Rise with Clarity Podcast

In this episode of the Rise with Clarity Podcast, I'll be discussing the topic of amplifying the academic achievements of women of color faculty. I'll reflect on how it can sometimes be very challenging for women of color faculty to promote their own achievements. Lastly, I’d like to leave you with some ideas on how to better have your wins amplified.

Find the full transcript for this episode at RisewithClarity.com/13.

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

Do you have a teaching evaluation that is seared into your memory? Perhaps it was one that was mean-spirited and unsparing in its criticism. Or, it may have been directed towards you personally, and had absolutely nothing to do with your teaching.

If you’ve been a professor for any amount of time, you have undoubtedly come across a teaching evaluation from a student that stung a little bit. It could seem like course evals are a bit in the genre of Yelp or TripAdvisor reviews, where only the truly adoring or the truly disgruntled will feel compelled to write anonymous comments. 

In this 12th episode of the Rise with Clarity Podcast, I’m going to be discussing student evaluations of teaching, which are also referred to as teaching or course evaluations. I’ll be offering 7 tips for how to approach and navigate such evaluations, especially for women of color faculty.

Find the full transcript for this episode as well as other helpful resources for women of color faculty at RisewithClarity.com/12.

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

Have you ever seen the diagram that is entitled “The ‘Problem’ Woman of Colour in the Workplace?” It’s a simple one-page infographic that gets shared frequently on social media, and it’s also one that seems to have a lot of resonance in the current moment.

For this eleventh episode of the Rise with Clarity Podcast, I want to spend some time discussing this diagram as well as some of its implications for women of color faculty like you, especially as you navigate challenges on the tenure track and work environments that may be less than supportive.

For those of you who are not familiar with the "'Problem' WOC" diagram, I encourage you to check out the link that I provide in the transcript for this episode. You can find that and more resources for WOC faculty at RisewithClarity.com/11. 

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

As WOC faculty, you are very seasoned at creating syllabi and designing fantastic courses for your students. And you put in a lot of time and effort into this process.

Now what if you were to use this format that you’re very familiar with to design a plan for your own personal growth and development in 2024? 

This could be very useful if you’re currently feeling stuck in your life and you want to make some kind of change. But you feel unsure about where to begin and what your next steps may be. 

Or it could be a plan to finally pursue that thing you’ve always been curious about, but have previously never had the time to explore.

Listen in on this tenth episode of Rise with Clarity Podcast, where host Dr. Katherine Lee shares some resources for reflecting on transitioning from 2023 into 2024, including one called the Personal Syllabus. The full transcript for this episode can be found at: RisewithClarity.com/10.

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

In this ninth episode of Rise with Clarity Podcast, host Dr. Katherine Lee offers some end-of-the-year personal reflections for women of color faculty in higher education. She also speaks about a health scare that she had  2 years ago that made her re-evaluate her tenured faculty position.

The full transcript for this episode can be found at RisewithClarity.com/9.

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

Are you currently in a toxic work environment in higher education? What are the telltale signs?

Sometimes, you may not want to pay attention to certain red flags, even if you know deep down inside, things seem “off” in your department or institution.

In this episode, I will be addressing the topic of toxic work environments in academia. I’ll be presenting a series of prompts that will help you to clarify whether you are in a truly unhealthy work environment. 

Find the full transcript at RisewithClarity.com/8, where you can find links to all of the articles mentioned in this episode, along with other useful resources for WOC faculty. 

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

It’s currently mid-November and that means that the end of the fall semester is now on the horizon. How are you holding up right now? I’ve been hearing from my clients as well as my friends on the tenure track that this semester has been exceptionally challenging for them.

Grappling with current global crises and navigating campus politics, combined with an already challenging workload, is really taking its toll on many women of color faculty. This can manifest in different ways for you: sheer exhaustion, burnout, or that sinking feeling like you can never get caught up in your work. 

With just a few more weeks left of the term and the calendar year, how can you manage to finish out the semester in a more gratifying way? This may be a good time to take a moment to reflect on your goals for the end of the year.

In this episode, I’m going to talk about checking in with yourself and reassessing your priorities for the final weeks of the semester.

Find the full transcript for this episode, along with other great resources for WOC faculty at RisewithClarity.com/7.

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

This episode's full transcript can be found at RisewithClarity.com/6, along with other helpful resources for WOC faculty.

For those of you who are junior faculty currently on the tenure track, have you given some thought to the personal statement that is required as part of your tenure portfolio? 

If you have had clear guidance on this from your chair or a senior colleague in your department, I’m very glad to hear this. You may be in the minority, however.

If you are not so fortunate, and you are wondering how to even go about writing a strong personal statement for your tenure dossier, then this episode may be for you. In today’s episode of the podcast I will be discussing ways to strategize and craft your self-statement in a meaningful way. 

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

This episode's full transcript can be found at RisewithClarity.com/5, along with other helpful resources for WOC faculty.

Have you ever had a productive work session get suddenly derailed by an aggressive e-mail? This e-mail could be from your colleague, your chair, or an influential scholar in your field. I’m sure that many of you have had this experience at some point in your academic careers, if not last week.

So how did you navigate this moment? Were you able to get back on track with your research or writing afterwards? Or did you find yourself distracted or disturbed, unable to resume your work for the remainder of the day?

In this podcast episode, I’m going to share with you 10 tips on how to respond to such e-mails and how to gradually reclaim your time. 

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

This episode's full transcript can be found at RisewithClarity.com/4, along with other useful resources for WOC faculty.

Have you ever stopped to consider how many different hats you typically have to wear as a professor? Or in other words, how many different roles are you expected to perform in your job as a professor on the tenure track? 

As WOC faculty, you not only serve as professors in the classroom, but you also have to take on a wide range of activities as researchers, scientists, advisors, and administrators—just to name a few. 

But have you ever realized that some hats may be rather ill-fitting, while others are tailor made for you? As you move forward on the tenure track, how can you better assess which hats or professorial roles you want to invest further in and prioritize? This may be especially important if you are having difficulty balancing several roles on a daily basis.

This episode provides some insights for WOC faculty as they navigate the multifaceted roles they have to take on as professors in today’s higher ed environment. 

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.