On this episode of the agile academic podcast, I talk with Dr. Bonni Stachowiak, professor, administrator, and host of the long-running podcast, Teaching in Higher Ed. We talk about podcasting, living your purpose, and balancing roles when you are a multi-hyphenate.
On this episode of the agile academic podcast, I talk with Dr. Bonni Stachowiak, professor, administrator, and host of the long-running podcast, Teaching in Higher Ed. We talk about podcasting, living your purpose, and balancing roles when you are a multi-hyphenate.
On this episode of the agile academic podcast, I talk with Dr. Bonni Stachowiak, professor, administrator, and host of the long-running podcast, Teaching in Higher Ed. We talk about podcasting, living your purpose, and balancing roles when you are a multi-hyphenate.
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Hello listeners. Welcome to the agile academic, a podcast for women in and around higher education. This season I talked with my special guests from all over academia, about a wide range of topics from teaching and research, to coaching and mental health, to vitality and burnout, and everything in between.
I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark.
This season is brought to you by my summer Monthly Sprint Weeks. Learn the basics of Scrum project management to organize your work, spend a week focused on a project with the encouragement and support of a group of other faculty, and take time to reflect on your accomplishments and next steps. Learn more at rebeccapoperuark.com/sprintweeks
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rebecca Pope-Ruark (RPR): Hi, Bonnie. Thanks for being on the show today,
Bonni Stachowiak (BS): Hi Rebecca. Thank you for having me on the show. I'm so glad to be here and glad about that. This project exists.
RPR: Thank you. Thank you so much. So why don't you just introduce yourself to the audience a little bit about what you do?
BS: My name is Bonnie Stachowiak, and I am a Dean of Teaching and Learning at a small, more teaching oriented private university. So, I get to spend 25% of my time, of course, no one's setting the stopwatch, but 25% of my contract, I still get the great honor of teaching. And then 75% of my contract is in more of a leadership role.
RPR: I think most people probably know you from the podcast Teaching in Higher Ed. So how did that come about?
BS: My husband has had a leadership podcast called Coaching for Leaders three years more than me. And he just would occasionally mention to me, you love teaching so much and you love talking about teaching so much. You should start a podcast. And it's hard to explain to people who don't geek out on podcasts, but, or also don't geek out about the aspect of marketing. That is how do you find an audience, a community, whatever. However you'd like to call that thing. There weren't people at the time that had a sustained podcast presence that was sustained toward a specific audience, which is people who love teaching, love talking about teaching, love learning more about teaching. So the audience, that precise of an audience and that precise of a topic, wasn't around for very long, sometimes people would start a podcast. Sometimes they'd expand their audience. They'd stop podcasting.
But I mean that, that really wasn't just that thing. And one of the things that I am most proud of around the podcast is that an episode has aired every single week since June of 2014, rain or shine, pandemic, no pandemic. And I feel really good about that because I still, to this day, all these years later, love teaching, talking about teaching and learning, and just all the amazing people I get to meet. It just feels like the best thing that ever could have happened in my career and in my life and love of teaching.
RPR: That's what I love about the podcast - you never know who's going to be on next and what they're going to have to share. And just having all of those, you introduce your audience to so many ideas and theories and practices and pillars, and just people coming in to talk with you. So it reminds us of that, of what's powerful about higher education.
BS: It really does. And it has, even though I know some of our conversation today, I suspect will be failures or, or, or you know, ways in which I can't live up to what I wish I could, you know, just during very challenging times. There's something that just feels so good about just that has sustained me partially because it's also sustained other people. It really does feel like a community. And I love that. I'm also, I know you are too, I'm also on Twitter and just to get to connect with people that are hearing some of the same conversations and challenged by some of the same things and inspired by some of the same things is just a wonderful thing that has fueled so much of my life during challenging times and great times, too.
RPR: What would you say the purpose of the podcast is and how do you make sure you wrap that into every episode?
BS: So, it's funny because one thing that hasn't changed about the podcast and all these years is that I start every single one the same way. And you probably remember it's about the art and science of facilitating learning. And that gets coupled with sometimes we have episodes about the area of productivity, but not productivity for productivity sake. Because I think we can, we really have to be resistant toward that. I, and I need to myself, I need to be very aware of, for what end. I had a woman on recently talking about her productivity approaches and she was mentioning that she was coming close to a milestone in her own academic career of a hundred journal articles, which just, wow, I'm glad I didn't laugh at the time when I was talking to her because it would've seemed very rude, but like I wasn't even positive.
I remember that going through my head, like how is that even possible? But she was talking about in her various way, just like, and then I realized that I, that is not something I should be aiming for during a pandemic was essentially what she was saying. So anyway, every episode I find meaningful because it's about both the art and the science of facilitating learning. Those words are very carefully, but it's not one or the other learning all of the great emerging body of research around the scholarship of teaching and learning still. It is both an art and a science and it is not, it is really facilitating learning. That's, that's what it's all about. And that can look so many different ways.
And then the productivity side of it. And the thing that I say at the end of the little tagline or introduction is that it's for allowing ourselves to be more fully present for our students. And I just that idea of being present for those moments, that we are so fortunate to be able to get to encounter people during various parts of their life when they come into a learning community and what an absolute joy that is.
RPR: And that has been such a challenge, I think over the past year and a half for so many people, but also maybe a piece of where you can find the joy. No, that how we think about what we're doing and the different contexts that we're doing that work in in the past year has been just such a challenge for everyone. So, what are some of the conversations that you've had with folks during the pandemic that maybe resonated most with you?
BS: I think that the one that probably sticks out the most in my mind right now was a conversation with Jesse Stommel and what I remember the conversation turned out to be a lot about words, a lot about what we call things. And it started out really with just words that make him angry, know words that I, some of them made me angry and some of them, I probably didn't get why they might make other people angry, but things like “silver linings.” Yes. It's not anytime. I, I, I don't believe I said that phrase prior to the conversation with Jesse, but if I ever did, you could bet I never edited it after that, but let's acknowledge that start every conversation, every class. And I don't mean that we can't in healthy ways compartmentalize. We don't have to be constantly working to have this not be like, isn't it great that all of us got online.
And now we know things about teaching online that we didn't know before all of the utter devastation and destruction let's sing song. He like, isn't this great, fellows. Like let's not do that. Yeah. That conversation really stood out. And it also stood out to me because one thing that I treasure, but also cringe at myself is those vulnerable conversations. So I was able to enter into a very vulnerable space with him. I admitted it's not like a huge deal, but it still felt weird for me to say, oh gosh, there have been times when people have brought up, the word happens to be “embodiment.” So I don't seem like I'm some mystery word or whatever, but just people have brought it up so many times on the podcast. And I had read about it. I noticed it was kind of one of those still. I like there's more to this story that I actually understand that so many people have read so much more about that word and understanding that.
So it was nice to enter into a place where I could just feel very exposed and vulnerable. And then he met me in that space and was very vulnerable and exposed and share some parts of his life as well. Those are, those are to me, best conversations that we can ever have in our lives is just when we're able to show up fully in our messiness with another human being about something that we both care so deeply about. And in our case, you know, trying to care well for students trying to be wonderful facilitators of learning during some very challenging times. So I, that one really stands out to me just in terms of the way we connected around that vulnerability. And then a lot of the words that we talked about of course are just ultimately, how do we become better teachers by thinking through the absurdity of some of it.
I still he's still is in my head when we talk about, oh, is the class going to be live? And he's like, what's the opposite of “live,” dead? Do we have dead classes? You know, so something that was just kind of the silliness of the words that we've chosen to symbolize things. So of course we need words to be able to communicate to other people about the kinds of ways that they might show up and, and all of that, but still, I just think it is important for us to think about how we communicate about the ways that teaching and learning may occur in the spaces and places that we encounter.
RPR: Absolutely. And “silver linings” is definitely one that I've been struggling with because there, there were things that we learned about each other and that we learned about our humanity in the context of higher education over the last 15 months that are in some ways real gifts. But how do you talk about that with others in the context of what we went through to have those lessons and you know, the, the talk now about we're going to go back, it's going to be not normal, but it's going to be a new normal, or it's going to be better, but we're not really talking about what that looks like, or how do we process what we've been through to be able to figure out what those hard one even benefits is the wrong one, those hard won lessons over the course of the pandemic.
BS: Would you mind sharing just cause I'm so curious how the word “resilience” has, or hasn't sat with you during this time too. I'm just, I'm still curious because that was another word that has stayed with me all this time.
RPR: And I have always struggled with resilience in a lot of different ways. So it's, it's been not a word that we've been using very much on my campus directly necessarily, but it's a word that I think about a lot related to the work that I do with burnout. So burnout resilience to me is really being in that vulnerability, being in that space where you can say, I'm going through this and you have a safe space to be able to talk about that. It doesn't mean I'm bouncing back and I'm going to be peppy in the classroom or something like that. But when it doesn't feel natural, we, I think often when we say resilience, we really do think about bouncing back, but where are we bouncing to right now? So, and I don't think back is where we want to go. And I don't think back to better is, is a thing really, right?
We are moving forward. We are in a different place. So resilience in this case, maybe just means being open to those changes and open to the lessons that we have actually really learned. We, I feel like there's been so much humanity in the context of the pandemic as, as we've been going through it, right. We've we see our students, we see into their homes, we see them differently than we ever have before. And they've seen into our homes and they see us in different ways too. So how do you go back from that? You can't go back from that. And why would we want to, as if back was, was better in the past? Well, let's, let's interrogate that rather than focus on bouncing back.
BS: Yeah. I have not loved the word because sometimes I think the word and actually kind of goes to burnout too. But, but it's like, if you, if you became burned out or if you weren't resilient, somehow there's something wrong with you. And that I've had people on the podcast before talk about the problems that they have with the, with the word or the concept of grit. And it's a similar thing like, oh, you'll get that academic achievement. If you just have enough grit and if you don't have enough grit, then somehow that's your fault. You know? So it's kind of, um, that's why I've tried to be careful, but some people, I think probably do feel a lot of empowerment out of looking back at what they've been through and saying, gosh, I really have felt like I've had that kind of resilience. So it's kind of a mess.
RPR: I think thinking about it as empowerment, how do we empower people to stay in those spaces and to stay in those mindsets and to take that forward with them, maybe a better word than resilience. How do we empower each other? How do we empower ourselves to, to bounce back, whatever that possibly could mean, but to be open to the things that are in front of us and actually looking at the things that are in front of us, not just the way that we used to do everything. So what do you find most professionally fulfilling about doing the podcast?
BS: I love getting to talk to people who just have done these amazing things, and sometimes they don't even see it as amazing, but I mean, sometimes just the tiny, teeny tiniest things that don't take a lot of time or effort can make a transformative difference in students' lives. So the way that we might be able to connect even small efforts that we make toward something that turns out to add up to a lot of amazing things happening in people's lives.
RPR: I see you as a great model role model for that, the podcast, and then with your academic and your leadership roles. So you really are kind of a multihyphenate when we think of you as podcaster and teacher and leader and mother and wife and all those wonderful things all mixed up together. So can you tell us a little bit about your roles on campus?
BS: Sure. Yeah. In addition to teaching, I am the Dean of Teaching and Learning. So that means that I oversee the library and our student success efforts within student success. We have things like tutoring center. We have a specialized kind of tutoring called supplemental instruction. And that's a little bit more if you've considered tutoring, I was going to say over here, but no one can see me, but I'm holding one hand and then that are teaching over here. It sort of meets in the middle. So the people who perform the supplemental instruction actually sit in the class and then they're sort of facilitating in groups exercises to reinforce what happens in the class. So that's an area to the writing center. We also in the last year and a half opened up our Living Well Resource Center, which among other things provides a food pantry for faculty, staff, and students. We also just recently launched a closet, a career closet pop-up that people can go and get, get clothes and that kind of thing. And then the last one, of course, is sort of where my more leadership experience in academics came about, which is faculty development. So I lead our Institute for Faculty Development.
RPR: What's your favorite thing about that role?
BS: Oh, I, you know, it's funny cause I wasn't sure how I felt about it. So I, you love teaching so much. And one of the things that is sometimes challenging for me is that I studied something. My, my, my doctoral dissertation was on among other things. It was a construct called locus of control. And locus of control is a construct that says, how do we explain what happens to us? And one way we might explain it as more of an external locus of control. I was late to work today because I got caught up in traffic. And then there's an internal locus of control. I was late for work today. I should have left a little bit earlier. And so when I was studying it, my professor said, you know, you can keep talking about one of these things. Like it's a good thing. And one of these things like it's a bad thing.
And at the time I was not in faculty, I worked at a very, very large institution. And yeah, you probably can guess that at very, very large institutions find an abundance of is an external locus of control. And he said, I keep hearing you talk about that. Like, it's all a bad thing. It's just a thing. It's a thing that exists. But when there's a mismatch between your paradigm, if you tend to be more internal locus of control, surrounded by people and systems that see things as an external, that will cause stress for you. And I still vividly remember him saying, I suspect that if we talk a year from now, you'll probably, but they weren't won't work there anymore. And at the time I had no plans of leaving and then sure enough, you know, but ultimately I think both that I still sometimes fight against that desire to say it should, we should just figure out what we could do differently.
Please stop telling me it's our students fault. Now that one's easy. It's low-hanging fruit because the fruit, because I look like the hero in this story, but you know, I, when, when things are going wrong, I think I initially, when I got into higher education, saw it as like, oh, you know, cheating, for example, that's everything about their character, their choices. I'm not a part of this. That's all on you. Versus I look at things so differently, much more akin to my tendency toward an internal locus of control, but there are things like burnout. I suspect you're you might thinking about this in your head that are outside of our real ability to control our influence that we are going to be affected by. So a more nuanced view about these things. So you're wondering perhaps as I am, how does this relate to my question?
I thought that when I got into faculty development, I would encounter too much of the it's our students fault young people today. They just don't listen. They just don't respect us. They just don't read enough. They're not prepared, you know, all, all of those kinds of things. And I have been delighted that that is more often than not. I get to work very closely with people who are very interested in becoming more effective at facilitating learning. And so that's wonderful and that we also can have a lot of nuanced conversations about systems and structures and, you know, understanding that, and that generally speaking, if someone is really, really on the end of things, shaming, first of all, we don't have that, that happens at all, but if it ever was going to happen, they don't tend to come to faculty development and don't tend to want coaching from us. So it's, it's turned out, you know, a lot better than I thought, because it is so close to my sense of purpose, sense of mission, which is very focused on students.
RPR: I really enjoy faculty development from the coaching aspect, also working with groups of faculty so that they can, you see them bouncing ideas off each other and they end up kind of self-coaching and you're just there to kind of facilitate, facilitate and hold that space for them to work together and think about, and to see other folks who really love teaching as well, too, to be in a room with other people, which we haven't been able to do for a while, but we're obviously very much looking forward to be in a room together again and say, this is hard. I love my students, but this is hard. Let's what do you do in this case? How do you support your students in this way? What can we do better to make sure that they're learning, but that also I'm taking care of myself in the process of that, because there's so many ways you might, that you might kind of swing one way to harder the other way. So how do you, how do you maintain some sense of whatever balance looks like for you in that, in that context? Um, but really still share that passion or that love or even that growing passion for, for teaching is, is really fun to watch.
BS: The other day we facilitated, we did, we're doing one of those course design intensives that I know a lot institutions do. This is, it's not the first time we've done it, but it's the first time we've done this version of it. And especially in a pandemic, but we kicked it off. And I was using that Google Jamboard thing. We're doing sticky notes around, uh, some, a rubric on teaching effectiveness from our course design, from OLC, the Online Learning Consortium. But the last page was my favorite. The last page was okay, let's move away from that. Just think more holistically about this last year and a half. What's one lesson that you would like to take with you into this next semester, next academic year. And then some, and I really felt, I just could have had conversations for months about the wonderful nuggets that they put up there. It was, it was absolutely an astoundingly beautiful thing to say, to see. And I love that I got to have both that conversation, but I feel like now we have this artifact that I can keep going back to. And just like you said, oh gosh, that is one of the most powerful things. We're all learning from each other and solidarity toward a common aim. And it just feels so good to be some small part of that, for sure
RPR: That that's an artifact that the faculty can go back to too and see what their peers have said and to remind them of, of what was powerful for them, what they can take forward, what are some maybe ideas for something else they could take forward with them where we're kind of talking about our summer intensive institutes as teaching forward, how do we teach into the next, rather than thinking about going back to normal or things like that. And I, I hope that that's something that's resonating with faculty the way that it's resonating with us in our center.
So you're a, multihyphenate like we said before, you have multiple roles, um, and you do them also beautifully. So how do you, the roles that you do, faculty member, leader, podcast, or mom, how did those, how do those enhance each other?
BS: Sometimes they don't, but I teach, I teach a class every, every year and it's an elective class, upper division management. I love it. And it's about personal leadership and productivity. And one of the things that they do in that is they write a mission statement. They go through a number of exercises, ultimately write a vision statement and then have their values. And so one of the things I get such a kick out of doing is we have that for our family too. We have a family mission statement. And so I have a recording of my husband kind of talking about that and our kids are much younger. And as of the recording this video, but I can't quite rerecord it yet because it was so priceless just because it was really so emblematic of us as a family and everything. But I noticed really two things that show up a lot in my own work on as an individual mission statement and then also within our families.
And that is a blend between challenge, that idea of wanting to be, or myself doing things that are meaningful, significant actually matter, wanting to help other people be able to do things and their lives to be able to show up in ways that they can bring their strengths to them, whether it is someone that I lead or whether it's a student or whether it's one of our kids and that kind of thing. So, so equipping others to be challenged and stretched, not stretched so far that it would feel like I'll never be able to get there, but just a little bit beyond what you might think as possible. And then also feeling that a lot of the word encourager shows up in a lot of that too. I love encouraging people because some of us need that encouragement in order to have the confidence that we need that self-efficacy of course shows up a lot in the literature to be able to do those things.
We're not quite sure we're going to be able to do. And so a lot of, a lot of that is overlapping between me as a leader, between me as a parent, as a wife and a friend, a family member, that kind of thing. I think the other thing that shows up a lot for me in terms of overlapping is wanting to be a person of integrity and the word integrity gets talked about a lot, just like the word honesty, other values. And oftentimes we're all really talking about some different things there. And the book that really stood out for me, although I really should go back and read it again because it was so good. Did you ever read that The Four Agreements?
RPR: I don't think so.
BS: Well, it is one of those, someone on Twitter the other day was just talking about that they never have rewatched movies and they're like, there's something wrong with me. And I was thinking, I so rarely go back and reread books. I do have some that I go back and reread, but this is one given how much I talk about it. Why have I not gone back and read it by the way? I have to say a quick note. Cause it's so good. So yes, please, please. If you're listening The Four Agreements, Sososososo very good. And I just have to quickly mention one of the agreements is never take anything personally. Oh wow. I know. Literally you could just read that part and just be like, I'm done. I don't even have to read the rest because that's kind of one of the, most of the time people actually don't mean things personally. And even on the rare occasions where they actually do, and we're not just messing ourselves up or our minds are playing tricks on us.
We don't have to choose to take it back. That's actually a choice. So that's all heavy thing. But anyway, that what I'm thinking about now is the one of the other agreements around integrity. And that's all about being the kind of person does what you say you're going to do. And I think even that we oversimplify, oh, of course I do what I say. I'm going to do. If you say it, that carte blonde like, oh yeah, I got that covered. I can skip to the next chapter. I think you're probably missing it because it is a daily effort. You'll be the kind of person who does what I say I'm going to do. Do I get it perfect ever? No, but do I yearn to constant the be as close to that ideal as I could. Absolutely. And part of that is staying know and being able to say no, well from every little thing, I had a dear friend of mine.
I didn't talk to her about this, but she had recommended to a student. She teaches classes that are so close to my values. I mean, so close to anyone's values, like, like it's, you know, anti-human trafficking and family violence and things like that. And so one of her students, if, if any of her students come to me, I know that they're taking really important, meaningful, hard classes. And so this student wanted to talk to me about in human resources, what are the ways that we can help prevent sexual harassment? And this is something that I care about. And then it's my friend who suggested me to her student. And she would never do that. If it wasn't, you know, something really important. You wouldn't just send someone out. I mean, all these things, but I'm thinking the week that I'm having. And so it turned out that I very graciously said, gosh, I'm just not going to be able to do this.
I actually have someone else who I think might be able to help you. And you probably already know how this story ends, Rebecca. She had a wonderful conversation with someone in our human resources department. Who's way closer to that than I am. I mean, I years ago you still be in a leadership position where one of my functions was human resources. It's been decades since that's the case. I'm really not the right person. But to be able to say no in a way that then builds your confidence of that was actually a better answer than my yes would have been. And then anytime we say no, what that does is both. Maybe it gets the person to the better place they would have wanted to be anyway. And then also maybe means that we get to say yes to the things that actually are that much closer to where we're the right person, it's the right time and all of this.
So that, that second thing really resonates with me is just wanting to be a person of integrity who does what I say I'm going to do. And this comes up in everything, whether it's class planning, leadership, productivity, whatever you call that managing one's email, managing one's calendar, managing. I just had a great conversation with my mom. The other day, family is coming into town and, and sometimes with certain family members, when you don't see them for years and years and years, you're not going to have really super edifying conversations. What you're going to have for a whole bunch of reasons. Especially if there's kids around is a lot of surface conversation. So I got to both, it wasn't even asking me cause we know each other so well, but it was kind of like, how do we make this potential visit? And times when I might connect with these family members who are not normally in town, how do we make that the best for everyone given the circumstances, which are, yes, we are still in a pandemic and yes, our children are still doing remote learning and um, might not be done with it by the time they're visiting new to all of these factors.
Just how wonderful when you think about being a person of integrity so that when you show up, you show up with the kind of mindset of how you might contribute to something that's more meaningful than just if you said yes to everything or just if you said no to everything or just, if you said, oh, I can't manage my email. So don't have any expectations I'll ever get back to you. Or if you tried to overdo that and it's just anything that's not about letting our yeses say yes, and letting our knows me, knows our maybes be made. These are not now as be not now as you know, just really trying to be a person of integrity when it comes to the kinds of commitments that I take on and that they are really the first thing that happens in a schedule or in time that I might commit as the most important things, those most important values.
And then, yeah, occasionally we let ourselves binge watching Netflix that may not fall in that bucket. But if we've got the big rocks in there first, then we're able to, you know, do the stuff that you can just say yes to because your mind just needs to do dance for a moment. I'm kidding. There was some television show that was all over Twitter last night. And I was like, I better write this down. And I didn't, and now I've already forgotten. I probably just saved myself like hours and hours an hour. So something must be popular right now that I missed.
BS: I love the way you talk about values and how important your values are and knowing your values and helping your students figure out how to identify values. That's always been something that I think I've struggled with because a lot of my values ultimately were coming from higher ed and from not, not for myself, from my core, the, the achievement and the continuing to, to up the, up the expectations and to meet those higher levels of expectations and to move into leadership roles or to take whatever the next step up the ladder is, because that's what you're supposed to do. And that's what you're supposed to base your professional life around. And we know as academics, our professional lives can very much bleed into hours outside of work lives. And now even more when we're our work is for many of us in our homes.
So that idea of really understanding what your values are and practicing them every day and something like saying no or saying yes appropriately, those are boundaries. And that's a piece of living your purpose. That's a piece of having self-compassion and potentially compassion for some someone else. As you mentioned, in your example, that student had the conversation that she needed. Right. And it wasn't necessarily with you. And that was, that was fine. It was, it was about her, on what she needed. And you know, your value said, I can't do this right now, but I know someone who can help you.
BS: Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely true. And I think something else I would want to come out of today's conversation too, is I think we can play tricks on ourselves. And so can our social structures, et cetera, where we think we look at other people and we think, oh, they must just nail this all the time. And I could never be that. And I tend to get in this sometimes not with, with these kinds of things. Because I, I think, I think, and I write and I speak about these kinds of things a lot more. But for me sometimes with the podcast I get into where I kind of make the assumption that everybody else knows a lot more than they actually know. So if I, I think it's sometimes healthy if I admit things that, and sometimes people do this as well on social media where it's like, um, I'm trying to think of the other day I joked and said that I, I don't think I've ever spelled this word.
Right. You know, I can't, sometimes I can't even get it right enough that spellcheck knows what I'm talking about and I have to go and Google it. I always love those conversations because it's like, oh my gosh, I'm not the only person that can't, you know, I just turned 50 recently and I still can't spell this word or whatever. So I think when we talk about living with integrity, when we talk about living with balance, with our priorities, all these things, I don't know anyone who does that a hundred percent of the time. I do know people that aim for it better and more regularly put into practice things that will help them get closer to it. But I think the challenge is when we think you're either there, or you're not because you're not either there, or you're not, you're just moving closer toward it or moving further away from it.
You're never really there and you're never really not there. And, and cause so much of this to me comes around shame. I have to think a lot about work because while I have not tended to really ever really be interested in the achievement things in the nature that you just shared, I don't sit around going, man, if I could just one day be a Dean, I'm kind of like looking around like how on earth did this happen? This feels, feel silly. Now, now that I've been at it long enough, I've had a few times where someone will refer to me as deans to Hove yak. And I always just want to burst out laughing even though I don't. Cause it would just be silliness if I did. But it just, that sounds weird. You know, that's not something that I've aspired to, but I will say that doesn't mean I don't aspire to things.
What, what really gets me feeling alive is working, making meaningful progress toward goals. And so when I told you the story about the podcast and the fact that I've had a podcast every single week since the pandemic, I mean, someone could be like, wow, she's amazing. I hope you're also thinking, oh, that could also not be good. Like, like that. Could I remember Katie Linder is another fellow podcaster that I know, you know, as well. So she's before she's always in my mind cause she will take off two or three weeks. I think she does it during December. And then I think she might do it during the summers too. And still to this day, I think as recently as this morning, I was kind of thinking maybe you do want to get to place where you might. I mean, I don't know that anybody would care or maybe you just repeat episodes or so I still think about things like that.
So I do think it's really great when we can be in that flow Mihail. Um, how, gosh, I can never pronounce his last name.
RPR: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
BS: There we go. Speaking of words, that trouble me, you know, that I get into flow. I lose all track of time and it is just all consuming in the best humanly way possible. That's great. If our jobs can be even some portion of that kind of work, how great is that? So if I happen to do that on a Saturday or on a Sunday, I don't want to shame myself because that brings me a lot of joy. And I also have a job at work that I, that does or doesn't involve podcasting depending on how you ask it, that kind of thing. And I also happen to love it, but if it's seven days a week and I don't take the time off and I am not living up to commitments to family members of that.
So it's always just a question of us regularly needing to ask ourselves what is important to us, both for this season of our lives. What is important for us? Um, sort of on a bigger horizon, but especially that we're about to go into here in the states summertime. And so what, what should that season look like? And then, uh, I'm on an 11 month contract. So what would that look like for taking some time off and, and how would I like that to be? And those are just always really important questions. I just think we get into trouble. A, if we get into shame, shame for doing something that you love, just because it doesn't happen to happen at the time that everybody else, if everyone else would sit Monday through Friday, does that mean I have to, I need to get over that shame. And then I need to also recognize that we're never there. You know, we're, we're maybe moving closer toward that or moving further away. And I want to be moving closer toward that being a person of integrity, every chance that I get,
RPR: What an image to think about the moving towards something rather than I think when we think about balance, right? We often think about when we say work-life balance or something like that, we often think there's a 50-50 split there. And balance is a misnomer in this case, maybe it's alignment, maybe it's integration. Maybe it's just life. How do we work to achieve balance? We have to understand what that means for us. What does balance mean? What does that based on if it's based on your purpose, it's based on what brings you joy. If it's based on connections and compassion with other people and living your purpose, then balances what it is for you.
And we, you were speaking earlier too. It reminded me of Brene Brown’s “the stories we tell ourselves” could line the story I'm telling myself right now is I shouldn't be doing this or I should be writing or why am I not working? Or am I not spending enough time with my children and allowing ourselves the grace to determine what we need right now, what that looks like in this season, as you said, and the vulnerability piece and the avoiding the shame and allowing yourself to be present in the moments can be so powerful for how we show up for our students and show up for each other as faculty.
BS: I absolutely love that. The stories we tell ourselves paradigm from Brene Brown, I'm going to extend it a little bit, because I know this is not what she meant by that, but I love stories from other people that help us eradicate some of any guilt or shame we might feel around things. And so as I grew up with very traditional gender norms from my parents as did my husband, and it does crack me up because we do have it around spiders. So, and we do have it around taking out the trash. So he, he takes care of spiders and he takes out the trash, but he doesn't take out the trash because men are supposed to take the trash out. He takes out the trash because we have a different philosophy about fresh to me. You empty the trash when the trash can is full.
And to him, you empty the trash the night before the trash truck is going to arrive to remove the waste. So rather than having an argument about it, he just does the trash the way he wants. So this has worked out really well for us. One story that stands out for me so much in all of this is as, as in terms of that, sometimes parents might need to hear this if they are working parents. And if they have children in the home who still need to rely on them, for things like food, things like that, that I'm a woman that many, many, many years ago I used to be in a group with we'd sometimes do book clubs and things like that. And I remember her talking about that. She was a, she was a controller. So she worked in finance. Her husband also worked so coworking parents, um, with, with kids, both that were young kids.
So I remember her vividly talking about that. Her mom used to make money by ironing clothes. And so she remembers ironing clothes with her mom and then understanding that that was how her mom made money and that she would help her mom, you know, and all of these things. So just the idea. Now I crack up because our kids are of the age. So they are seven and nine and they are of the age. And they also have the personalities that they understand that sometimes how I make money is either by teaching or sometimes I make money by speaking. And occasionally when I do speak in events, I'll have one of those green screens behind me. So when I do that, I normally teach or speak in a loft and our kids' bedrooms are right below that law. So the soundproofing is a little bit of an issue, but sometimes the noise canceling headphones help.
But anyway, they know symbolically if that screen is up, that means do not come upstairs and interrupt. And it also means that's one of the ways mommy makes money. And so I can not tell you the number of times in the last six months I've been presenting and I get, so speaking of being in the flow, I just lose all sense of time, space, you know, all of that. I get completely enveloped in the moment and finding so much joy and meaning in that. And then, you know, I'll stop and say goodbye to everyone. And I'll just think I'm alone. And all of a sudden I'll hear, “meow.” My daughter knows how long this is. One of the things that mommy does to make money. And I'd really like to say hello to her or Meow at her. It was just a good thing. And I mean, it just cracks me up.
So I think sometimes like, is that balance? Was I with her then? Was I not with her then? You know, I mean, if we tried to measure those things, was there some kind of meaning for her get to get, to see what it is that I do and understand and be interested enough to sit there for however long, but by the way, they do remote learning. So it's not like it was hours so that, you know, first 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it was, you know, I don't, I think we should be a little bit careful about being too legalistic about whatever boundaries we try to set up for ourselves, unless there's some real important reason why, I mean, sometimes you have to get used to kind of a new thing. So if you're trying to set new boundaries or norms, that kind of thing, sometimes we can be clumsy.
I didn't, maybe we have to kind of err, on the side of, especially if it's a relationship we've had for a long time, we have to renegotiate those boundaries and have a speaking of Brene Brown, the rumbles, we have to have, you know, harder conversations and stuff and work our way into a new way of being together and living together or being in a classroom class, community or leadership, you know, elements together. But, but yeah, sometimes legalism gets too legal, right. Too rigid about it. And could that be an enriching memory that our daughter has about getting to catch these bumps as of what her mom does and would she ever have had that? Otherwise I don't know
RPR: What an amazing potential memory, right. But definitely a memory for you. She may remember too. That's amazing. So as we wrap up our time together, if you're thinking about women in higher education now, what is one thing from your experience that you would want women in higher education to know what's one piece of advice you might offer?
BS: One thing that comes up as a pattern for me, oftentimes with women is that we don't negotiate very well for ourselves. So over many, many, many years, decades, whatever, whether you're talking about salaries in an academic context or salaries outside of an academic context, or where anything associated with what one gets compensated, you know, bigger pictures, benefits, vacations, all of those things. And this is born out in the, if you just look at even the research of the, the statistics around your, your entry level job out of college, assuming you're a traditional aged college student, 18 to 22, and you're coming out and getting that first professional job, that men will be more likely to ask for a counter and then women will not. And then if you did nothing else, your entire career, and then you just got 3% cost of living every, you know, however, that's a ridiculously huge gap is only one factor by the way, only one factor between some of the wage disparities.
And I don't even want to get into that. But, but so in that, that giant realm of things, a pattern that I both see as anecdotally and also comes out in the research is that we, we, women can sometimes not negotiate very well for ourselves. So one thing that I have found helps all of us is that if we don't negotiate on behalf of ourselves. So if we go into those kinds of conversations, not thinking about this is me, but this is us. Whoever us may be, sometimes us may look like a nuclear family, but sometimes us may look like, oh, I know that my parents may need to go into a home because they're not doing very well. So they may need additional medical care. We have to have a medical care person come and visit. And financially I'm going to know, I need to contribute to that.
So now I'm negotiating for myself and for someone else in my life. So I don't just think of it as me. I think of it as we, and even if you don't have someone else that you can think of, is there a nonprofit that if you had a little bit more income or access to more vacation time or whatever it is, you'd be able to pour into that nonprofit. That means a lot to you. And that to me helps us kind of get over ourselves sometimes that it, it, it helps us not be as anxious. We can go into those conversations with a little bit more courage, perhaps. And then I also, in terms of those conversations, I also think it's really important for us to be thinking about what is it that we really want. Sometimes we get really locked into the symbolism of money and it isn't actually about the money.
And so what is it that we really, really want? And I think those are those two things negotiating on behalf of us and then really thinking deeply about what we really want in terms of when we're entering into anything that might be described as a negotiation is really, really important. And I'm sure you've probably heard of her seeing such wonderful books about negotiation, but when we get locked into our positions, that's where we get ourselves into trouble instead of what, what is it that you want that's that comes before you get to, what is your position about, I want this much money or this much vacation or this much, whatever it is we're trying to get out of that. And boy, when we get locked in that doesn't really result in often getting what we really want or if we get what we thought we want, then the relationship is, um, less good, less full of trust because it felt like that, you know, came from manipulative ways. And we were trying on clothes that didn't really fit us very well in these negotiations. And so those are the, those are the things I, I generally think of in terms of what women more holistically need from my observations more often than maybe men do. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole, probably a whole other conversation. Huh?
RPR: Definitely. But that's such great advice, really advocating for yourself in multiple contexts. And really, I love the idea of really focused thinking about what you want, because especially in higher ed, we are essentially trained to think we want these certain things, the next step up the ladder or something like that. And really thinking about what you want may not be on that same path. It may not even be in higher ed, but recognizing that what you want has meaning it has value in whatever context you decide to be in. So, well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. It was lovely to talk to you again, Bonnie.
BS: Well, thank you for having me on the podcast. I'm so excited to be here and I'm walking away from this conversation feeling like just completely uplifted. I really enjoy getting to talk with you again. And I, I hope, and also, can I say, I know this won't be the last time because I’ve got to get you on and talk about your book. We got to do the role reversal here soon. When it comes out or I didn't miss it yet, did I?
RPR: It's in draft. It's almost, it's almost completely drafted. So,
BS: So please, if I don't say it, didn't say it before, please come back onto to the higher ed. Because we need to hear about this book and I can't wait. We can't wait.
RPR: Thank you so much.
BS: Well, thank you again. And I'll talk to you soon.
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Thanks for listening to this episode of the agile academic podcast for women in higher ed. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. To make sure you don't miss an episode, follow the show on Apple, Google, or Spotify podcasting apps and bookmark the show. You'll find each episode, transcript, and show notes at https://theagileacademic.buzzsprout.com. Take care and stay well.
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