Three Challenges of Early-Career Faculty and the Importance of Self-Care

2021 ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Aaron Samuel Zimmerman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Organizational Change ◽  
Faculty Member ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Learning To Teach ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Early Career Faculty ◽  
Taking Care

This chapter presents three challenges associated with being an early-career faculty member: learning to teach in the context of higher education, learning to advise in the context of higher education, and learning to cope with organizational change. After describing the nature of these challenges in detail, the framework of self-care is introduced. Seven strategies are presented: insisting that your students take responsibility for their actions, learning to say no, learning to identify burnout in your colleagues, establishing a network of family and friends, scheduling breaks throughout the day and doing things you enjoy, taking care of yourself physically, and not trying to be perfect. The aim of this chapter is for readers to understand more comprehensively (some of) the challenges associated with becoming an early-career faculty member and to acquire some strategies that can help one to cope with these challenges before, during, and after experiencing these challenges.

Partnerships Enhancing Practice

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Servilio ◽  
Aleksandra Hollingshead ◽  
Brittany L. Hott
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Special Education ◽  
Junior Faculty ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Senior Faculty ◽  
Descriptive Case Study ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Early Career Faculty ◽  
Teaching In Higher Education

In higher education, current teaching evaluation models typically involve senior faculty evaluating junior faculty. However, there is evidence that peer-to-peer junior faculty observations and feedback may be just as effective. This descriptive case study utilized an inductive analysis to examine experiences of six special education early career faculty, from different institutions, using the partnerships that enhance practice (PEP) model for technology-based observations of teaching in higher education. PEP paired early career faculty into dyads. Each participant served as a provider and a recipient of feedback on teaching. The data were derived from semistructured interviews with each dyad and additional information was obtained from four instruments that facilitated peer-to-peer observations. Findings suggest this technology-based model has the potential to improve teaching skills and serve as a tool for developing professional partnerships among special education early career faculty across institutions.

Launching successful beginnings for early career faculty: Ten tips for new professors of recreational therapy

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37
Author(s):  
Bryan P. McCormick, PhD, CTRS, FDRT, FALS ◽  
David R. Austin, PhD, FDRT, FALS
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Recreational Therapy ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Senior Faculty ◽  
New Faculty ◽  
Faculty Careers ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Early Career Faculty ◽  
Faculty Positions

A number of previous authors have identified concerns about a shortage of future PhD graduates to assume recreational therapy (RT) faculty positions to educate future recreational therapists and contribute to the profession’s body of knowledge. While some recreational therapists have decided to pursue their terminal degrees and assume faculty positions, there is relatively little information to guide those transitioning from graduate student to new faculty member. Drawing upon the experiences of senior faculty reported in the literature as well as our own experiences, this article presents a series of tips to help those recreational therapists transitioning from practice to strategically navigate the beginning of new faculty careers. These tips cover careers across the spectrum of types of institutions of higher education.

Creating Cultures of Daring Greatly for Early-Career Teachers and Early-Career Faculty

2021 ◽  
pp. 329-348
Author(s):  
Aaron Samuel Zimmerman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Professional Role ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Early Career Teachers ◽  
Academic Cultures ◽  
Early Career Teacher ◽  
Early Career Faculty ◽  
Career Teachers ◽  
Career Teacher

Being an early-career teacher and an early-career faculty member are experiences that are fraught with vulnerability. Yet, the vulnerability that underlies these processes of becoming are not always addressed within academic cultures. Unless early-career teachers and early-career faculty are taught how to engage with vulnerability productively, early-career teachers and early-career faculty may blame themselves for the challenges that they encounter, when, in fact, these challenges may be more indicative of the complexity of their professional role rather than a reflection of their personal shortcomings. This chapter will draw on the writing of Brene Brown to describe how early-career teachers and early-career faculty members can choose to engage with vulnerability by daring greatly. This chapter will also make recommendations for how programs of teacher education and institutions of higher education can promote cultures in which the disposition of daring greatly is encouraged and supported.

scholarly journals Recollage as a tool for self-care

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgina Barton
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Everyday Work ◽  
Early Career Researcher ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose Working in the academy can be both challenging and exciting as it can be trying and difficult to negotiate if one is unprepared. Past research has acknowledged the importance of reflective practice in order to face such trials positively. This study utilises arts-based/multimodal reflection to contemplate the lived experience of one early career researcher in her first five years of employment. Adopting an arts-based approach, the researcher regularly reflected via the medium of collage. The purpose of this paper is to report on recollaged artefacts that are analysed in relation to meta-semiotic meanings as well as how they correspond to Schwab’s “lines of flight”, revealing both positive and negative acuities. Findings show that taking the time to delineate feelings via arts-based reflection can illuminate silent thoughts and deliberations and support an early career academic in appreciating and improving awareness of higher education regularities. Implications highlight how recollage can be an effective tool for the self-care of early career academics. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an arts-based approach, the researcher regularly reflected via the medium of collage. This paper reports on recollaged artefacts. These were analysed in relation to meta-semiotic meanings as well as how they corresponded to Schwab’s “lines of flight”, taking both positive and negative acuities. Findings Findings showed that taking the time to delineate feelings via arts-based reflection can reveal silent thoughts and deliberations and support an early career academic in appreciating and improving awareness of higher education regularities as well as self-care. Research limitations/implications Implications highlight how recollage can be effective for early career academics in reflecting on their everyday work and improve self-care. Practical implications Practical implications include the fact that readers will be able to adopt the arts-based methods used in this paper in order for them to reflect on their everyday work in the academy. The recollaged practice will improve their self-care and allow time to reflect effectively and creatively. Social implications Social implications include that colleagues could do recollaged practice together. Reflection done collaboratively can also improve self-care and well-being for those working in the academy. Originality/value Recollage is a new method of autoethnography the author has developed for the purpose of reflecting on my journey as an early career researcher. Now, in leadership roles, this approach has allowed the author to move forward positively in the academy.

Seeking “better ways”: early career faculty researcher development

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-126
Author(s):  
Claire K. Robbins ◽  
Lucy A. LePeau
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Instrumental Case Study ◽  
Graduate Preparation ◽  
Researcher Development ◽  
Early Career Faculty

Purpose Researcher development is an important but underexplored topic with implications for knowledge production, graduate education, faculty development and equity in higher education. The purpose of this constructivist instrumental case study was to understand how the process of writing and publishing from qualitative dissertations sparked researcher development among two pre-tenure faculty members in higher education. Design/methodology/approach Two researchers and seven data sources (i.e. six essays and one dialogue transcript) were used to construct the case. Researchers first inductively and independently coded the data sources. Researchers then collectively used the constant comparative technique (Charmaz, 2014) for data analysis. Findings Data analysis uncovered an iterative, three-phase process of seeking “better ways” (Evans, 2011) to translate dissertations into publications. This process included (1) recognizing one or more issues in the research design or conveyance of data, (2) rallying in a multitude of ways to seek better ways to address the issue(s) and (3) resolving the issue(s) by following internal voices and finding “better ways”. Originality/value Findings offer implications for faculty members’ approaches to mentoring and graduate preparation, and for postdoctoral and early career scholars’ agentic approaches to publishing, teaching and reflecting on one’s own researcher development.

scholarly journals Evaluating Professional Networks in a Gerontological Pre-Dissertation Initiative Using Social Network Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 549-550
Author(s):  
Erin Murphy ◽  
Rebecca Mauldin ◽  
Jennifer Greenfield ◽  
Nancy Kusmaul ◽  
Noelle Fields ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Professional Relationships ◽  
Professional Networks ◽  
Professional Needs ◽  
Early Career Faculty ◽  
Professional Network ◽  
Conference Presentations

Abstract Professional networks are critical for PhD students and early career faculty, yet there is scant research on the development of their professional networks. Social network analysis is a useful approach to describe the development of professional networks. This methodological paper explains its use and benefits, using a social network analysis of alumni from the first three cohorts of the Association of Gerontological Education in Social Work (AGESW)’s Pre-Dissertation Fellowship Program (PDFP) as an example. We present results, challenges, and recommendations. Alumni (n = 12) reported meeting an average of 20 scholars (SD = 13.2) through AGESW. These professional relationships led to collaborations on conference presentations and manuscripts as well as opportunities to leverage the relationships for future professional needs. Suggested applications of social network analysis for program evaluation, such as co-author and citation networks, are also presented with a focus on training programs designed to support robust professional network development.

scholarly journals Give Yourself Permission to Rest

Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Kareema J. Gray ◽  
Latoya B. Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Historically Black ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Women Faculty ◽  
Women In Higher Education ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Black Women Faculty

Black women in higher education have always been under pressure to prove that they belong in their positions, and often have taken on more work to prove this. The events of 2020—the COVID-19 global pandemic and the racial and social unrest that swept through the country increased this pressure on Black women in higher education. Historically, Black women have taken on the roles of mother, professional, and caretaker of all who were around them. The events of 2020 added to those roles for Black women faculty, working from home, homeschooling online, checking on the welfare of students, and addressing the emotional needs of their families who have been stuck indoors for months. Self-care is more important now more than before for Black women faculty. To employ these self-care strategies, Black women faculty must first give themselves permission to need them.

scholarly journals Organizational Change Management in Higher Education through the Lens of Executive Coaches

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 269
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Vlachopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Organizational Change ◽  
Change Management ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Organizational Change Management ◽  
Executive Coaches ◽  
Leadership In Higher Education ◽  
Education Leaders ◽  
Higher Education Leaders

This study investigated perceptions of organizational change management among executive coaches working with British higher-education leaders and factors that make leaders effective when managing change. This basic qualitative research used semi-structured interviews with eight executive coaches selected through purposeful sampling. As main challenges to efficient, inclusive change management, participants mentioned leaders’ lack of a strategic vision or plan, lack of leadership and future leader development programs, and lack of clarity in decision-making. They recognized that leaders’ academic and professional profiles are positively viewed and said that, with coaching and support in leadership and strategic planning, these people can inspire the academic community and promote positive change. Additional emphasis was given to the role of coaching in the development of key soft skills (honesty, responsibility, resiliency, creativity, proactivity, and empathy, among others), which are necessary for effective change management and leadership in higher education. The paper’s implications have two aspects. First, the lessons of the actual explicit content of the coaches’ observations (challenges to efficient change management and views of leaders); second, the implications of these observations (how coaching can help and what leaders need).

Things I wish I’d known: desiderata for early career psychiatrists

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lillian Ng ◽  
Richard Steane ◽  
Emme Chacko ◽  
Natalie Scollay
Keyword(s):  
Work Environment ◽  
Reflective Practice ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Career Progression ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Career Plans ◽  
Zealand College

Objective: The objective of this study was to disseminate advice imparted to early career psychiatrists by a panel of senior colleagues at a Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists symposium, reflecting on things they wished they had known at the earlier stage in their careers. Methods: Key themes were extracted from notes taken at the symposium, where opinions were expressed by three senior psychiatrists. Results: There are components in building a sustainable career as a psychiatrist, which include considering one’s work environment and relationships with colleagues; self-care, mentorship and reflective practice; and seeking opportunities to teach and research for career progression. Conclusions: The mentorship and advice from senior colleagues can be highly influential. In order to sustain a career that has reward, meaning and longevity, psychiatrists would do well to pay attention to aspects of self-care, stay connected to their loved ones, seek an optimal work–life balance and take an interest in their long term career plans.

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