The Professor Is In

Latest Episodes:

3.29: How to Keep Going When You Don't Feel Like It Aug 09, 2022

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We continue with vintage – yet evergreen – recordings. It seems like everyone struggles with the desire to quit at times. It’s a natural response to external forces, but you can summon internal forces to manage that impulse. We’re not saying don’t quit! We’re just saying, act deliberately. In this episode, Karen and Kel talk […]

Ep 3:27 #LeavingAcademia: The Great Quitting Jun 20, 2022

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Academics are bailing in unprecedented numbers, and academia has finally started to notice. Karen was interviewed twice in the past couple weeks–once in Nature, once in the Chronicle — about mass resignations by tenured folks, and the new Professor Is Out community on FB. COVID was the final straw–adding actual physical harm to the decades […]

Ep 3:26 Overcoming Perfectionism Jun 13, 2022

Show notes

Perfection is the enemy of productivity, but almost all academics struggle with perfectionism. How to resist its siren song? Kel shares her coaching insights from her Unstuck: The Art of Productivity program to give strategies for shutting down the delusion of perfection (which, after all, is not possible) and opening up avenues for facing the […]

Episode 3:25 Burnout Part II - Academia Has It Bad Jun 08, 2022

Show notes

One episode wasn’t enough to talk about burnout in the academy. Juxtaposing the WHO definition of burnout with a definition Karen read, that burnout is “investing emotionally in a job and not having that investment returned,” Karen and Kel, along with commenters on the FB Live where this was recorded, delve further into the elements […]

Ep 3:24 Academic Burnout: What It Is, Where It Comes From May 12, 2022

Show notes

Burnout is on everyone’s mind right now. It’s the end of the academic year, and what an academic year it was. Profs and students both are at the end of their ropes. Kel and Karen talk about the symptoms of burnout, including some that might surprise you, and how to recognize and make peace with […]

Ep 3:23 Prepping for Next Year's Job Market May 06, 2022

Show notes

You didn’t get the job this year; what to do? Kel and I talk through what makes a competitive record and competitive presentation of that record, so you can know what to prioritize this summer, if an academic job is your priority (and needless to say, it does not have to be). This follows on […]

Ep 2:22 The Violence of Professionalism Apr 27, 2022

Show notes

We dig into the definition of “professionalism,” a term thrown around as an arbiter of correct and incorrect behavior in academia. Drawing from insights on a recent Twitter thread, Karen and Kel talk about how professionalism operates as code for the protection of white (male, straight, cisgender) comfort – quiet, sedate, nonconfrontational, bodies contained and […]

Ep 3:21 Surviving Your New Academic Thing Apr 22, 2022

Show notes

We did a survey recently and the message loud and clear was: please give us more advice about just… surviving in academia! So today we are talking about managing your transition into your new academic “thing,” whatever it is. We talk about managing your fear and keeping connected to your own values and motivations. Academia […]

Ep 3:20 What Even Is Sick Leave For an Academic? Apr 10, 2022

Show notes

[Note: Karen and Kel were on vacation in NYC and recording from a hotel room! Please excuse the tinny sound today and next week; it goes back to normal after that!] A tweet went academic-viral recently asking whether academics use sick leave or even know what their sick leave policies are. Short answer: in the […]

Ep 3:19 Academic Labor Is Labor Mar 29, 2022

Show notes

We talk about the “capitalist gaze” and how it impacts the creativity of academics. Casting our research outcomes as “products” can be deeply chilling to the imaginative work of scholarship. Research as an assembly line, or as a deli counter (slicing your work into ever thinner slices to maximize number of publications) constricts scope for […]

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