Jenn's Application Essay

Just thought I'd share my personal statement, in celebration of being DONE!

"Ballerinas do not have curves." Mdm. Blaisé's initial compliments evolved into a sympathetic but stern survey of my curvy, slightly chubby, 14-year-old physique. No, I did not go on to disprove the naysayers and star in the New York City Ballet. Mdm. Blaisé was quite correct: ballerinas do not have curves. To that end, I will never quite fit into the world of pink tights and black leotards. However, in college I spent nearly every weekend dancing for shear enjoyment. From nightclubs to ballroom classes, I am still a curvy, slightly chubby girl, but I am unapologetically on the dance floor.

Adulthood, it seems, has confirmed what I'd unconsciously hoped in adolescence. Fitting in is not a prerequisite for participation. What's more, not fitting in can be a catalyst for success.

As an undergraduate, my classroom-level Spanish and a disproportionate sense of adventure led me to a small farming village in Mexico. While teaching Spanish literacy and basic education to adults, I completed self-created ethnographic research courses I’d convinced my department was worthy of 9 upper-division English credits. Oh, yes, I had signed up for a semester of "service-learning" in all its anti-parasitic glory. No professors. No plumbing. The first week, my neighbor and surrogate abuelita laughingly accused, "You look Mexican, but you don't really talk like one."

Teacher and researcher, Mexican and American—liminality gave rise to discovery. Sharing my family story, I connected with my students and inspired their commitment to education. In turn, they candidly shared their lives and culture. My less-than-stellar linguistic abilities intensified my listening, revealing subtle rhythms of village life. And as I worked and lived in a foreign world, I discovered personal ties to the culture and country my family left behind two generations before.

In graduate school, I stepped outside the standard textual analysis and embraced the opportunity to work with a cross-disciplinary research team of mostly senior faculty. When I explained the project to a seasoned literature professor, he replied with perhaps the highest praise one can give a liberal arts MA thesis: “Hey, people might actually want to read that!”

I’m not one for iconoclastic individuality, but I recognize that unique combinations of experiences can, almost serendipitously, unlock opportunity. As the 'baby' on a professional writing program faculty, I was asked to create and pilot an original course. While my colleagues were mostly retired professionals with impressive resumes and terminal degrees, my director explained that I was really the only faculty member with the right combination of skills and experience to tackle the project. As a consultant, I draw on experiences from contract negotiations to high school marching band to discover new models of communication and problem solving, to fluidly and often clandestinely step over traditional boundaries, to connect with diverse and competing audiences, and to coordinate unlikely collaboration and communication. My innovative solutions have been rewarded with increased visibility and responsibility including three promotions in two years.

In my current leadership development project, I teach managers what I taught writing students: conflict is an inevitability. In that context, leadership is the ability to inspire creativity and facilitate dialogue that transforms the nature of conflict. My decision to peruse a legal education is grounded in that philosophy. Ultimately, my ambition is to return to academics, teaching law and leveraging the academy's potential to influence political, social and personal discourse. In teaching or practice, law provides a unique and meaningful stage for promoting and facilitating cooperative conflict. And, my professional, academic and personal experiences have prepared me for the challenges of law school and the opportunity to be a powerful, positive influence on that stage.

Accordingly, I seek not only a program that prepares me for the pragmatics of practicing and someday teaching law, but a philosophy of inquiry that looks beyond fitting in (or even standing out) and encourages authentic discovery. I offer the courage to step beyond categorical constraints and the innovation to marry theoretical principles to the practical realities that law seeks to mediate. Moreover, I am prepared to develop the tools and opportunities to become a leader, in part, because I realized that a chubby girl on the dance floor empowers the spectators to dance.