On Episode 595 of Teaching in Higher Ed, I welcome Roberta Hawkins, Professor of Geography at the University of Guelph, and Leslie Kern, author and academic career coach, to explore their book, Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make It Better for Others, and Transform the University. These two authors help us examine the realities of surviving and thriving in higher education, discussing practical strategies for balancing personal well-being with social justice and institutional change. We examine how common academic advice often neglects the lived experiences and systemic inequities present in higher ed. Leslie and Roberta highlight the value of collaboration, reshaping our relationship with work, and practices for managing workload demands.

Resources from the episode:

• Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make It Better for Others, and Transform the University, by Roberta Hawkins and Leslie Kern
• What you didn’t learn in class: Revealing the hidden curriculum, by Lindsay Vreeland, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at Northern Illinois University
• Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose, by Martha Beck

Episode topics:

• Surviving and Thriving in Academia
• Raising Expectations Within Higher Education
• Individual vs. Collective Change in Universities
• Collaboration Beyond Academic Hierarchies
• Rethinking the Relationship With Work
• Addressing Loneliness and Isolation in Academic Life
• Workload Demands and Setting Boundaries
• The Impact of Ego and Competition in Academic Culture
• Collective Rehumanizing in University Spaces

Discussion questions:

1. How can faculty and staff balance their individual career goals with collective efforts to make academia more inclusive and just?
2. What strategies have you found effective in setting boundaries or reshaping your own work habits?
3. How can passionate engagement with your work coexist with healthy boundaries to prevent burnout, given the tendency for institutions to exploit that passion?
4. How might increased transparency around workload distribution help address inequities and improve departmental culture?
5. Can you think of examples where re-examining processes or expectations might reduce unnecessary workload in your context?
6. What are some ways your institution does or could recognize invisible labor, such as mentoring outside formal roles?

Related Episodes

Way back on Episode 34, Natalie Houston shared about practical productivity. That conversation, despite happening back in 2015, would pair nicely with this conversation with Leslie and Roberta. I appreciated the way Natalie defined productivity as:

Productivity, to me, is not about doing more things faster. It is about doing the things that are most important to me and creating the kind of life I want to have…

I was curious to see what Natalie M. Houston is up to these days. I’m glad to see it looks like she is still doing some productivity coaching, as well as something having to do with computational methods and 19th century poetry.

Quotable Words

On Episode 34, Natalie Houston pushed back a bit on the word “peace” I use in the introduction of the podcast about what I’m seeking through productivity. A more precise word for her is ease. She shared:

To do something with ease is to bring a kind of comfort and grace to the task. It can also be more room in your life… Living a life with more ease…

Recommended

As I thought more about that conversation way back when with Natalie Houston, the thought occurred to me that she would probably get along really well with Alexis Peirce Cauldell (who was on Teaching in Higher Ed Episode 527, getting us beyond dichotomous thinking.

My mind is swirling with connecting ideas, projects, and people through Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery workshop. Check out the posts I’ve written so far, which will wrap up after just three more posts (at least in terms of my public sensemaking specific to the course prompts and activities):

1. Getting Curious About Network Mapping
2. Let’s Get Curious
3. Connecting Birds, Grief, and Communities
4. Engaging with Intentionality and Curiosity
5. Scooping Up Adulting and the Benefits of Being Curious
6. Why Isn’t RSS More Popular by Now?
7. Can You Keep a Secret?
8. Fake News Brings Me to an Unusual Topic for This Blog
9. From Half-Baked to Well Done
10. The Experts in my Neighborhood
11. Network Weaving as an Antidote to Imposter Syndrome
12. I Can See Clearly Now the Frogs Are Here (Yes, I realize that they’re geckos, which are not the same thing as frogs, but I was trying to keep the same number of syllables as the song. Work with me here)
13. What Happens When We Start Making the Work Visible
14. No Frogs Were Harmed in Describing Systems Thinking (Actual frogs this time, I promise, though only metaphorically speaking, so I guess no actual frogs, once again))

Next Week’s Episode

On the upcoming episode of Teaching in Higher Ed, Christy Albright + Clarissa Sorensen Unruh discuss teaching, learning, and the lessons of grief.

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My book: The Productive Online and Offline Professor: A Practical Guide, provides approaches to help you turn your intentions into action. I also write an advice column for EdSurge: Toward Better Teaching: Office Hours With Bonni Stachowiak

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Disclosures

Affiliate income disclosure: Books that are recommended on the podcast link to the Teaching in Higher Ed bookstore on Bookshop.org. All affiliate income gets donated to the LibroMobile Arts Cooperative (LMAC), established in 2016 by Sara Rafael Garcia.”

Notice: Portions of these weekly updates are produced using CastMagic.io, which uses AI to produce a draft of the transcript, identify key quotes, highlight themes, etc.