Dr. Janet Gomez, PhD in Italian Literature | Assistant Dean of Faculty Affairs, Summer & Special Programs at Georgetown University

In this episode, we discuss what led Janet to pursue a PhD in Italian literature, the ways her background, identities, and graduate work have continued to show up throughout her career in higher education administration, and her take on the importance of traveling and learning new languages to broaden your cultural horizons, stay curious, and never stop learning.

Hosted by Brooklyn Arroyo

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

Transcript

Brooklyn Arroyo

Hello, I'm Co-host Brooklyn Arroyo and this is 100 Alumni Voices podcast, stories at 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 Janet Gomez, PhD in German and romance languages and literature, currently working as assistant Dean of Faculty Affairs, Summer and special programs at Georgetown University. Welcome to the PHutures Podcast. How are you?

Janet Gomez

I'm doing well. How are you?

Brooklyn Arroyo

I'm doing great. I'm excited to speak with you today. So just right off the bat I have to admit that I don't get to meet with a whole lot of people who aren't STEM focused, so I'm always really excited to learn about your PhD experience that you had and what was it like to study German romance languages and literature?

Janet Gomez

So, I was, I started off at Hopkins as a graduate student and and the Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures, which actually doesn't exist anymore. I think we're modern languages and literature now, and my focus was Italian literature, although I did a bit of comparative literature, a little bit of Spanish and French along the way given my background. So that that's where I started at Hopkins and I took I graduated in 2016.

Brooklyn Arroyo

OK wow so relatively recently. And and so what have the the years post your PhD looked like for you? Has it been linear? Have you gone straight from your academia into more academia because you're now working at Georgetown? How's that look?

Janet Gomez

So, my path has been pretty windy. So, my dissertation was on, you know, a 16th-century text called Jerusalem Delivered. And so, the reception of early modern Italian female writing and and literary forgeries. And so, I finished in 2016 and in 2017, I actually stayed at Hopkins, working as a director of international academic programs and marketing and the director of the Education USA Academy for summer and Intercept Office of Summer and intersession programs. So how did that happen? Well, while I was a graduate student, I worked at the Office study abroad in various capacities. So, I taught a course abroad during intercession. I took faculty abroad to Cuba, Italy. And then that prepared me for a part time role there as a visiting international program coordinator, a student program coordinator. So, I worked along the director of study abroad at the time in everything involving visiting international students coming to Hopkins for a semester or a a full year anywhere from admissions to housing, giving them an orientation, being their academic advisor. And so even though it's part time it’s practically a really robust full-time kind of capacity in a lot of ways. That really prepared and kind of boosted my resume to go into the the higher administration role. And so right after so about that last semester my fall semester, it was kind of serendipitous because my role at study abroad was ending for a variety of reasons, and there was a call via e-mail at summer if somebody can put together a proposal for a new program for the State Department, for international students. And so, my boss at the time referred me to the assistant Dean at summer. And so, I I worked really closely with the. Assistant Dean of summer to put this proposal for the State Department and we got it. And so, from there it was sort of then we needed to fill a role now. And there was this other part of the job where it was marketing and I had done some marketing. Kind of not officially calling it marketing, but I was working with, you know, the Center for Advanced Media Studies putting together social media posts, answering e-mail and and kind of advertising certain events and things like that along that and other and other capacities too. And so that prepared me for for that role. So, I'll pause there, but that was my immediate I worked there for three years and then I transitioned into this job as the assistant Dean of high school programs at Georgetown. And then we just reorganized and I'm in my current role of assistant Dean of Faculty Affairs, also for the same department at Georgetown.

Brooklyn Arroyo

So, it definitely sounds like you've had experiences within the same sort of flavor, but then different environments and working with different sets of people depending on what you were helping them fulfill. And a lot of it was about sort of the International Studies aspect and you briefly mentioned in the beginning about studying things like Spanish, Spanish and other languages and how that has partially been affected by your background and so I'd love to know a little bit more about your experience with relating to things or experiencing and learning things that were different than you and in such a cultural study, how did that impact your own perception of your own culture?

Janet Gomez

Yeah. No, that's an excellent question. So, you know, I grew up in a very international city. I'm originally from Miami. My my family is Cuban. They immigrated to the United States in the 60s and the 80s. So, I'm first generation and growing up, you know, Spanish was my first language. It wasn’t English, even though I was born in the US. And so, from there, you know, learning English, you know which happened a bit simultaneously, but really Spanish was kind of the 1st and and all of us were bilingual. I grew up in, in elementary and high schools, where the majority were Latino, Hispanic cultural. So, I never felt a little bit outside of it until I left Miami and realized the rest of the world is not like Miami or the rest of the country. And so, it was a big culture shock when I left Miami and moved up here. Well, when I left Florida and moved up here. And so, when I was growing up even from a young age when I was in middle school I started to learn French and I kept with it. It was very fascinating for me to learn about other cultures and other people that were very different from me. And so that passion stayed from middle school to high school and when I went off to college at The University of Florida I kind of was like, alright. I've done French. What else can I do? And so, I took Italian and not thinking that I would make a career ahead of it, but I decided to take Italian and then I missed the French. So, I got a minor in French and a minor in Italian and and a major in English with a certificate in translation studies, when I was an undergrad. So, having learned that then I was learning a whole other culture and language with Italian that then propelled me on this path. So why Italian? I don't have a single, you know, speck of DNA of Italian in my background, but, you know it it felt familiar, your know, that Mediterranean field felt familiar and my ancestry is, you know, from Spain and and Cuba. And so not dissimilar in a lot of ways, and it was a course on Dante that really propelled me into what I do today and and I still use what I learned during my PhD because I teach on the side, along with being an administrator as a side gig, I I still teach courses. So that cultural, you know, coming from an international background where I grew up with people from everywhere, all over central South America, and you name it it, it just influenced then I wanted, I've just had this natural instinct to learn more about people from everywhere, and then that informed my work as an administrator working with international students. I had the pleasure of working with students from as far as Mongolia to Chastan that we're just so amazing and being able to travel to China and you know, different parts of of Europe and the Caribbean and that all that I bring to my my daily work and interacting with everybody.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And I think that there's a sense of almost inherent curiosity towards language for many people if multiple languages were around you growing up right, and whether that be your own household or where you're living, like your city, I think that just having cultural diversity almost brings that out of you because you're curious and everyone's different in all these sorts of ways. And so, at large for students who are whether that be their undergrad or throughout their PhD are interested in in exposing themselves to differences culturally and even stepping into the International Studies or abroad sort of programs, how would you go about giving them advice and stepping into the world of studying abroad or stepping into cultural studies?

Janet Gomez

You know the best way I think you know, and I'm biased here, but I would say start with learning a language that you're interested and that you learn, because with learning a language, you're not just learning the mechanisms of the structure of a sentence or words, but you're learning a whole cultural background and in order to really sort of master and I don't like using that word but to being proficient in that language to really understand that language you have to learn the cultural background of of certain words and how they're said and certain types of expressions. And within within that same culture, it's not a monolith. So, you know folks from southern Italy are very different from the central to the north, just like here in the US, people are from, you know, there's pockets of regions. And learning those types of pockets of regions and interacting with people from different places. So, I would say, you know, start with learning a language. That always is a great start. And then travel abroad and travel intentional. Don't, you know, try to get away from the tourist traps and things like that. I mean, yeah, go see the Eiffel Tower once. It’s great, fine, but also make it intentional to go to places that are less traveled and get lost in the neighborhoods. You know, walk around. The way that I used to kind of before the Internet figure out if a restaurant was good, was what language was I hearing at the restaurant as I passed by. Was it primarily English? If so, I kept walking. If it was you know if I was in Italy and it was primarily Italian, then I'll just sit and you know and and sit down and then get to know people, talk to them. You know what? Even if it's just a basic conversation. Hi, how are you? Where’re you from? And from there kind of get curious. I think you just said it perfectly that curiosity come with curiosity to another culture. Leave your preconceived notions in the US. And come with curiosity, with an open mind of what you can discover of of that journey. And you know that there's there's no mistake why I went on this journey after reading Dante because it's all about the journey. And kind of the journey through your life. And so, I I take that metaphor with me everywhere.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely, yeah, of course. And you briefly mentioned, I believe in the beginning about how you've had the opportunity to meet so many all throughout your life, but especially going down this path, such a diverse amount of cultures and and people with a wide variety of different nationalities. And so, what have been some of the biggest lessons that you've learned from people and really exposing yourself to a lot of different cultures and what have been those those lessons?

Janet Gomez

That's a great question. You know I think the culture I struggle with the most is our own here in you know in the US and I think that's because, you know, statistically no, not many own a passport or get out of our country and and that's the statistics that is around. I forget what it was the number of people who actually hold passports in the US. And I think you know I'm I go into meeting people from other places with this innate fascination of wanting to just absorb, you know, from food to what I hear to how they express themselves to what they do for a living to what their values are. What are their innate cultural values? And how how can I respect those and how can I honor those and and that diversity and that exposure of different people and different places, you know, only helps in the workplace because you have to interact from different people in different places and and kind of have that nuanced kind of understanding and open mind when you're you're talking to someone. And challenges, yeah, I think the biggest challenge for me having that international background, I think was navigating spaces that are not diverse. I think you know that's the biggest challenge for me because diversity just comes so so natural to me and in my environment that navigating those spaces where it's primarily, you know, not diverse at all it. It's hard for me. It's really, really tough for me. I also, you know, I'm I have a I have so many identities that I kind of almost I laugh and I'm like, you know, people might consider me the poster child for diversity sometimes, you know, being gay Latina and neurodiverse, you know, speak a bunch of languages and and just yeah, I feel more comfortable in those spaces where people are from everywhere, but also our different types of identity and different types of, you know, thinking and, yeah, I guess that, that's pretty much so I guess my my challenge is not being in diverse spaces, that's the challenge.

Brooklyn Arroyo

But definitely I think that you bring up a good point of I think sometimes and most of the time, people associate diversity with something that we obviously strive for, but is almost like a battle that we have to work through or it's a struggle or it's a constant thing that we have to work through when in reality I think that it really is an asset. And it can make an environment even more rich with culture and and happiness and productivity, and oftentimes we're ohh, we once we get too diverse then it gets complicated and and and that sort of thing. So, I think that you bring up a really good point of how diversity can actually make an environment much more smoother to work in and allow people to be more themselves, which inherently they're going to thrive in what they do. And so, I think I can definitely relate in the notion that in those environments where there's not a whole lot of diversity, that's it's super restrictive and it's not as fulfilling of an environment.

Janet Gomez

And you know, it kind of makes me think of, you know, when I was learning all these languages, you know, the best time to learn a language is as young as possible, right when you're practically a baby. And what I think is that sometimes people have this preconception in the US that you don't want to teach the language to some someone so young because they then will not pick up, they won't speak English well enough, right? Or that it will confuse them somehow, or and that that doesn't happen in other countries that are have multiple languages. You you learn them at once and you don't have this fear or this fear of confusion or fear of of not yeah. What was I gonna say? I've lost my train of thought this is. OK. Yeah. OK. And so with that, you know there with that then you know when you think of diversity and you're talking about diversity in the workplace or, you know, wherever there is this fear that there's gonna be confusion, there's gonna be this lack of, you know, of understanding and and if you're intentional enough and you are curious and you are open, I mean statistics show that the more diverse a workplace is, the more productive and the more creative and innovative it it comes, you know it kind of bubbles up because you've got different perspectives, different lived experiences coming to the table that enrich what you would do. And the key here is to remain open. You have to remain open. You gotta remain curious and not type, not stereotype. Not, you know. Leave those conceptions at the door and expose yourself. And the best way to do that is go to places that are diverse. If you can't travel abroad because of finances, because of whatever go to New York. Go to Miami, go to LA, go to these, you know, places that are full of, you know, go right here in Baltimore. You can different parts of Baltimore, you know, and expose yourself to people who are different from you and not be afraid of that. Don't stay in the bubble. Expand your world and by doing that it kind of sets you up in a better and never stop learning. That's the thing. Like you never reach a point where you're like, oh, yeah, I've mastered. No, there's so many countries, so many people in the world that it's a lifelong, lifelong learning experience.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Right, right. And then let's say hypothetically you do master every culture and every language. Then everyone's also an individual and you just keep on getting more and more diverse. And so, I I love the point that you made earlier about how oftentimes in America especially, there's sort of a tentative nature to want to have multiple languages, especially at young ages. And I think that just the way that our education system has worked, that's how it sort of ended up that English is the main one and not a lot of people graduate high school, knowing multiple languages, whereas in some a lot of other countries, many of them graduate knowing at least two or three. And so how would you go about looking at teaching yourself another language and like the logistics behind stepping into that and and really opening up yourself?

Janet Gomez

Yeah, I think you know we in the you know, officially US, the US does not have an official language, and that's actually a fact. We think it's English because we conduct business in English and that's the lingua franca. But we actually don't have an official language. And I I find that really beautiful because not many people know that and it allows you know and it makes sense to me because we're a culture, we are a country founded on immigrants, on people from everywhere. And so, you know, not having that I think was probably intentional and yet and yet we cling to thinking that English is this superior language than anyone else’s right. And that's that's so sad. That’s a judgment, I think to our culture, to our interactions with people. And so, I think, you know, learning a language is just such a it's a door that you can open to different types of thoughts, different types of literature, different types of histories. I mean every culture. Every you know. And and within those cultures you have these even more diversity, right and kind of making your way, even you may not even master all the language in the world, but you may not even master all the dialects or ways of being in one country you know and and so it's always a learning process. You know, you'll never stop learning, but I think you know, opening yourself to learning a different language is a is a really great first step to really immersing yourself in there and and you don't. You know I've always said there should be a study abroad program in Miami because you know, you go there and you have to use your English and Spanish, you know the and and now there's pockets of of French and Italian in different parts of the city. And then you go to New York and you hear Yiddish. You hear Hebrew, you hear Arabic, you hear, you know, you just walk down the street and hear everything. And so, we have this in our own country. And what how would it be? What would our country be like if we all took a moment to learn, learn about a different culture and really immerse yourself in that in that culture?

Brooklyn Arroyo

America in itself is very rich and diverse with with like you said with languages and cultures and and nationalities of people who've immigrated here. It's it's really quite a special place. It's, not to toot our own horn, but and you, you're are rich with this knowledge and and these experiences. And so, I'd love to know if you've thought of it yet, what would the next phase of your career look like for you? What do you hope to expand your knowledge or how do you hope to expand your knowledge and within the coming years?

Janet Gomez

That's a great question because I feel like right now I'm at a crossroads, career wise and personally and you know, I'm almost turning 40. So, it's sort of I know I don't look it, but I there's white hairs growing out, but you know, I think my passion lies in international education and in my current position I'm not as involved as I was in my previous position, and so maybe in the future figuring out ways I can be more involved with international education wherever I wind up or stay, you know, within this position or others. So, doing more of that probably is in my future. I also currently am part of the diversity or Diversity Committee at Georgetown School of Continuing Studies. So, you know being involved in those spaces sometimes can be a challenge as a person who, who's you know, has so many identities. But also, I feel a kind of a need to be in those spaces too and and if anything not for myself, but for others. And how I can help others and how can I be a voice for others in in the same you know who have different backgrounds who have different experiences and who need an advocate. You know, how can I represent someone, yeah, aside from myself. So, probably something in the realm of international education of some sort. And I would say probably diversity by nature of of my background. And well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It's my path has always been so windy. If you if you told me you know at the beginning of my PhD at Hopkins, where would I be in five years or after I graduate, I would have said Ohh I'm going to be a tenure Professor at in Italian somewhere in the United States. And then halfway through I was like pivot. What am I going to do now? And so just again that curiosity, right? And I would say to PhD students, you know, don't just sit there, take your classes and write. While that's noble and that's necessary to finish. Expand expand yourself to internships, or you know, even right at Hopkins. What can you do that interests you, that you can get involved with? Ask your professors, ask you, you know different kinds of offices you know is there a way that you can be involved, whether volunteering or a part time work of any kind or and and kind of seek those opportunities out. Ask questions. Ask everybody you meet questions and that's sort of what I did. And there was never sort of a mine was sort of serendipitous, but I also kept asking questions and kind of making connections and that way when you finish, you have some sort of kind of a human other than what you've done in your studies that you can. You decide to go into the tenure track faculty market. Awesome. Go for it if that if that's your jam. If you feel like I don't know. Maybe that and something else. At least you'll have some credentials with you to kind of go forth wherever, wherever you decide you know you fit.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And you bring up the great point again that usually when you follow curiosity, it's not a very linear route. So, no matter where you end up, I'm I'm sure that it's just going to be even more of the cultural diversity and growth and and allowing yourself to be exposed to all these things that like we said are never ending. This is a subject area that's never gonna stop giving, so you've definitely chosen the right area to allow yourself to be curious forever. So, grand finale of each episode, and I'm really curious to see how you'll answer it just because you've had really insightful comments to each one of my questions, but that is what inspires you right now?

Janet Gomez

That, that's that's an easy question, right? A tall order there. I think multiple things. You know, I can never narrow down to to one thing. But I would say right now, you know, I consider myself a lifelong learner, like I mentioned, and I'm always learning. I'm always looking to learn something new, new concepts, how to overcome challenges, how to self-improve. But I'm also constantly thinking about ways I can give back. How can I expand opportunities for other people now that I've kind of done my path halfway midway through this life, as Dante would say, you know. Now how can I help those who have followed in my footsteps? How can I be a mentor? How can I inspire? I'm also inspired by people whose stories you know, where have they gotten, you know, the resiliencies and resilient people and resilient stories. How have they overcome challenges? I teach, so my students, they inspire me and they give me hope and it validates me in that, alright, I'm I should still keep teaching, even if I have a day job. I would say my family, friends, mentors when things get tough, they remind me how far I've come and how much I've left to give. And then finally I think, you know, despite obstacles in my way and people, a lot of people telling me I can't do something. But yet being first generation being from a family that immigrated to the United States, daughter of a Teen Mom from a low-income family, gay, Latina. You know, you name it? I am determined to continue to persist and persevere. And here I am.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And as someone who relates to many, many, many of those identities, I think that you have truly inspired me and thank you for coming to the PHutures podcast.

Janet Gomez

Oh, you're too kind. Thank you so much for inviting me. I appreciated this, and it was a lovely conversation.