By Cecilia Caballero. Bio: Based in LA, Cecilia Caballero is a single mother, creative nonfiction writer, poet, teaching artist, and lecturer of Ethnic Studies. As a teaching artist, Cecilia facilitates generative poetry workshops for BIPOC … [Read more...] about Paying The Price: The Costs of Academia for First-Gen BIPOC Scholars
Advising Advice
Near Death of an Accidental Academic – Guest Post
By Sandra Mizumoto Posey I’m an accidental academic, but once I fell into academia I kept falling. It was pure luck that the only job I was invited to interview for when I was searching for a job with benefits — in or out of academia — was the one … [Read more...] about Near Death of an Accidental Academic – Guest Post
Upcoming Coaching Events for Scholars in Crisis
Emotional, physical, spiritual exhaustion. Cynicism and snark as far as the eye can see. Job conditions getting worse by the minute. How do we get our energy back? The answer is: we can’t. We won’t. Not by working the same old jobs in the same old … [Read more...] about Upcoming Coaching Events for Scholars in Crisis
Spring 2022 Career Outcomes Digest
I just gathered up a new Spring 2022 Career Outcomes Digest, with updates from both clients and readers. Lots of great updates on interviews, job offers, negotiations, and grants, plus one successful client tenure case! The negotiators make me … [Read more...] about Spring 2022 Career Outcomes Digest
Between Grief and Freedom: What My Dear Friend Taught Me About Getting to the Other Side of Academia
by Dr. Elana Jefferson-Tatum Dr. Elana Jefferson-Tatum, Ph.D. is hypnobirthing coach, full-spectrum doula, and practitioner-scholar of Africana religions. After several years in the academy teaching at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and then Tufts … [Read more...] about Between Grief and Freedom: What My Dear Friend Taught Me About Getting to the Other Side of Academia
Everyone Needs Play!
Those who follow me on social media know I've suddenly started painting a Disaffected Academic Bunnies(TM) series. I've never painted before, and cannot tell you why I have started now. I just encountered the artist Natalya Shaloshvili on IG randomly … [Read more...] about Everyone Needs Play!
The Professor Is In HAS Changed, Part II, or I Don’t Give a Flying Fuck What You Wear
[Also originally shared on FB] Sharing a thought (adapted from a FB comment below): This whole recent kerfluffle about wHaT Is tHe PoInT oF tHiS [FB] pAge, a version of which arises about 2x a year, is so weird to me. I've always held … [Read more...] about The Professor Is In HAS Changed, Part II, or I Don’t Give a Flying Fuck What You Wear
The Professor Is In HAS Changed; You’re Not Imagining It
[This was posted originally on Facebook. See the original post here.] This is probably a good time to make something explicit that has been implicit for about a year now. I think academia is quite toxic for many - and actively sickifying … [Read more...] about The Professor Is In HAS Changed; You’re Not Imagining It
Nihilism Was Inevitable
A genre of tweet has been gaining steam the last couple weeks, about the complete meaninglessness of academic job application documents or processes. It's all a crap shoot, argues this line of thought. Further, the collapse in hiring has only exposed … [Read more...] about Nihilism Was Inevitable
Toxic Hope
This story was shared by a reader recently. They have given me permission to share it here anonymously. Rarely have I seen the sickness of the PhD apparatus so clearly articulated. "Toxic hope" is another way of saying Berlant's "cruel optimism" … [Read more...] about Toxic Hope