The Professor Is In

The trouble with academia is, you set out to master a field but you end up demanding perfection of yourself, forgetting that perfection is not possible. Real mastery is not an outcome but a process, ie, embracing continual curiosity and being unafraid to confront what you don’t know to open the door to learning more. Karen and Kel talk about recovering this beginner’s curiosity by asking: Who is the inner/outer critic telling you you’re not good enough, and remembering that no external validation will make you achieve “perfection” -especially when the systems of validation are racist, sexist, classist, and exclusionary. As Toni Morrison says: the goal of racism is distraction. In the end, you can say this: I don’t have prove it to you I just have to deliver it.

You need to get away from those kids; Homemade pasta – Are you kidding me?; Men: get your fucking shit together; #NotAllHusbands is bullshit and gaslighting; Academic women: you’re control freaks!; Journals: commit to no more than 50% of articles by men during COVID19….. And other reactions to a recent piece about managing home life in a pandemic. #GetOutOfTheFight

In the cataclysm of COVID19 and temporary or permanent closure of lines, programs, and whole institutions, academics at every stage, from grad school through tenure, are needing to suddenly consider new careers and income streams. But nobody can think well or creatively in a pandemic. While a lot of us are very reasonably relying on numbing devices to survive (TV, alcohol, or, in Karen's case, her emergency stash of Easter candy), managing COVID19 conditions also requires planning. Karen and Kel talk about mechanisms for calming the mind - even just for a few minutes - to create space for imagination and intuition to arise.

In the cataclysm of COVID19 and temporary or permanent closure of lines, programs, and whole institutions, academics at every stage, from grad school through tenure, are needing to suddenly consider new careers and income streams. But nobody can think well or creatively in a pandemic. While a lot of us are very reasonably relying on numbing devices to survive (TV, alcohol, or, in Karen’s case, her emergency stash of Easter candy), managing COVID19 conditions also requires planning. Karen and Kel talk about mechanisms for calming the mind – even just for a few minutes – to create space for imagination and intuition to arise.

Recorded prior to the COVID19 outbreak, this episode takes up the question of dishonesty in academia. From the temptation to pad your CV, to misrepresenting your research results, there are many places large and small where the potential to lie arises. Karen and Kel talk about why you must not. Not just because of ethics and bad karma, but because it usually comes back to bite you in the ass.

Recorded prior to the COVID19 outbreak, this episode takes up the question of dishonesty in academia. From the temptation to pad your CV, to misrepresenting your research results, there are many places large and small where the potential to lie arises. Karen and Kel talk about why you must not. Not just because of ethics and bad karma, but because it usually comes back to bite you in the ass.

Because of COVID19 and the economic fallout, 2020 academic hiring is dead in the water. Karen created a crowdsource list of hiring freezes in March, and it’s up to about 350 right now, and that doesn’t include all the campuses within state systems that are listed. Catastrophically bad conditions will certainly prevail for the 2020-2021 hiring season. What to do about it? Karen and Kel talk strategy, going postacademic, and starting the hard work of distancing yourself from the academic cult.

Karen and Kel talk about a way to look at productivity that focuses on managing energy, rather than time. Working from Physical Capacity through Emotional Capacity and Cognitive Capacity, and ending at Spiritual Capacity, the pyramid approach is good for managing what feels like infinite demands on finite resources. Although this episode was recorded before the COVID19 outbreak, it speaks to the urgent need right now for academics to manage capacity-overload and always come back to the body.

COVID19 has brought countless losses to academic communities - not just sickness and death, but also the loss of our jobs, our work norms and routines, our campus traditions, our classroom practices, our research outlets, our face to face connections, our avenues to rest and relaxation.... and that's not counting the loss of feelings of safety and security that many (although certainly not all!) of us previously took for granted. Building on the work of grief specialist David Kessler, Karen and Kel talk about how to recognize and process all the forms of loss and grief you might be experiencing and find ways to come back to center when grief feels overwhelming.

In our very first guest interview, we host Dr. Roxanne Donovan, Professor of Psychology at Kennesaw State, Co-Founder of WellAcademic, and dedicated coach and consultant supporting women of color in developing ways to cope effectively with sexism and racism in the academy while maintaining a safe, healthy, fulfilling, and connected life. [Note: this was recorded prior to COVID-19 outbreak]