by Anne Chen ’06
“Providence,” reflects Marty, “confirmed my vocation.” From building faith as a collegiate wrestler to understanding education policy as a scholar, the long arc of Marty’s vocational path has been marked by God’s providential hand.
Marty's story begins in Rockville, Maryland, where he grew up in an environment he reflects upon with thanksgiving: A Christ-filled home that was actively involved in church life, and through which he came to know the saving love of Jesus at a young age. "I can't remember a time when I was not actively involved in our church's youth programs," Marty recalls. "It was a big part of our family life."
After graduating from high school, Marty went to Williams College and studied history. There, collegiate wrestling was a big part of his life—not only through participating in the sport itself, but in a bible study for athletes he led throughout his time at Williams College. That experience helped make an intellectual understanding of his faith more practical in day-to-day life and practice—similar to the difference, Marty remarked in quoting Jonathan Edwards, between knowing honey is sweet and tasting it on your tongue. “Having grown up in an environment where it was possible to take Christianity for granted,” he explained, “experiencing my faith more authentically has always been the challenge in my Christian walk.”
Academically, college was also a time where God began to plant the seeds for his vocational calling. He had already possessed an interest in teaching, but had not yet clarified at what level or in which discipline. A turning point came during a summer internship in Washington, DC, when Marty worked at a policy think tank for former Secretary of Education William Bennett. The more he learned more about America's educational system, Marty recounted, the more he realized that he had had a very unusually high-quality education. “So I just started asking questions: Why doesn't everyone have these opportunities? What can we do to remedy that?"
Those questions led to more questions, and soon, Marty found himself taking education classes, writing about education policy, and generally gravitating towards related topics in his collegiate studies. These experiences helped confirm his interest in graduate study, but still left him uncertain of the exact field he wanted to enter. Attracted by the opportunity to study abroad, Marty applied for a two-year fellowship to Oxford, which he used to complete a M.Phil. in Social and Economic History.
The next two years proved to be a honing ground for vocational discernment. Marty’s time at Oxford played a fundamental role in guiding him away from history and towards social science research on contemporary education policy debates. Additional summer internships—first as a high school teacher in New Hampshire, and then as a research assistant for a Harvard political scientist—confirmed his interest in a career in higher education. Out of these experiences, Marty returned to the States with a passion for teaching and conducting research in education policy, and soon began a Ph.D. program in Government and Social Policy at Harvard University.
As Marty grew in his knowledge and understanding of his field in graduate school, God was also shaping him to think through his faith as a member of the larger body of Christ. Although not initially involved in church, Marty gradually began to see the value of church community, becoming more committed to his local church especially in the later stages of graduate school. “One challenge with graduate school is that you can see yourself as transient—that because you’re preparing yourself for the future, that there’s no reason to be involved where you are at the time. But I learned over time that I should really invest in a church community, even if I did not feel entirely settled,” Marty said. “You can’t do this on your own.” During this time, Marty also grew through personal relationships—and one relationship in particular: when Marty’s college wrestling teammate moved to the Boston area, he introduced Marty to his wife’s best friend from high school, Grace. Grace and Marty soon began dating and were married within a year of first introductions.
Graduate school also was a time where Marty developed his faith as a young scholar. The Harvey Fellowship program, which he learned of and applied for midway through his Ph.D. program, played a key role in this development. “I saw the whole process as providential, because it was what I really needed at the time,” Marty said. “I hadn’t thought enough about how my faith intersected with my vocation.” The Summer Institute, which that year had hosted Mark Noll, author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, to speak, was another turning point for Marty’s development in this area. “It really challenged me to do think through that intersection, and raised my awareness of the extent to which Christians were underrepresented in the academy. It led me to ask why Christians often see the academy as foreign territory and shy away from intellectual life. And it really helped reinforce my sense that the academy was the place where I should be.”
Even so, Marty’s professional path was not without its bumps along the way. His research had begun to develop in the direction of education program evaluation, a subject not typically at the forefront of political science. Marty began to wonder whether he should consider professions outside of academia. After a year working in public policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., however, he quickly realized that he missed the university environment and the opportunity to teach and mentor. He also saw how political actors were relatively restrained agents in designing and implementing policy. The academy, in contrast, seemed to have greater freedom to shape the culture and ideas that could eventually become policy and practice. So despite an uncommon research specialization for his field, Marty began looking for academic jobs.
He found that providence remained close by. As Marty put it, “God solved the problem for me,” since he received a job announcement that sounded like it had been written for him. It was an unusual position at Brown University, a Department of Education opening situated in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences rather than the School of Education. “It was really one of just a handful of jobs that I would have been a good fit for,” reflected Marty, and it helped assure him that God wanted to provide a route for him in the academy. Two enjoyable years into his time at Brown—a time that included the birth of a new son—he was contacted about a job opening by his alma mater. After prayerful consideration, at the end of his third year at Brown, Marty found himself and his family readying for another move. He and his family transitioned back to Boston this past summer, where Marty now serves as an Assistant Professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has enjoyed returning with his family to his old church, Christ The King—Cambridge, where they have become involved in plans to plant a new congregation across the Charles River in Newton.
Life is still not without his challenges. One of the biggest ones, Marty will tell you, is balance: balancing the desire to teach well with the demands of research, and balancing family life with work life. The former challenge, Marty acknowledges, is a hard one to tackle, especially since there is always the risk of letting teaching overtake one’s research agenda. While he seeks to fulfill his responsibility to his students, Marty works to contain that time so he can do the research that allows him to fulfill his calling and that is valued by universities. Marty tries to see the latter challenge as a positive: “It’s amazing how having a wife and child really focuses you in your job by making you more efficient and productive. I think it can be a good thing.” He is also aided by, and feels fortunate to benefit from, Grace’s choice to stay at home as a full-time mother and part-time fitness instructor for new moms. And even with these challenges in mind, he is grateful for the providential direction that God has given him, step by step, to lead him to his current environment.
What advice would Marty give to young Harvey Fellows still in training, or just starting out their careers? “Get involved in a church,” Marty said immediately, thinking of graduate students who could consider their training as a reason not to be as invested in the church community. Mindful of Proverbs 19:2 (“It is not good to have wisdom without knowledge”), Marty would also exhort other Fellows to embrace the life of the mind as something that does not have to be in conflict with faith, especially considering the minority of believers in the academy. “Have confidence that you belong there,” he said, and remember what believers have in common with the academic community and with what universities aspire to be: seekers of truth. “We should be looking for opportunities,” said Marty, “to embrace that common purpose.”
Dr. Marty West lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, Grace, and their two-year-old son. They attend Christ the King Church in Cambridge.
