CW: racism I chaired a doctoral defense today, of a doctoral candidate who embodies Black excellence, did his study on Black student experiences in Linked Learning pathways, worked tirelessly & was the first in his cohort to defend. It should have been a day of unmitigated celebration and joy. This candidate was well-loved by the department, […]
Tag: Academia
Unapologetically Showing Up for Myself: Reflections on NCTE 19
“To make a revolution, people must not only struggle against existing institutions. In order to change and transform the world, they must change and transform themselves.” Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to NCTE this year. In the past, NCTE has been a complicated space for me, one that is as exhausting as it can be […]
Doing the Work: Focusing on Thriving — A Post-#AERA19 Reflection
I just returned from Toronto and the 2019 meeting of the American Educational Research Association. AERA, for many years, was exhausting, in a way that constituted a seemingly endless search to figure out who I was. I would often reconnect with friends from graduate school or would connect with scholars whose work I admired, and […]
Doing Too Much or My Mythical Best Self
[Before I begin this post, I’d like to give props to my friends, Darlene & Wes Kriessel, who inspired me with their spousal 30-day blogging challenge. Darlene’s first post on pushing through and writing anyways reminded me that I need to do the same–prioritize writing, prioritize myself, do the hard things, especially when the hard […]
Going Up for Tenure–the Decision before the Decision
I’ve been struggling in the last few weeks with whether I should go up early for tenure or proceed on the normative timeline. In talking with colleagues, the advice ranges from, “If you think you’re ready, go up!” to “If you don’t need the money, don’t feel like you need to put the extra pressure […]
What is Academic Life Like?
I saw this academic meme once (variations of which have been published in relation to other professions) that noted that the perception from the outside is different than the lived experience of those of us on the tenure track. I’m actually pretty used to that, as prior to becoming an academic, I was a middle […]
What Does It Mean to Speak Freely?
It’s been a hard week, in terms of thinking clearly and speaking freely–hard in that I’ve had to wrestle with a lot that is not immediately apparent for me which is generally unusual. Don’t get me wrong, I think deeply about issues of free speech and free expression (and violence, actually) all the time, but […]