18 February 2018 by Lisa Meloncon<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not good with nuance. This is not some great insight. It\u2019s just true. From my upbringing to my life as a consultant to just the way that I am wired, my go-to path through life is direct and as kind as I can possibly be. Among his many countless gifts, my good friend Blake Scott,\u00a0 has a gift for nuance, and I\u2019ve asked him to teach me how to do it. Alas, those lessons have not taken a hold yet.<\/p>\n
So I give you this piece of background to sort of apologize for what will likely be a ham-fisted attempt at saying something that needs a lot more nuance than I can probably give it.<\/p>\n
<\/a>There\u2019s a piece that\u2019s been circulating through social media, \u201c Why I Collapsed on the Job<\/a>\u201d by Katerina Bodovski, that is equal turns heart wrenching and rage inducing. It is heart wrenching because I hear stories similar to Bodovski\u2019s from women (and some men) in our little field of tech comm and in the bigger field of rhetoric and composition. It is heart wrenching because her story is not unusual and that leads to the rage inducing.<\/p>\n So the piece above is really, really important for all sorts reasons. Since twitter is where I spend some time, I have done some tweet rants over the last couple of months about the EXACT things that Bodovski writes about. But most importantly about the need to take on this thing she writes about:<\/p>\n I somehow became a silent workaholic\u2026..many of us are socialized into this trait of academic culture. This is how things are done, goes the unwritten agreement.<\/p>\n This is what we have to rail against as loudly, as specifically, as directly, as proactively, as forcefully, and as consistently as possible. Hell, no, this is not the way things have to be done. No.<\/p>\n One of the reasons that I agreed to and have stayed on working with #womeninTC is to work toward changing this very thing. To work toward shifting the culture and the way we approach work and how we train and mentor graduate students and early career faculty. No, it does not have to be this way.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another line that really, really got me from Bodovski\u2019s piece:<\/p>\n Somewhere along the way, though, I lost the ability to help myself. I\u2019m writing about it now in the hope of bringing attention to the troubles in the ivory tower and to give others the legitimacy to question the things we have come to take for granted about faculty work and life.<\/p>\n We have to question this culture and work toward changing it and shifting it. As the direct and to the point person that I am, I want to just lay out some ideas that I\u2019ve been thinking about.<\/p>\n When I admitted that I was having to reboot my life<\/a>, the bigger takeaway there was this, “But more so, it\u2019s because we have to set a different tone<\/em>. We have to start trying to shift what is a powerfully unjust culture and system that encourages us to be one dimensional and focused on the culture of overproduction <\/a>rather than encouraging us to be real, three-dimensional people committed to slow scholarship and being excellent, thoughtful teachers, and kind supportive colleagues.” We can do this shifting in all sorts of ways including institutional resilience<\/a>.<\/p>\n Remember that you have agency. So what if you don\u2019t\u2019 get a unanimous tenure vote or a perfect annual review. The fact remains the number of people in our field that do not get tenure is minuscule and most of those have some important back stories that never make the mainstream. The tenure guidelines that I have read and that are representative of the field are all doable. No, you do not have to publish a 100 things. No you do not have to attend every conference. No you do not have to serve of 5 committees at every level.<\/p>\n My point is that you can say no. You really can. You can say no to that extra committee; you can choose not to answer that CFP for a special issue or another collection; you can wait to do that really cool thing (cause the opportunity will come around again) when you have more time and space.<\/p>\n You can make decisions for you and no one else because you do have agency. No one can take that from you.<\/p>\n You truly, truly can do this job and it not be your entire life and your entire existence. Look for the silent leaders and those people who work at a place you\u2019d like to work at and really find out how this job works.<\/p>\n Some of the patterns you develop in grad school will stay with you so it\u2019s so important to develop good habits for yourself around work and life. Train yourself to do the work by sitting in the chair and trying to do it. Develop some strategies to deal with stress, to plan your time in ways that work for you, to balance out and have a life without the guilt. These skills are started in grad school. Seek out mentors and friends who share these values.<\/p>\n You also do not have to have to try and publish a 1000 things to get a job nor go to every conference or accept every \u201copportunity.\u201d This time is for you to learn and to read and to think about what the field is and what you want your role to be. It\u2019s precious and it needs to be done slowly and thoughtfully.<\/p>\n Thank you for the work you do in our programs, and bearing the brunt of institutions\u2019 teaching mission. I am thankful for the work you\u2019re doing, and I am sorry for the system that has created this mess. Please take care of yourselves first. (I have much more to say about this issue, but since I\u2019m in the midst of a \u201cbook\u201d on it, it\u2019s all too muddled.) So, I reiterate, please take care of yourselves.<\/p>\nFor tenured folks, who write way too many letters for too many things\u2026.<\/a><\/h4>\n
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For those on the tenure track,<\/h4>\n
For graduate students,<\/h4>\n
For contingent faculty,<\/h4>\n
Circling back to all of us<\/h4>\n