I am from the beautiful state of Maine, where I grew up and lived until August 2019, when I decided to move to Indianapolis to pursue a Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies.

Pursuing my Ph.D. was one of the hardest things I have ever done, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. While I have no regrets about trying, I never dreamed I would have to make so many sacrifices and that the process would be so detrimental to my health and well-being. I thought that being in an academic setting and training to be a scholar was where I was meant to be, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

About the author

Our Mission

My PhaileD Journey is a reflective writing project that explores academic disruption, power, and identity through lived experience. Grounded in personal narrative and informed by an equity lens, this site examines what happens when capable, committed people collide with systems not designed to hold them—and how meaning, voice, and purpose can be reclaimed after loss.

Through personal narrative, reflection, and analysis, this site seeks to:

  • Reframe failure as information rather than deficiency

  • Name the emotional and structural realities of graduate education

  • Connect lived experience to broader questions of equity, power, and legitimacy

  • Create space for honesty, healing, and meaning-making after loss

This is not a platform for bitterness or blame. It is a space for clarity, courage, and compassionate truth-telling.

Why I’m Writing

For a long time, I carried this experience privately—confused, ashamed, and unsure how to talk about what happened without sounding defensive or bitter. But silence protects systems, not people.

Writing is how I make sense of what I lived through and how I begin to reclaim my voice. It’s also how I connect my academic experience to my broader work in philanthropy and equity—where questions of power, access, and legitimacy show up in different forms, but with familiar consequences. I’m not here to assign blame. I’m here to name patterns, tell the truth, and imagine something better.

While my experience is personal, the questions it raises are not. Many people leave academia quietly, carrying stories they were never invited to tell. This space is for those stories.