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Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at dr.danamalone@gmail.com or cgessler@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear: realities of the shutdown with two young children; the internal reckoning when things beyond our control force a change in course, timeline adjustments and impacts on research as well as lessons learned and finding beauty in life amidst deep challenges.Our guest is: Brooke Lombardi, M.S., a social worker and Ph.D. candidate at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Brooke researches perinatal health, specializing in the intersection of sexual victimization and the perinatal health care needs of women. Her dissertation is focused on the connection between lifetime experiences of sexual victimization and perinatal mental health disorders, such as PTSD, depression, and anxiety. She has co-authored papers related to perinatal health, human trafficking, and substance misuse in the perinatal period. Brooke is also a birth doula, adjunct faculty member at Elon University, partner, and mother to two.Your host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner. Dana met Brooke as a live-in Resident Director (RD) and Brooke was an undergraduate Resident Assistant (RA) on staff. They stayed connected after Brooke graduated, and over several years, a beautiful friendship unfolded.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Inside Higher Ed article: “Surviving the Pandemic as Grad Student Parents” The Chronicle of Higher Education article: “Covid-19 and the Academic Parent” Inside Higher Ed article: “A Double Whammy For Student Parents”  Institute for Women’s Policy Research report, Student Parents in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Heightened Need and Imperative for Strengthened Support Interview with authors of You’re Doing it Wrong: Mothering, Media, and Medical Expertise (RUP) on NBN Gender Channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at dr.danamalone@gmail.com or cgessler@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about a new, versatile resource for women associate professors, flipping the script on the mid-career stage, finding joy in the work and taking stock of priorities, as well as the importance of building a personalized mentor group.Our guest is: Dr. Vicki Baker, recognized as a “Top 100 Visionary” in Education by the Global Forum for Education and Learning. Vicki is at the forefront of innovation and strategy in faculty and leadership development. As a faculty member herself and Fulbright Specialist Alumna her goal is to help faculty members and colleges and universities thrive. Vicki is the author of Charting Your Path to Full: A Guide for Women Associate Professors, lead editor of Success After Tenure: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty, and co-author of Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges. Her work has been featured in national and international media outlets including WalletHub, Times Higher Education, Hechinger Report, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, USA Today, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Huffington Post. She regularly consults with industry and higher education institutions on the topics of leadership, faculty development, change management, and mentoring. Vicki enjoys spending time with her husband, two children, and their dog. She participates in interval training three days a week and is an avid reader.Your host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner. She specializes in college student relationships, gender, sexuality, and religious identities as well as assessment planning. Dana enjoys delicious, healthy food, practicing yoga, and wandering the Jersey shore.Listeners to this episode might be interested in:(1) Dr. Vicki Baker’s website with Co-Founder Dr. Laura Lunsford (mentoring and leadership development expert) for additional resources and services we offer. Lead Mentor Develop LLC(2) Great new book out by Pam Eddy & Elizabeth Kirby, Leading for Tomorrow(3) Another excellent book by Rena Seltzer, The Coach's Guide for Women Professors (4) Women in Academe Series by Jeanie K Allen(5) Seminal work in this area by the late Kelly Ward and Lisa Wolf-Wendel, Academic Motherhood: How Faculty Manage Work and Family Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: the role of community colleges in higher education and in their local communities, the Rural Community College Alliance, and being a first generation college student.Our guest is: Dr Penny Wills, the President of Rural Community College Alliance.Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

In the wake of 2020’s movements for Black Lives and exposed racial disparities in working-class deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions are grappling on a massive level with their role in either reproducing or disrupting entrenched systems of exploitative power. While individual agency in enacting inclusive practices can be limited by these massive, intersecting forces, educators also wield tremendous influence over the forces within the learning environments they create for all students—particularly those who have been historically marginalized in society and schools alike.In Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Learning Success (CAST Professional Publishing, 2020), Andratesha Fritzgerald pairs Universal Design for Learning (UDL)—a framework for embedding options in the methods, materials, assessments and instructional goals that anticipate inevitable learner variability in the classroom—with antiracism, to support educators in effectively honoring the brilliance of Black and Brown children. Drawing vivid portraits of classroom instruction, Fritzgerald shows how teachers committed to antiracist environments can open new roads of communication, engagement, and skill-building so that students feel honored and loved.Andratesha Fritzgerald, EdS, brings nearly two decades of experience as a teacher, curriculum specialist, administrator and director in urban schools to synthesize these two schools of thought/action through this book. She has been published in What Really Works with Universal Design for Learning (Corwin Press), and on Think Inclusive’s blog. Currently, Fritzgerald serves as Director of Teaching, Learning and Innovation for the East Cleveland, Ohio City School Districts, and is the founder of Building Blocks of Brilliance.Christina Anderson Bosch is a doctoral student in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She reads widely in inclusive education scholarship, comparative special education research, and Universal Design for Learning practices to advance intellectual clarity and abolitionist imaginings about the school-prison nexus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

This is part of our Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. In this series, we delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and thought in the context of Black Nationalism, correcting the fundamentally mistaken notion that Malcolm X was a civil rights leader. He certainly did not see himself in that way, and explicitly argued otherwise. This helps us place the Afro-American struggle in its dimensions beyond the current American nation-state, including the Black Atlantic, and beyond.Today, our guest is Cedric Burrows, author of The Construction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X in Composition Textbooks: Rereading Readers, which was his Ph.D. Dissertation at the University of Kansas, available online.While scholars have written about the use of textbooks in writing courses, little attention is paid to how textbooks anthologize writers, especially women and people of color. This study examines the portrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X in composition textbook anthologies known as Readers, and sheds light on the ways Readers incorporate writers from African-American backgrounds.Through qualitative methods, Burrows analyzes how King and Malcolm X are anthologized in five popular Readers: The Bedford Reader, Rereading America, Patterns for College Writing, The Conscious Reader, and A World of Ideas.By intertwining the historical-critical method and narratives from my own experiences teaching Malcolm X and King from a Reader, Burrows analyzes the embedded cultural meanings in the biographical headnotes, the selection, and the discussion questions in the Readers.The results show that Readers tend to: (1) narrate King's and Malcolm X's biographies according to popular narratives in society; (2) provide little or inaccurate historical context to ground the selections; (3) alter the original sources of King and Malcolm X's text; and (4) format King and Malcolm X's rhetoric according to the Western rhetorical tradition while ignoring the African-American dimensions in their rhetoric.Burrows concludes by discussing how Readers are part of a larger issue within the educational system.Kirk Meighoo is Public Relations Officer for the United National Congress, the Official Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago. His career has spanned media, academia, and politics for three decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: why there aren’t enough jobs in academia for the number of PhDs who want them, what a “tenure-trap” is, why you might be happier in a job outside academia, and discussion of the book Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide.Our guest is: Dr. Christopher Caterine. He is a communications strategist, writer, and career coach. Since leaving academia, he has helped many graduate students and scholars find satisfying work in new arenas.Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. She reinterprets the historical narrative in both traditional and creative forms. She supports her work-life balance with long walks and her love of photography, which you can find here.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide by Christopher Caterine Succeeding Outside the Academy by Kelly Baker So What Are You Going to Do with That? by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius The Graduate School Mess by Lenny Cassuto Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

The new essay collection Food Insecurity on College Campuses edited by Katharine M. Broton and Clare L. Cady explores the widespread problem of food insecurity among college students and the overlapping and compounding issues that lead students to choose between getting enough to eat and paying the costs of a college education. As the editors make clear in the introduction to the collection, today’s college student has changed significantly from the expected “young adult, attending college full-time immediately after high school,” and the economic landscape they are dealing with is far different from what many administrators and faculty assume. Students are more likely to delay college or enter as part-time students while taking care of families or working. The essays throughout the collection describe students’ barriers to graduation as interlocking and compounding, and none of them academic. In the example of “Amarillo College: Loving Your Student from Enrollment to Graduation,” the authors concluded the top 10 reasons that students failed to complete their degrees were all financial in nature, not related to academic preparedness or ability to learn. Michael Rosen‘s essay reveals that even very small amounts of money for textbooks, car repairs, security deposits, utilities, and lab fees may derail students. The essays in the collection describe a wide range of solutions that have been tested in a variety of institutions and locations. to food insecurity from food pantries and partnerships with campus dining services to wrap-around services with social workers and emergency financial support. The editors acknowledge that supplying students with food may temporarily provide them with a meal, but these do not solve the ongoing problems of poverty. Throughout the collection, authors point time and again to the need to direct students to multiple services and resources, not just food or a check. Without significant reform in the structural inequities that keep people in poverty, these are all stop-gap measures.Katherine Broton is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies and (by courtesy) the Department of Sociology at the University of Iowa.Clare Cady is the cofounder of the College and University Food Bank Alliance and Director of Research and Innovation at Single Stop.Carrie Helms Tippen is Assistant Professor of English at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA, where she teaches courses in American Literature. Her 2018 book, Inventing Authenticity: How Cookbook Writers Redefine Southern Identity (University of Arkansas Press), examines the rhetorical strategies that writers use to prove the authenticity of their recipes in the narrative headnotes of contemporary cookbooks. Her academic work has been published in Gastronomica, Food and Foodways, American Studies, Southern Quarterly, and Food, Culture, and Society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Barbara Dennis of Indiana University on her new ethnography, Walking with Strangers: Critical Ethnography and Educational Promise, published in 2020 by Peter Lang Press.Walking with Strangers: Critical Ethnography and Educational Promise features the IU-Unityville Outreach Project and tells the story of a 4-year-long participatory, critical ethnography in a local United States school district. The book speaks into the contemporary conversations around immigration, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the experiences of Dreamers. The project involved a multilingual team of graduate students, educators, community members, and students who together aimed to transform school practices in order to bring about more success with transnational students who were enrolling in the district at an increasing rate. Over the span of several years, what began with a simple request for help, morphed into a rich ethnographic understanding of the complex tensions produced by monocultural and assimilationist ideals when juxtaposed with strangers. A unique and innovative feature about the book lies in that it seamlessly weaves together substantive discussions, methodological practices, and ethical challenges revolving around a transformative, social justice project.Walking with Strangers has made significant and much-needed contributions to the field of critical and social justice oriented educational research. In particular, it zooms into the complex and localized dynamics among immigrant families and students, predominantly white communities, public schools structured by white culture, and teachers unprepared for educating transnational children. The book not only sheds light on the innovative approaches through which educational researchers and educators could bring positive changes to the school life of marginalized and disadvantaged students, but also candidly reflects on the places where such efforts failed when confronting white privilege and gender oppression.Barbara Dennis is a peace and social justice activist, and critical educational ethnographer. She is a professor of qualitative inquiry in the Inquiry Methodology program at Indiana University’s, School of Education. She regularly publishes on feminist ethnography, critical participatory ethics, and methodological theory.Pengfei Zhao is a critical researcher and qualitative research methodologist based at the University of Florida. She is currently working on a book manuscript studying the coming of age experience of rural Chinese youth during and right after the Cultural Revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: navigating academia as a STEM student, getting pregnant and parenting while still a student, and difficult decisions about dropping out or staying in academia.Our guest is: Dr. Miriam Martin, an Assistant Professor of Teaching at the University of California, Davis. She teaches high-enrollment lecture and laboratory courses and specializes in learner-focused teaching practices that promote deep learning and an inclusive, equitable learning environment. Prior to teaching at UC Davis, she taught at several community colleges and also brought science experiments into elementary schools as a volunteer. She is the mother of two children and a pun-loving microbe-enthusiast. She invites you to follow up on our conversation through Twitter (@MicrobialGurl) or LinkedIn.Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. She is an independent scholar, and the co-creator of the Academic Life channel on New Books Network.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: “What matters in a PhD adviser? Here’s what the research says”  “How to survive grad school with a family” “Lactation Support Program” “A repository of peer-reviewed research and resources discussing the challenges facing white women and men and women of color in science” PhD Balance (Twitter @PhD_Balance) The Versatile PhD (Twitter @VersatilePhD) “Life in extreme heat” (about the heat-loving microbes in Yellowstone National Park)  “Stalking Caulobacter” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

The synthesizing mind is one that identifies a program or asks a question, pulls together information from across disciplines or creates new data through experimentation, and integrates everything into a novel solution or answer. Some of history’s most revolutionary thinkers – like Aristotle or Darwin – were synthesizers. But what do synthesizing minds actually do?Howard Gardner, the Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Senior Director of Harvard’s Zero Project, and author of over thirty books joins New Books in Education to talk about his latest book: A Synthesizing Mind: A Memoir from the Creator of Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT Press, 2021).In this unique memoir, Dr. Gardner analyzes clues from his own life that helped him realize his mind worked in unique ways that are vital in today’s rapidly changing world. In this wide-ranging discussion, Gardner talks about his work creating Multiple Intelligence Theory and more recent work in ethics, as well as exploring the nature and roles of different kinds of minds.Jonathan Haber is an educational researcher and consultant working at the intersection of pedagogy, technology, and educational policy. His books include MOOCS and Critical Thinking from MIT Press and his LogicCheck project analyzes the reasoning behind the news of the day. You can read more about Jonathan’s work at http://www.jonathanhaber.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear: about being an imbedded journalist, the senior years of kids in LA, the importance of mentors and college counselors at school, some challenges and obstacles of getting to college, and a discussion of the book Show Them You’re Good.Our guest is: Jeff Hobbs, the author of Show Them You’re Good. Jeff graduated with a BA in English language and literature from Yale in 2002. He is also the author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace; and The Tourists. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. She specializes in decoding diaries written by rural women in the 19th century. She chose her college because it 1) had great academic programs, 2) offered her great funding, 3) was on the beach, and 4) allowed pets to live in the dorms. It was the right choice for her.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Substitute by Nicholson Baker Quiet by Susan Cain Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon, PhD and Michael Thompson, PhD Raising Victor Vargas, a film directed by Peter Sollet Just Like Us by Helen Thorpe Yale's Invisible Price Tags -- Yale Daily News article by Carlos Rodriguez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Some of America's most pressing civil rights issues--desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free speech--have been closely intertwined with higher education institutions. Although it is commonly known that college students and other activists, as well as politicians, actively participated in the fight for and against civil rights in the middle decades of the twentieth century, historical accounts have not adequately focused on the roles that the nation's college presidents played in the debates concerning racism. Based on archival research conducted at a range of colleges and universities across the United States, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton UP, 2020) sheds light on the important place of college presidents in the struggle for racial parity.Focusing on the period between 1948 and 1968, Eddie Cole shows how college presidents, during a time of violence and unrest, strategically, yet often silently, initiated and shaped racial policies and practices inside and outside of the educational sphere. With courage and hope, as well as malice and cruelty, college presidents positioned themselves--sometimes precariously--amid conflicting interests and demands. Black college presidents challenged racist policies as their students demonstrated in the streets against segregation, while presidents of major universities lobbied for urban renewal programs that displaced Black communities near campus. Some presidents amended campus speech practices to accommodate white supremacist speakers, even as other academic leaders developed the nation's first affirmative action programs in higher education.The Campus Color Line illuminates how the legacy of academic leaders' actions continues to influence the unfinished struggle for Black freedom and racial equity in education and beyond.Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

In this episode, I speak with Matt Rafalow, about his book, Digital Divisions: How Schools Create Inequality in the Tech Era (University of Chicago Press, 2020). This book provides an ethnographic study of students and teachers at three Los Angeles schools utilizing instructional technology. We discuss the role of play in learning, how disciplinary dispositions are influenced by race and class, and how the prevalence ed tech can reinforce existing social heirarchies.His recommended books included the following: Teachers and Machines: Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920 by Larry Cuban (Teachers' College Press, 1986) Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs by Paul Willis and Stanley Aronowitz (Columbia University Press, 1981) Keepin' It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White: Why School Success Has No Color by Prudence L. Carter (Oxford University Press, 2005) Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at info@trevormattea.com or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

New York City's Lower East Side has witnessed a severe decline in its Jewish population in recent decades, yet every morning in the big room of the city's oldest yeshiva, students still gather to study the Talmud beneath the great arched windows facing out onto East Broadway. In Yeshiva Days: Learning on the Lower East Side (Princeton University Press, 2020), Jonathan Boyarin presents a uniquely personal account of the year he spent as both student and observer at Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem, and a poignant chronicle of a side of Jewish life that outsiders rarely see.Boyarin explores the yeshiva's relationship with the neighborhood, the city, and Jewish and American culture more broadly, and brings vividly to life its routines, rituals, and rhythms. He describes the compelling and often colorful personalities he encounters each day, and introduces readers to the Rosh Yeshiva, or Rebbi, the moral and intellectual head of the yeshiva. Boyarin reflects on the tantalizing meanings of "study for its own sake" in the intellectually vibrant world of traditional rabbinic learning, and records his fellow students' responses to his negotiation of the daily complexities of yeshiva life while he also conducts anthropological fieldwork.A richly mature work by a writer of uncommon insight, wit, and honesty, Yeshiva Days is the story of a place on the Lower East Side with its own distinctive heritage and character, a meditation on the enduring power of Jewish tradition and learning, and a record of a different way of engaging with time and otherness.Jonathan Boyarin is the Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Cornell University. His books include Jewish Families, Mornings at the Stanton Street Shul: A Summer on the Lower East Side, and The Unconverted Self: Jews, Indians, and the Identity of Christian Europe.Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Listen to this interview of Shyam Sharma, author of Writing Support for International Graduate Students: Enhancing Transition and Success (Routledge, 2020). We talk about international students and rhetoric, international students and confidence, international students and community-based programming, and vision.Interviewer : "Could you give an example for how teachers can foster agency among international students?"Shyam Sharma : "Let's say you walk into a class and you ask, 'How do people greet in a formal academic setting.' If you say, 'How do people greet in a formal academic setting, in your local community' –– Just add that phrase at the end –– what happens is that the Chinese student versus the American student versus the Brazilian student get to share their ideas about how people (in English, of course), about how people greet each other formally. But by giving them a platform where their ideas can be brought in order to explore, that allows many of things, one being to set the terms of engagement which are, then, not my terms and you are the foreigner. Instead, at least it's a starting point. It allows the student to create these different terms of engagement on their own." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Listen to this interview of Helen Sword, author of Stylish Academic Writing (Harvard UP, 2012). We talk about bad writing, but a lot more about how to make it good. There's even a dog.Interviewer : "What is it that keeps most students and then, too, many early-career academics away from making the effort to write well?"Helen Sword : "Writing is seen as this utilitarian thing. You've got to learn it. It's got lots of rules. If you get things wrong, somebody's going to put red ink on there or red tracked changes or whatever. There's a lot of emotional baggage tied up with the hard work of writing well, and yet when I interviewed successful academic writers, what I heard over and over again, was about the pleasures that they take in the hard work of the craft. And that's where, for me, I link the pleasures of writing well back to stylish academic writing, to the craft of writing well. Those two things have got to go hand in hand to be a long-term sustainable kind of enterprise." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our own mentor networks to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter : The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear: what happens when graduate school doesn’t go as you’d planned, and what happens to your degree and your career if you leave school before you complete your PhD.Our guest is: Rev. Rebecca Duke-Barton, a United Methodist pastor. She has a Master of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary, and was A.B.D. at Emory University before leaving the program. She has taught at Andrew College, and served as pastor in four United Methodist Churches. She also serves as president of the Georgia United Methodist Commission on Higher Education & Collegiate Ministry.Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian. She specializes in diaries written by rural women in the 19th century. She credits her ability to read nearly-illegible things to her childhood spent trying read her dad’s handwriting. In high school she was trained in peer mentor programs; as an undergrad she worked in her campus Writing Center; while pursuing her Ph.D. she developed and ran a Mentor Program for graduate students. She met Rev. Rebecca Duke-Barton when they were both graduate students, and they’ve been friends ever since. Christina supports her work-life balance by taking photos in nature, which you can find at here.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown CareerShifters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

The pelvic exam is considered a fundamental procedure for medical students to learn; it is also often the one of the first times where medical students are required to touch a real human being in a professional manner. In Feeling Medicine: How the Pelvic Exam Shapes Medical Training (NYU Press, 2020), Kelly Underman gives us a look inside these gynecological teaching programs, showing how they embody the tension between scientific thought and human emotion in medical education.Drawing on interviews with medical students, faculty, and the people who use their own bodies to teach this exam, Underman offers the first in-depth examination of this essential, but seldom discussed, aspect of medical education. Through studying, teaching, and learning about the pelvic exam, she contrasts the technical and emotional dimensions of learning to be a physician. Ultimately, Feeling Medicine explores what it means to be a good doctor in the twenty-first century, particularly in an era of corporatized healthcare.Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor in the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine. She teaches and writes about health behavior in historical context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Are robots going to be our overlords? In Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines (RosettaBooks, 2020), Jamie Merisotis says they don't have to be. We can make them our friends.Jamie Merisotis is a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, education, and public policy. Since 2008, he’s served as president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, an independent, private foundation committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Jamie previously served as co-founder and president of the nonpartisan, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy.This episode covers the need to link ongoing learning and work in a virtuous cycle that provides workers with both meaning and stability. It addresses the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution and how in the new people-centered economy it’s important to develop those flexible skills and capabilities that will enable workers to distinguish themselves from what automation and artificial intelligence is capable of.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you’re not an island, and neither are we. So, we are reaching across our own contacts – and beyond - to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Want to hear a particular expert or topic? Email your ideas to cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode, you’ll hear: our paths to college and graduate school, and the instructive moments along the way, why you might need a mentor (or two or three) to accomplish your goals, and how this channel offers a virtual community for your journey – in, out, or through – academia.Your co-host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a scholar and practitioner energized by facilitating meaningful learning experiences for students and educators alike. She loves connecting with kindred academic spirits, like Christina, and collaborating on inspiring projects. When she’s not having engaging conversations on TAL podcast, she writes, teaches, and works with institutions on a contract basis. Her specialty areas include student cultures, the intersection of gender, sexuality, and religious identities as well as student success, assessment and evaluation, and strategic planning. She provides invited talks on her book, From Single to Serious. Dana is also known for kitchen dance parties, wandering the Jersey shore, and crushing hills on her spin bike. Check out more: www.danammalone.com.Your other co-host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian. She specializes in decoding diaries written by rural women in the 19th century. She credits her ability to read nearly-illegible things to a childhood spent trying read her dad’s handwriting. In high school she was trained in peer mentor programs; as an undergrad she worked in her campus Writing Center; while pursuing her Ph.D. she developed and ran a Mentor Program for graduate students. She enjoys presenting history in nontraditional forms, like creating photography exhibits about the fields and farms that are no longer in use, and nonfiction poems about the intersection of nature and history. She met Dr. Dana Malone when she interviewed her for an episode on the NBN Gender Channel, and they’ve been friends ever since. Christina supports her work-life balance by taking photos in nature, which you can find at: https://www.facebook.com/themeditationwalks/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm