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<\/a>The topics or inspirations for blog posts are typically something that has come up in conversations with people in the #womeninTC community or that have come up in discussions across higher education. This blog is no different.<\/p>\n
One of the greatest benefits of this job is the flexibility it affords., That flexibility plays out in a number of ways such as our day-to-day schedules, topics of research, diversity of classes, and the ability to choose where we put our time. Absolutely, we all have documents that guide our work lives to an extent i.e., workload policies, annual reviews, and reappointment, tenure and promotion guidelines. The ongoing challenge is figuring out how to make the decisions to make that flexibility work in the most beneficial way for you in both career and life.<\/p>\n
All this flexibility comes at a cost, however, as we\u2019re challenged to maintain a balance in our life because it\u2019s so easy to use that flexibility to work all the time. I have been a vocal advocate about the need to move away from what I have started to consistently refer to as the cult of overproduction. I have had several tweet threads over the last month or so that laments the pervasive and destructive nature of over work, particularly on graduate students and early career faculty. I could go on with so many more examples*, but the point is where have we gone wrong in training and mentorship and professional development? How do we shift the tide away from lore-based decisions or emotion-based decisions that aren\u2019t\u2019 grounded in actual practice? How do we realistically show how expectations for the job can match the requirements for the job? How do we help each other understand how to make better decisions around finding a balance in their lives? How do we make the norm not overwork?<\/p>\n I have thought a lot about these questions and trying to determine ways to address some of them. That’s one of the reason #womeninTC was started. Since some of these issues cut across academic job titles, and they definitely cut across all institutional types. This means having these conversations are important for all of us. These are big, hard questions and ones with no easy \u00a0immediate answers. But they are questions we need to start trying to ask and answer because the amount of stress, exhaustion, and fear associated with this job needs to be tempered with more realistic expectations that result in less stress, exhaustion, and fear.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n