Education for Academics™

Sink or swim. Publish or perish. Up or out. These are the professional development norms in academia. While faculty are the consummate learners, the PhD confers the expectation: “You’re on your own from here.”

But it doesn’t have to be that way – and we don’t think it should be.

As colleges, universities, disciplines, departments, and classrooms get more complex – and academia writ large becomes more fraught – Education for Academics™ is a decoder ring for navigating the complexities of academic culture and the multi-faceted responsibilities of faculty roles and academic leadership.

Postponed until further notice: An academic career is a recipe for overwhelm. It’s called a “meta-profession,” requiring mastery and significant responsibility in multiple professions at once – but academic training focuses much more on scholarship than teaching, mentoring, leading groups, etc. Across 8 weeks, this course provides tools to recognize and navigate the overwhelm and reorient the experience of being an academic into the career you intended to have.

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NEXT UP: While a scholarly career emphasizes individual accomplishments and abilities, the scholarly endeavor requires a plethora of group interactions: classrooms, faculty meetings, committees, lab groups, conferences, seminars, and more. Some of the most important work happens in group settings – and some of the biggest problems as well. This 4 session course unpacks two key topics related to group dynamics: the specific behaviors that lead to successful group outcomes, and a framework for understanding and navigating conflict.

COMING SOON: How do you create a better departmental climate? Revamp the graduate curriculum? Engage faculty in a meaningful discussion about the role of GREs in admissions? Make the faculty service load distribution more equitable? Faculty are constantly defining a change agenda, but typically know too little about designing and leading effective change processes. This course will walk faculty change teams through the process of defining and refining change goals, assessing resources for and barriers against making change, and developing tactics and strategies for making discernible change.

Is there a topic you would like to take a course in?

Send us your ideas and we’ll see if we can plug them in here.

Looking for a different kind of format? Check out our Faculty Coaching Groups.