00:02:44:10 - 00:02:48:17 Unknown Thank you so much for joining us really amazing wide range of experiences here as well. 00:02:48:19 - 00:03:15:10 Unknown So I'd like to start us off by just asking, and I’ve no problem with them what order you choose to answer in, but what you how you entered the field that you're in now, like if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about the, like the path that took you here from grad school. 00:03:15:12 - 00:03:21:09 Unknown Anyone want to fancy kicking us off? 00:03:21:11 - 00:03:48:24 Unknown I'm happy to start. I can jump in. So I initially thought of answering this question in terms of like when I finished my PhD, which is at the very bizarre time of May 2020. And at that moment, really thinking about questions of quality of life, which has always been really important to me as I've navigated, what my life would be like after the PhD. 00:03:49:01 - 00:04:18:03 Unknown You can talk a little bit about that later, but I ended up getting a postdoctoral fellowship that was thankfully remote. And so through that work at the University of Illinois I was able to get training in digital humanities. And this is always something that was mildly curious about but I came from a department- I did history for my PhD at NYU that didn't necessarily encourage that. 00:04:18:04 - 00:05:02:04 Unknown I don't think it was frowned upon, but it wasn't built in very organically into the curriculum. And I was given the opportunity to get some concrete training in digital methods and then also worked on some initiatives they’re called humanities without walls, which sort of is about thinking about politically engaged humanities. And so that really gave me some concrete exposure to alternative career paths, although I did, sneakily somewhat work at a magazine during my last year of the Ph. D. And I really enjoyed doing that work because it put me in an entirely new environment of learning how to talk with people who weren’t academics. And just really getting excited 00:05:02:06 - 00:05:26:11 Unknown about the work that artists and journalists were doing and thinking about how I could, you know, position my scholarship for more publicly facing audiences. And so the collection of all all of those experiences sort of led me to the point of wanting to think about what it means to be a scholar, what it means to be an intellectual outside of, you know, traditional academic institutions. 00:05:26:13 - 00:05:55:13 Unknown And the universe was looking out for me. And so when I was right about to finish that postdoc, there was a job opportunity at ACLS for a program officer position that was precisely at that intersection of digital humanities and publicly engaged humanities. So I ended up applying for it, and I got the position. And it's really, helped me refine, again, answering that question of what does it mean to be a scholar? 00:05:55:13 - 00:06:34:01 Unknown What does it mean to be an intellectual outside of a college or university while still being sort of adjacent to that ecosystem in certain ways? And so, again, I'm a big, big proponent of thinking about values and quality of life when you are thinking about career path. And so I would say ultimately, you know that the guiding question that has put me on this path of, quote unquote alternative academia is just thinking globally what I want my life to look like, what kinds of space I want to have for like communities outside of my professional life, how I can support myself, and thinking about the kind of work that I want to do and marrying 00:06:34:01 - 00:07:06:05 Unknown all of those things together. Amazing. Thank you so much. Sorry. Unmuted as well. I’m happy to go if you’d like. I have a lot more tread on my worn off of my tires than the rest of the people on here and my path to where I am was very winding. I didn't even decide to go to do a master's until I was in my mid 20s and I didn’t start a PhD program until I was in my 30s. 00:07:06:07 - 00:07:38:07 Unknown So I have a very different path than many of you who know exactly what you wanted to do right away and jumped right into your programs and finished right away. When I started my PhD program in our history at Princeton already, then I was quite sure I was not going to go into academia, but I really wanted the rigor of that level of a program and I loved doing the research, I loved writing, but I had experience also writing for a public audience or a more general audience. 00:07:38:09 - 00:08:03:21 Unknown Still original research, but not the same kind of scholarly tone, I would say, or maybe the, maybe not the depth. And I also, It suited me to go into the museum field from there. I knew that I already liked it, and I knew that I could continue to make a contribution to the field, even though I wasn't in a classroom. 00:08:03:23 - 00:08:31:14 Unknown I also very much enjoy being able to go from one topic to the next, which is something that is not so possible on an academic course. So I've worked on a huge variety of kinds of things. And I think that just speaks to, I have a wider interest than what I did my dissertation on. What I ended up in the field I am now, which is, I had worked as a curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art at the University of New York. 00:08:31:16 - 00:08:58:10 Unknown And my field, my change of field was stressed upon me. The Corcoran fell on very hard times and let go most of their employees before they closed for good. And I was at a point in my career where I wasn't really willing to go to an entry level academic positions, that was not going to be a good choice for me. And I was having difficulty finding a peripheral position. 00:08:58:10 - 00:09:24:04 Unknown But when I got offered the position at the Smithsonian to help open the new museum, it seemed like an amazing opportunity. So I fell into that, in part because my chief curator got laid off the same day I did, and she became the chief curator at the museum. She knew that I was looking for a position and she thought that I could adapt my skills to what I do now, which is working with collections. 00:09:24:06 - 00:09:49:04 Unknown Originally, I was not going to be working with digitization and cataloging. I came in as a physical collections handler and I still work in the store, which you can see behind me some days. But it turned out one piece of advice I can give people is you can come to an organization that's changing or that's new. You often have a lot of opportunities you can take advantage of to shape the job to what you're interested in and what they need and what they really needed 00:09:49:04 - 00:10:17:01 Unknown with someone who could pay attention to cataloging collections, making sure that, entries are right, that our presence online with our collection was reliable and accurate and beautiful. And, here I am, 14 years later. Amazing. Thank you so much. Dr. Bickerstaff, would you mind also going next, but also I think for a lot of people in the room who might not know what ACLS is, because we have got a few participants from overseas as well. 00:10:17:01 - 00:10:43:13 Unknown So I'd love a like a potted summary of what that is too. Sorry to put you on the spot with that as well. SNo worries. So I'll start with that part first. ACLS stands for the American Council of Learned Societies. The title suggests that we are what we are, which is a federation that was founded by a number of academic professional societies. 00:10:43:15 - 00:11:13:08 Unknown So all the things that all you folks who are not introverts like me go to in the fall and in the spring, when you go to conferences and present papers, all of those organizations, those are the kinds of organizations that are part of our broader ecosystem. And so we have an ecosystem that has one part that's really tied to our learned societies, other aspects that are really about the university partners that we have. 00:11:13:14 - 00:11:53:00 Unknown We have a university consortium, which is made up of about 42 universities that we work closely with and so the Emerging Voices Fellowship that Keyanah did after she finished that postdoctoral fellowship that at some point I also ran that was a partnership between ACLS and our research university consortium. We also, what we're probably most known for is the fact that we have a number of competitions that disseminate grants and fellowships to academics at all career stages. 00:11:53:02 - 00:12:26:23 Unknown And so the different kinds of fellowship programs and grant programs that we run span a number of things, community colleges, HBCU focus, the Program that Keyanah runs exceptionally well is the digital justice grants program. We also do a number of more traditional kind of fellowships, one year fellowships and things that also allow people to explore as many of you are interested in careers outside of the academy, like our leading edge fellowship. 00:12:26:23 - 00:12:59:24 Unknown So we do a number of things and that doesn't even include all of the international programs that my colleague Dina Raghavan runs. That also brings in a number of programs dealing with China with Buddhist studies. We recently sunsetted our program on African Humanities. So ACL is out there in the world doing a number of things that are really centered on uplifting the humanities and interpretive social sciences and the ways that scholars exist in a number of places. 00:13:00:01 - 00:13:43:15 Unknown So that's ACLS. Now, I think what I'm supposed to answer now is how I got to ACLS. Yep. So my path like Laura was circuitous. I did not go into academia because I was like, oh, I definitely want to be a professor. Going into academia was my backup. I wanted to move to Europe. Where I had been after undergraduate for a number of years as a Fulbright Fellow and then as a Cambridge University Scholar. And I loved the life there. 00:13:43:17 - 00:14:21:07 Unknown They breathe, they walk, they eat in long meals. And as was the case at ADHUME and is the case in IDEA, we know that food is care. I intended to leave after I finished my master's at Cambridge and I had a job lined up in France and for reasons that I will probably never know, my visa was turned down. And because of that, I had applied to graduate school just in case I didn't like working a 9 5. And then my 9 5- 00:14:21:09 - 00:14:41:14 Unknown And so I went to graduate school and anyone who knows me is not surprised to hear me say I wanted to quit absolutely every single semester that I was in graduate school. But I was also in a really well resourced institution, and I'm a first gen college kid who took care of my family from the time that I got to college and being in the academic world allowed me to take care of them. 00:14:41:16 - 00:15:26:14 Unknown And so I lingered but after I finished my PhD, I worked at Howard University as a lecturer in their English department with wonderful people like Dana Williams, who is now on the board of ACLS. I then went to Start the initiative with Catherine Knight still at ADHUM. And it was in that position where I absolutely loved working with the team that it was clear to me that I love working with these people. Like they can come to my house and have a drink. 00:15:26:16 - 00:16:04:20 Unknown And also I don't love academia. And if I love working with these people that much and it's not enough, then this is probably not the world for me. And that really prompted me to look beyond any of the kind of traditional academic trajectories And I came to ACLS after lots and lots of applications. So I saw in some of, the questions that folks ask, like I'm applying, that is often what it looks like. But then opportunities open up unexpectedly. 00:16:04:20 - 00:16:28:05 Unknown I had applied for a position at ACLS and didn't get it. My wonderful colleague Desiree did. But one of the things that came out of that was the idea that the kind of thing that I was looking for, and what I was bringing, having helped build an initiative at the University of Maryland already, was a more senior position. 00:16:28:05 - 00:16:57:07 Unknown Six months later, the position that I started in as a program officer opened up, and it has enabled me to develop a number of programs, to found a new department. And so one of the things that like Laura, I have found in the course of all of this is that when opportunities open up, even the thing that you are walking into the door of might not be the thing that you end up continuing to do. 00:16:57:09 - 00:17:24:22 Unknown And so figuring out what kinds of things really resonate for you that you enjoy doing and that you're passionate about. I like to build a program. I usually don't like to lead them for too long, but I love the strategy of developing them and figuring them out and doing all of those tweaks. And so figuring out those elements that are important to you are really helpful as you begin to try and navigate your path. 00:17:24:24 - 00:17:54:22 Unknown Thank you so much. That was a really lovely and insightful journey as well. And last but not least, Dr. Lockett, would you mind running us through your path to where you are now? So my path is tragic. It's not a it's a story. It's a long story. So I'll try to make it as concise as possible, given the highlights that the other panelist brought through, which were so inspiring. 00:17:54:24 - 00:18:24:02 Unknown I was a first gen, went straight to college joined the McNair program my junior year. It was just understood, I loved research, I thought that was great went straight through, hit up OU for my master’s, that's where I learned about writing program administration and writing instruction and the history of writing and really resonated with me because I was a Bill Gates Millennium Scholar. 00:18:24:02 - 00:19:08:21 Unknown I actually started off as a computer science major information systems minor before switching to English. Much later on, and English and French, actually, I have a, I was a double major so I didn't really understand writing, as a field or as a discipline or something to study, or something to teach. But I, I started, being a TA and an English department, you get introduced into that and suddenly I became really fascinated with it because I had always been like a poet, a, lyricist. But I never professionally identified as a writer, and I certainly never thought about writing in any kind of real professional way outside of oh, you publish a novel. 00:19:08:21 - 00:19:51:21 Unknown Got into writing program administration, deeper into academia, went, did my PhD at Penn State where I continued to do writing instruction, went into the writing center there, also helped McNair students out with their research during the summers. I literally created a job for myself that they were willing to give me a budget for, and avoid doing summer teaching and making nothing. But as a first gen with parents that were very ill, struggling I was eager to get that tenure track job, got the tenure track job at Spelman College. Couldn't have been a better fit. 00:19:51:21 - 00:20:20:23 Unknown I thought, I'm a black woman, I do equity things, I do technological things. This will be a great place for me. It was not a great place for me. What ended up happening was I realized that we can talk a lot about representational diversity and all that, but as a black girl who grew up military, then northeast Texas, I realized something when I went to Spelman. 00:20:21:00 - 00:20:43:21 Unknown You're not really used to being around other black professional women. You know, you use your aunties, your mom's, your cousins and your friends. But it's very rare that you see a sort of all black women or majority black woman, quote unquote, professional space. So I started to ask myself, what the hell is this space? Because it looked a little like church. 00:20:43:21 - 00:21:09:14 Unknown It felt chastising. Innovation was not encouraged. It was very anti collaborative. And I got to see some of the worst aspects of women that I could ever imagine. I felt like I was suffocating, but I loved my students and I loved the potential of the work that I could do there. Dysfunctional administration, pandemic later. Yeah. I was already starting to feel pretty ground up, 00:21:09:14 - 00:21:34:21 Unknown but during the pandemic I was supposed to be, preparing tenure things. In 2021, literally my entire family died. My mom died in January, my older brother died in April, as well as my father, lost both of my paternal grandparents, multiple aunts and uncles, both of my parents respective partners, and a teenage godson got killed in a car accident, all in the same year. 00:21:34:23 - 00:22:01:21 Unknown And this was when we were on lockdown, you know, and everybody was virtually working. I never stopped working during all that death. And of course, handling death, virtually not being able to see your mom take her last breath after caregiving. You know, for years it was a lot. I was in shock. I didn't know what to do. All I wanted was a year personal leave. 00:22:05:06 - 00:22:28:19 Unknown But in the end, that wasn't why I left Spelman. They wouldn't extend my tenure deadline, which forced my resignation. And it was just so happening. It just so happened that during all that time, I was applying to jobs in a fog. I was in shock and shock and shock. 00:22:28:21 - 00:22:53:15 Unknown That's how I ended up in legal recruiting. Exactly. Global gave me a shot. And it just so happened that a part of my background is career advising. I did a lot of career advising and I was fought tooth and nail in my department because I was so focused on integrating pathways with with the curriculum in there in various ways. 00:22:53:17 - 00:23:18:18 Unknown So in the end, I realized, wow, you know, as a legal recruiter, this is interesting because I literally know what it's like for an attorney to go from pre law all the way to a partner position at a top firm. Very few people have that complete knowledge. There's so many gaps along the way. So I enjoy it. It's remote. 00:23:18:23 - 00:23:49:00 Unknown I get to talk to a lot of really interesting people. I get to control my schedule and but I do have to eat what I catch, and building a pipeline takes a long time. So I have thought about my retirement. I have nothing. I did not get inheritance from all of this stuff and my most enjoyable experience is now is being able to sort of think about myself in the future away from academia. 00:23:49:00 - 00:24:24:14 Unknown I do not plan to go back. I do not enjoy teaching in that space. So for, you know, respect of time, there's more. But but I'm like an unsettled part of the panel here. I have a new you know, I'm transitioned I've helped thousands of people get the employment they dream of reeling from death. But I'm here. Thank you very much for sharing that as well with us. 00:24:24:16 - 00:24:54:19 Unknown I appreciate there’s a lot of different and difficult ways that these some Part of our panel have obviously talked about their choices and not deciding not to be as part of academia, but there's also the grief and difficult parts of the way that this as a contingent career and the way that the career really functions that is makes academic career goals often not like well suited for everyone's life as it unfolds as well. 00:24:54:19 - 00:25:19:02 Unknown So thank you so much for sharing that too. So we've got a few pre submitted questions as well. I wanted to open up the floor, first of all, to my panelists in case anyone had anything that they wanted to add after hearing each other speak as well about like part of their journey or part of the ways they found their way here as well. 00:25:19:17 - 00:25:44:21 Unknown I'd just like to say how sorry I am, Alexandria, that you experienced all that loss. I do not know how anyone can cope with that and it's very brave of you to share it. I hope that it turns better for you soon. Not a lot of support out there is what you learn. Yeah, the people who supported you are gone, right? 00:25:45:09 - 00:26:13:07 Unknown I supported them. I’m like a lot, me and Dr. Jovonne have a lot in common. I think in that way I was supporting them and then they all died. But it's not all bad, it changed my entire life and I would like to believe in good ways. Grief is not just about sadness and crying and tragedy. 00:26:13:07 - 00:26:38:21 Unknown It's a, it's an extreme learning experience. And what it taught me was the stability that people often envision they're going to get from academia or the comfort they think they're going to get from having that kind of, tenure or whatever, it's an illusion. It's not, if people, if you experience what I had to experience, everything changes for you. 00:26:38:23 - 00:26:58:02 Unknown I mean, I've already like written books, gotten awards months, you know, like I was well on my way to tenure. I could I could easily apply and be competitive. I'm not arrogant enough to say I would get a job, but I could easily apply and be very competitive for an academic job right now. No problem. You know, I'm a good researcher. 00:26:58:02 - 00:27:29:03 Unknown I love research. That's why I'm still dedicated to that. Need to holler at Dr. [UNKNOWN], give me a fellowship for some work. But I feel more free. I feel more free to represent issues in academia that I could never fully represent while I was there. I feel free to help teachers who are in similar positions and to really leverage what I know about industry. 00:27:29:05 - 00:27:53:23 Unknown And quite frankly, and this is the last thing I'll say just in response to what you were saying, even though I'm on the struggle right now. The potential is, it's still good. It's just I need time and I need support but academia will never help you recognize your wealth potential. Okay. That's a really interesting like point I think to take up within that next bit 00:27:54:05 - 00:28:20:15 Unknown the wealth potential the also the you know some of the benefits and what you're able to access outside of academia. I am a terrible really terrible person for this to be honest because I didn't introduce my own experience. Literally, I just I'm a tumbleweed. I am a tumbleweed through life. And I basically stayed in academia because I did not want to join the workforce. 00:28:20:17 - 00:29:02:13 Unknown And then that I basically continued a bit over committed to a bit and ended up staying in university like is the only thing I really knew how to do. So here that's mine. So that means that my, on the side, I suppose I think I have quite a lot of side hustles as a part of it. Like I ran and co edited an anthology about mental health and I've done some work in mental health in the UK, as well as thinking about access to academia through a digital humanities project I’ve run for like coming up eight years now. And I'm a musician sometimes, those are all things that I did like like adjacent 00:29:02:13 - 00:29:25:17 Unknown to and at the same time as academia. And I think having obviously moved to a brand new context to me as well. Now I'm out in the States. I think I was doing I was working my way through these stages and sort of thinking that it would never end in one. I was told every step of the way that there were no academic jobs. 00:29:25:17 - 00:30:03:12 Unknown So like be prepared to to go elsewhere in the UK and then to also an understanding that academia is not paid very well in the UK and that it wouldn't necessarily be particularly livable. So, you know, you know, hearing from you as well and stuff about that, the visa aspect falling through, there's a lot about being part of academia that both gives extra opportunities because I know the visa type that I'm on here is in a lot of ways more accessible to me because of my career and then also closing doors because it makes things like tenure a little trickier and stuff. 00:30:03:12 - 00:30:24:13 Unknown So I'm very interested in this idea of focusing on, because I'm someone who doesn't know, on the outside of academia parts, about the ways that we can the opportunities and, career paths that people may, maybe who are in grad school right now have been taught to focus very much on, we've got to get that tenure track job. 00:30:24:15 - 00:30:46:19 Unknown So I think it must be very difficult for the people who have tuned in to have probably done everything right their whole lives for this past. Right. They were great students in high school. They did all the extra courses to get into college. They did all the extracurriculars. And you feel like you did everything you possibly could and it's not enough. 00:30:46:21 - 00:31:16:06 Unknown And I want to tell you, it's not you that you're a very talented, very intelligent person, and that there is a great need for smart thinking people in the real world, outside of academia, that is not the only place where you can make an impact, even in your field. So I think that it's so difficult to put all your eggs in one basket and then find out that it was the wrong basket or that things are not working out. 00:31:16:08 - 00:31:39:09 Unknown And so much of it is systemic. It's not your fault. It's partly the economy, it's partly things having a lot of sessions in academia, they have nothing to do at all with how talented you are, and if you've gotten this far, you are talented. So don't keep yourself as try to keep your self esteem intact and realize that you are worth a lot in the world and you may actually be able to contribute. 00:31:39:09 - 00:32:15:24 Unknown I think I contributed much more as a public service employee for the government and as a working for foreign museums than I probably ever would have in academia. And I really like people. I really like things. It turns out I'm a good administrator, but I would not have wanted to be a dean. And I think I've been able to mentor a lot of people like Jovana was able to start programs even where where I am now to create more opportunities, open pipelines to audiences that wouldn't even have access to museums, to the kinds of things that I do. 00:32:16:01 - 00:32:38:23 Unknown And that has been so rewarding. And I don't know that I would have had those opportunities in academia, but I would just say, it's not your fault if you're not finding the perfect academic. That's the other thing I'll say quickly, too, is I have many peers I wentThe other thing I’ll say quickly too is I have many peers. I went through school with and most of them from Princeton are tenured and wonderful jobs and none of them like, 00:32:39:00 - 00:33:06:03 Unknown they don't like their job. They really do not like your job, but it’s like a gilded cage at this point. They’re, at least associate, sometimes full professors. That's all they've done. They've never run anything except maybe, occasionally department, but they're frustrated and they feel stuck. May all work out for the best that you don't end up in that place. And I think it was one of the things that Alexandria was trying to say that was not a good environment for her 00:33:06:05 - 00:33:45:11 Unknown And it may not be the best environment for you, but it's not your fault. Thank you so much. If I could just jump in there. So first I want to hold space for what Dr. Lockett said in recognition of the fact that beyond any individual institution, Academia itself as an ecosystem is also an institution, and Tracey McMillan Cotton for a long time had as her Twitter background, institutions cannot love you, right? 00:33:45:13 - 00:34:13:11 Unknown And I think particularly for folks who have succeeded within an institutional system, as Laura, underline by the time you're at a PhD, or in a program for one or thinking about being in one, you have succeeded within this system and it is still an institution and institutions cannot love you. Folks within an institution can be wonderful, right? 00:34:13:13 - 00:34:41:02 Unknown And sometimes they are absolutely life saving and sometimes they're not. But I want to hold space for the fact that our lives continue to unfold. Like life does not stop lifing because of the work that we have done or the success that we've achieved. Unlike Dr. Lockett, all of my death did not happen in one year, but I buried somebody every year in the 2010s. 00:34:41:07 - 00:35:27:17 Unknown Every single year, and I was lucky. And I think we don't talk about luck very well in the U.S. in particular. Right. I was lucky that I had folks around who were supportive throughout that time because it does not necessary rarely happen. And so I think it is always good to be attentive to the ways that any institution depends upon its mythologies and its allusions like security, which is always an illusion in a capitalist system that is actually predicated upon different kinds of hierarchies in which some folks are always going to be losers and some folks are always going to be winners. 00:35:27:17 - 00:36:05:07 Unknown That is what it is made to do in that system. It is hard to lose or easy to lose sight of the fact that the system operates independent of individuals, which is why it can't love you. Right? And yet we can also find sometimes if we're lucky and luck matters, we can find support systems within them and we can build support systems within them so that it is not only luck, but we do have some elements of agency within that. 00:36:05:09 - 00:36:28:21 Unknown But I want to hold space for the fact that and honor the fact that because life happens in the midst of the institutions, sometimes we aren't treated with care and we don't have to be like that. As a layman often says, one got to be this way. We have chosen to be this way, but we ain't got to be this way. 00:36:28:23 - 00:37:08:21 Unknown So now. So the financial aspect of things is nice out here. You are a So I will say that the salary that I am able to gratefully claim right now and to support my family, where I would have been working for a long time to get and most of the tenure track positions that were available. So financial security I think is always precarious in a capitalist system, but the opportunities are buried and different. 00:37:08:21 - 00:37:33:12 Unknown And I get to work with really smart, brilliant people all the time. I also want to underline the fact that when you are in a closed system, it is very difficult to see your worth because if you could see it and if you knew your value, you would ask for your value and your worth. And the system doesn't operate well 00:37:33:13 - 00:37:57:18 Unknown if everybody understood since their worth and their value. And so the system as it functions, again, not a flaw, but the way that it functions by design needs you not to know that in the ways that you often cannot within that system. It is also a system that was not designed for a lot of the folks that look like the folks on this call. 00:37:57:20 - 00:38:17:03 Unknown Right, in a variety of ways. And I say this like it's not the Oxbridge system. And I say this as somebody who went to Cambridge right? That system where you are brought into the system and you have a room at the college and the Dons are there, and that is their whole world. That is not how academia functions in most places on the planet. 00:38:17:05 - 00:38:54:04 Unknown It doesn't even function like that in Oxbridge anymore, but the way that the system functions means that it is not at all developed and designed for the kind of thriving that we would like to have everyone have. The academy could be more humane, but the academy is also a microcosm of the larger society in which we live. Given all of that, one of the things that I hope you have heard throughout a number of the different panelists that they have shared is that they did other things all the time. 00:38:54:06 - 00:39:22:17 Unknown I was an editor, I created programs, I was a graduate advisor, I was the person who was the managing editor for Memoir Fellows and their journal Nationwide. Doing other things exposes you to the fact that you have value outside of this closed system where it is very, very hard to see. It is not just building a skill set. 00:39:22:17 - 00:39:44:06 Unknown It is not just developing things on your CV, though. Make sure you can point to those things that you've done. But it is also a recognition that the kinds of things that are lifted up in academia are things that you don't get to in terms of success for a long time. It takes a long time to write a dissertation, it takes a long time to write an article. 00:39:44:06 - 00:40:36:10 Unknown It takes a long time to write an article. It takes an exceptionally long time to complete a monograph, right? All of those things mean that the reward and the thing that gives value has to be delayed. One of the biggest things that I enjoy about my job at ACLS is the fact that I can see the impact over and over again, in multiple ways, and it's not at the end of a process, but because of the way it leads to the end. In our section of the organization, the way that we design things, we are thinking about those things all throughout. So it's not delayed. And you can see the ways that you are able to touch people in large and small ways all throughout. 00:40:38:02 - 00:41:23:06 Unknown And the kind of system that is set up in academia that has you holding your breath until you get to one year, until the dissertation is finished, until the book is finished is not a healthy way to live. It. But you don't have to choose that way even if you stay with it. And so what I hope I can impress upon folks is that there are alternatives that you have value and that the folks who pour into you and see that knew that when you came into the institution, these institutions then make you either right, you got there because you are ready or able to do things. 00:41:23:06 - 00:42:01:12 Unknown You were capable, you had value, you had worth. And so if I could encourage you of one thing, detach yourself self, self from success within this institutional system. Yeah, I think to echo a lot of what what Yvonne just shared is that there's certainly a radical, I think, perspective shift that one has to have in terms of really understanding the context that academia is in the way that she just outlined. 00:42:01:14 - 00:42:27:23 Unknown But I also want to underscore the kind of like identity shift. I think that is really healthy to do as well. And honestly, you know, part of the sort of discomfort I started to experience after I finished my qualifying exams and again these are like after doing everything right, like I got into the program directly after undergrad. I was doing really well in my classes. 00:42:28:00 - 00:43:00:21 Unknown I pass with distinction on my my qualifying exams and like as I kept getting all of these accomplishments, I still felt so hollow because I had that that breath holding moment of like, okay, well, I did this, but like, I have to be thinking about, about the next thing. And so as I started to really see that for what it was just like tying my self-worth to productivity in a particular kind of way and the kind of culture that that created, I was like, I need to figure out how to do something else because I don't think that this is it. 00:43:00:23 - 00:43:39:24 Unknown And so the identity shifts that happened over many years, thankfully, with a therapist was sort of moving away from defining myself as an academic and thinking about myself in terms of an intellectual and also still a scholar in some ways. And I think that part of that process is really distilling what is it that I value about the intellectual labor that I do, the process of that, the communities that I'm able to build around that and participate in, and distilling that away from the institutional in which it occurs was super helpful. 00:43:39:24 - 00:44:03:21 Unknown And that's something that, you know, appears in my work and really profound ways it feels and is a continuous conversation with grantees, early career scholars that we engage through our program. The intention foundry of just what does it mean to if you're committed to like still producing scholarship or being a scholar, what does that look like outside of the context of institutions of higher education? 00:44:03:21 - 00:44:26:05 Unknown Because we have to be about the fact that these are hostile environments. It's not even that they're like, they could be better, they're actively hostile. And, you know, notwithstanding the fact that sometimes I look at positions at universities and I'm like, could I? Because I do miss teaching, but then I look at the salary offerings and I feel very disrespected. 00:44:26:07 - 00:44:50:15 Unknown You're very disrespected, not going to lie. And that's part of, again, the sort of identity shift, right, of thinking about your value and also thinking about your values. Right. As I when I opened, I talked about like quality of life being really important to me. And, you know, as someone who, like I'm the eldest of five daughters, my mom was a single mom. 00:44:50:15 - 00:45:13:10 Unknown She had me when she was 17. And so I have always sort of been raised in a context of scarcity. And I think that I feel very privileged, actually, because at least as I got through college and then got to school, I didn't have to like take care of my family in the same kind of ways. Like I didn't feel that kind of financial pressure. 00:45:13:12 - 00:45:45:09 Unknown And then also being partnered in particular ways, which Nickeli, Sickelli... I forget her name, but there's a book called lean semesters that I encourage everyone to read. And it makes a really great argument that contrary to the narrative that education is this mobility for socioeconomic advancement in the United States, actually the opposite happens for black women particularly. And so just thinking about all of these dimensions that contribute again to quality of life, like they can't be underestimated. 00:45:45:09 - 00:46:07:09 Unknown And I think just being very honest with myself, that even if I value and I consider being a historian one of my superpowers, I still need to eat and I still need to pay rent. And like you just can't you can't under undersell the value of that. Like it's just it influences everything that you do and even your capacity to produce great work, right? 00:46:07:09 - 00:46:34:03 Unknown It's something that's still important to you. So I think really sitting with the kind of identity shift that's needed to start even questioning this framing too, of alternative academia. I saw a post on LinkedIn today actually that was about sort of stacks of PhDs going into nonacademic jobs. And it seems like more people are going into nonacademic jobs than academic jobs. 00:46:34:05 - 00:47:03:06 Unknown And so even the framing of alternative academia is like is now in academia is the alternative in a lot of ways. And so, you know, again, really being able to to to just sit with that and sit with, you know, who you are as a person and what's important to you, and then framing your career trajectory around that rather than receiving what academia tells you that looks like success or looks like thriving and well being. 00:47:03:08 - 00:47:28:22 Unknown Thank you, thanks so much. And yes, sorry, Dr. Lockett, you’ve got your hand up. Oh yeah, I just wanted to addressthe question in the Q&A but before I do, I just want to acknowledge Dr. Nurse's elegant comment. You addressed a lot of really awesome things. And I think that one of the most valuable aspects of your story involve the realization of value. 00:47:29:01 - 00:48:02:00 Unknown How how does one realize their value? And I think that questioner in asking what kinds of salaries we could look for. I wanted to address both of those things in a with some some information and also to kind of demonstrate my the expertise that I obtain outside of let me be very clear, I want to clarify something. Academia is a business to business like any other business. 00:48:02:02 - 00:48:27:04 Unknown It has a culture, however, of prestige economy that's outdated. And it runs counter to the entrepreneurial or growth instincts of any company. So Spelman college loses me. They probably not going to find another black woman, professional digital person for many years, if they do at all. And I'm not being arrogant. It's just true. I know what I do is very unique 00:48:27:06 - 00:48:55:08 Unknown and yet I could, a UMB would want those skills and that expertise. But you guys might be wondering how do I get even get the education? I need to learn what I need to learn in order to start making some of these decisions. So I wanted to offer some concrete resources to you guys. I actually teach perfect taught. And again, in an independent scholar forum, trying to bring it to the public in various ways. 00:48:55:08 - 00:49:22:01 Unknown I think, okay so repurposing, teaching, as a side hustle, yeah, there are many ways to monetize your knowledge in this economy. So when, if education is one business that does that, it does that in various ways. How do you learn? First source you go to is BureauofLaborStatistics. gov. That is where you're going to learn about how the federal government recognizes occupations. 00:49:22:03 - 00:49:46:00 Unknown You're going to learn where those occupations are. You're going to learn what they pay median low and high because the questioner wanted to know about salaries. Obviously, none of us on the panel can give you hand feed you that data, but that site can give you the data you're looking for. They also come out with reports monthly so you know where the job growth is happening, where unemployment is happening. 00:49:46:02 - 00:50:10:24 Unknown I check it every single day. It helps me learn more about the legal industry. Since I've transitioned into another industry, but it helps you learn about any industry. The second website you need to know about is a website called Career One-Stop Gov or dot org. One of the two don't quote me, but it's career One-Stop. It's free and it's a wonderful website for helping you learn about. 00:50:11:01 - 00:50:32:01 Unknown Like it just it's just the beginning to end to pathway to any occupation you want. And what's beautiful about it is it's, it's one of the most inclusive career sites I've ever because it's not just like, are you a college student looking for a scholarship? Are you a graduate student who are fellowship? Are you an ex-convict looking for a job? 00:50:32:03 - 00:50:54:04 Unknown It literally covers the scope of employment, like with the data from the BLS, to be able to give you a comprehensive understanding of what's going on in any industry. So those are two resources that you you will consult again and again and again and again and again and is probably going to be the most accurate source of data you're going to have available to you. 00:50:54:09 - 00:51:18:04 Unknown The third thing I encourage you to do is really consider how professions professional. So career one stop will route you to the professional organizations in any industry. But if I’m, for example, trying to become an attorney I know that the American Bar Association is not the only professional organization in that field. What are those professional organizations? 00:51:18:06 - 00:51:36:21 Unknown Are they connected to academia? Are they connected to industry and are they in? Is a credential necessary for what you're trying to do? A lot of people over credential or they try to pursue credentials when they really should be chasing experience. So a lot of this information will really help, you know, that you don't need a whole nother degree. 00:51:36:21 - 00:51:58:21 Unknown You know, like I'm a legal recruiter, you don't meet number one, you don't meet black women, legal recruit directors of legal recruiting. It doesn't exist. I've looked for these women. We were very small group of women. Number two, you don't find legal recruiters with a Ph.D. to you know, the bachelor's degree is a pretty entry level for that patient. 00:51:58:23 - 00:52:26:20 Unknown So I'm not. But I would hesitate to ever call myself overqualified for the work that I do, because it's not that it's not that I'm overqualified, but what I notice is my research skills do elevate the quality of work I'm able to do for these attorneys in ways that they notice. And you might find yourself coming back to your experiences with a kind of chuckle. 00:52:26:22 - 00:52:56:22 Unknown I was working with some appellate candidates for a Supreme Court in appellate position at the top firm and found out that my book had been cited in an amicus brief by the Harvard Law Clinic that was really, really empowering for me. Doesn't, you know, all all of the recognitions, the awards, etc., didn't matter in that moment that I could realize my work could be seen by people outside. 00:52:56:22 - 00:53:39:16 Unknown And I and I've always been committed to open access publishing, which has given me a bridge to multiple scholarly communities. So say you do stay in academia. You need to realize that interdisciplinary collaboration can sometimes be a locus of a lot of growth for for your work. So don't hesitate to think about things like if I am publishing in my publishing it open. Am I going after a company like I think Taylor and Francis recently sold all their authors data to AI. So now they make no money and their information is not theirs anymore. 00:53:39:16 - 00:54:06:18 Unknown So there's a lot of things to think about and I hope that these little details, these technical details are kind of helping someone begin to architect their journey a little bit more deliberately. Thank you. Thanks so much. I think that that actually leads us in really nicely to one of these questions that will be submitted for us about the and that many of you have already touched on about these sort of like competing incentives and things that we have to do. 00:54:06:19 - 00:54:39:18 Unknown It was, you know, because a large part of our audience here will be grad students at this point as well, and thinking about marketing themselves to both places, about that research niche, you know, like joining the tenure track or like the industry being employable. And so I'm wondering if if we have any tips for people who are still currently in that position about the sorts of things that they need to do at this stage to ensure that they can can do both things whilst they're publishing and so on like that, 00:54:39:18 - 00:55:41:13 Unknown make like that tip, for instance, like whilst they're publishing, making sure that they are publishing open access and things. So I'll jump in to say one of the things that Dr. Lockett just under underlined between the difference of getting more credentials, which again, if you've gotten to be a graduate student, you've gotten there because you've been amassing credentials right? The difference between that and gathering more and different kinds of diverse experiences and so I think one of the things that I always suggest that folks do throughout your graduate school career for certain is do some things that have nothing to do explicitly right with what you are doing in your research 00:55:41:15 - 00:56:07:06 Unknown partly that will enable you to learn how to talk about your research in a way that is not like diving down a rabbit hole so you can frame it as part right of your portfolio, which is to say part of the complexity and vastness of you. Because you are not just your research, you are something. Before you started doing your research, you do other things in addition to doing your research right now. 00:56:07:12 - 00:56:30:15 Unknown And so recognizing the complexity that you already have and then thinking about what are the things that are interesting to me that I think I want to learn more about. I'm a nerd, and I will claim nerd all day long, every day. I am a sociologist in my last version of nerddom, but I started out like doing biochemistry, right? 00:56:30:15 - 00:56:55:11 Unknown So, like, we are vast. And so thinking about the ways that we are able to cultivate different parts of self, I think is really important. Some really concrete things to do. If you're going to do an R.A. ship, see if you can change your title, right? It can be an R.A. ship for the kind of thing that you're doing within your department. 00:56:55:13 - 00:57:25:04 Unknown But are you doing development work? Are you doing work that is program design, being able to say those things and then highlight them on your CV slash resume as you need one is always really helpful making sure you get credit for the things that you do. If you design the thing, make sure that somewhere publicly it is said that you are the one who designed and developed or contributed to the development of said things. 00:57:25:06 - 00:57:51:02 Unknown Having some fiduciary responsibilities and experience so that you know how to look at a budget, how to plan one, how to manage one is absolutely exceptional for any career path that you're going to take, ever having the opportunity to do some management of folks, even if it's just a single person, is really, really helpful. Those kinds of things. 00:57:51:02 - 00:58:18:13 Unknown When they talk about transferable skills, we tend to think about what we do in terms of teaching or curriculum development, all of which is important. But there are other things that you can also do, and you don't necessarily have to stray from the academic path. I was, the program manager for one of my professors who led a research group on campus, another who led a seminar series. 00:58:18:13 - 00:58:43:14 Unknown And so knowing how to make sure that, you know, the budget was intact, hiring vendors to do certain things, being able to book travel for folks, being able to put together a program or brochure, all of those things that are easy to dismiss in the context of a place that says if it's not teaching and research, it does not matter. 00:58:43:18 - 00:59:09:22 Unknown It absolutely matters because the reality is most folks don't understand your teaching and your research and they won't. That's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. It's to recognize, though, that other things also have value, even if they're devalued within the concept that within the context of academia, thinking about the ways that you can also connect with people. 00:59:09:24 - 00:59:32:02 Unknown I know that networking is a really bad word as an introvert is just not even a word in my like, I'm an introvert introvert. So if you see me at a conference, know that like 30 minutes later you might not see me for the rest of it. I'm good for disappearing or being over in a corner where nobody can get to me and build that into our programing now so that other folks can also escape. 00:59:32:04 - 01:00:01:12 Unknown But if you're an introvert, it might be like, I don't know how to network, but we're really, really good at making one on one connections and talking to people, being curious and asking questions. Right? Listening to folks also gives you value in their eyes and you never know who's don't speak your name in a room that is going to be helpful in ways that you can't quite imagine. 01:00:01:14 - 01:00:23:01 Unknown And so thinking about the ways that you authentically and however it is that you operate, right, connect with folks, learn what they're doing. I have no idea. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up. And because of that, I speak with a lot of folks to learn what it is they do. 01:00:23:01 - 01:00:52:15 Unknown We call that informational interviewing if you're on a career development site, but it is really like, Hey, I know this part of the thing that I enjoy. They seem to be doing that. What else is aligned with that? What else dovetails with that? And so use your curiosity as well, because that curiosity will introduce you to kinds of things that you might never have even conceived of. 01:00:52:17 - 01:01:27:04 Unknown And so recognizing that there are a variety of skill sets that you already have, even if they're not lifted up and valued and shined light upon and given the accolades. Right. That, you know, are easy to collect in a place that likes shiny bottles, which academia undoubtedly does, but recognize, there are things that you can build into what you learn so that it's not a bifurcated path of I'm going into industry or I'm going outside of academia or I'm staying in academia. 01:01:27:07 - 01:01:44:20 Unknown These are things that are just benefits to have to know how to do, to learn, learn. And you can learn them in a variety of ways. I was going to be on nobody's academic committee because I was trying to run out of academia the whole time I was there. But you learn things if you're a search committee, right? 01:01:44:20 - 01:02:15:20 Unknown And that's a valuable knowledge. And so thinking about the ways that you can build your knowledge in a variety of ways and that all of that matters, like nothing is wasted. Absolutely. Nothing is wasted is so important, especially because even though we put those things that aren't necessarily valued in academia that you just mentioned, like the events management, the building, you know, the networking and so on, that is so much of the job as well. 01:02:15:22 - 01:02:34:14 Unknown You know, they don't value it, but like, what am I spending, you know, 80% of my time doing? It's things like that, right? So it's inside and outside of like I really feel I think about this all the time, like about, you know, when I'm eventually going to quit and stop my bakery and, you know, the sort of like events management and stuff that I really think I could quite cleanly do. 01:02:34:14 - 01:02:52:11 Unknown ut yes, thank you so much for that insight as well, Dr. Bickerstaff. Dr. Nurse, I just saw that you unmuted.Yeah, I just wanted to say to that those kinds of sort of experiences around managing a budget or event planning and, you know, as you said, you do that work in academia too, even if it's not recognized. 01:02:52:13 - 01:03:24:07 Unknown And as someone who runs a grants program, when people apply for money to do projects that involve certain aspects of that, it's very apparent like who either has the resources at their institution of people who know how to do that, who know how to build a budget, who know how to sort of curate an event. And especially with with digital work that is increasingly more publicly engaged, like you have to run events, you have to engage community in in real time and create community through that work. 01:03:24:09 - 01:03:54:10 Unknown And so even if you do stay in academia, like those are skills that you will need as you're writing, writing grants, I can't tell you how many scholars have asked, like, can you do a budget workshop? Because I actually don't know how to make one as I'm applying for this grant. So again, to sort of move away from that bifurcation of like academia not academia, because again, that's how the industry functions in terms of laboring or valuing certain kinds of labor over over others. 01:03:54:12 - 01:04:24:20 Unknown I would also say, you know, in terms of getting experiences away from your research, certainly do that. But I think there is value to internships that really are excited about the fact that you're in graduate school and, you know, offer the kind of flexibility that you need in terms of creating a schedule, like a concrete thing, in terms of being able to do both, right, to show up to the internship and do your work, but also be able to continue working on your coursework or writing or whatever. 01:04:24:20 - 01:04:43:20 Unknown And so when I got an internship the last year of my program at a magazine, they were really excited about the fact that I was doing a history PhD because it to inform, you know, how I was editing pieces, how I was writing pieces, offering research, consults with some of the writers, but they just let me hang out in their office before my shift started. 01:04:43:20 - 01:05:13:20 Unknown And so I got a space to be able to write that was sort of away from campus, which is also very important. Just like getting away from campus in a lot of different ways. And so, you know, don't under under like appreciate the value of those kinds of internship opportunities that do give you those more admin kind of experiences that you're then able to talk about in such a way that allows you to see how operations connect with strategy. 01:05:13:20 - 01:05:54:18 Unknown Because I think that's also a really critical piece of like how we're trained as thinkers in academia, but we're not trying to frame what we do in ways that are connected to a larger mission or a larger organization or a larger team. I want to speak directly to that because of my own experiences being an independent scholar now, it was precisely because of the fact that I was so adamant about being a public scholar when I was in academia, and I was so committed to open access and open educational resource development as a professor. 01:05:54:20 - 01:06:28:12 Unknown And before that, when I was in grad school, I started teaching with Wikipedia when I was a grad student in 2006. Okay, so long time ago. And that was because I thought that it was really important to start to prepare students for the socio technical shifts that I knew were going to happen, which is if everyday people are not aware of how information management is now, everybody's responsibility then and we don't integrate that into teaching, 01:06:28:14 - 01:07:04:03 Unknown it was going to be a problem. So I actively started onboarding Wikipedia, editing in my classes and you might say, Well, what does that have to do with anything? Well, number one, Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites. It's also only edited by 0.004% of the people who visit the website of that .00 4%, over 90% of the people who edit the website are identified as white males, predominantly in computing. 01:07:04:05 - 01:07:31:07 Unknown So what do you think that means? It means that content on Wikipedia is disproportionate. Military history, gaming, sports, music, you'll see those are hot, you know, topics that are very widely covered. But when it comes to things like black history or science topics or art art topics, not so much. Certainly women's biographies are just paltry in some areas. 01:07:31:09 - 01:08:13:08 Unknown So going to Spelman was really awesome for me because I was able to help on board the largest and probably one of the largest numbers of black women editors in the country and work internationally. So being able to get grants for running public events connected me to organizations like Wikimedia Foundation, Wiki Education Foundation and Afro Crowd, which gave me opportunities to be commissioned to write technical reports for them and do projects and get stipends to do the independent scholar work that has sustained me in my moments of of of scarcity while I'm transitioning. 01:08:13:10 - 01:08:39:17 Unknown So in fact, if your research is public facing is it does have a component in there that can really be global, multilingual, rich, interdisciplinary work, then yeah, you know, you want to monetize it as much as you can. So I gave away a lot for free when I was in academia. Like a lot, a lot more than I should have given for free. 01:08:39:19 - 01:09:01:06 Unknown But now I'm looking into how do I repurpose these materials into packages that I can sell in my sleep. You know, I'm thinking like that now. Ways I never would have thought before how to monetize what I know because I was just so busy trying to be public, trying to be free, you know, make sure people had free access. 01:09:01:06 - 01:09:24:11 Unknown But all of this to say to wrap up the point is, you got to ask yourself about your sense of purpose, wherever you're going. Wherever, whether you're staying in academia, you're not staying in academia, or whether you choose another position within academia that's not teaching necessarily, you got to ask yourself, why do I do this? What is the goal I'm trying to accomplish here? 01:09:24:11 - 01:09:57:24 Unknown In my case, it was I don't see education as just a matter of success, chasing, getting a degree or even being rewarded for certain skills. I see education as the opportunity to learn how you learn and to produce knowledge, so hence why I incorporated something like Wikipedia editing in my classes because everyone knows something do share, which, you know, sharing knowledge freely, knowing when to share it for free, knowing when you need to share it to get paid. 01:09:58:01 - 01:10:27:06 Unknown Those are the particulars of the day, but you've got to ask yourself three major questions as your in this particular way. First question that you should be asking is Who do I want to be in a room with a year from now, three years from now, five years from now, asking yourself who you want to be in a room with is really or who you would like to talk to, like who you would like to have any contact with. 01:10:27:08 - 01:10:47:17 Unknown You can start pursuing that now. You know, you can start looking at your network on LinkedIn or wherever and saying, you know, I'm going to start following these people because I would like to know more about them. You know that asking that question. The second question asking yourself is what kind of work do I actually enjoy doing? I don't care if it's baking. 01:10:47:17 - 01:11:07:20 Unknown I don't care if it's note taking. I don't care if it's transcription work, whatever, however banal or grand you think it is, what work do you enjoy doing? And then you need to learn about all the different ways that work is quantified and all the different industries that work can be useful to. Curriculum Development is not just for educational spaces anymore. 01:11:07:22 - 01:11:41:11 Unknown Plenty of very large, very, very, very profitable companies, even law firms that I work with hire people for knowledge management, research, conflicts, analysis, all kinds of policy analysis, all kinds of roles that you might that are non-practicing non attorney roles that a person might think, I would have never thought to go to a law firm for that and get paid six figures instead of the paltry 50, 60,000 that I'm going to be making for the next ten years. 01:11:41:13 - 01:12:16:01 Unknown So I just wanted to point those things out in regards to how do we how do we actually go through the strategic of assessing value when we don't want to throw away everything we've ever learned or know or devalue? Quite frankly, you don't want to devalue it, but you don't overvalue it. But you do want to ask yourself who you want to be in, how camaraderie with collegiality, with who you would like to collaborate with, who you would like to, to produce work for. 01:12:16:03 - 01:12:46:22 Unknown And last but not least, ask the question Who do I want to use me and how am I willing to be used? Sounds kind of grimy, but it's just the truth. Everyone is engaged in a transactional situation when they're in a quote unquote professional context. That's kind of the nature of a professional context is the transactional nature of it. 01:12:46:24 - 01:13:13:13 Unknown Do I want to use and in what way? You should be asking yourself that question too. And then you ask yourself who will enter this mutual relationship with me or who will even entertain a conversation with me about it. And my suggestion to you is to start reaching out. But let me be clear. If you're going to be reaching out, you need to be reaching out with a value proposition. 01:13:13:19 - 01:13:47:01 Unknown Don't just write people and think they're going to help you because you're young and eager. Know give them something, you know. you know, I've read your book. I saw this point. I was thinking about this question, and I'd love to have a further conversation with you about it. Would you be willing to have a 20 minute call, be that specific when you reach out to people so they know your intentions, but they don't just think you're you know, don't you know, you don't have to just flattery it out or even avoid the contact. 01:13:47:04 - 01:14:13:06 Unknown Trust me, people love being contacted about their work. They do even post like, you know, I love getting those emails when somebody says, hey, I required book in my class, I just wanted you That great, awesome line of communication. Every communication you enter is an opportunity because even though you may not know, like get a gig from a person one day, you never know. 01:14:13:06 - 01:14:43:05 Unknown Five months down the line, eight months down the line, if they're to return that communication and end up giving you something lucrative. So wanted to give those tips before we get even deeper into the session. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Oh, I was just about to open a question for you anyway, Dr. Coyle, so please do go ahead. I just wanted to build on what Alexandria was saying, and it's a very short motto that I have, and I've often shared at Joe too, actually. 01:14:43:07 - 01:15:03:05 Unknown One is wherever you go, you have to know how the money works. Even if you don't like the system, you got to know how the money works. And if you can figure out how to pay for your projects and the to order the time to support you while you're doing your passion project, that is huge. So make it your business to know how the money works, really work. 01:15:03:07 - 01:15:21:19 Unknown And the other is if you don't ask the answers now, you're going to put yourself out there now and you know you're going to hear no plenty of times, but occasionally you're going to hear it. Yes. And it could be a life changing experience and truly. So put yourself out there. Don't be so careful. Academics are so careful 01:15:21:21 - 01:15:40:11 Unknown about everything they do, everything they throw, everything they write. Sometimes you have just put yourself out there and take a risk and ask for what you want and what you need. Absolutely. I wanted to thank you for that. I wanted to also ask a couple questions. There was one in the Q&A that I would just love to hear you speak to a little more. 01:15:40:17 - 01:16:02:21 Unknown So It's such a good question about the museum space, and there's some other things that come up about the archives and arts and heritage spaces. So one was, you know, I know that a lot of people very specifically want to hear about some of those curation experiences or translating. And, you know, bearing in mind with Black Communication and Technology Lab and we're thinking very much about digitizing and archival experiences. 01:16:02:21 - 01:16:28:14 Unknown And here I was wondering if you would be happy to speak a little bit more about some of the needs that this sort of Arts and Heritage Culture Museum. Oh my God, they need people who are digitally literate. I’ll be blunt. Most of the people who come into the field into museums come in through the humanities and until you know the generation we are in knowing how the digital work was not part of it. 01:16:28:16 - 01:16:55:13 Unknown I mean, I never could have prepared for the job I had to do didn't exist at that point. But I think you do not have to have a special degree to go into museum space. As a curator, your opinion is much more valuable in the subject matter field than, say, getting a museum degree for curatorial work or other kinds of work and studies degrees can be helpful, but it is not a requirement. 01:16:55:15 - 01:17:26:11 Unknown And a lot of jobs in museums are taught in the kind of apprenticeship kind of way. If you're not able to travel to part with your world is a little bit like academia, but if you want to do digitization or selection management or advancement or parties, if you like, parties of, you know, every museum has an event staff, all of these jobs really welcome people with know both. 01:17:26:13 - 01:17:46:04 Unknown They want smart, hardworking people, and that's what you are. So you can pretty much translate that literally finding the jobs that can be a little more difficult. But there are websites you should look at. I give the same advice to I give to students, which is just read the application really carefully and tell them what they want to hear. 01:17:46:09 - 01:18:19:02 Unknown Know what you what you can do. Don't underrate your experience knowing how to write. That's not a very widespread skill and so much of what happens in museums is about writing online on the walls for public programs, for out publications. Strong writing skills are needed in the Advancement Department and curatorial for policies, all kinds of things. I don't want to take up too much time because I don't know how many people are museum people here, but I did put my contact information, 01:18:19:02 - 01:18:39:17 Unknown if you want me to talk more about where to find it. But I would say yes, you're still very, very translatable. At the museum where I am, I would say that half of the curators came out of academia. They were teaching and were not happy teaching and decided to go into curatorial work instead. And I have a PhD, but ended up in the collection side. 01:18:39:17 - 01:19:20:19 Unknown And I'm not the only one, but there are other many others. And in the government where you can I wouldn't pooh pooh a government job. People think they don't pay well, they can do very well. If you have a Ph.D. you can easily looking at an entry level salary in the 80s and 90s. And after a few years being in three, and there's potential. So I would not dismiss a career in in government. And there are every career you can imagine is within the government. You're not going to earn the attorney fees that you know, Alexandria, the people she's hiring for private firms, but there are jobs for every interest in the government. And I would not dismiss that. 01:19:22:14 - 01:19:46:05 Unknown And the museum jobs in the government pay better than most museum jobs. So National Gallery, the Hirshhorn Museum at the Smithsonian, all of these are places that you should be actively and, you know, read those tutorials on the USA job site about how to apply for government job. I mean, they are actually helpful and will make a huge difference. 01:19:46:05 - 01:20:06:03 Unknown It's much different than applying for an academic job. And there are also so many lovely ways that you can get involved in working with like museums and galleries and the like. Perhaps maybe ways that you'd automatically think of like whilst I was a Ph.D. student in the UK, I had a really nice long term relationship with the Wellcome. The Wellcome Trust. 01:20:06:07 - 01:20:29:19 Unknown Yeah, I did everything for them in some different way or another. I did, Yeah, exactly. And we're at the Smithsonian, at least in our museum. All of our internships are paid and we're fairly decently paid, so you can afford to take them. We also have some and we take at all different stages. You don't necessarily have to be a junior in college to apply for an internship at the Smithsonian. 01:20:29:20 - 01:20:56:11 Unknown You can be a graduate student, you can be out, you can be a career changer, and that can be a good way to find out if you really are interested in the job is to take some sort of a paid paid internship or fellowship position and try it. That's a lovely segway into another one of our questions. Hold on. Sorry, Dr. Walcott. I just want to add a couple of resources to that. Schomburg in New York Public Library. 01:20:56:13 - 01:21:29:04 Unknown Also check out any major university in library in your city will likely offer some kind of fellowship for you to even come for a weekend like I've seen like the Babbage Museum, you know, or in in Minnesota. I think it's in Minnesota or like I said, the Schomburg offers some really lucrative, short and long term fellowship opportunities. So you really want to make sure that you're looking local, that you're looking national. 01:21:29:06 - 01:21:55:01 Unknown And also, I want to point out that when you're thinking about glam work galleries, libraries, archives, museums, that you're thinking about the wide range of ways curation happens outside of just museum work. For example, I've been commissioned to ghostwrite tons of excerpts for things like biographies that end up in museums as a copywriter or as a copy editor. 01:21:55:03 - 01:22:28:09 Unknown I've also helped people with indexing and these things can happen digitally and they can happen on site. So it's always really good to consider which kind of curate like when you're talking about curation, are you talking about narrating exhibits or are you talking about actually physically making collections, actually physically preserving collections, organizing collections, adapting collections? There's collections can take a lot of forms. 01:22:28:09 - 01:22:56:07 Unknown So just, you know, always know that, you know, you don't have to limit limit yourself when you're thinking about the archival space, it's pretty vast and libraries hire for things like digital humanities, librarian or digital humanities fellow or Wikipedia and in residence, those are popping up all the place now. So yeah, that space is is it's really hot. 01:22:56:13 - 01:23:20:13 Unknown thank you so much for putting those links in the chat. And yeah, so I just wanted to add those up. So I'm just few of those in like I think a lot of these spaces around memory work, archives, digitization. really? But I'm sure for most of our audience who are watching this, like very, very relevant lot of crossovers with all of your experience as well. 01:23:20:15 - 01:23:50:13 Unknown So I'm not sure if you guys can add to the webinar chat, but if there's anything else that I should be missing, just let me know and I'll put it into the track for everybody too. So I think one of the things that we that was coming up there as well, just before thinking about the, you know, the types of places that you might take this work as well and that came up in some of our questions was about going to grad school at all, because some of the people attending this as well were also thinking about that choice of like, am I at the cusp of their grad school applications and so on. 01:23:50:13 - 01:24:10:03 Unknown I had a few questions about whether some of these alternative academic careers are accessible with a master's, with an undergrad, with, you know, the kinds and I'm going to because obviously, yes, anyone can get a job with another degree. But I wanted to just like ask about the kinds of work that you guys are doing here as well. 01:24:10:03 - 01:24:38:07 Unknown You know, the fact that of this call you've just mentioned that a lot of like 50% of the people working there have come with their Ph.D. in their research area and then in the curatorial division. I wouldn't say that you think people have all the assessments? Yes, of course. So like in the areas specifically that you guys are working in, perhaps then how do you see the entry points to this for your posts, you know, sans doctorate, etc.? 01:24:38:09 - 01:25:02:06 Unknown Does that make sense? Sorry, it's never going to hurt you to have education, have more to know things to have, I hope, institutionally. But is it necessary to have those qualifications in in the outside world? Not usually. Usually your experience is I think I would say so. The earlier the experience that you have, our probably more important for landing a job. 01:25:02:08 - 01:25:21:16 Unknown I have a daughter who is 31. She has a great B.A. from a great university, and she's decided to totally skip the whole graduate school thing. And she just got a job as a general manager of a community radio station. You know, I was worried about that. But I think that there are just so many opportunities out there now. 01:25:21:16 - 01:25:50:04 Unknown And for all the difficulties, you are not coming into an economy that's in a recession. So when I came in out of school, it’s this 14 or 15%. It’s awful. So I think for, for students. Yeah, look around there. And I think in the government too, and this is happening more and more of the municipal jobs, they're actually trying to write them so that you do not have to have an educational requirement to do the job. 01:25:50:04 - 01:26:17:12 Unknown And this is absolutely essential. And that includes even a high school degree. So you can be certain that your, your B. A. or your B. S. will be enough to qualify you for a lot of different kinds of decisions. Rianna Walcott: Sorry, that point has just come through to us. So Dr. Lockett just wrote, or Dr. Nurse, who graduated in 2020, 01:26:17:17 - 01:26:40:08 Unknown in terms of joining the workforce during uncertain times. I don't have anything we'd like to add to that the doctor question. Alexandria Lockett: Yeah. In regards to this recession, just really quickly, just really quick point. I work with attorneys that graduated in 2020, as well, and they were hired in a remote working environment. 01:26:40:08 - 01:27:03:05 Unknown And the tricky thing with with industry and this is just something that I'm sharing about from my personal experience, you know, with industry. First of all, everything is very industry specific, all everything. When I became a legal recruiter, I was kind of coming at it from like a foolish academic perspective in some ways, and I'll explain what I mean. 01:27:03:05 - 01:27:28:17 Unknown So I was pre law advisor at Spelman and I've like I said, I've been doing career assisting forever. But when I became a legal recruiter, the shift from advising to recruiting is very palpable. Okay? When you're recruiting, like you don't just work with everybody. You know how like in academia, like just because they're part of the institution, there's a kind of obligation. 01:27:28:17 - 01:27:44:16 Unknown I feel like, well, I got I got to head out to them. I got to help them. They're here. That is not the case. As a recruiter at all. And you will waste your time, your precious energy, all the things you have in life. If you try to work with somebody that you know, a firm is not going to hire. 01:27:44:16 - 01:28:07:18 Unknown So can try to fight to get diversity through all day long. They want a black guy. They want a black guy from Harvard. They want the black guy from UPenn. They do not want the black guy from University of whatever. Okay. Law firms, top law firms are very particular about prestige at times. Now, each firm culture has a different set of rules. 01:28:07:18 - 01:28:25:21 Unknown But what I learned very quickly going into that space was you do have to source, quote unquote, top applicants. The measures for that can often be counter to maybe some of the values you're accustomed to coming out of academia, because you do have this sort of sense that, well, I want to help everybody. I know there's a way in here. 01:28:27:10 - 01:28:59:11 Unknown They want somebody from a t25 law school and a T and M Law 50 firm That's just what it is. Doesn't matter what color what gender whatever that is what it is So knowing that, think about these attorneys who join these firms, had to work virtually, and then all of a sudden these firms are demanding that they come back, demanding that they acclimate to a firm culture that existed prior to the pandemic, which was very male dominated, which remains very male dominated despite the Mansfield rule. 01:28:59:13 - 01:29:35:12 Unknown And a lot of women attorneys are going, how am I supposed to take care of my baby? And do you know, 1800 1900 billable hours a year. It's just not possible. And some firms are just like, we don't care. This is what you need to do. This is our culture. This is how it is. So I think it's really important to watch out for the fact that as you're entering these industries, be sensitive to the fact that some have become very remote friendly and very about accommodating workers as long as they're doing the job, 01:29:35:14 - 01:29:56:19 Unknown But then you still have, you know, like it like similar to academia, the world of law is very prestige driven. So they tend to enact mandates that will preserve that old culture of sort of, well, we're good old boys. We go out and have a drink and close deal, which is very counter to say that black women that don't got no interest in going to the office, she ain't got no interest in being your friend. 01:29:56:19 - 01:30:25:05 Unknown She trying to get the particulars done at her house. She tried to do all that, but she's got to miss out now on the next big deal because she didn't go out with the boys for drinks at the strip club. It happens. So if you're going to join a corporate world, if you're going to join a high profile world of high prestige world, you do you leverage what you know about prestige from academia and don't avoid and act like it's not there. 01:30:25:05 - 01:30:43:10 Unknown It's something you can fight or it's something you need to resist or you need to be on the front lines. I'm not trying to be on the front line, so I'm trying to get these law firms and give me my money, okay? Because it's probably the most I'm going to be able to make from a company as an independent worker and not worry about the ethics of it at all. 01:30:43:10 - 01:31:09:19 Unknown I have no problems taking money from a law firm. They make lots and lots and lots of I know how much profit they make. If I if I. Your firm's pulling in 8 billion a year, I don't have a problem. You pay me my placement fee. So who's paying you becomes as important of a question as how flexible they are with the benefits. 01:31:09:21 - 01:31:34:17 Unknown I love being able to help young female attorneys who graduated in, say, 2021 2022 and say, you know, yeah, you might not have a kid now, you might not be married now, but when you make a move, you need to check your benefits. Are They giving you like I've seen firms offer things like breast milk delivery, child care on site, extended leave, part time arrangements. 01:31:34:19 - 01:31:54:03 Unknown But these young women haven't even thought about what they're going to do when they become young mothers and how their benefits. Like with academia, you're just so excited to get that first job. You're just so excited you're not questioning the details of the offer. You're not thinking about the things you're going to need five years from now, ten years from now. 01:31:54:05 - 01:32:26:07 Unknown Think about those things now, okay? Because I hear I am co raising the baby and I never in life thought I would ever. And that was the miracle in all my tragedy, all my had a baby and I'm co raising her with her always avoided it because I didn't have the money fall into your joy don't avoid things just because you think you're not ready or it's not your time or you'll never do it. 01:32:26:09 - 01:32:46:11 Unknown You don't know what you're going to do, but you can be thinking in advance. I want to work for the kind of company that is going to allow, you know, that'll give me a stipend, freeze my eggs if I don't want to have babies. Right now, I'm working with, you know, several firms. They offer up to 45 K to a, you know, to a woman wanting to freeze or freeze her eggs. 01:32:46:16 - 01:33:07:21 Unknown So anyway, I just wanted to point out those little life detail things because I think they're things we think about, but we don't often get to talk about in a public way. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. We have a question like a specific question for Doctor Nurse, which I think was quite lovely. Your job description on the flier sounds so fulfilling. 01:33:07:21 - 01:33:40:10 Unknown What's your favorite part? I'm actually curious what the job description said because I know I sent my bio in, but bio and I. okay. Okay. Well, it's the chaplaincy. Yeah. So I guess what I love about it is and this sort of ties in to the previous question about whether or not you need to go to graduate school, depending on what you want to do. 01:33:40:12 - 01:34:12:24 Unknown You know, I'm of two minds of that, which is that I actually really, really love being a historian. And I loved like being a historian of the African diaspora, particularly like that is my area and I love like who I became in graduate school. I loved the thinker that I became in graduate school. And although there were trying moments and I did not become a professor, I still don't regret that experience at all. 01:34:12:24 - 01:34:34:08 Unknown Like I would go back and do it again because like my experience, which, you know, was sort of circumscribed by a lot of privilege in so far as like I said earlier, alluded to being partnered in a particular way that allowed me not to have to worry about like rent, for example, like I was married. My my partner is in tech. 01:34:34:08 - 01:35:08:06 Unknown And so I want to underscore that. And that that is something that is talked about in lean semesters as well of thinking about those life components that will have a really, really significant impact on your graduate experience. So I definitely don't want to discourage people from going to graduate school. We need more people studying the humanities, particularly, I think, but at the same time weighing that against like the amount of time you lose when you could be doing something else, particularly getting that experience, that work experience. 01:35:08:08 - 01:35:30:22 Unknown But I think also, with the specificity of industry, like Dr. Lockett was just talking about, I work in an organization that's very adjacent to academia, but it functions pretty much like academia in a lot of ways. And ways it doesn't too, because, that is why I have stayed for as long as I have, because it doesn't function in particular ways 01:35:30:24 - 01:35:52:14 Unknown but I think there's something about the ways that you will learn a lot of stuff in graduate school about your research and the content, but there is a kind of socialization that happens also in terms of understanding and learning the culture of academia, and I have found that to be really helpful in terms of the job that I do now so that I know how to talk to folks, 01:35:52:14 - 01:36:15:23 Unknown but I also have a keen awareness of these are the problematic parts of this. So I'm not going to replicate that, so that when academics come and interact with me, they feel like it's a different experience. So I think having that awareness, which I only would have gotten had I gone through and did the PhD definitely helps me in the very, very specific job that I do at ACLS. 01:36:16:00 - 01:36:50:03 Unknown And I didn't know that I was going to become a program officer when I started graduate school. I just did it because I was a Mellon fellow and that was what you were supposed to do to go directly in. And having said all of that, I think that part of what I love about working at ACLS and working in IDEA with Jovonne is that I am like in community through this organization with people who also either have PhDs in the humanities or at least are committed to the mission of trying to support humanity scholarship in particular ways. 01:36:50:05 - 01:37:23:23 Unknown And so it's nice to be able to be in that environment with people who have the same kind of values, but again, respect boundaries and just have a very different approach to work. Like we understand that as an organization, we're oriented towards a particular mission, but like that doesn't define us as people. And I think being able to have that separation of what I do versus, who I am, I've been able to get that a lot more than I got when I was in graduate school or during my postdoc, because I'm also working with a team of people. 01:37:23:23 - 01:37:59:17 Unknown So ultimately I would say that that's probably my favorite part of my job is being able to work with a team of people who really care about others, who also see the dysfunction, the social dysfunction I'm talking particularly that can happen in academia and are committed to replicating or committing, committed to life, modeling other ways of of being and having that sort of show up very intentionally in the work that we do in the programs that we design in the way that we administer, administer those programs as well. 01:37:59:19 - 01:38:24:22 Unknown And and so I think it's a mix of like I still get to exercise my intellectual muscles and, you know, employ some of the skills that I learned in graduate school. But again, doing it with a community of people that I like being around from 9 to 5. Dr. Lockett, yes? Hello, Dr. Lockett, you've got your hand up as well. 01:38:25:03 - 01:38:48:04 Unknown Yeah. I just wanted to bring in an important detail that I did not bring up before in terms of the transition, because, you know, all the death stuff kind of. Okay, well, while I was doing that through that, me and my partner of not ex partner of nine years, you know, ended the relationship right after my mom died. 01:38:48:06 - 01:39:10:20 Unknown So I was also going through that. But being with somebody who, you know, we got together his last year of law school, my last year of the Ph.D. that was a critical aspect of my knowledge of the legal industry law and all that stuff, in addition to the fact that I'm like a rhetoric scholar. So of course, like rhetoric involves you in the study of law. 01:39:10:20 - 01:39:29:16 Unknown I was a debater in high school and I also coached debate for a little while at Spelman and, you know, did all that. So so it is important for me to bring up those little details in case people are wondering why legal recruiting, how did you end up in legal recruiting as opposed to, say, tech recruiting or other types of recruiting? 01:39:29:16 - 01:39:54:00 Unknown So I had to bring that up and yeah, it was and I'm still recovering from that. You know, nine years is a long time to be with somebody and then, you know, not so just be aware that at any time your life could just catastrophically take a turn. Do you have enough retirement? Are you putting enough retirement in? 01:39:54:00 - 01:40:24:19 Unknown You might not want to put in 5%, but maybe you should be putting in ten. You do not know what will happen to you. I yeah, I think that's a valid thing to always be thinking about in terms of our like orientation to work in general as well. Yeah. Thank you. I wanted to just like we've got about 10 minutes left, so I want to get to a few more of these. 01:40:24:21 - 01:40:48:24 Unknown We've worked through quite a lot of the pre submitted questions and I want to remind everyone else that there is still time to add a few more if you have anything. But some of these have been some like more general things as well. Like about one of the ones that I think keeps coming up here is about this moment of transition from like potentially from an academic career path to on the other- 01:40:49:22 - 01:41:16:23 Unknown another career path, how to transition away from academia or headhunters useful for us. And then also I think this question is a lovely one or an important one about ageism being a hiring concern out of academia. I think because we talk in the academic career for set like our degrees expire. You know, I remember being told that like five years after your PhD, I heard about something horrifying. 01:41:17:00 - 01:41:33:21 Unknown I heard about someone who actually went back and got another PhD because theirs expired. And I was like, no, at that point, I think I would actually have to call it a wrap for me. But, think that is like a really important thing in all. In academia, we're told that these degrees expire, 01:41:33:21 - 01:42:11:14 Unknown our research expires and I was wondering about that in terms of ageism and like hiring outside of academia as well. Is there that same like time pressure, that same time crunch about when your research is valuable and how long for? Open to the floor as well. I'm the eldest here, so I suppose I could show something different. Ageism is real, but again, I think I put in the chat that you have to research not only job you want, but the culture of the place where you're applying. 01:42:11:16 - 01:42:35:07 Unknown I think Alexandria was talking about to knowing where you're going. There are certain places where it's harder to discriminate, for instance, in government jobs, because they have to, there are strict rules about how they have to, grade applications and I got a, my job with the Smithsonian, I didn't get until I was, what was I, close to 50. 01:42:35:09 - 01:42:57:19 Unknown And I don't think that that age playing at all of anything, they really needed people who had a lot of experience because it's an institution with. So you that was helpful. And there's a lot of respect at the Smithsonian for even better when you finish it. So it's a place that it's valued because it's a research institution. So again, I think it's really going to depend on where you go. 01:42:57:21 - 01:43:19:24 Unknown But the demographics are with you. You are still very early in your career compared to me, and there's going to be a huge wave of people who are going stop working. Around the time that I do that, those jobs are going to need to be filled. They're going to need people who are mid-career, which will take those positions. 01:43:20:01 - 01:43:45:18 Unknown So I don't know if that's your answer, but I wouldn't use it as you know. Yeah, that's I guess you have to throw your hat in the ring. You have to you have to go out, go for it and and see what the culture is, where you're applying and try to put your best foot forward. I mean it's worth mentioning that I'm not sure who's submitted what questions as well and at what point in their career they’re at as well. 01:43:45:24 - 01:44:08:09 Unknown So there are a few people I believe in this panel who are in academic careers and who are thinking about moving out. So I wanted to ask that. So thank you so much for your answer about that. I wanted to talk turn it back to that question about headhuntersbecause I have no idea. Oh, that's Alexandria. Yes. Please. Take it away. 01:44:08:11 - 01:44:55:24 Unknown Oh, what about, what was your question about headhunters? Oh yeah in the question about how to transition away from academia, is headhunters useful for, are headhunters useful for us, and is ageism a hiring concern outside of academia?And I also see something in the Q&A. I saw that it so it did okay. The short answer to your question is I'm I think at the administrative level, definitely, you know, you have a lot of search firms that definitely help to fill things like the proposed assistant provost honors director, positions like that, you might find an executive search firm, 01:44:56:01 - 01:45:20:16 Unknown they actually will, and certainly presidential searches are always handled by typically an executive search firm. So if you're interested, head hunting for academia. Absolutely. Those opportunities do exist. And I'm happy to follow up with you about some companies that do that kind of work, I think they were asking you about being headhunted. Maybe I'm not 100% sure. 01:45:20:18 - 01:45:57:08 Unknown Yeah, well, what about being headhunted? Sorry. Yeah, no, I was just in the, these people who, the potential submitter of this question I believe is in academia and asking about being transmitted, transmitting away are headhunters useful for us, like approaching people who headhunt or whatever? And then the complicating part of just this grouping of questions as well is again, about getting started alongside full time work and putting themselves out to industry and non academic paths while still in academia. 01:45:57:10 - 01:46:25:05 Unknown Standard with a yes and no. A recruiter can really useful for sort of a preliminary conversation about like what what they're looking for. Right. But it's also true that they're not going to really to work with you if they can't work with you for a position and trying to fill. Now that being said, you can always take the recruiters feedback and you can pursue these positions, the challenged. 01:46:25:11 - 01:46:56:22 Unknown So the challenging thing is going to be the really nebulous face of endless coaches on LinkedIn and elsewhere trying to get you to purchase their packages for like teacher. You'll see them all over, you know, transitioning teachers. Here's my advice before you try to get a recruiter, a coach or anything, just learn about the way people talk about the thing. 01:46:56:24 - 01:47:17:06 Unknown One of the ways I learned about a lot of different companies that were remote first and were hiring transitioning teachers and again, I'm still applying the part time job design then. I mean, it's still a process. These ladies on the panel other ladies on the panel are way more established than me. And please know that, like, y'all got stability in your job. 01:47:17:06 - 01:47:48:01 Unknown You have a clear like my job is very not that right now for me. I think it will be next year but I still have some time and I'm trying to give myself some grace because I did kind of lose my whole family and I am in a whole new industry. But that being said, go to LinkedIn and type in things like hashtag early career opportunities or hashtag early career, hashtag transitioning teachers, you know, and you'll find that there are what you call it or hashtag job fairies. 01:47:48:03 - 01:48:08:02 Unknown There are these people on LinkedIn called job fairies. And what they do is they curate these very beautiful long features. Free list of exactly the kind of information that I know you're trying to find when you're when you would be working with a recruiter or a coach, same kind of things that they might be giving you. 01:48:08:02 - 01:48:27:21 Unknown But generally not even knowing what's out there before you start looking for a coach that's going to help you tailor your materials or source opportunities for you. I find that there's and I speak as somebody who does coaching on the side too, and please tell your friends about me. But I do coaching, editing, freelancing, all kinds of stuff. 01:48:27:23 - 01:48:55:09 Unknown But that being said, you want clarity before you approach them because it could be that you could eliminate a lot of the scam before you get into it and allow them to say, I'm going to hold you. My experience with the space is about 90% of people can be truly scamming, truly scamming. And if you're interested in following up on things like, Well, I do want somebody to edit my stuff. 01:48:55:09 - 01:49:16:10 Unknown What's a rate for what's a typical rate for an editor? I know that kind of stuff, you know, and I can give you benchmark informations, researched information. It's very, very hard when you're pursuing these services on your own because people know you're desperate, people know you're in, you're probably insecure and they know that you want to hear the best things about yourself in that moment. 01:49:16:12 - 01:49:35:10 Unknown So I'm just telling you, be aware of that. And if you're meeting a legit recruiter, like somebody who you actually can work with, as as you know, especially if you're trying to transition into like an admin role within an education space, just make sure that the recruiter can, you know, account for like the company that they work for. 01:49:35:10 - 01:49:56:19 Unknown And, you know, all that. And then also look at companies that have their own internal recruiters because that can be a really useful source of information for you too. So so just know there's freelance there's recruiters that work with search firms and like firms that are specific to searching. And then there's the literal company, like a Google or Microsoft. 01:49:56:19 - 01:50:33:15 Unknown They have their own recruiters. They can talk to you. So, hey, thank you very much. And Dr. Bickerstaff, you have your hand up, too. So a couple of quick things. So for recruiters, they can be helpful, particularly if you cultivate a relationship with them, because sometimes they will pass things to you. So beyond a particular job, I know a lot of folks who have cultivated relationships where they hear about things because a lot of this is still a whisper network that they might not have heard of. 01:50:33:15 - 01:51:23:12 Unknown Because even for the large executive search firms, not all positions are posted. So I think it can be a tool amongst many tools. I think what Dr. Lockett said about job fairies. My favorite is Mandy Van Devon. And she posts other job fairies. And so thinking about LinkedIn in a way that academics are not necessarily primed and prompted to, which is that you can definitely, definitely find things that you might not have even known were positions were jobs by taking a look at what folks who have a PhD and are doing other things, what they’re doing out in the world. 01:51:23:14 - 01:51:46:23 Unknown The thing I wanted to really say though, was in response to the question that was posted in the Q&A in terms of how do you cultivate a way of showing up as your full self. So I think that certain things I will say for me, because that's all I can speak for, is I want to show up as me anyway, because if I don't show up as me, I don't have anyone to bring. 01:51:47:04 - 01:52:22:16 Unknown Right. And I think that that was consistent throughout my career. Also, as a grad student. And so figuring out what your non-negotiables are is absolutely essential and figuring out ways to find places where you can show up as yourself. And if that is essential for recognizing that some rooms are not going to be for you. And that's okay. 01:52:22:18 - 01:53:02:07 Unknown I have never not had to work. This is the first time in my life where I have only had a job, and that's not even the case anymore. I do facilitation and consulting on the side, but that didn't happen till I was 40. Right. And so recognizing that that means some opportunities I'm not going to take. But that also means that there are other folks who are going to really value that and bring me into their spaces and into their environments because of that in terms of being able to thrive and not only survive I will say part of that for me has been thinking about the spaces that I want to walk into and 01:53:02:07 - 01:53:39:08 Unknown thinking about what I can craft and cultivate within as well as that, not hire me to start a new department. They hired me to develop a particular kind of program as a program officer. The value that I bring to the organization and the kinds of things that I have made them aware of because we are patchway and replicate a lot of the challenging parts of academia and academic culture, But having a different perspective and being able to build around that has allowed me to cultivate a space where we uphold the sanctity of humans. 01:53:39:08 - 01:54:12:01 Unknown Everything that we build, everything that we do, everything that we design is human centered and not just into the phrase human centered design is that the humans matter to us. And ethics of care is absolutely essential to everything that we do. Intentionality is part of the name of what we do for a reason. And so to the extent that you're able to cultivate spaces wherever you find yourself where you're able to engage authentically, and if you're not able to do that, be looking for your exit strategy. 01:54:12:06 - 01:54:46:05 Unknown Right. And recognize that wherever land in academia and industry and nonprofit always know what your line is and be thinking about the ways that you survive. If you get to the point where that line is crossed. Thank you so much, Dr. Nurse. I saw you had your hand up. I would love to just have everyone even respond. I know we've gone slightly over time, so if everyone wouldn't mind responding slightly to that last provocation about coming is your full self and then we'll wrap it up from there. 01:54:46:05 - 01:55:05:21 Unknown But was that what you had your hand up about? I don't mean to assume. Yeah, I I don't want to repeat a lot of what Jovonne said, but it was the spirit of how I responded in the Q& A. I don't show up to work as my full self, because I don't think that's what work is for. 01:55:05:23 - 01:55:32:10 Unknown And that isn't to say, though, that I, like I also have a list of non-negotiables in terms of the kind of culture that can support who I want to be professionally. And there are some non-negotiables that do with my identities and how I exist in other spaces. There's other things about like, is this a space that can handle or hold harm, right? 01:55:32:10 - 01:55:54:21 Unknown Because that's always going to happen, that that's an inevitability. And so what does that look like? What is repair look like in certain spaces? Is it a space that supports, you know, both critical and generous thinking and deciding like, okay, this is enough for me? Like they've met my non-negotiables so I feel like I can be my professional self here. 01:55:54:23 - 01:56:21:22 Unknown But I think that's also part of the kind of identity shift that I was talking about earlier, or just academia, I think does require us to give our full selves because we tie so much of our identity to our scholarship. And I don't think that healthy. And so I tend to think of it as what do I need to do the job well, what do I need to enjoy the job, obviously, so I'm not miserable. 01:56:21:24 - 01:56:45:06 Unknown But in terms of the thriving I'm going to cite Jovonne. She said something once where like the version of me that shows up to ACLS is my patron who pays for my passion things outside of this. And I really embrace that ethos of I do other things that I contribute to who I am as a full human and the salary I get at 01:56:45:06 - 01:57:10:03 Unknown ACLS the work that I do at ACLS like that supports that which allows me then to show up fully resourced to my job, but ACLS is an organization that's existed before me, it will exist after me, and so I don't need to give my full self to my job. That's for me, and that's for my loved ones in the communities that I opt into and that I'm a part of. 01:57:10:05 - 01:57:40:24 Unknown Thank you very much. Dr. Lockett, your response as well? I think both of those responses were beautiful and diversely connected despite some of the differences. I think the core, though, you guys, you guys, it's comments that I would like to reinforces what Jovonne said, I need to be able to authentically respond. I believe that was your, did I get that right? You had mentioned. Oh, you’re on mute. You’re on mute. 01:57:43:23 - 01:58:06:15 Unknown I was saying very possibly, I never know what I have said. 30 seconds after I've said it. Okay. Okay. It was brilliant. And you said you, you had, you, you managed to say the same thing that you acknowledge what Dr. Nurse said, but you said it in your own way which I think is really true, which is. I need to be able to authentically respond at work, 01:58:06:15 - 01:58:23:21 Unknown and that's to say that one of the things that drove me, like, why I decided to stay away from academia, I could have taken, I could have stayed at Spelman, I could have let them fire me a year later when I didn't submit the tenure portfolio, I could have, I could be, like, scrambling, working hard for more academic work, whatever 01:58:23:21 - 01:58:52:21 Unknown But what stopped me and stopped me was this question around that whenever I authentically responded in that space- and by authentic response let me be very clear about what that means. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna be the self that I'm gonna be when I'm with my friends or with my sister with baby It just means I can be transparent with you about the problems that I see. And transparent with you about some ways 01:58:52:21 - 01:59:24:18 Unknown I think those problems can be resolved, and I do not have to face retaliation. I do not have to face intimidation, do not have to face harm as a result of me telling you what it is that can be perceived as aggressive, abrasive. You guys know the words. I'm a woman speaking these two. I've had so many meetings where I'll say these things and then a white man will say these things and he's given all the credit, all the praise, the ability to manage the new program that I just came up with, that he's now just came up with. 01:59:24:20 - 01:59:50:13 Unknown I've seen I mean, I've had I've had this happen so many to me. And I always wondered, why do I stay doing that? Like, why do I keep doing this? I'm not even making does in all transparency. I wasn't making more than $70,000 a year after almost ten years at that college. I and and I would probably kill for that for that stability right now. 01:59:50:13 - 02:00:17:08 Unknown But I have to remind myself. No, no, no, no, no, no. Because whenever you were, you showed up with honesty about the problems being faced. You were told to either be quiet, give it to someone else, or look the other way. I do not want to work for an organization that is that dysfunctional. And that's part of the problem that academia, because it is it is a business, but it's and it's not. 02:00:17:13 - 02:00:43:00 Unknown And it does raise funds. It's still not necessarily focused on the entrepreneurial aspects of its departments or its faculty. It doesn't invest in that. So what ends up happening is a lot of what you're being told to do is gatekeepers say no, maintain policies that allow them to deliver shoddy services to the maximum amount of students with the least amount of complaint. 02:00:43:02 - 02:01:10:11 Unknown What I understood that a lot of my job was really doing that and not actually teaching people how to produce knowledge. I knew I had to stay the hell away. I knew there were people who would pay me for the things that I knew more than I would get paid in that space. And I knew I would take a lot of L's I knew, I know I knew I would struggle, but I had to convince myself that the blessings on the other side were going to be worked again. 02:01:10:11 - 02:01:41:15 Unknown I'm trying to meet my wealth potential. Do I regret getting a Ph.D.? No. Why? What you guys may be saying, Well, what do I do? How do I still find purpose in my passion? You don't forget your if you do the right things that you know you're supposed to do, you are learning how to conceive of a project, a project, execute a project, engage in a process of inquiry where you do not have a known destination. 02:01:41:17 - 02:02:04:10 Unknown There are so many valuable things you get out of managing that long form project that if you keep that focus in your mind, then you will know that once you are done, no one can take that away from you, even if you don't stay on that path. So no one can take what I know away from me, but what I know now that I didn't know then. 02:02:04:10 - 02:02:21:17 Unknown I don't know if you guys are familiar with that scene in the movie Beetlejuice. It's really, really macabre. She's talking about her little accident in the death waiting room, which is as if I knew then what I know now. I wouldn't have had my little accident. I feel like that a lot every day. And I have to laugh myself. 02:02:21:18 - 02:02:43:21 Unknown I keep a sense of humor, too, because it really, really helps me not go into a dark, dark place with all the things around me. It is true that if you ask yourself which you know now that you didn't know, then what I would ask myself now is how one in my family had asked me a long time ago. 02:02:43:23 - 02:03:11:09 Unknown If you're so smart, why don't you have more money? And I'll never forget her saying to me, because although it may seem harsh, she was right. Why don't I have more money? If I am so smart, why am I not earning more? Why am I not doing more? And I use that as my motivation every single day I write if I'm smart, why don't I have more? 02:03:11:11 - 02:03:38:01 Unknown You can get more if you're smart. Smart doesn't necessarily mean books, school, all that stuff. All it's about all the other things. Like how I was. I dumbed down my wealth potential. I dumbed down where I could socialize, I dumbed down the scope of even my career. I thought, this is going about you all but our next like I really would love to. 02:03:38:06 - 02:04:10:15 Unknown I’m sorry to cut you off, but our next I really would love to have. Oh no. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I just want to stress that, though. It’s just be aware that don't cut yourself off from the horizon. And you will if you let yourself. Thank you. Thank you. And Dr. Coyle, in a last, just to end the time. I think that, I love Joanne's answer, I don’t, Dr. Nurse’s answer that she doesn't always show up as her full self. I think that is the key to that question. It's that your full self is your whole self. 02:04:10:17 - 02:04:32:13 Unknown Your job is a long little part of it. And often in the long run, you realize it will be a very minor part of it is hard to believe now because you're in graduate school as an undergraduate was all consuming. But I would say, you know, work isn't always fun. That's why they call it work. You have to do it. 02:04:32:13 - 02:05:11:01 Unknown You have to support yourself. You have to cultivate all those things outside of work that to fill you up the relationships with the people that you love and that you like and the things you like to do, the things that you create, even if you're not. With Adams line, carve that time out because it's so easy to throw yourself 100% into, say, a career or actual degree and it's not enough to up that will that doesn't develop a full self that so that time that you spend doing all those other things is really important and think one of the most valuable things I think for graduate school were the friends that I made there. 02:05:11:01 - 02:05:21:21 Unknown It's such a cliché, but we're still very close, and I trade the degree for the relationships.