my doctorate, I was awarded my doctorate on my fortieth birthday.

Lois Dankwa

That's awesome. That's cool.

Jessica Albrent

So, yeah, yeah. So, when when I think about and I look at my colleagues that are a similar age as me, they've been in this for you know, 15-20 years by now, and for me, I'm just starting my academic career. You know, fortunately, I have a very solid other career behind me that aligns with this and supports this. But a lot of times I feel like I'm falling behind, because I'm older and just starting off on this career. But ultimately I'm just so happy with it that it's okay. It's okay to take my time.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, yeah. And you, you were reminding me that it's the major thing that I've noticed just from doctoral studies is that you, we're all on our own journey. So, we aren't really benefiting ourselves by comparing ourselves to anyone in our cohort or anyone in a different doctoral program or people that came or finished before. Like we have our own journeys. We have our own life circumstances that are influencing our journeys, but you inherently do compare yourself sometimes. So, it's important to always remind yourself like, no. 

Jessica Albrent

No, it doesn't need to be like that. I you know I'm very lucky. I had three very, very close friends, growing up in this small town, and all 3 of us became actually all 4 of us, because my 3 friends and myself earned our doctorates in all different areas. So, one of my friends in social science, another in the hard sciences, and then another in the arts and the humanities. So, my other friend in social science, she's a professor at University of Washington, and one of the things as I was looking for this, and feeling all these insecurities, and I was thinking, what am I going to do? How am I going to make myself attractive to universities? She was like, look. Academia is filled with weird people, with weird interests. She's like if somebody's not interested in what you're doing, it has nothing to do with you, and it has everything to do with their own interests, their own agendas, because people are so into their little niche worlds. So, she was like, don't worry about what anyone else is doing. You're your own expert in your own niche world, and you'll find the people that are really focused in the same weird way that you are.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I love that, filled with weird people with weird interests. It's a cute way of having you remember that's true actually. And it helps you not not be as insecure about just it's, I mean we all want to be accepted. So, I understand the fear. But it's it helps. That's I like that.

Jessica Albrent

Yeah, yeah, you just have to find the weird people that match the weird interests.

Lois Dankwa

Right, find your weird. So, I have one more question for you today, and I'm curious what inspires you right now?

Jessica Albrent

You know, it's always been really much the same since I started education, and it's the students and the people that I work with and the communities with which I work and just like the enormous potential that you have in a classroom or in a community or school with which you work. So, you know when I was teaching kindergarten that enormous potential of those kids learning to tie their shoes. And then graduating a few years later from McGill or Columbia, or, you know, really great places and saying, Okay, I contributed to that potential. And then in this case, especially now in Lahore, you know, there's a lot of very, very negative impressions about Pakistan internationally, and even in Pakistan in the community here. But my experience has been that there is just so much potential here. There are so many intelligent, hardworking, innovative, creative people here that are not getting the opportunities that they need. And so for me, it's really wonderful to be able to work with future educators and educational leaders here and help them determine their own country's potential. So especially, you know, considering the colonial past of of Pakistan and Lahore, I don't want to come in as the White Savior. I want to come in as somebody who helps the students here really tap into their own potential and their own community’s potential in their growth and their their possibilities that they have because they certainly have all the human resources that are necessary to to to progress and move forward.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I love that. And I love. I mean, it makes sense. It goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning of our conversation, where you’re mission-driven, value-based driven, it’s you're driven by the people that you're with, and just wanting to work with to help continue to grow the community in different ways. So, I understand that. I love that.

Jessica Albrent

Yeah. And they've given so much to me. Honestly, I I I absolutely love living here. I love the people here. It's it's I feel like my life is made very, very rich by the people I encounter here.

Lois Dankwa

That's so wonderful. Well, Jessica, it's been so wonderful to learn from you here a bit about your story, and just what your doctoral experience was like. So, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jessica Albrent

Thank you for your time, Lois. I appreciate it.