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Bad Advisors and Good Mentors

52 Career Actions: Week 20: Practice Telling Your Research Story for Non Academic Audiences

By Karen Kelsky | September 1, 2026

Whether you stay in academia or you leave, you will need to master the art of explaining your research in accessible ways. In academia, you will need it for students mostly, and also folks from far outside your discipline. Outside academia, you need … [Read more...] about 52 Career Actions: Week 20: Practice Telling Your Research Story for Non Academic Audiences

Filed Under: 52 Career Actions, Academic Job Search, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Careers Outside, Graduate Student Concerns, Post-Ac Job Search, Promote Yourself!, Quitting--An Excellent Option, Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

“Did We Drop the Ball on That?” The Power of Your Words

By Karen Kelsky | March 19, 2026

I was working with an instructional faculty member in the social sciences. The department had offered them the opportunity to teach some classes in their own specialization, which would be a great support for their own research and writing. They … [Read more...] about “Did We Drop the Ball on That?” The Power of Your Words

Filed Under: Adjunct Issues, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Graduate Student Concerns, Marginalized Voices, Mental Health and Academia, Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student, Strategizing Your Success in Academia, Yes, You Can: Women in Academia

Thriving in Uncertainty: Why Academia Needs Entrepreneurial Thinkers – A Guest Post by Dr. Ilana Horwitz

By Karen Kelsky | February 10, 2025

By Ilana M. Horwitz Ilana M. Horwitz is an Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology, and the Fields-Rayant Chair of Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University. She holds a PhD in Sociology of Education from Stanford University. She … [Read more...] about Thriving in Uncertainty: Why Academia Needs Entrepreneurial Thinkers – A Guest Post by Dr. Ilana Horwitz

Filed Under: Advising Advice, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Goodbye Ivory Towers, Graduate Student Concerns, Post-Ac Job Search, Quitting--An Excellent Option, Strategizing Your Success in Academia, Yes, You Can: Women in Academia

Academia Is the Grift, Part II: Reader Voices

By Karen Kelsky | October 13, 2020

The grifter accusations popped up again on social media last week. Find one post here and then scroll up and down for a bit more commentary about it.  I still need to write the blog post that unpacks all of that and what it says about the … [Read more...] about Academia Is the Grift, Part II: Reader Voices

Filed Under: Adjunct Issues, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Goodbye Ivory Towers, Post-Ac Job Search, Quitting--An Excellent Option, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

How Sociology (Re)Produces Racist Policing – #BLM Guest Post

By Karen Kelsky | June 8, 2020

[We continue to solicit guest posts from scholars of color, especially Black and Indigenous She/They/Femme. We pay $150 for accepted posts. 1000 words ballpark. Please send a draft or query/pitch to Karen at gettenure@gmail.com] By … [Read more...] about How Sociology (Re)Produces Racist Policing – #BLM Guest Post

Filed Under: Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Black Lives Matter, Racism in the Academy, Women of Color in Academia

Tenured Faculty Member Says Quiet Part Out Loud

By Karen Kelsky | May 1, 2020

Prof. Kimberly Hoang, tenured faculty in Sociology at U of Chicago, looked out at a global pandemic and total collapse of higher ed hiring, and decided to write this (find original here; bolding added) Just five weeks ago, the world was a … [Read more...] about Tenured Faculty Member Says Quiet Part Out Loud

Filed Under: Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, COVID19, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

#Dispatches From the Front – Help, I Have a Toxic Advisor! Part I: Firing Your Advisor, Building Your Team

By Karen Kelsky | February 17, 2020

In our new Dispatches series, we crowdsource responses to questions we see about the academic job market and career. This week, the question is: “Help, I have a toxic advisor/PI? What can I do? What have other people done in this … [Read more...] about #Dispatches From the Front – Help, I Have a Toxic Advisor! Part I: Firing Your Advisor, Building Your Team

Filed Under: Advising Advice, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Dispatches

Interview with Karen Kaplan, Senior Careers Editor at Nature

By Karen Kelsky | September 6, 2019

Karen Kaplan reached out to share thoughts on the academic job market. We had a great conversation and I learned a lot about STEM career paths which I am already bringing to clients and audiences. Then, she kindly allowed me to persuade her to do … [Read more...] about Interview with Karen Kaplan, Senior Careers Editor at Nature

Filed Under: Advising Advice, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Landing Your Tenure Track Job, Major Job Market Mistakes, Post-Ac Job Search, Postdoc Issues, Quitting--An Excellent Option, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

Anthropology’s Alternative Facts

By Karen Kelsky | January 12, 2019

After attending the AAA and AAR meetings, I wrote a blog post called A Tale of Two Conferences. In it, I bemoaned the sorry state of the AAA's engagement with issues of real-life (as opposed to academic jargon) precarity and the scandal of … [Read more...] about Anthropology’s Alternative Facts

Filed Under: Adjunct Issues, Advising Advice, Alt-University Critique, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors, Strategizing Your Success in Academia

What Is Free? Elitism and University Careers Advising

By Karen Kelsky | November 29, 2018

I wrote last week about my good times at the American Academy of Religion conference. And it was indeed a very good time. But there was one incident that I can’t stop thinking about, and I want to share it here. Because, it gets at the elitism that … [Read more...] about What Is Free? Elitism and University Careers Advising

Filed Under: Adjunct Issues, Bad Advisors and Good Mentors

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