Once again, as she neared the end of her journey of earning her bachelor’s degree, a professor asked where she was going to get her Ph.D.
“I can’t believe she had the confidence in me, because I sure didn’t think I could do it,” Dr. Anderson-Facile explained. “I told her I had no idea what she was even talking about and never even considered that I could get a Ph.D.”
Dr. Jensen, her professor, told her she would assist her and supporter her through the process of applying to graduate programs.
No one else in her family was educated or knew how to navigate through the world of higher education.
While some told her she wouldn’t succeed, she knew she wasn’t dumb. Yet as she pursued this new dream there were naysayers and doubters.
“My mother would tell me on a regular basis that I needed to quit school, get a job and support my family because what I was doing was crazy,” said Dr. Anderson-Facile.
Dr. Anderson-Facile, with the help of her professor, applied to five schools and was accepted into all of them. At the time, she and her family were living in Minnesota, but she wanted to try California and the three of them moved to the West Coast, in order for Dr. Anderson-Facile to attend a Ph.D. program at the University of California, Riverside.
She was successful — earning both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. Her master’s thesis was entitled, “Obscene but not heard: Women who ride Harleys.”
She continued the theme and wrote her dissertation titled “Dueling identities: The Christian biker,” which was later published as a book. Taking advantage of what she knew and her life experiences provided the pathway to her work in the graduate program.
Dr. Anderson-Facile stated that the “long and short of this story is, I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today if I wouldn’t have had people encourage me along the way; people that believed in me.”
“People who believed I had the ability, but just needed the support and confidence to continue to move forward and jump over the obstacles in my way. It was the fact that the teachers were very interested in me – they encouraged me. You get nowhere alone. You need support,” said Dr. Anderson-Facile.
After getting her Ph.D, she applied to many schools and was in the process of accepting a position at a private university in Southern California, but she knew it was not a good fit because she wanted to reach students that were like her. Students who just needed someone to believe in them.
She had one last interview – it was at CSUB. After her interview she called her husband and said, “this is the job for me – this is where I want to be – I understand these students because they are just like me.”
As Dr. Anderson-Facile has transitioned into this role, Dr. Harper said it has been “extraordinarily smooth, which is a testament to all of the experience she brought to the role.”
Dr. Anderson-Facile stated “she never had the dream of getting her Ph.D., but the people helping her along the way had a dream for me.”