Storied Legacy: Children's Author Earns Ph.D. in Childhood Studies, Tenure-Track Position

Even as an undergraduate student, Lara Saguisag was busy rereading Alice and Wonderland while her classmates were studying Shakespeare. It wasn’t long before she too was capturing children’s imaginations, authoring the books Children of Two Seasons: Poems for Young People and Cat Eyes in her native Philippines.

As she enjoyed literary success, Saguisag increasingly sought to understand children’s literature on a more fundamental level. Consequently, after earning master’s degrees from Hollins University and The New School, she enrolled at Rutgers–Camden in 2007 as a member of the inaugural class of the new Ph.D. in childhood studies program.

On May 23, Saguisag will close the book on a storied Rutgers­–Camden legacy, as she, Deborah Valentine, and Marla Wander become the first three graduates of the Ph.D. in childhood studies program. Having already successfully defended her dissertation, she will begin a tenure-track position as an assistant professor of English at the City University of New York–Staten Island (CUNY-CSI) in the fall.

Looking back now, Saguisag acknowledged that her Rutgers–Camden experience was beyond anything that she could have anticipated. Upon arriving at the university, she had believed that the childhood studies program would be more or less a continuation of the children’s literature courses she had studied in her master’s programs. However, she soon found that the interdisciplinary nature of the program would broaden her focus in rather unexpected ways. “These were subjects that I was still interested in, but working with different professors who came from different fields and are engaged in these other kinds of scholarship really opened my eyes to other perspectives,” she says.

It was this integrative approach that led Saguisag to focus on her dissertation, Drawing the Lines: Constructing Childhood in Progressive Era Kid Strips, 1896-1911. What began as a class assignment examining the depictions of children in a Progressive Era cartoon evolved into a multifaceted analysis of child characters and what these characters suggest about peoples’ perceptions of children from this era.

“I didn’t think that I would be studying American history, this medium of comics, and issues of race, class and gender as they were expressed in these comic strips,” says Saguisag. “My professors really helped me to move out of my comfort zone.”

Through the course of her studies, Saguisag enjoyed a series of academic achievements, which she maintains were only made possible by attending an institution with a proud tradition of supporting graduate student research. During her first two years, she focused on presenting and publishing her research and creative works with the support of a Rutgers University Presidential Fellowship, awarded to just 10 doctoral students university-wide each year. Saguisag viewed the award as both a gift and a challenge.

“On one hand, it was a gift that would allow me to concentrate on academic work during my first two years,” says Saguisag, the founding president of the Rutgers University Childhood Studies Graduate Student Organization. “On the other hand, they had recognized potential in me, so I wanted to perform well.”

Saguisag subsequently earned a Library of Congress Swann Foundation Fellowship, crafting her application with the assistance of the Resource Center for Graduate Student External Support, based in New Brunswick. The competitive award requires fellows to serve a two-week residency at the Library of Congress. In addition, she received multiple conference travel grants from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Childhood Studies. The grants enabled her to present her research at the American Studies Association conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in November 2012. In addition, Saguisag helped to organize a special panel and exhibit on Philippine children’s literature at the Children’s Literature Association conference in Boston in 2012, as a member of the association’s international committee.

Above all, Saguisag maintains that she was able to thrive in the childhood studies program because the faculty engaged its students, treating them not as pupils, but as peers. “I learned to stop acting like the apprentice graduate student,” says Saguisag, who, under the guidance of Dr. Lynne Vallone, wrote a paper that received an award from the Children’s Literature Association. “I was aware that I was in training, but because they treated us as peers, I really felt like they were our equals. It helped me to believe in myself.”

On a personal level, Saguisag’s perception of Rutgers–Camden was largely shaped by a tragic experience that occurred just two months into her first semester. In November 2007, her mother was killed, and her father suffered extensive injuries, in a car accident in her native Philippines. Saguisag flew home, fearing that her academic career could be over. But as she grew concerned over missed deadlines, her professors respected her need to mourn and reminded her to focus on her family.

Upon returning to Rutgers–Camden in spring 2008, faculty, staff and fellow students rallied around her, leaving a lasting impression. “That was when I truly fell in love with Rutgers–Camden,” she says. “I came to understand it as an institution that values ambition and academic excellence alongside compassion and a sense of community.”

Saguisag now hopes to foster those same values as an assistant professor of English at CUNY-CSI. She will serve as a specialist in adolescent and children’s literature, primarily teaching coming-of-age narratives, as well as general education courses, such as composition. She also plans to continue writing children’s literature, in addition to turning her dissertation into a book manuscript.