Shows
An Academic's Life36. Supposedly, It Is Okay to RestThis episode title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it's a good reminder that it is okay (and necessary) to rest. This week, I talk about the need for rest as the year wind's down (ugh, don't remind me that 2023 is just around the corner!) and how our prior learning knowledge can create self-beliefs that prevent us from taking the rest that we need. I draw from Susan A. Ambrose et al.'s work on prior learning knowledge in How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. I close the episode with a few reflection questions about our own...2022-10-1719 minAn Academic's Life35. Workspace Hacks: How to Lessen Energy LeaksDo you know that everytime you are mildly (or greatly) annoyed with your office or workspace, you waste cognitive and emotional energy? I've been trying to force myself into loving working in my on-campus office, and I just ..... can't. And I'm envious of folks who can. But forcing myself to try to be productive and motivated in a space that doesn't do it for me is actually causing me a huge energy leak. "Energy leaks" are the ways in which our cognitive, emotional, and intellectual energy dissipates leaving us tired, frustrated, unfocused, and/or resentful. (And maybe many other...2022-09-2615 minAn Academic's Life34. What is Workplace Happiness and How Do You Find It?This week I explore Agota Kun and Peter Gadanecz's 2022 article "Workplace happiness, well-being and their relationship with psychological capital: A study of Hungarian Teachers." Kun and Gadanecz provide a really nice overview of the scholarship on workplace happiness and well-being, as well as the necessary components to ensuring employees' happiness, so I highly recommend you all to read their literature review. Ever with the goal of finding ways forward and strategies that work, I share my own understanding of workplace happiness and offer listeners several strategies for finding (or refining their search for) workplace happiness within academia. 2022-09-2031 minAn Academic's Life33. Working on my Promotion Materials and Creating an EbookI am currently neck-deep in promotion material writing/organzing (due September 6), but I was inspired to do a little creative writing with an ebook! In this episode I reflect on how my promotion material writing and the ebook adventure have been retraining my brain away from deadline freak outs and internal criticsm. Without giving away what I've learned, I've found that desensitization works really well for me in these particular contexts.
If you want to check out my ebook (on Kindle and as a print-on-demand), feel free. This is me-in-action learning new (non-academic) things and practicing not b...2022-08-3125 minAn Academic's Life32. Why You Should Get to Know (at least) One Support OfficeIt is GTA Orientation time this week, and I'm neck-deep in training our new first-year composition graduate teaching assistants. If there's one thing I can encourage you to do this semester--as I've been telling our new GTAs--is to pick one support office on campus and get to know the staff. I've found that getting to know various support offices on campus have helped me be a better teacher and mentor, as well as set boundaries. If you're feeling lonely, disconnected, or confused from your program, department, or campus, getting to know one support office can definitely help. 2022-08-1809 minAn Academic's Life31. Happiness at WorkWhat does it mean to be happy at work? In this week's episode, I share some workplace happiness research I've been doing (because, you know, us academics are always doing the research) in my own quest for understanding what workplace happiness looks like for me. I share Annie McKee's recipe for happiness at work--"meaningful work," "a hopeful view of the future," and "true friendship"--from her book How to be Happy at Work. (Annie has a PhD in Organizational Behavior and is currently a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, so she's got the research-based goods.) I...2022-08-0827 minAn Academic's Life30. Learning to Inhabit Your BodyThese last few weeks have been a little crazy with a water pipe bursting and our basement flooding, so I've been silent. I've been feeling overwhelmed and anxious, and it's hard to slow down and connect with myself when I'm feeling that way. This week, I share a few paragraphs from Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's book The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, specifically the chapter titled "Learning to Inhabit Your Body: Yoga." Dr. van Der Kolk, MD, is a trauma researcher who uses neuroscience and attachment research to discover and develop...2022-08-0124 minAn Academic's Life29. Don’t Be a Peer Review JerkWhether you're just starting out as a peer reviewer or you've been doing it awhile and want a refresher, I've got four recommendations for how to be a good peer reviewer. TLDR: Be a good human and provide meaningful feedback. In this episode, I draw from writing studies scholarship and my experience as an edited collections and special journal issue editor.
If you're looking for some student- and/or faculty-friendly readings on how to be a good peer reviewer (yes, you can use these readings in your classrooms to teach students how to effectively peer review), check o...2022-07-1138 minAn Academic's Life28. Stop Limiting YourselfAcademia is rife with scarcity mindset--the idea that there are finite opportunities, jobs, and funding to go around and only the best and brightest will survive. For us academics raised in scarcity mindset, we often cannot see new opportunities or potentials because our inner critic tells us that we'll "never be good enough" or "the competition will be so fierce--you'll never get it." As a result, we might be afraid to branch out and take career risks, such as applying for jobs in an adjacent industry, applying for fellowships and grants, or sending in publications to top journals.
2022-07-0725 min
An Academic's Life27. It's Summer Writing Time!It's summer--the time when academics get down to their research and writing. In this episode, I share my five top writing strategies (based on writing studies' research and pedagogy) to make your summer writing experience as enjoyable and generative as possible without sacrificing your well-being.
Also, it looks like Anchor isn't transcript friendly (transcripts can only happen in 1 minute audio segments--wut?!), so while I said I was making this episode to get a transcript ... yeah, that didn't work. I'm going to have to find a different platform or something.2022-06-2018 minAn Academic's Life26. The Importance of Brain Down TimeIt's summer time and either you're feeling pressure to do research and publish or you're embracing downtime ... or you're like me and feeling the pressure of both. In this week's episode, I talk about the importance of downtime for our brain to consolidate information, make long-term memories, and encourage creativity. So if you think you need to go, go, go--like many of us in academia do--you actually need time to go slow, slow, slow. I include some ideas for how you might practice downtime, especially if your inner critic is yelling at you to not take downtime.
C...2022-06-1311 minAn Academic's Life25. It's Graduation TimeIt's graduation time, which always makes me think about new beginnings. But graduation time is also a moment to remember two critical points: (1) we are so much more than our degrees and content areas and (2) let's not put all of our (career) eggs in one basket. In this episode, I encourage all listeners--including myself because I need to hear it just as much--to celebrate our skills beyond content knowledge, to embrace new ideas about the work landscape, and to think big about the lives we want to have.
If this topic resonates with you, I encourage you t...2022-05-1719 minAn Academic's Life23. I Have Imposter Syndrome -- Do You?In this week's episode, I explore what I've learned about having imposter syndrome and how it has affected my perception of self and possibility. I draw from Drs. Lisa and Richard Lisa Orbé-Austin's and their book Own Your Greatness: Overcome Imposter Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life, which has helped me better understand the experiential and psychological underpinnings of imposter syndrome and why high-achieving folks like me are more likely to have imposter syndrome. Listen along to learn more about imposter syndrome, what it is, why people have it, and how to stop feeling like an imposter. 2022-05-0932 minAn Academic's Life22. Are We Sellouts If We Want to Make Money?Coming from a background where making money was considered greedy, I grew-up thinking my career needed to be service-focused and money didn't really matter. Now that I've gotten older (and have more bills), I am questioning the (often) implicit and explicit negativity associated with faculty who want to make money ... or who leave academia to make more money. In this episode, I question why so many academics stay in low-paying academic jobs and/or eschew looking for better paying work. What if academics, even for the short term, took better paying jobs to get financially stable, so they can...2022-04-1815 minAn Academic's Life21. Living with Authenticity and IntegrityIn this episode, I use Dr. Bill Plotkin's book Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche to talk about the importance of living an authentic self with integrity in academia. Bill has a PhD in psychology from the University of Colorado--Boulder but now is the founder of Animas Valley Institute in Southwest Colorado. I have found his book helpful at uncovering the layers of my own psyche, so I want to share some of his wisdom with you.
Many of us feel like we cannot be authentic in academia because of the pressures of social a...2022-04-1129 minAn Academic's Life20. Developing a Well-Differentiated SelfIn this episode, I draw from the psychology concept "differentiation of self," as defined by The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, to share the ways in which we might struggle with differentiation in academia. According to The Bowen Center, "People with a poorly differentiated 'self' depend so heavily on the acceptance and approval of others that they either quickly adjust what they think, say, and do to please others or they dogmatically proclaim what others should be like and pressure them to conform." Many of us, through upbringing and/or academic training, struggle with differentiation of...2022-04-0431 minAn Academic's Life19. Be AdventurousAcademia is really great at training grad students and faculty to silo themselves into disciplines that don't get much crossover or exposure to other disciplines. (If you're in a field with a lot of disciplinary crossover, that's awesome.) Many hiring and promotion guidelines, disciplinary journals, hiring committees, etc., prioritize/privilege those who have stuck with the field and not branched out. (Of course, your mileage may vary.) For those of us who have been trained to not branch out or for those of us who think it would be a waste of professional time to branch out, this episode...2022-03-2820 minAn Academic's Life18. What's Your Workview and Lifeview?This week's episode draws from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans' Designing Your Life book. Burnett and Evans are design professors at Stanford University; their book has helped me get more clear about what I want from work and life, and I've assigned chapters (with positive feedback from students) in my undergraduate and graduate courses. In this episode, I read chapter 2, "Building a Compass," which is a reflection-based chapter in the book about one's workview and lifeview. Pull up a chair, grab a notebook, and get ready to write (or just mull over ideas). I sprinkle in my own thoughts...2022-03-2138 minAn Academic's Life17. My PhD Life, a Brief TaleThis week's episode is about my PhD life at the request of a current PhD-student via LinkedIn. This isn't the whole story or even half of the story, but it does cover the fun, the inspiring, the frustrating, and the annoying--with a healthy dose of how my imposter syndrome, identity deconstruction, inner critic, and nervous system impacted my PhD life. I close the episode with some metacognitive and mindfulness recommendations for those of you in similar situations.
I would love to hear more of your topical requests, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.2022-03-0736 minAn Academic's Life16. More of My Story; or, How Religion and Public Service Motivation Shaped/s My Conception of WorkI get a bit more vulnerable this week as I recount how my evangelical upbringing shaped/s my view of academic work. Ultimately, I thought it was critical to pick a career where I was doing good and I thought that service-through-career would sustain me. Now I'm not so sure. Ever the academic, I draw connections between my upbringing and Wang, van Witteloostuijn, and Heine's (2020)'s article "A Moral Theory of Public Service Motivation" published in Hypothesis and Theory.2022-02-2826 min
Bad Ideas about Writing56: The More Digital Technology, The Better, by Genesea M. Carter & Aurora MatzkeKyle Stedman (@kstedman) reads the bad idea "The More Digital Technology, The Better," by Genesea M. Carter (@GeneseaC) and Aurora Matzke. It's a chapter first published in Bad Ideas about Writing, which was edited by Cheryl E. Ball (@s2ceball) and Drew M. Loewe (@drewloewe). Don't miss the joke: the author of the chapter is disagreeing with the bad idea stated in the chapter's title.
Keywords: cognition, digital literacy, digital writing, multimodal writing, technostress
Genesea M. Carter is associate director of composition and assistant professor of writing, rhetoric, and digital literacy at Colorado State University...2022-02-2513 minAn Academic's Life15. Grounding Yourself for the WeekThis week's episode focuses on listening to and calming the anxiety many of us wake-up with on Monday morning. I offer a 5 minute grounding strategy in this episode--which you can follow along with--as well as alternative strategies. This episode can be listened to during any part of the week, or you can save it for days you're feeling particularly stressed. I close this week's episode with a few journaling topics to help you listen to what your body is telling you about why you're feeling anxious and stressed and next steps to address those feelings. 2022-02-2119 minAn Academic's Life14. The No Asshole Rule: Who are the Assholes and How do we Deal with Them?It's that time of year when professors and grad students take to social media to ask for help dealing with academic assholes. But who are the assholes and how do we deal with them? In this episode, I read an excerpt from Dr. Robert Sutton's book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't and share my own strategies for dealing with the assholes in academia.
Additional resources on surviving assholes in academia:
Darla J. Twale and Barbara M. De Luca: Faculty Incivility: The Rise of the Academic Bully Culture a...2022-02-0833 minAn Academic's Life13. Strategies for Well-Being (and Work Reduction/Streamlining) as a TeacherThis is part two of my new-to-2022 well-being episodes. Last week I shared strategies for well-being within the department and this week I share strategies for well-being (and workload reduction) as a teacher. In this episode I share five strategies that work well for me that can be used by graduate student teachers, NTTF, TT, and program directors: (1) creating template emails, (2) sending batch announcements, (3) creating a bank of comments/feedback for students, (4) utilizing student support services, and (5) ensuring syllabus and program policies are in line with current university practice.
I mention Joseph Murray's The Power of Your...2022-02-0127 minAn Academic's Life12. Strategies for Well-Being in the DepartmentIt's 2022, and a new term is upon us! Inspired by recent conversations on Reddit's r/Professors about managing well-being and boundaries within the department, in this episode I share five strategies that work well for me: (1) starting the day with a mantra, (2) building in rewards, (3) setting time and space boundaries, (4) being aware of how spaces drain or sustain me, and (5) using on-campus resources.
I open today's episode with an excerpt from economist Arthur C. Brook's The Atlantic column "A Profession is Not a Personality," which is also a timely topic that has been swirling around in my...2022-01-2427 minAn Academic's Life11. A Writing Professor’s Tips for the Writing ProcessI share my tips and strategies for academics struggling (or annoyed by) the writing process. As a professor with a PhD in rhetoric and writing, one of my specializations is teaching the writing process. In this episode, I talk about drafting, the problem with getting stuck in the minutiae, writer's block, reverse outlining, and other useful topics.
If you're looking for a good, short piece of writing about the writing process from one writer to another, I always recommend Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, especially her chapter "Shitty First Drafts." I always assign "Shitty First Drafts" in...2022-01-1929 minAn Academic's Life10. Transitioning to a Large Teaching LoadThis episode is for all grad students and faculty who have jobs teaching more sections than they anticipated. In this episode, I share my own experience teaching a 4-4 (four sections of composition writing courses a semester) and strategies for maintaining one's sanity and mental health while teaching a lot of students. I also provide specific recommendations for academics who have grading-heavy teaching loads and feel like they are drowning under all the grading. 2022-01-0332 minAn Academic's Life9. Five Tips Before Applying to Non-Tenure-Track Faculty PositionsIn this episode, I share my experience sitting on a non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) committee at two different institutions. I also share what I've learned from academic Facebook groups and academic friends who are NTTF. 2021-12-2729 minAn Academic's Life8. Grad School: What to Know About the Application ProcessThere is a lot I've learned about from my own graduate school experience--good, bad, and ugly. In this episode, I share five general recommendations as you prepare or plan to prepare for graduate school applications.
If you have An Academic's Life topic you would like me to explore or want to hear more about my own academic life experiences, drop me an email at anacademicslife@gmail.com.2021-12-0222 minAn Academic's Life7. What I’ve Learned About the Tenure Track Job MarketIn this episode, I talk about my experience graduating with my rhetoric and composition PhD in 2013, my illusions of grandeur, applying for seventy (70!) jobs in the U.S., the interview process, getting letters of rec -- everything but the kitchen sink.
If you have An Academic's Life topic you would like me to explore or want to hear more about my own academic life experiences, drop me an email at anacademicslife@gmail.com. 2021-12-0227 minAn Academic's Life6. Academic Life, the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and the Scarcity MindsetIn this episode, I explore how the sunk cost fallacy and the scarcity mindset has kept me feeling small and expendable. I encourage listeners to examine the sunk cost fallacy and scarcity mindset in their own lives to break free of these toxic ways of thinking. I’d love to know what topics you would like me to cover. If you have an idea, please reach out to me at anacademicslife@gmail.com.2021-12-0123 minAn Academic's Life5. How to Survive as an Academic EmpathIn this episode, I share what I've learned from reading Dr. Judith Orloff's book The Empath's Survival Guide, the many types of empaths in the world, and how I am learning to survive as an academic empath. 2021-12-0132 minAn Academic's Life4. Academia, Bullshit Rules, and What to Do About ThemI draw from Vishen Lakhaini's "Brules" (bullshit rules), from his book The Code of the Extraordinary Mind, to talk about how and why brules frame so many of our academic lives. I close the episode with strategies I am trying to challenge some of the brules I have internalized but no longer serve me. I’d love to know what topics you would like me to cover. If you have an idea, please reach out to me at anacademicslife@gmail.com.2021-12-0122 minAn Academic's Life3. Reading for Fun, Reading Burnout, and How to Read for Fun AgainIn this episode, I explore why I am burned out on pleasure reading and offers strategies (and hope) for academics who are longing to read for fun again. I’d love to know what topics you would like me to cover. If you have an idea, please reach out to me at anacademicslife@gmail.com.2021-12-0122 minAn Academic's Life2. Academia, Boundaries, and Emotional LaborIn this episode, I talk about the emotional labor of academic work, why boundaries are important, and strategies to set boundaries. I’d love to know what topics you would like me to cover. If you have an idea, please reach out to me at anacademicslife@gmail.com.2021-12-0127 minAn Academic's Life1. Welcome to An Academic's LifeIn this first episode, I explain why I've started this podcast, the niche I want it to fill, and a lil' bit about me. I’d love to know what topics you would like me to cover. If you have an idea, please reach out to me at anacademicslife@gmail.com.2021-12-0114 min