Today we’d like to introduce you to Michele Foss.

Michele, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?

I’ve always been a nerd. It might be the largest piece of my identity pie chart.

As a child, I fit the traditional definition of a nerd in that I got good grades, I wore glasses, I engaged in only the most tepid acts of rebellion, and I committed myself, heart and soul and time, to one or more fields of study or interest. My commitment was so complete that within MINUTES of meeting me, people could guess the object of my nerdy affections: television. I made it my mission to know as much about television as possible. I watched everything, including shows I didn’t particularly care for, just because I wanted to KNOW. I studied television for my major in college, then wrote my thesis about television in grad school, and then made it the focus of my doctoral dissertation. When I tell people I watched a bunch of TV and they gave me a Ph.D. for my trouble, I’m oversimplifying, but I’m not lying.

When the university in my hometown announced that they were looking to hire a professor of rhetoric and media, someone who could teach classes in media aesthetics and TELEVISION CRITICISM, I did a Bionic Woman (kids, ask your parents) jump at the opportunity. Being a nerd paid off: I now make a living by watching, reading about, thinking about, and talking about TV with other people who want to nerd out on it as much as I do. Sometimes I pinch myself when I think about the luck and magic it must have taken to get me where I am today, but I also have to honor my choices to work hard and persevere. Hard work and perseverance are the twin pillars of Nerd Life, after all.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

I’ve certainly had my share of struggles, but my journey has felt relatively charmed.

As an example, I spent three years driving all over the region, traveling from one part-time teaching gig to another. My emotional scale was heavy on the anxiety side and the security side was nearly empty. During this time, I applied for a full-time teaching job at one of the community colleges where I’d been an adjunct, but I fumbled the interview and didn’t get the position. I was embarrassed and discouraged. But if I had been hired for that job, I would not have learned about the opening for the job I eventually took, the one I’ve been in for almost 20 years.

I try my best to treat my struggles as jagged lessons. They don’t feel great while you’re in the middle of them, but I try to focus on the idea that when I get to the other side of my challenges, I’ll understand why those struggles had to happen. The shame that came with not being hired for one thing made me available to be hired for the RIGHT thing.

I had no way of knowing my struggle would become my blessing. I walk through each new struggle looking forward to discovering the lesson it will bring.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

I am an educator. I am also a creative. I think of my work as mostly breaking down into my Bruce Wayne and my Batman.

As an educator, I’m Bruce Wayne, Professor of Rhetoric and Media in the Department of Communication Studies at Sacramento State University. I teach classes like Media Aesthetics, Television Criticism, and Fandom and Fan Studies.

As a creative, I’m Batman, a podcaster. My podcast, The TV Doctor, is the natural evolution of my research agenda. My tag line is, “I’m not a doctor on TV, but I play one in real life.” What I mean by that is that I’m not an actor, so I’m not a TV Doctor in the sense that I play a doctor on TV, but my “real life” job of being a professor who teaches and studies television is so rewarding that it often feels like play. In my podcast, I “prescribe” what people should be watching to heal whatever ails them.

These two parts of my professional identity are so interwoven that it’s almost like they cannot be separated, just like there’s no Batman without Bruce Wayne’s origin story, and there’s no world in which Bruce Wayne could forget that he was once Batman. I hope to continue being both as long as possible.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?

Many of my colleagues in education thought that the move to online format necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown would be the biggest threat to our industry, but it turns out that most of us weathered that shift well. However, the rise of ChatGPT and other AI programs strikes me as a larger challenge. I respect AI as a tool that can save time, but many students are using it in unethical ways (allowing it to write their papers and presentations, using it to circumvent reading assignments, etc.). In the next 5-10 years, those of us in higher education (and, for that matter, those of us in podcasting…and everyone else, probably) will need to come to terms with how we navigate the waves created by artificial intelligence. I’m mostly a skeptic (I’ve seen the Terminator and Matrix films and I would like Skynet to remain unaware), but I think we’re past the point where one can be an AI teetotaler.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thetvdoc.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thecuriouscaseofmfoss and www.instagram.com/teeveephd