The Professor Is In

One of the peculiarities of academia is that you have to be able to explain your project before you’ve actually done it.   And all projects have to start somewhere–at some level you are conjuring a new project out of the force of your imagination. So… how to do that? In this episode Kel and Karen talk about Ideation, Conceptualization, and Production and how important it is to keep the parts of the academic process separate. Ideation is the blue-sky thinking and things like mind maps and research journals are helpful; conceptualization is where the project starts to take form, and here outlining is a fantastic tool – and outlining allows for a generative oscillation between ideation and conceptualization. With these steps done, production–the actual clicky clacky typing of new words on the keyboard  – becomes so much easier. In other words, if you’re driving from LA to New York, you don’t just start driving randomly–you need a map!  Come for the advice, stay for the metaphors. And PLEASE, on this one, let us know if this was helpful and if so, why. Karen wants to know.

 

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Are you struggling with Imposter Syndrome, or are the people in power continually making you feel like an imposter? Black women in particular are told in countless ways you don’t belong. Kel and Dr. Jane Jones from UpIn Consulting talk confidence and competence, especially among marginalized communities in academia.  Dr. Jones shares the things she’s found that work in fighting the confidence-sappers, remembering your true competence, and accessing your own power.

 

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Responding to a podcast member question, Karen and Kel talk about how to manage sensory overload in academic settings. We discuss how to extract yourself politely from overwhelming interactions-whether personal or professional (or in that weird academic way – both at the same time), and how to get familiar with your inner cues that you’re fast approaching overwhelm. Academia trains this kind of self-knowledge out of us, but you CAN get it back.

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Gatekeeping is endemic in the academy, and in some ways necessary as part of the evaluation process, but it doesn’t have to be as cruel, racist, and inflexible as it has been. Karen and Kel start with the job search process, both the casual cruelties of how searches are run, as well as the exclusionary criteria used for evaluating candidates. Then we turn to “Reviewer 2.” If cruel and abusive reviews are so common in academia that they have a universally understood name…. we have a problem.

[Become a subscribing member for just $3.99 a month and get access to our subscriber only goodies like free webinar recordings, AMAs, the chance to suggest topics, access to the podcast video from our house in Oregon, and — new from this week – live videos with Karen and Kel on Friday mornings, all on our dedicated podcast member page on Mighty Networks!

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Karen and Kel talk about the things that make a problematic advisor: 1) poor boundaries; 2) excessive molding; 3) forgetting humanity, and 4) not managing your overwhelm. The discussion can help advisors do better and help advisees recognize abuse.

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Campus visits are hard! Forewarned is forearmed, though, and Karen and Kel continue in the “job market advice” vein and talk about managing the campus visit, mostly focused on zoom challenges, but with insights for in-person visits as well. We cover the basic schedule, the challenges of meeting Deans, department heads and faculty, coping with Zoom settings and overwhelm, and end on the many bewilderments of the job talk. We disagree on several matters, including on how to best balance “they want to hear about you”/”they don’t want to hear too much about you.”

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Recorded before the coup, this episode delves into practical advice about interviewing. Mostly focusing on academic jobs, but with insights for interviews more generally, Karen and Kel remind you: the job search is not about you. It’s about the hiring party, the problem they have, and the warm body they need to solve their problem. This is so whether the job is a Harvard endowed chair or a Starbucks barista. We talk the special challenges of Zoom interviews as well.

(This episode also features new intro music. Tell us what you think!)

[Become a subscribing member for just $3.99 a month and get access to our subscriber only goodies like free webinar recordings, AMAs, the chance to suggest topics, access to the podcast video from our house in Oregon, and — new from this week – live videos with Karen and Kel on Friday mornings, all on our dedicated podcast member page on Mighty Networks!]

Karen and Kel talk white water rafting as metaphor for your job search. In rafting you can’t fight the river – it’s bigger than you! And you have to find the spaces between the obstacles – like the rocks, branches, eddies, and forks in the river that are too shallow…  How is this like the academy?  Well,  some rivers are just not navigable. And you might have a terrific kayak (a great PhD based on a brilliant dissertation) but if the river isn’t navigable… you’re not getting down it. And maybe that river was navigable some time before, for other people… but it isn’t now, for you, because conditions have changed. In this episode we remind you that the river is NOT the tenure track job search/academic career— the river is your income stream (see what we did there?) and navigating it means you need to find that V in the rapid, that spot where the water (and you) can find a way through. And that means getting clear on what you actually want to aim toward, rather than at what you “can’t do,” because that’s the only way you and your kayak can move forward!

[Become a subscribing member for just $3.99 a month and get access to our subscriber only goodies like free webinar recordings, AMAs, the chance to suggest topics, access to the podcast video from our house in Oregon, and — new from this week – live videos with Karen and Kel on Friday mornings, all on our dedicated podcast member page on Mighty Networks!]

We turn to the practical. You have spent years occupying a very narrow space, getting more and more defined by your discipline. In this episode we show you the path out of the academic specific mentality of your skills. Trust us. They are transferable. We talk about what your skills are and how to translate them for people outside the academy.

[Become a subscribing member for just $3.99 a month and get access to our subscriber only goodies like free webinar recordings, AMAs, the chance to suggest topics, access to the podcast video from our house in Oregon, and — new from this week – live videos with Karen and Kel on Friday mornings, all on our dedicated podcast member page on Mighty Networks!]

Part 3 of our Leaving Your Toxic Relationship With the Academy series. Karen and Kel talk about writing a breakup letter with the academy: what would you say? The goal is to move from blame (“you suck!”) to how you feel (“I feel really sad about leaving”). Karen is very bad at this. We draw from Joanna Macy’s transformative work on environmental grief that charts a path from despair to empowerment and interconnectedness. You have resilience you may have forgotten in the infantilizing university structure.

[Become a subscribing member for just $3.99 a month and get access to our subscriber only goodies like free webinar recordings, AMAs, the chance to suggest topics, access to the podcast video from our house in Oregon, and — new from this week – live videos with Karen and Kel on Friday mornings, all on our dedicated podcast member page on Mighty Networks!]