Katharine Stewart on Kindness, Rigor, and Joy

On this episode, I speak with senior vice provost and professor emerita Dr. Katherine Stewart about kindness in leadership and mentoring, about career transitions, and about building a business around joy.

Transcript

Katharine's website: https://katharinestewartconsulting.com/

Rebecca Pope-Ruark (RPR): On this episode, I speak with senior vice provost and professor emerita Dr. Katharine Stewart about kindness in leadership and mentoring, about career transitions, and about building a business around joy.    

Welcome to the Agile Academic, a podcast for women in and around higher education. In each episode, we tackle topics from career vitality to burnout and everything in between. Join me as I chat with inspiring women about their experiences, pursuing purpose, making change, and driving culture in the academy and beyond. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark. 

Hi, Katharine, welcome to the show. 

Katharine Stewart (KS): Hi, Rebecca. It's good to be here. 

RPR: So we always just start off with letting our guests introduce themselves, so take a minute and tell us a little bit about yourself. 

KS:  Yeah, I'm glad to do that. I'm Katharine Stewart and I am Senior Vice Provost and Professor Emerita at NC State University. And I'm also the owner of my own consulting company that goes by the name of the Joyful Academic. 

RPR: Awesome. So lots to dig in just in those two things obviously as well. So I always like to start off with a question. What defines your purpose in and around higher education? 

KS: Rebecca? I've had a faculty career as a psychology professor, researcher, clinician, and then I've been in various leadership roles for 25 years. And what I would say is the theme through all of that, every single bit of it is about connecting our science and our education to a sense of kindness and joyful potential in humankind. I started my career doing work with people who are living with HIV in the nineties, and that was a time for that community that was scary and there were also many, many sad moments for the community. But what I was so struck by was the sense of persistent commitment to joy in the community that I was serving and supporting. And that has never left me, and it's been something that I see echoes of in the stress and strain and uncertainty and sadness that we're facing now in higher education.

RPR: It's definitely an uncertain time to be in higher education, isn't it? So many changes and so many uncertainties. I think that's probably the word of the year that's going to be the Oxford Word of the Year is uncertain. So tell us a little bit more about joy. What does joy mean for you in this context? 

KS:  Well, I often get asked why did you name your company the Joyful academic? And what I really emphasize to folks is that what I mean by joy is that feeling of flow and almost euphoria that you get when you are feeling connected to a core purpose. That sense that when you're doing work that is having an impact and also is an expression of your values as a person, that's just a real sense of joy, even if it's really hard, even if it's really frustrating, there's just a profound quiet joy. And that for me is really what I'm aiming for in the work that I do, and it's what I try to help the people that I'm coaching think about what it means to get there. So for me, that's what joy is about, working in that place where we know our values are aligned with the work. And it doesn't happen all the time. We know that, right? But when it happens, it's magic. 

RPR:  It is. We all yearn for those moments, don't we? When you just lose all sense of time and you just find yourself, whether that's with a student or whether that's with a research project or whatever that happens to be, it is profound as you said. 

KS:  Right. And I think Rebecca, what you've said is so important. It can happen anywhere. It can happen with a student. If you're a clinician, like the way that I started my career, it happens with patients and clients. It can happen in a managerial conversation if you're in a leadership or a managerial role. It can happen when you're working with your direct reports or with your boss. It happens in the lab, it happens in community engaged work. It really, really can happen anywhere. 

RPR:  It's beautiful to think about. I want to think a little bit more about that sense of joy and you mentioned kindness as well as part of your purpose. Tell us a little bit more about kindness. 

KS:  So I came to this I think probably through as many people do, I've learned sadly through a negative experience of supervision when I was a graduate student, but I really have come to believe that for me it's important to remember that kindness and rigor are not mutually exclusive. That one can have very high expectations of oneself or the people around you and also be kind of unrelentingly kind, and those things are not opposites. As I alluded, I had an experience with a particular supervisor that I think that supervisor, like many mentors fortunately conflated the idea of having high expectations and being rigorous with being mean. And it certainly wasn't the way for me to learn. It certainly wasn't the way for me to grow. It certainly wasn't the way for me to fall in love with my science. And I have had so many positive experiences with students and mentees and junior colleagues that I've mentored where my moment is when people say, Catherine, you pushed me really, really hard and every step of the way, I felt like you were cheering for me and you believed in me and you had my back. And for me, that's what kindness is. It's not about not pushing, it's about never letting people forget that you believe in them and that it's going to be okay to fail. That's how we learn. We keep going. 

RPR:  I think that's so important. When we think about the culture of higher education broadly, it really is such a competitive culture. We are evaluated individually, we are promoted individually, and then we are put in these situations where we're funding students and we're funding entire projects, and there's just so much competition for those funds and for that attention that it can be very easy, I think, to fall into that on one against one mentality as opposed to thinking about more in abundance. 

KS:  Right? And to recognize that even if your mentality is I want to get the big prize, I want to get the big publication, I want to, whatever that win is that external win. Psychological science is pretty clear that the best way to get someone to really dig in and drive is for them to feel encouraged and for them to feel that they're working towards something very positive, that they're going to be rewarded and supported as they do this hard thing. And I think that it's important in higher ed that we don't fall into the trap of confusing being critical as in discerning with being critical, as in being hostile or demeaning. And I want my students to know that I know the difference between a good manuscript draft and a great manuscript draft, one that can go to a top tier journal versus a mid-tier journal. I want my students to know that we can push, but I don't want them to feel like I think they're a bad student if they wrote a draft that doesn't quite get us there. 

RPR:  Yes, we want to be, how can we be encouraging and supportive and present? I think presence becomes so important in those moments as well, being fully there for someone else to make them feel seen but still growing. 

KS:  Right. I think that's exactly it, and I sometimes hear pushback about, well, of course, because I spent a decade at NC State, which is renowned for being very, very strong in engineering and other sciences. I had colleagues say to me, well, Catherine, you're a psychologist and you can do that caring thing and that relationship thing, and that's not really my gig. And what I want to be clear about is that kindness doesn't have to be what some of my colleagues might say, touchy feely, right? Kindness can be about setting clear boundaries and saying, I don't really think I can help you with this, but I know how to get you to the people who can so that we can focus on this thing that we are supposed to be doing in our research or in our class or whatever our relationship is. If we're on a team, the project that we've got to get done for the dean or whoever, and we can do that and set those boundaries, but we can do that in a way that, as you say, makes people feel like they are allowed to be whole people, that they don't have to silence or diminish or demean parts of themselves to be successful. That's all it means. It doesn't mean you have to become a therapist for the people around you. 

RPR:  Yes, we hear that a lot from faculty, especially when we think about student relationships, but even peer-to-peer relationships. People are afraid to say the wrong thing. If someone is in their emotions or if someone is having some mental health challenges, they're afraid to say the wrong thing, they're afraid to do the wrong thing, so they just back off or they just back away or they punt somehow when there are other ways that, like you said, we don't have to be psychologists or psychiatrists to support people or to make sure that they know where the resources are that can help them if we're not the person to be in that position. 

KS:  Exactly. Exactly. When we say to someone, I don't know how to help you, but I care about you and if you need help, I'm willing to try to help figure out how to get you that help. One of the things that I learned as a psychologist, but also as somebody who quite frankly started off a career working with people who were at the ends of their lives, and that's another group of people that people are very scared of. I don't know what to say to people who are dying. I don't know what to say to people who are grieving. There's that fear. And the same thing happens, people back away from people who are dying, people back away from people who are grieving. And one of the things that I learned is that the most powerful thing you can do is just be there, is just be present. 

You don't have to fix it. Some things are not fixable and they don't have to be. Kindness is very often just being present and saying, I see this, that this is hard for you. And one of the best tools in my toolkit when I'm coaching leaders who are dealing with, they're coming to me and saying, Catherine, how do I deal with this challenging issue? And one of the things that I encourage them to put in their toolkit is just asking people, what do you need right now? Do you need to vent? Because I can listen. Do you need to problem solve because I can spitball with you, I can brainstorm. Do you need resources like actual, tangible resources? Because even if I can't give them to you together, we can probably find out how to get those. We can find out who to ask. But first just asking, what do you need? The number of times that people say, I just need to vent, will you just listen? It's pretty big actually. Presence is kindness. Truly. 

RPR:  I think I connected to the agenda setting in a coaching conversation in a way too. It's like, what is the best outcome for you in this conversation? What would you like to get out of this conversation? How do we get you to where you want to go or where you need to be or who you need to be in this conversation? 

KS:  I mean, one of the principles of kindness in my opinion is that we're present with what the other person needs, and that requires not projecting our own experience into their experience. We have a student who is distressed and we imagine what we would want if we were distressed. It's like, well, maybe not, right? The question is, what do you need? And if the student says something that you can't deliver, that's okay. You can still say, well, let's figure out if we can get you that. Unless of course the student says, well, what I really need is A, in this class, even though I haven't been here for the last six weeks, there are boundaries. Let's figure out what's possible here. 

RPR:  I think about it as well, and in terms of mentoring relationships, whether that's faculty, student, grad student, or whether that's peer to peer, the sense of that you don't have to be everything for a mentee. I love the idea that's more popular now of networking or a network of mentors that offer different types of support, which I think opens up the door to so many different kinds of people being in your network, but also you being able to give back and feel like you're not just taking from someone. You have things that you can offer to them as well in those situations. 

KS:  And Rebecca, one of the things that I really like about mentoring networks is that it does, there's a lot of different levels of kindness you have. Your mentee is not in the position of feeling like it's a completely one-sided relationship if there can be some learning going on. I mean, goodness knows, I have lots that I need to learn to keep up with certain innovations and technologies in the world right now. But the other thing is that there's kindness in demonstrating by inviting the people that we're mentoring to develop networks, there's a kindness in demonstrating, Hey, I'm not an expert in everything and I don't need to be, because I think that we place so much value on competence in incompetence in higher ed, right? Competence is the currency. And so we are afraid to say, yeah, I don't know how to do that. Because admitting to having an area where we're not competent, just it's so threatening. But when we do it as mentors by acknowledging, Hey, we're going to have to build a network here to get you these things that are not my skill set. We're showing our mentees, this is life, right? You can't be competent in it all, and what a joy that you can find other people around you to help create it together. But it's also a level of being kind to yourself because you can then let yourself off the hook, just as you said, you can just let yourself off the hook.

RPR:  That just sounds so important for leaders to hear as well, right? Higher education leaders. We talked in different contexts about my work with leaders and burnout and thinking about women in those context, women leaders in those contexts in the sense that you don't have to be everything to everyone. And there's also, there's that tension between faculty and administration, just some kind of natural animosity that unfortunately when someone crosses over into administration, it just naturally becomes this different kind of relationship. But to hear that you don't have to be everything for everyone, that you bring competencies to this role and that you can build teams and work with people who bring those other competencies to the table. How empowering is that, I think for leaders? 

KS:  Absolutely. Absolutely. It's freeing, it's empowering, and it's interesting, Rebecca, so many people, when I say to people that one of my core beliefs that I've tried to use sometimes more successfully than others, but I've really tried to use throughout my career, is this idea that kindness and rigor or kindness and high expectations are not mutually exclusive. Most people say, oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. And what they're thinking about is other people. And so one of the things that I try to do with, I coach a lot of deans and a lot of vice provosts and people in these leadership roles, and what I often have to do is remind people that applies to you too. That we can have really super high expectations of ourselves, but we don't have to be mean to ourselves to achieve it. We don't have to drive ourselves with this punitive. 

If you aren't everything to everybody, somehow that makes you a failure kind of mindset. We can bring that same kindness of it takes the team. It takes being willing to ask for help. It takes setting boundaries around what we can and can't do in a day, in a week, in a month. We have to do that. We have to be kind to ourselves in that way, not just because it's nice, not just because it's touchy feely, because that is the only way we will achieve the high expectations we have for ourselves. And it's so much easier to apply. The mantra of kindness and rigor can exist together to other people, and it's so much harder for us to apply it to ourselves, but sometimes that's where we have to start. 

RPR:  Yeah. I think of that, the inner critic kind of voice telling you that you have to be perfect in these situations, that you have to be everything if you're a leader or if even if you're a mentor or a pi, that there's not a lot of room for error these days. It feels like there's not a lot of space for grace unless we're actively offering compassion to each other and to ourselves. 

KS:  Exactly. That's exactly right. And I really like that you brought up the inner critic, right? Because it took me a long time to figure out that I was saying to other people, it's important to differentiate criticism as in having a discerning critical mindset, meaning I'm very discerning about what is good science and less good science and good writing, and less good writing. Really being able to differentiate that kind of critical thinking from being critical as in demeaning or nasty. And it took me so long to figure out that I was preaching that to other people, and yet my inner critic was vicious, just vicious. And it was revelatory when I thought about, well, what if my inner critic was more discerning and less mean? Would I be able to be successful? And it was surprising to come face to face with the hidden belief that maybe I couldn't, but it was so liberating to find out that in fact, I could and I could with more lightness and more joy, not happy, joy, joy, but that quiet joy, 

RPR:  I love that distinction about the different types of joy, not the happy, happy, but the deep joy. The same way we think of kindness is different from niceness. Nice is just kind of polite and kind of behind the back in a way where kindness is a real true connection, I think, with someone else.

KS: Right? In Buddhism, there's this concept of fierce compassion. And fierce compassion is not, it's often not very nice, but it is always an unrelentingly compassionate, and that's a real head trip sometimes for people to get their heads around, particularly people who have conflated niceness and kindness. The idea that fierce compassion is really a thing for me that is very much tied to the idea of, I'm going to be kind, but I'm going to have crazy high expectations because I believe in you. I just believe in you. 

RPR:  What a powerful, I don't even know how to say it. It's just such an empowering concept to have someone in your corner in that way, whether that's a student or a colleague or a direct report, that just knowing that the person you look up to cares for you in that way can just be so important. 

KS:  Yeah. Yeah. No, and I made reference to a negative experience I had in graduate school, but I've also had that kind of mentor. I've had that kind of mentor who has said, this could be better. This could be stronger, and it's in you, right? And I don't want you to leave it on the table. And that's how I got RO ones, and that's how I got leadership roles. And it's also how I fell flat on my face and completely screwed all kinds of things up. But I knew they were there, and that's everything. And I think now what I'm finding with the people that I'm coaching, especially the leaders that I'm coaching, and especially now in this environment in 2025 with everything that we're dealing with, what I want to be sure that the leaders that I coach remember is that they have to be just as much in their own corner as in the corners of the people that they're supporting and serving. They really do have to do that. They can't make it long-term if they aren't as much in their own corner in a real way, not in that driving judgy critic way, but in that compassionate, that fiercely compassionate way they've got to do for themselves as well as the people they serve and support. That's hard work.

RPR:  It is hard work. I'm just thinking, what does that even look like to be in your own corner that much? 

KS:  Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that's different for everybody. I mean, for me, that's often what we work on, my coaching clients. And what does that look like for you? I think it's very different depending on what you've experienced and where you are in your career and what you need. 

RPR:  Let's talk a little bit about, you've recently been through some transitions. You have moved to emerita status and moved more into the joyful academic more full time. So talk to us a little bit about how that's going. 

KS:  I am really enjoying retirement, but that hesitation that you heard is it's really hard. Big life transitions are hard. And everybody who I worked with at NC State, when they found out I was retiring, they were like, oh, you're just going to relax and you're going to have so much fun, and I'm so jealous. And all those things are kind of sort of true, but it's a huge life change. And I think what I have been so struck by is that it has forced me to reckon with how much of my identity was connected to being a professor, being an academic leader, being in those roles, and what it is about me and my purpose here in the world for the short time that I get to be in the world that goes beyond those titles and goes beyond those positions. How do I make a positive impact in the world when I'm not working, which I've been doing since I was 27, 20 if you count graduate school. And I'm really loving it because it has given me freedom to explore and think about what do I want that impact to look like? And it's also been a little scary, I'm not going to lie. It's been a little scary. 

RPR:  I think we should all be willing to admit that that transitions change is hard, and we are often not wired for change, or at least we don't feel like we're wired for change. We don't. But there are so many wonderful opportunities or just ways of being outside of that space where your whole identity is wrapped up in higher education. I talk a lot about with clients who are experiencing burnout, about how do we separate your identity from just the work? And that's trained into us very early that we are trained into our disciplinary identities or our specific roles that institutions really to wrap everything up in that work. Right. And who are you when you separate that a little bit, one of the ways to get it through burnout. 

KS:  Yeah, exactly. And I think that for me, as I have entered into retired life and I am keeping my business going, which of course keeps me engaged in higher ed, as well as working with colleagues back at NC State, I am finding that it's opening up this idea of questions of, well, if I can do what I really want, what is that? And I'm going to admit, for the first month, the answer was, I'm going to lie here on this couch and be a slug because I'm exhausted. 

And so that's kind of what I did was lay on my couch and was a slug. But I think for many of us in higher ed, many of us have this kind of spark of curiosity and this spark of desire to have an impact. And so then the question becomes, well, where do you want to follow your curiosity and where do you want to have an impact if you get to choose? And wow, that's exciting. That's really exciting. So I'm relearning French, which I learned in high school, and now I'm relearning and on my way to fluency, not quite there yet, and I'm volunteering at a local hospice, which getting back to the end of life care that I did at the beginning of my career, it's really meaningful work, but it also feels like full circle for me. And then I'm continuing to stay connected to higher ed through the business, through the joyful academic, because I feel like right now, for many people, it's harder and harder to find the joy in academia. And so I feel like the joyful academic still has work to do. 

RPR:  So I always like to wrap up with one question. What's one thing you wish all women associated with higher ed knew or practiced 

KS:  Rebecca? I'm going to go back to what I said earlier, which is what I really wish for all women associated with higher ed to practice and to know is that even for themselves, kindness and high expectations are not mutually exclusive. That they can be kind to themselves and have high expectations for themselves in whatever area they choose to have those expectations. And in fact, that kindness towards themselves will help them get there, which I think takes, for some people, takes a little unlearning. So that's my wish for everybody. 

RPR:  Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Catherine. It's always wonderful to talk to you. 

KS:  It's always great to see you and talk with you, Rebecca. Thank you very much.

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 theagileacademic.buzzsprout.com. Take care and stay well.