Scroll down to links to interviews/articles below.
Karen Kelsky is the Founder and CEO of The Professor Is In, which provides advice and consulting services on the academic job search and all elements of the academic and post-academic career. She speaks nationally and internationally on topics related to Ph.D. professionalization, and is a weekly columnist at Chronicle Vitae. As the creator of the Sexual Harassment in the Academy Survey and the #MeTooPhD hashtag, Karen speaks nationally on issues of sexual assault in the academy, with a focus on empowering victims and training people in leadership. She is a former tenured professor and department head at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Oregon. Her latest book is The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job (Random House 2015).
Kel Weinhold is a former university professor in the fields of journalism, communication, and literary non-fiction who now works as a strategic communications coach and consultant. In addition to having twelve years of experience in the university setting, and enormous savvy about the ways of university hiring and politics, Kel is a dedicated advocate of work life balance and is the sworn enemy of neoliberal work creep. In addition to her university experience, Kel has spent almost 40 years as a working writer, 25 as an editor and five as a productivity coach. She knows all of the sneaky ways that imposter syndrome and perfectionism try to run the show. She created Professor is In’s Unstuck: The Art of Productivity to combat the Blue Meanies that try and derail your writing and mental health.
Hi-Res Photos of Karen Kelsky:
High-Res Photo of Kel Weinhold:
Dr. Karen In the News:
On COVID19 Impacts on Higher Ed
The US Hiring Freeze is Leaving Contingent Faculty Out in the Cold. (Tian An Wong). Times Higher Education. 5/7/20
Frozen Searches. (Colleen Flaherty). Inside Higher Ed. 4/1/20
On the Wretched Academic Job Market
Grad Student Reads: The Professor Is In (Book Review). (Carolyn Trietsch). Inside Higher Ed. 10/29/18
Opportunity or Exploitation? (Colleen Flaherty). Inside Higher Ed. 4/25/18
Want to be a Volunteer Adjunct? Southern Illinois is Hiring (Nell Gluckman). Chronicle of Higher Education 4/25/18
Volunteer Faculty: The Death Knell for Public Higher Ed (John Warner). Inside Higher Ed. 4/25/18
To Be Or Not To Be In Person (Colleen Flaherty). Inside Higher Ed. 1/17/18
Hoping For a Faculty Job? Here’s What Hiring Committees Are Looking For (Maggie Kuo) AAAS Science Careers 10/2/17
Dr. Karen Kelsky Told Us How To Get a Tenure In the US. (Sophie Donaldson) University College London Researchers Blog. 5/24/17
What to Expect When Job Hunting. (Beryl Benderley.) AAAS Science Careers. 6/22/15
Negotiated Out of a Job. (Coleen Flaherty). Inside Higher Ed. 3/13/14
Can’t Get Tenure? Then Get a Real Job. (Megan McArdle) Bloomberg News. 1/3/14
Ph.D.’s Spend Big Bucks Hunting For a Job in Academe, With No Guaranteed Results. (Stacey Patton). Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/11/13
The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps. (Stacey Patton). Chronicle of Higher Education. 5/6/12
On Sexual Harassment in the Academy:
Yuval Peres, Math Professor with Series of Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Him, Gives Lecture at UC Davis. (Rebecca Bihn-Wallace). The California Aggie. 12/5/19
Interview. (Ku’uwehi Hiraishi) #MeTooPhD Creator Chronicles Sexual Harassment in Academia. Hawai’i Public Radio, Honolulu HI. 10/6/18.
Interview. School of Thought radio show. (Shalina Chatlani) WPFW Jazz and Justice Radio, Washington DC. 9/17/18 [Find it archived here–you must scroll/search for School of Thought for the date: 9/17/18]
Anything to Avoid a Scandal: How Colleges Sideline Sexual Abuse. (Eleanor Bader). Truthout.org. 8/5/18
Why Science Breeds A Culture of Sexism. (David Batty and Nicola Davis). The Observer. 7/7/18
In Academia, Professors Coming On To You Is On the Syllabus. (Dan Solomon and Jessica Luther). Splinter. 6/8/18
Sexual Misconduct in Academia: Reassessing the Past. (Var. contributors). Times Higher Education. 5/17/18
Academia’s #MeToo Moment: Women Accuse Professors of Sexual Misconduct. (Nick Anderson). Washington Post 5/10/18
These Women Are Exposing the Scale of Sexual Misconduct in Academia (video interview). (Ben Schamisso). Newsy. 3/27/18
#MeToo: There’s a List Circulating of Sexual Abusers on College Campuses. (Aditi Natasha Kini). AlterNet. 2/9/18
#MeTooPhD Reveals Shocking Examples of Academic Sexism (Keiran Hardy). The Guardian. 2/4/18
The Shitty Media Men List and Other Ways Women Can Report Misconduct (Casey Quinlan). The Guardian. 1/13/18
Like It Or Not, Lists of Shitty Men Are Going to Keep Circulating. (Valentina Zarya). Fortune. 1/12/18
Philly Area Colleges End Up In Large Sexual Harassment Survey. (Daniel Craig). Philly Voice. 1/12/18
Sex Harassment Claims in Viral #MeToo List Target Rutgers, Princeton and Other Campuses (Kelly Heyboer). NJ.com. 1/12/18
Academia’s Shitty Men List Has Around 2000 Entries Detailing Sexual Harassment. (Prachi Gupta). Jezebel. 1/11/18
Allegations of Groping, Lewd Comments, and Rape: Academia’s #MeToo Moment. (Melissa Korn) Wall Street Journal. 1/11/18
The Paradox of Protecting Predators. (). Chronicle of Higher Education. 1/9/18
Universities Have a Sexual Harassment Problem: Can They Fix It? (Anna North). Vox.com. 12/14/17
One Spreadsheet Reveals the Horrifying Ubiquity of Sexual Harassment in the Academy. (Olivia Goldhill and Sarah Slobin) Quartz. 12/12/17
Holding Space for Victims of Harassment. (Colleen Flaherty). Inside Higher Ed. 12/8/17
#MeTooPhD: One Academic’s Effort to Break the Silence Around Sexual Harassment. (May Warren) Toronto Metro News. 12/7/17
Interview on the Sexual Harassment in the Academy Survey, As It Matters (radio program), Canadian Broadcasting. 12/5/17
On Ph.D. Debt:
The Professor and the Pauper: A Ph.D. May Cause You a Lifetime of Debt. (Katey Troutman). CheatSheet. 11/20/14
#StudentLoanDebt is Trending. (Honey Smith). TheStreet.com. 2/6/14
Interview with Kai Ryssdal on NPR Marketplace. 1/27/14
Even Ph.D.s Who Have Full Funding Have Huge Amounts of Debt. (Rebecca Schuman) Slate 1/15/14 (“Karen Kelsky is to the academic job market what the Wolf was to organized crime in Pulp Fiction“)
Ph.D. Programs Have a Dirty Secret: Student Debt. (Jordan Weissmann) Atlantic. 1/16/14.
Read This Before You Apply to Grad School (Megan McArdle). Bloomberg News. 1/17/14
The Cost of a Ph.D. (Audrey Williams June). Chronicle of Higher Education. 1/16/14
When Full Funding Isn’t Full. (Colleen Flaherty) Inside Higher Ed. 2/18/14
On Various Academic Topics
The Great Conference Con. (Colleen Flaherty) Inside Higher Ed 7/25/17
This Election Is Catastrophic. (Colleen Flaherty) Inside Higher Ed. 11/10/16
Getting Into Grad School. Interview with Thomas Frank of College Info Geek. CollegeInfoGeek.com 8/9/15
The Paradoxical Success of The Professor Is In (Sarah Kendzior). Chronicle Vitae 7/19/15
Productivity Cliff (Colleen Flaherty). Inside Higher Ed. 11/20/14
Doling Out Advice To All Who Will Listen
My regular advice column on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Vitae site.
Why They Want to Reject You. Academic Workplace 2015 (Chronicle of Higher Education). 7/19/15
Got Skills? Contexts 14(2) Spring 2015.
Graduate School Is a Means to a Job. Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/27/12
The Be-Yourself Myth. Insider Higher Ed. 1/30/12
To Professors, Re: Your Advisees. Chronicle of Higher Education. 9/28/11
How can I hear the replay of the webinar on developing an Online Presence?
Contact the folks at Vitae—it’s archived there.
Hi Karen,
Justsaw the piece on cbc online.
I’ve counselled about 1000 couples and over 500 men over the years when I was a counsellor – now working in corporate setting.
From those expereinces I wrote a book about men.
Here below is a summary which I thought you might find to be interesting.
“What is it with men that they want to make women receptacles of their pain!?” Lady Gaga
The tsunami of men’s bad behaviors is seen in allegations of sexual harassments by Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Louis C. K., etc. etc., and the revelations in #metoo.
I wrote a book “The Phallic Imperative: Why (Some) Men Are Hard To Get Along With!?” Sub-titled “Male Dinosaurs: A View From The Swamp”
It’s about men’s learned behaviors that can result in us acting out REALLY bad behaviors on others.
Here they are:
1.Men are taught to be problem-solvers, not intimate relators
2.Men don’t take women seriously, while at the same time are terrified of women
3. Vagina envy: men think we need sex & women should give it to us
4. Men have weak masculine egos
5. Men mysticize women
6. Men’s bodies are armored against intimacy
7. Men lie when we feel cornered
8. Men don’t understand why so many women are so angry at men
9. Achievement-oriented men have a self-perception of brutal omnipotence
10. Men have a strong tendency to dominate others, particularly the women they say they “love”
Question: “Besides a dinosaur wadda ya wanna be when you grow up?”
I’m thinking that people are off the mark when they say sexual harassment is a power play over women.
Yes – and – it is, i think, much worse and sinister than that – its about men attempting to snuff out the feminine of which many – not all – men are terrified.