Cynthia Ganote on Taking Care of Yourself and Making Your Own Way

On this episode, I talk about taking care of yourself and making you own way in higher education with Dr. Cynthia Ganote. 

Transcript

Rebecca Pope-Ruark: Hello, listeners. Welcome to the agile academic, a podcast for women in and around higher education. This season, I talked by 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 Rebecca Pope rework.com/sprintweeks. 

RPR: Hi, Cynthia. I'm so happy to have you on the show. It's good to see you, friend. 

Cynthia Ganote: It's great To see you, Rebecca. Thank you so much for having me. 

RPR: Yeah. I'm excited that We finally caught up. We've been playing, we've been playing podcast tag for a while, so 

CG: Really, really I have been so looking forward to this, to really getting to talk to you today. 

RPR: So why don't you go ahead and just introduce yourself and tell everyone a little bit about your journey. 

CG: So I'm Cynthia Ganote. I am a sociology professor at the University of Louisville. I was a tenured professor out in the Bay Area for a number of years, and I was always someone who felt like my academic work is bigger than just what I do in the classroom. Then my teaching, research, and service. And so as my work expanded, after I got tenure, I started thinking about, you know, this work with students is really meaningful. What I want to write is really expanding to public audiences. So more like public intellectual stuff and the service load at my university was so incredibly high that it was, uh, really draining at some point from the other areas that I decided to switch back to my hometown into a term position, actually, because that's what was available and to try to be on this journey, to get my work into the right size in the academy, to where I could do the teaching. I'm so passionate about the kind of writing that I want to do, and then be able to do all kinds of other creative projects that were calling me at this point in my career. 

RPR: I think that's inspiring. I think that you recognized, um, what your situation was and what you really wanted to be able to do and made it made steps to change that in ways that we don't necessarily always validate in higher education, really taking that into, into your own hands and moving forward in the way that you needed to for yourself and for your work. So I thank you for being inspirational in that sense. 

CG: Gosh, thank you for saying that. And you know, I say it in the sentence like, and so I did this, like it was easy or like it was obvious. I'm really downplaying the level of discernment that, that took to leave a tenure job. You are another person I know who left a tenure job. I have recently met a handful of other women who have left their tenure jobs and it's truly an inspiring group of women. To me, that was the hardest decision I've certainly ever made in my life. And so it wasn't easy, but I promise you, it was the right decision for me. And on the other side of it, it was a hard deliberation, but on the other side of it, I just feel just, it's so clear about what I did and why I needed to take that into my own hands. And as you said, in a way that was pretty counter-cultural, I mean, people don't leave tenure jobs, right? That's the people just don't leave them. And, and it's, uh, something I grappled with and can only imagine you did too, but that was the right thing for me. And thank goodness I did that. 

RPR: Right. And both of us were eligible for full professor when we left. Right. It was absolutely, it was, it was just time for us. And I did leave a tenured position as well during my burnout. And it really wasn't about that institution. It was about really needing change and to try something different in the areas that I was still passionate about what with higher education and that wasn't necessarily teaching my own students anymore. It was teaching and working with faculty who worked with students, and that was a shift that I needed to make for my own mental health. 

CG: I just hear that so clearly Rebecca, and for me, there was an aspect that was about, um, so a little different nuance for me. My work with my students, my direct worthless work with my students still felt really meaningful. There were all these other institutional parts that were a deep, deep problem for me. Now, there were many wonderful people at my last institution, but a structural problem was that the level of service required would just eat up my life spirit. And there was so much patriarchy and systemic racism that came in. I don't believe that institution is at all unique in having those elements, but those would come in so deeply in the service piece because in my own classroom, I could set the rules of engagement. I could say, you know, this is a community of learners where, you know, we're going to hear multiple voices. We're going to be collaborative supportive, and we're going to weave a tapestry of dialogue in here. The most important thing is that we treat each other with respect and dignity, all those sorts of things. I could really create a container for beautiful dialogue across difference, and I teach race, class, gender, and sexual inequalities. 

And so we're constantly having these dialogues that so often people have forgotten how to have out in the public. So we'd be having this beautiful set of dialogues with it within beautiful community. And I'd walk into faculty spaces. And none of those, I don't want to say none. So many of those rules were not the rules of engagement and that being a part of something, I received so much patriarchal obstacles, pressures, barriers, even so far as being sexually harassed. At one point, that was just the final thing that made me leave the place. 

But all leading up to that, there were all kinds of pieces that were about my particular perspective. Applying what I did that lens to the institution was received a lot of pushback that just took so much of my life spirit that I felt like, uh, there was a point where I just said “Closing Time” by Semisonic yep. You got it. You got a girl, same era here. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here is really what came to me. And I couldn't, it, it accumulated to a level that I just said, I won't live this way anymore. That's not, I don't know what lies on the other side, but I can't do this anymore. 

RPR: It takes a lot of bravery to be able to say that in this context, right? I mean, higher ed causes burnout. Many, many industries cause burnout, but it's institutions and cultures that cause burnout. And when those cultures are so patriarchal and racist, classist, all of you sexist, you wrap it all up together. And certainly not every institution is like that all the time, but we all have our, we certainly all have our moments, um, more than we would like probably. So getting up the bravery to be able to say, I love you my students, but I can't do this anymore. Takes a lot of guts. 

RPR: Thank you so much. It was wrenching. It was absolutely wrenching. It was an awful process to go through, but an important process to go through. I, people have said that, thank you so much. They've said it's brave. I really felt terrified, but it came to commitment. I can't not do this until I die. I don't want to die. Having done, having lived in this environment for so many years that the spark has just put out in me. It was more important to me that my spark, my commitments, my purpose were lived out. No, it became clear. It couldn't be lived out in that context anymore. That was clear. It was going to make me sick. It was making me sick. Yeah, me too. Going to make me very sick. And I don't know if you worried about this, Rebecca. I worried I would get so sick. I couldn't come back from it. Like it would be something I couldn't recover from. So there's some element of preserving your, your, yourself, your purpose, and your calling that propelled me through, I mean, abject terror at different parts of that leading process, 

RPR: Right? That resonates so closely to my experience in terms of with in my very first therapy session for burnout. When, when my therapist was able to say, I think this is what this is. I continue to push back on that. And so she said something along the lines of, if you don't recognize this and you don't deal with it, you may not come back from it. So it had, I had to deal with it. I had to take it on and it, of course it was terrifying. Who was I outside of that context? So it does, it takes bravery. It takes courage. It's terrifying, but it's powerful when you come out tThe other side of it, it really.

CG: Isn't us pretty broken on the other side. Let me say that I have re juvenile nation re covering, refreshing re animating work to do with myself. And I had, you know, professional caregivers and, and I call it for me, call it spiritual hospital. I will start to get myself into just a complete barrage of the kinds of things that I know really fill my spirit. And so I had a ton of work to do on the other side. It's like, you hold it all together. And until you're actually out, and then you really break, or that was it for me and that. So I had a lot of work to do on that side. But one of the biggest processes is something you mentioned. It was the identity piece of who am I outside of this context. I kept saying, who am I, if I'm not a tenured professor? 

And I broke down in tears, I was staying at my parents' house for a couple days. And I said to my mom, I don't even know who I am. If I'm not a tenured professor, this place has gotten its hooks into me. I don't know. The system has gotten into me. And my mom just looked at me and said, do you think that your dad and I care what you do? I mean, we love you. The people who love you love you, whether you're a tenured professor barista, or, uh, you work in retail or you like fill in the blank, we love you no matter what. And I looked at her really, mom, I mean, I, honest to God, Rebecca was in a space of, I just take the identity has just taken me over. And she just looked at me and just my mom doesn't really say, duh, it was the equivalent of duh. 

You know, she just looked at me at his face like, duh, do you think anybody who loves you cares about that? We love you. And it was that nugget that allowed me to walk out of that really dark space of, I don't even know what's on the other side. And I kept after that, of course not knowing what was on the other side, because I left without a new job at first. And so I had this, I don't know who I am. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what my life is. I want to make sure I'm not homeless. I had this mantra again, being homeless. I knew what my parents weren't going to let me be a homeless, but I just had a lot of fears. And I came to on the other side, I really don't know what the other shore looks like, but I, I have left this shore and I am, it's like, I'm rowing towards something. I finally could believe I was rowing towards something, but I had no picture on that other side. And that lasted for a while, you know, but it was, but it was okay. Once I realized I was still loved, it was still lovable. I was still all these things with out being a tenured professor and some thing in that, let me get the identity hooks out of me and go into a truly what was unknown to me. 

RPR: Yeah. I tell a story in my book about my students at, at my previous institution called me by my initials. So everyone called me RPR. And after a while, that RPR kind of became armor for me that I was kind of hiding behind. And once that, those breakdowns started happening, kind of pulling that off and saying, okay, I was her for so long. What am I now, if I'm not wearing that armor, am I still, am I still a teacher? Am I still a researcher? Am I, am I a human being now, do I have to look at what I'm human being and human doing? And when that's not higher, ed, who are you when you're not doing higher ed? 

CG: I Just so clearly hear you at every level, Rebecca mine was professor going out or actually people, students just to calling me going out. And so I was going out and, you know, and I, I love and have relationships with them connected on social media and through zoom and other things with so many former students. So my, I knew those relationships had meant so much and they would last, but it really was the, I don't know who I am without being professor going out. And so am I, if I'm not a human doing, I'm not doing that. And that was what I did. What if I'm just like a blob that feels pretty broken on the other side of it, it really was the love of my family that got me through that phase and got me to a place where I could go. Maybe I am still a teacher, even if, and, and now of course, on the other side of that, I, me, I am a teacher. 

I'm an educator at heart. I am, there is no doubt about it. Doesn't have to be currently enrolled university students that are the ones I'm working with. I feel so lit up when I'm able to work with different institutions on this work. I do about micro resistance. So micro resistance in the face of microaggressions, I work with it. So all been in higher ed so far, but actually the principles apply everywhere. Just work with folks about different communication tools they might use to micro resist when microaggressions come. And part of it is an ally development piece. Like how can we all take responsibility for the climates and our workspaces and communities and having groups do that formerly of course, in person. And it transitioned more to during the pandemic to Zoom and, you know, moving forward, it can be both that lights me up as well. 

Teaching that lights me up, facilitating other dialogues. You know, that's, that's my way as a teacher is facilitating dialogue. That is a gift that doesn't go away without that identity within academia. And what's like the, the box of professor, once that's taken off, then you have this well, how do those things want to live in the world? How do those gifts that I have that other people, I know their gifts of mind because other people comment on them a lot over time. And I think they're easy. Like, oh, that's just maybe me. That doesn't seem like a big deal. While some people call it super your super power. Some people call it, you know, whatever it is I now realize, oh, those can kind of live in, breathe out in the world in some new ways, if we aren't confined to that classroom or that system, or that way of this is exactly what I do. That's been a liberating process for me, 

CG: That resonates with my experience so much. I've enjoyed as much as burnout is a hard topic. Just like what you talk about is such a hard topic. It's still powerful and importance of you having those conversations with people across, across the spectrum, especially in higher education where most of my work happens. So having those conversations with people, even if there's not a conversation, even if I'm sharing information for them and they're not ready to talk about it, which is fine, or they don't think that they need to talk about it in that moment, I can put those seeds in their heads. So they have some definitions. So they have some, some strategies, if they do need those later on, that they can take in of themselves and use as they need to or share with someone else who might need it. So being able to take those facilitation skills, um, the presentation skills, and to be able to put that out there in a way that engender, a conversation among people around this really difficult topic is something that like you said, kind of fills me up these days. I just want to say that, that I just think your work on burnout could not be more important. I really do. 

It is something that I felt very alone in my process of melting down. Of course I had my, my friends, my colleagues, my confidence, of course, I had all of that in my former job, but I had to this feeling of, yeah, but I mean, I don't think everybody else is melting down over. I don't think anybody else, nobody else in my immediate circle at that time was in the, I mean, I got to go, like I got to get out. This is, this is not, this is killing my spirit. Nobody else was out that space. And so I was really in this, what is the matter with me that I'm unable to deal with? What we all can recognize in the oppressive elements in the system of higher ed is just, as you said, you know, the ways in which systemic racism, patriarchy class exploitation, heterosexism, liberalism, age-ism every, you know, American imperialism, all of it. 

We know the ways in which that lives within higher ed, because higher ed is an exempt from those systems live in our society. They live in all our institutions. And so as a sociologist, I had this, I know all of that. And I knew I was facing all these influences and I still felt really alone. Instead of now, I feel like your work is able to connect people who are having the same experience. I didn't feel like there was no one to listen to me. I felt like I was alone in my experience of that level of burnout. And so I love that you can normalize that, let people know our institutions actually drive this, create it. And I have to say the level of pandemic pressure in the last year has, has to be exacerbating burnout. And there were people who were already burning out. So is that 

RPR: Absolutely. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Um, and we're seeing it almost across the board, uh, characteristics of it, we'll see for faculty who have their summers this year, if there is that space to rejuvenate and come back from it, but we are all changed by what happened. We cannot go back to whatever the old normal was. And that has to conclude the humanity that came out during the pandemic. The seeing faculty think and talk to their students differently than they may have in the past, because you were literally seeing into their homes. They're seeing into our homes. These are human beings, maybe in ways that we unfortunately may not have spent much time thinking about and vice versa. So we, there's just this level of connection that wasn't there before. I think where that was easy to avoid, if you weren't actively cultivating it with your students, with, with your colleagues as well. So the vulnerability levels that came out of that led to discussions that I hope we continue to have 

CG: Rebecca, me too. I have such a, I just saw everything you saw. You know, like I said, I took a term position back in my home city and you know, so was teaching this whole teaching full time university of Louisville this whole past year. And, oh my goodness. The connections with students were critical and students kept thanking me for the level of caring compassion I was offering. That's one of those things that I was like, I don't know. I think I've just being me. You know, it was remarkable to me at first that I kept hearing it, but I kept hearing it and, and, and realize that caring about who students are personally, for me, something that happened was I ended up going, you know, the student who would write to me and say, um, professor, I'm so sorry. I am, I'm having this horrible thing happened. I'm so sorry. Can I ask for a couple of days extension, like my goodness, number one, I'm so sorry that happened. Sending my best wishes for you and your family, you know, to, of course you can have extra time. I think it locked into place for Lincoln with what you said. I think it locked into place for so many. What's really important. I mean, was it just crucial that this student get this paper in on, you know, by Sunday at 11:59 PM? No. Why, why would it be now? What was crucial was that, you know, their beloved mother now has COVID and they are caring for getting groceries for her and eight, whatever it was. There were so many, so many different situations that were just absolutely critical and it locked. What's really important into place for me as well. 

RPR: I think it opened a lot of people's eyes to different levels of trauma as well. Thinking about trauma. We have, I think we all have kind of innate definitions of trauma that we maybe unfortunately get from TV or something like that and movies. Right. But what we've all experienced has been traumatic and it's been traumatic for students on multiple levels. Faculty are then engaging with students who are experiencing trauma while we're experiencing the trauma. And then I prefer example, I'm working with faculty who are working with students. So there's so many different levels of how, what do we do? How do we do this? How do we be in this context? And it's going to be really interesting to see what comes out of that. When things, when we come out of the pandemic itself, we're going to be different. We're all we will have all been somehow scarred by this trauma. So what does that look like on the other end? That doesn't mean we're broken. It just means we've had this experience and we've had this experience collectively, this is a collective experience. So how do we, how do we continue to live in that space of vulnerability and flexibility and not feeling shame for going through things like burnout or experiencing the culture in ways that we might not have been paying attention to before the pandemic 

CG: We absolutely are transformed. I couldn't agree more with you and something that really concerns me right now. Let's see how this rolls out. I hear different university going different universities going we're back in person in fall. We are this, we are that making these kinds of declarations. I fear expecting some kind of crazy pandemic retook quote, unquote returned to normal that I don't actually think is possible. And that I, as a sociologist, don't even think is desirable, but though I'm not right under it. Under the surface for these dialogues, the public messages that are being put out are, and Rebecca, what that doesn't incorporate of course, is everything you just spoke of what we've learned, what we've been through, the kind of care that may be needed for all of us has been, uh, I talk with different faculty members, some friends, some colleagues about there's, all this talk about care for students are concerned for students. 

And then the faculty who have borne the brunt of all of these, not just switching up pedagogies, you know, completely changing how you teach, but the extra care and compassion, the emotional labor involved all the while, going through trauma, yourself, having absorbed all of that, that a number of universities will then give kind of a, like, make sure you're doing self-care email. And I've had so many friends say, you know what, stop with that. Everyone. Every university's stop with the dang, take a self-care day email. If you're not going to recognize what kinds of supports are actual faculty need after what we've just done in the last year. So it's things like that. That actually get me a little bit concerned that maybe some higher ed leaders, I'm going to say many that I've seen across unit, you know, big public messages is all I'm talking about, but the big public messages do not seem to be capturing a nuanced understanding of what work might be involved, moving forward in this new normal, 

RPR: Or even a nuanced definition of what self care means. Right. I think it's so easy to say here's a link to a website that has things like take a vacation day or get a massage. And so many of the interventions for things like burnout are individual while it's a systemic problem. 

CG: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. My sociologist heart is just absolutely lighting up. Rebecca. When you say that it really is, our institutions have to respond. There has to be sick at a pressure cooker. There's a release valve. We have to have ways collectively to move forward. That's going to look different. According to institution, university of Louisville, where I am now is a big, very big institution. Of course, you're at a very big institution. Others are smaller, so places can be more and less nimble, I suppose. But individual go get a massage girl, or here's your EAP that yes. Okay. That's signaling like, perhaps you'd really like to seek some counseling. Perhaps you could use some other supports. Yes. That's big. That's crucial. That is important, but it's one tiny piece for an individual. It's not a collective response and it's not addressing the structure of work that has been expected of faculty. And then I don't really even know, you know, how those like you, who support faculty, how you've born it, you know, and how that's kind of really bled into your work. I, I, there's no one who's been exempt, no matter our roles in higher ed. So how could we move forward and pretend like nothing happened. 

RPR: And I do, I do also want to say that I think there are institutions who are taking this seriously. They're I mean, I'm on, I'm on a committee right now. That's looking at the impacts of COVID on faculty, wellbeing of faculty life and what that looks like in a variety of different areas. And I'm sure that lots of other schools are doing the same thing. It's just those immediate kind of one-liners and an email that says check out the website. Those things are really challenging to your own wellbeing. I think just kind of seeing that little ping there as if there's something wrong with you that you need to take care of yourself. And of course we need to take care of ourselves. That's a, that's a beautiful message. But what does that look like coming from the entity or the institution from an individual versus a system? 

CG: Absolutely. And I'm so glad that you both are involved in and know of, you know, places that are doing those efforts about impacts of COVID on faculty and on wellbeing and all this. I think that is incredible and is definitely a, a big piece. I haven't even seen that, but, but I will also say to me as a sociologist is just how much an individual perspective is prevalent in America. And so instead of thinking of the collective, instead of thinking of structures, institutions, ways in which both structure and culture may have to change. And by that meaning, you know, for faculty, what does the faculty load release look like moving forward? What is it that I know lots of places are thinking of? How can they look at tenure and promotion reviews? You know, with people having gone through COVID they are thinking of those things, how has it impacted people's research, agendas, all that. 

So people are really thinking thoughtfully through those and this collective wellbeing. What do the students need? What do the faculty need? What do the staff need? What do top administrators need? What do you know, what, what does everybody need and how can each unit take on, uh, what just happened? What did we learn that we'd like to move forward with? What are some practices that we learned? Wow, that was innovative. It was wonderful. Let's keep doing it. What are some of the things that we need from each other? How can we provide that care? How can we move our culture towards one of more care and compassion for everyone, not just sending it towards students, which is always needed, but sending it towards every member of the institution, all those collective efforts I think will go a long way. So I do think institutions who take that work seriously will reap the benefits, 

RPR: That level of collective metacognition about what happened really needs to happen. And Josh Eyler recently been giving a few talks and he gave one at Georgia Tech about the idea that we need to grieve what happened. We need to be able to kind of walk through that process. But in part of that is the metacognition of what have we learned? What can we put forward? And one of the things he says at the end of his talk is that we cannot yield the floor on these things. We have an audience, many of us who talk about these kinds of things. We have an audience, we need to keep that conversation going. We cannot just let it return back to some semblance of what it was before, because we're better now. And we need to be able to leverage that in powerful, important, and beneficial. That's so 

CG: Important. I'm thrilled to hear it. I'm so glad you point me towards his work and what he's doing at the moment, moving forward. That's incredible. I think that is smart. We are better. We really, we are better. And we've learned exponentially more than we knew, you know, in January, February, 2020, I would argue the ways in which, what did, how did you say put it, don't cede the floor. We can't say 

RPR: We cannot cede the floor. Yeah, 

CG: Absolutely. These conversations are primary. They have to remain primary and it's like we're so again, traumatized. So beaten up. So bruise. So, so much wish was shaken out through this process, a tummy sour. I am a pretend return to normal just does not name the important things that need to be named captured, worked through reflected on, in our, in both our micro spaces, our departments, our units, but also in the larger institutions. 

RPR: So what can we use, Cynthia? What do you think that we can be doing to as individuals or as smaller groups to support some of that systemic change that we're going to be grappling with right now? And we should be growing. 

CG: I love that question to me, both top leaders. So, you know, we're talking president, provost, deans, those kinds of leaders I think, would be really well served. So if an individual listening is in any of those roles, or if you're someone who could recommend this, I think that leadership needs to signal that it's important work to do this. As you called it, collective metacognition work and process through, you know, have facilitators, whoever folks in your midst, do it. However you want to do it. Have people talk about the pieces that maybe we didn't talk about when we were in the middle of crisis, we were just switching all our pedagogies. We were just pivoting. I kept hearing pivot, pivot, pivot. You know, we were just all pivoting so quickly. So there were so many things that we just all did to hold it all together, that we didn't have the conversation. 

So having that conversation now I think would be important. And I also think that as individuals, within departments, units, schools, we can also be the person. If we're not in that top leadership role, we can be the person who says, I think it's really important that we have these dialogues. Let's talk through how, when and where who's going to be. Our facilitator. Is that someone here, are we going to call in a consultant? Are we going to call in a facilitator or a colleague from another institution? You could call somebody to kind of frame the conversation and move that forward. Or obviously you could, you could just do it in a, what do we want to name that we haven't had time, presence or capability to discuss? What did we learn that was that we really want to keep? What are the parts that we, we really can't do that moving forward, this didn't work. 

We didn't know. We were, as people kept saying, building the plane as we're flying, we didn't know. There's no blame in my mind at all. But simply the reflection, the capture of, um, not just my individual, I've done a lot of that work individually for myself because it's important. But that collective say, am I in a department in a unit having that conversation I think is important. So one idea, maybe it's in the back to school in August kind of thing. Maybe it's a for now, you know, anybody who's just finishing. If you haven't already scheduled, you know, kind of a half day or something to do this work, then I get it. You can't really add that to the schedule immediately. Maybe you could start collecting through a survey or even a Google doc, or you could start having the dialogue and then maybe process it when you get back. 

You know, so people are sharing the ideas when they, while it's really fresh. So to me, each of us can be these catalysts who, as you say, Josh Eyler told you all not ceding the floor, regular August, we're back, everybody. I've got them a new school outfit ready to go. I don't feel that way. I don't feel capable of that. I don't want to act like nothing happened. And I, you, all of us, you know, could be the ones who put out the call for those conversations. I think it's an opportunity that could a rich opportunity that could easily be missed. If we start the fall, get those classes going and go. I now we're in week three. There'd be, nothing can be done. It's a whole new thing. Everything that we just learned and we ground through, I mean, just absolute grind at certain moments, just to get through the level of terror uncertainty, our family members having COVID four of my family members got COVID over the time one died. 

RPR: I’m so sorry.

CG: Um, thank you so much. It was harrowing and horrible experience that many share. I know, you know, how many share that or more family members who died or they had COVID themselves. And still, we're trying to have a friend who got COVID and was trying to teach his own classes still on online. And there was so much that we just went through giving ourselves the grace is important. Here's the other thing I wanted to say the summer for academics, we all know if you have the 12 month position, you at least get to start doing your own work. You can get into your own projects and have a kind of a little bit more quiet and time to focus in things like that. If you're faculty, you often do the teaching drops the minute you turn in your grades, assuming you haven't taken on summer teaching many do because they need to pay. 

But if you don't have that immediately to me, the usual is like, guess I get a battle week to just kind of be and recover. And then I got to get on that writing. So there's so much with the faculty line, at least that is about, well, now I need to crunch through every writing project that I possibly wanted to get serious work on, or for me I'm launching a new podcast. So I have the super excitement about it. And the, I guess I better start because I know what it feels like back again in August and how much of my creative time gets kind of crunched into the academic schedule in these little bits and pieces. And it's not like the summer. So I would urge, and I'm saying this out loud to hold myself accountable as well, far more time given to ourselves to, to truly rest. 

I mean, real rest, whatever that looks like for each person, what meaningful deep rest is. And then in the relaxation piece, whatever it is that you do, that's fun, easy, exciting that it truly just be a real period of time. That's just whatever it is that we long for. I was just in a workshop yesterday with a woman named Beth Godbee who does summer sheep. I was just in her workshop on summer writing projects. And she posed the question, what do you long for what we were talking about writing, you know, what does your, what are your head, heart and hands long to write, shifting that focus from what should I write? What do I have to write? What am I forced to re whatever the words are that are usually, you know, want to, for those who are on tenure track or those who are going up for full or whatever else, the system so often puts in our hats, her shift to what do you long for? 

I both applied that to my writing, but then I also took the question with truly what is my body mind and spirit long for this summer. And I hope to give it to myself. And I know it will be a practice of going that way and not just with the sheds. Here's what I should be doing. It's got to go. I mean, that's just got to go that, that went with the pandemic for me about that being a frame that I, that I plan to follow now, does that still keep coming up? Yes, but the practice is no way I should do that. What does that mean? Who, who says, who says I should, is that, uh, whose voice is that? Is that really a job requirements? Clearly not a job requirement of mine. I'm on a 10 month contract and I'm term. I, you know, I, so I should, that's interesting and sorting through that is some of the work that I'm now doing post pandemic. 

RPR: Thank you for sharing that perspective, Cynthia that's, those are both great pieces of advice. We can all really kind of think through and think about how we might implement them in our own interim spaces, whatever that looks like for different people. So as we're wrapping things up, you know, on the podcasts that I like to leave with a little bit of advice, something connected to purpose, compassion, connection, or balance. And I think we may not have said all of those words, but we absolutely covered all of those in this wide ranging discussion. So if there was one piece of advice you would like to leave women in higher ed specifically with what do you think that would be? I 

CG: Think I'm going to go to, if you can shift the gaze from shift your own gaze from what does blank need of me, whether it's my job, my children, my partner, my community, my parents, my anybody, anybody, anybody for a moment and try to really give it space to what do I really need and long for in this moment, a long side, the deep kind of compassion for self of I, and we just really went through something. There was not a lot that was easy about what we just went through. Different people have varying experiences, of course, but so much needs our own caring, compassion, turn towards self questions about what we need and long for. I think that is the greatest gift women in higher ed can give to ourselves and then do the ongoing work to keep working with the sheds and turning back to self and asking again, is this what I really long for? That is my best advice in a moment like this, where we've just experienced such a collective trauma. We've all done, unbelievable work that humans can't really do, but we did it. And that deserves recognition, care, compassion, love, and acknowledgement that we did it. And we were bad acid. 

RPR: There you go. That's the note to end on, we are bad asses and we survived and we made, we made powerful change for our students and our, on our fellow peers. So thank you as always friend for being here. It's always beautiful to speak with you. 

CG: Thank you so much, Rebecca. 

RPR: 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, a transcript and show notes at theagileacademic.buzzsprout.com. Take care, and stay well.