Kate Asche
Cal Poly - B.A. English, 2004, emphasis Creative Writing; Minor in Music Performance
Other degrees/certificates:
M.A. English/Creative Writing, UC Davis, 2006
Current city/state:
Sacramento, CA
Employer:
UC Davis Extension
Professional Website:
www.extension.ucdavis.edu/writing
Job Title:
Associate Director, Arts and Humanities
How Long in Current Position:
almost 2 years
Brief description of position duties/responsibilities:
I coordinate both our quarterly writing courses (creative and nonfiction) as well as The Tomales Bay Workshops. My position involves developing and maintaining curriculum, scheduling courses, recruiting/hiring/evaluationg/mentoring instructors, marketing and budget planning, and local writing community involvement.
What specific qualities/abilities, skills are necessary for this position:
Content expertise, community connections, strong communication and critical thinking skills, creative problem solving skills and good interpersonal (and some public speaking) skills.
While at Cal Poly, what resources did you take advantage of that have helped you in your current position:
Membership and holding a position in Sigma Tau Delta; participation in writing workshop courses; section leader role in Wind Orchestra.
What advice would you give to someone interested in your profession?
This is a tough one, because I really fell into my position. I planned to be a community or state college teacher, but I needed a break from school and so stopped at the M.A. This makes me less competitve at the community college and state college level, but at the same time, hiring was already starting to drop off due to the economy. So, I taught at private for-profit education instituations. At the same time, I was recruited for this position because several years before, Pam Houston (one of my profs at UC Davis) asked me to work with her and several other students on a new writing conference, The Tomales Bay Workshops. I said yes. Fast-forward five years: now I run this project and many others, and I found myself in this position as a direct result of working with Pam. I didn't plan to stay at UC Davis Extension, because I was pursuing the teaching career. However, I found out that I have a lot of talents for this job, and it was also a way of making sure a particular project with which I was already involved--The Tomales Bay Workshops--continued on at a high quality level. But, most of all, my job encourages and supports my more important work, which is my own writing, in a way that teaching, in my particular experience of it, wasn't.
Is there anything you'd like to personally add about how you found your way to your current career since graduating from Cal Poly as an English major? Any memorable epiphanies that marked major turning points on which path you chose?
Your best teachers will give you opportunities that are both scary and intriguing. Take them. Kevin Clark encouraged us to send in work for creative writing contests at Cal Poly, of which I ended up winning or placing in several. He also was the one who originally got me thinking about going to graduate school, and he recommended Davis specifically, mentioning the great work Pam Houston had done there. Once there, Pam gave me another great opportunity, which I took, and which led me to where I am today.
Contact:
kasche@ucde.ucdavis.edu