An Academic's Life

This 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. 

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 and What to Do About It

Virginia Gewin: "How to Blow the Whistle on an Academic Bully"

Loraleigh Keashly and Joel H. Neuman: "Faculty Experiences with Bullying in Higher Education: Causes, Consequences, and Management"

This 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.

Finally, I mention how dance can reduce anxiety. Read more about that here. 

Happy listening!

It'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.

Happy listening! 

I 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.

This 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. 

In 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. 

There 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 [email protected].

In 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.