 It's the top of the hour. So let's begin. Let me welcome everybody. Let me welcome you to the Future Trends forum My name is Brian Alexander. I'm your host. I'm the chief cat herder I'm the creator of the forum and today we have a fantastic guest a return guest Brought back by popular demand now. We're really excited about it our chance to introduce this week's guest Rebecca Pope Rourke is someone that you might recognize because she's been on the program before This summer. She was an exciting guest who drew in just more than a hundred people We had non-stop questions and people email me afterwards saying Brian get her back We need to have her on this is vital. So we finally did she agreed and now she's with us again Rebecca runs the Agile faculty site project and consultancy and she helps faculty Grapple with all the huge life issues being academics this year including dealing with disease and burnout She's here today to help us think about how we balance professional and personal lives during this extraordinary time Rebecca welcome. Hi always good to be here Brian. Nice to see you. I'm so glad you could make it Are you well everything good? Yes? We're kind of isolating as much as possible here in Atlanta. So I'm Georgia Tech did did very well this semester So we're just keeping our fingers crossed and be a vigilant So our fingers across for you as well Look at this, you know As a futurist my job is to look ahead. That's a little bit challenging right now since So I'm gonna ask you to look ahead as a futurist What are you gonna be working on for the next year you may be working on your new book Are you gonna be doing consulting you're me doing teaching, but what's on deck for you? Most of that so I am writing a book on Burnout in higher education specifically among women faculty. So that is in process with Johns Hopkins I'm sure Greg might be here somewhere. So hi Greg Britton if you're here So working on that as quickly as possible because obviously that's I really believe that's content that people need right now So trying to do as much as I can to spread the word About burnout and to give it voice and give it language so people kind of understand kind of what's happening So I'll continue to work on that facilitating workshops and speaking as much as possible to bring that message Also, I do side coaching. So I work with women higher education women via one-on-one coaching relationships And we'll be running some programs this summer as well So and that's all addition to my wonderful day job in the Georgia Tech Center for learning. So it's a fun time Wow, you are a one-woman army I'm getting a little tired. I'm trying to like burn out the burnout of the burnout Well, and we're getting to the darkest day of the year It'll get lighter and lighter from then on if you friends if you're new to Rebecca Pope works book or work rather look in the bottom left corner of the screen and you should see a little kind of Yellow or tan colored buttons as agile faculty if you click that you'll get to her site and there's a lot more information there Everybody I've got a bunch of questions Very best But I'd much rather hear from you I'm gonna ask a couple right now just to get things rolling and then I've got a question from someone who couldn't make it today But he's really eager to ask but the rest of you think what would you like her to speak to when it comes to this life work balance? Are you interested in the tenure clock? Are you interested in self-care? Are you interested in class size compensation adjunct life? What the form is for you? So let us know The the first question that I wanted to put to you like it actually comes from a David Drake who is a wonderful scholar And he asks a rather he writes you talk about doing two-week sprints on hyperderm projects And the classical Kanban board approach with scrum But for those of us who are senior faculty and have administrative responsibilities things can change rapidly I think you end up on your plate that now you should take care of Operate in this environment with constant change Planned sprints Yeah, I mean that's always gonna be a challenge for if your faculty or administration things come up fires need to be put out And that's that's just a constant For me you can see my board in the background. That's the the books that I'm working on my scrum board So sprints work well if you can set aside some specific defined time That you will always have this particular time marked out on your calendar to be able to commit to that work whatever that work is And that gives you the your other time to Deal with what you need to that's a rising or what's prevalent or what's pressing it in your in your workplace or in your job I think and it's interesting that he mentioned Kanban too because Kanban and and Scrum are a little bit different But they use both use boards and in a more traditional Kanban environment you wouldn't do sprints You would just keep doing priorities So that shifts more. I think it's a little more It's a little difficult to kind of keep up. I think personally with a Kanban board. I prefer to do sprints just for myself Although I'll update my board regularly to keep me on track But it's you know, whether you sprint or not the idea is to break things down into component pieces that can be accomplished in reasonable amounts of time Right, and I use the example all the time of you know writing right lit review on your to-do list There are a million things you have to do before you can write a lit review So if you just write that on your to-do list, it's gonna be there for months, right? So what are the component pieces of that that you can break down and then when time emerges or maybe you have you know Meeting gets canceled and you have an hour that you can prioritize something on your board You can take that note and do that for an hour because you always know what's next or what's available or where you can Fill in a gap when time comes up That's really helpful Yeah, I'm I would totally put that review or 400 page book to write Yeah, spring plan, right book got we it's the smallest board in the world That's a good question and thank you and thank you Rebecca for the really solid answer We are there's all kinds of Questions that we can ask him before I say anything more we already have one from Cindy Jones And we just watch this on the screen here so you can see it She's the BC of teal How can managers help our teams avoid burnout? Yeah, and that is I'm so glad you asked that question because that is such an important question right now and In the conversations that I'm having one Folks do want to talk about burnout a because they don't have language for it. They don't know what it is and there Two is that when you don't know what it is it feels shameful because you don't necessarily know what's happening to you might be depressed You might be having panic attacks if you're prone to those burnout will exacerbate that you might be I mean for me I was I would freak out just going to my office just going to campus like I just couldn't process Being in that space. I was exhausted. I didn't want to get up in the morning, right? And these things felt so shameful to me like what was wrong with me I used to be pretty hard charging it could keep up with everyone Now look at me right and that there's that shame associated with that and that fear of being seen as weak So I think for managers, especially Normalizing that burnout happens not normalizing That burnout happens like it's okay to have it but to to normalize it in the sense of this happens You can deal with it You're not a weak person if this happens to you the culture that we live in that we work in can cause it It creates these conditions that will lead us to burnout if we continue to push ourselves too hard And continue to try to climb that ladder too hard. So I think for managers. It's important to talk about it Just even if it's just kind of a 15 minute Here's the overview of what this thing is and if you feel like you're feeling some of these things then let's talk about it Or here's resources that are available through your EAP or you know, here's some you know It's depending on how bad it is There's mental health professionals that you can speak with about this. You are not abnormal and you are not weak if you are Experiencing burnout. It's cultural. It's social and it's rampant. Unfortunately, especially now it was it was epidemic when I started writing about it when I experienced it and now Whatever the next version of epidemic is Nationally is where we are That's a distressing but very very important answer. Yes and Cindy thank you. Thank you for asking especially from that point of view of managerial I just want to this isn't a question so much as an observation that In my work I've been identifying how many campuses are are facing increasing financial On the one hand, they're They're being asked to do more mental health issues for example more meaning a curriculum changing curriculum adapting Of course the environment so At the same time they're doing a lot more with a lot less You know, we have often professors being Classes to their load or or the size expand or of course cutting faculty I mean, how how does an individual manager staff member faculty member? How do we handle this? How do we process this? I think that's the million dollar question. Isn't it? How do we support each other? I think one I don't want to call it a silver lining But one thing that has come out of this situation is that we are all much more open to talking about our health and our mental health In ways that we have not in the past And and part of it's because we all are in a we're in a similar state of fight flight freeze All the time right it never goes away. The stress is unrelenting in inside our workplace outside our workplace So it's it's very difficult to be able to relax in that context But if we all can say And and we were doing this work before the pandemic right student mental health had become a major issue student Well-being had become a major issue it had on my campus Then we were looking at ways that we could help faculty promote academic well-being in their classes So those initiatives were already starting and those those hires and those folks that specialize in that in student affairs We're working on our campuses So now we're able to say okay, I can see my students as human But I can also see myself as human and I see it in my colleagues It's not a personal failing at this point to be experiencing burnout because most of us are in that space So one of the one of the first things that burnout can do is isolate you right and we're already isolated So I one of my biggest suggestions is frankly just to talk to someone You know get a group together do coffee dates it it doesn't have to be about burnout It can be about burnout if that's what you want to talk about or stress absolutely But the more isolated we are the easier it is to just continue to pull back and pull back and and kind of While it was the wrong word, but really kind of Descend into that burnout unfortunately we can we can mitigate a little bit of it if we're actually connecting regularly to people And descent is on that sounds right. That's a kind of mythical overtone to it. Yeah I have more questions, but more importantly the forum has questions. We have uh professor of english debba petter at table or college Uh, and she asks a very very practical question Can you suggest sources that I can use to bolster my conversations with administration about the reality of faculty burnout? This is a growing the past 25 years and has been exacerbated in 2020 absolutely and um If honestly right now if you go to the chronicle and you go to inside higher ed and you search burnout You will find multiple articles on burnout including my own and including one in the chronicle about my story So there's a lot being published right now. I have a working bibliography Of sources about burnout that I can share with brian that we can that he can send out to the forum So that that gives us a place to start And that that's a really wide ranging bibliography from From the classical work to the more recent literature and studies and faculty and faculty development up through Harvard business review Harvard business review just today Released an interview with christina mazlak who was the original kind of coiner of workplace burnout So she's been working on this out of berkeley for 30 30 years or so So she's kind of the the major source between her and nathan hall's group Those are probably the the best sources to get familiar with burnout in the literature But I will share that bibliography with brian Please and i'll be glad to treat it out to blog it and to email it out Professor pennard. Thank you for the Solid question We will follow up on that I think uh from mark At highland college where you're the director of educational technology and mark asks Maybe this is more about staving off burnout All recommendations can make for handling the tension between getting things done and needing to create space for Long to add especially for folks on and I think it may have been tenure track. I'm not sure That's enough to go on I think Um balances again, that's another million dollar question, right? How do you how do you? Balance the things when things are blowing up That's at work and in your community and they could be really challenging at home too, especially if you have children at home We're all we're worried about each other's health and the ones that we love or in our communities One piece of advice that I often give that I have trouble taking myself is that in this context It's okay to be mediocre And people get kind of offended about that but for a lot of us as high achieving academics our best Is a lot is really high, right? So I would think as much as possible think about how much can you step back? Right not leave projects, but how much can you kind of tone down the amount of work that you're doing to still be You know to still meet your own standards and your productivity standards, but you we all have to realize that Physiologically and neurologically our brains are not programmed to work through this constant stress We have all been in fight flight freeze since march Right and many of us more than others like I said if you have children if you have elder care responsibilities Those those feelings are amplified. So it is difficult for our brains to function here I mean in all honesty. I have developed some version of Burnout narcolepsy or something I try to read something deep and I fall asleep And I have to figure out how to control that But that is a stress reaction for me, right? So we're all going to have those reactions But I think in terms of self-care That term has been trivialized. I think in a lot of ways, but self-care goes Well beyond getting a massage or taking a hot bath, which are wonderful options for for the short term, but self-care can be boundaries Setting boundaries around your time around your space movement Should be self-care one of the one of the most proven things to help overcome feelings of burnout and depression is physical movement physical activity Right completing the stress cycle any kind of movement can be really really important So I think you really have to figure out what the balance of your priorities are And you need to make yourself a priority as as hard as that sounds In in the context that we're used to That echoes that very last point echoes something that a long time forum participant and supporter Brock Janerisken has been saying what the importance of physical movement, especially Sure. Yeah mark finished that sentence and I guessed completely wrong. He said Of those who are on the front lines Much better way of putting it mark. Thank you. Yeah, and and I honestly have not been talking to many folks who have been on the front line So I don't know if I have a good answer for that particular question My heart goes out to folks then my gratitude goes out to folks who are on the front lines of working with our students And I would just say remember that If you're exhausted you can't support anyone else, right? It's it's try to say, you know, put your mask on first but and You know that takes on a completely different connotation in in these times But if we go with the old airline version of that, right, we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone else So make sure that you're prioritizing that and keeping yourself well and and And content in some ways where you know, what are the things that you can do that bring your that bring you a little bit of joy every day Don't lose your hobbies. Don't you know Continue to read continue to use your mind in other ways and use your body We had we had fault. Thank you for saying that And and thank you again mark for the really really important question We had a couple of follow-up comments and remarks. I just want to put them together in the chat Tom Hame says looking for a job in this environment It's hard to be mediocre Conflicting polls there exactly before you But along with that, uh, eric fornier at Washington university in st. Louis Says that he does well put this on the screen He does a lot of work with early career tenure track faculty if the mediocre is not really an option If you advice for that specific group yeah, and mediocre is probably a sliding scale I think for month For what we what we each need to do. Um, but I think I think there are opportunities for conversation there with department chairs with deans That department chair should be having with deans about where their junior faculty are what they can realistically do I think administration needs to be incredibly transparent about What what measures they're going to be judging their junior faculty against in this time How do we Right because because productivity for some people some people's productivity skyrocketed during this time Maybe that was a way they dealt with the stress if you're looking a little more cynically Maybe they had a spouse that was taking care of The children or or home things that they were able to write Um, and some of us have just kind of shut down And that is a reality of the trauma that we're all experiencing the stress that we're all experiencing So I think having those conversations early and regularly and And really figuring out ways or pressing our administrations to be Transparent about processes have those town halls have those a lot of institutions are Giving people another year on their clock or they're allowing statements COVID productivity statements to go Into their files and of course none of us really know how that's going to work It's never happened before you know is one more year on the clock. It's just going to add more stress I think we all have to be open We have to have those conversations and they have to be happening at different levels And they have to be coming back to the main audience So as much as possible We need to be open and honest with our with our job applicants with our grad students who are on the market And with our with our junior faculty. I don't have a magic bullet for that unfortunately The conversation is an important start especially the experience that Eric adds in the chat. I'm told the new faculty I'm sorry. I've told new faculty at the university considers them long-term investments. Yes, which is Turned very nice. Yeah You mentioned one thing that I hadn't I'm not sure everyone's seen Was it COVID? productivity statement Yeah, so some institutions are allowing their faculty to include in their In their portfolios or in their year-end evaluations specific statements to talk about how they dealt with COVID Disruptions to their life and to kind of just say To be a little more open about some of the conditions that they might have been facing and those I know some institutions are doing those some or not if there's no I don't know that there's a clear precedent at this point. So I would check with your institution and I think those are also, you know, I mentioned chairs and deans But I think those are also the conversations that you can be having with your center for teaching and learning folks They're gonna have a sense or maybe we have more access to administration to be able to pin them down on some of those things So that's another group that where you can be having conversations to see what's realistic for you Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that and again Questions like that are more than welcome if you please what was that term that kind of thing? Now speaking of more than welcome, let me just bring on stage The man with great questions and a man with a new book, uh, tom hams Tom always has super questions I'm told you know it in in houston I question that no, we're not snowed in in houston. There's no snow here I said snow snow get it I missed that my the microphone cut out for me. Oh, sorry was it Was that for every day? No, you're back now. Sorry. All right. It's me I'm never really sure if I'm here either so, um It's just it's just a simulation. I know this So my question was about, uh, the students and uh, I was wondering if you have I've looked at scene or thought about how much of enrollment drops, uh, in the last year Um, have been because students feel like they're Walking into a burnout situation that they won't be adequately supported In their academic journeys. Uh, one of the things I've been I teach at a community college And of course we've taken a pretty significant, uh enrollment hit and um, I And and the statistics seem to indicate it's those more vulnerable students Who are not who are first-time college students who are uh, who Don't really know what they're walking into who kind of have gone to the edge of the of the cliff and went maybe not And that they don't want to be in a situation where they're disconnected from everybody else that they're afraid of being shut out from community Uh, but I'm just wondering. I mean, I haven't seen a whole lot from institutions Going on about, you know, I I've told people of my institution. Look what we need to be telling these people is We've got your back. You know, we'll make sure you get through this experience we're going to support you both mentally and technically and Uh academically, you know, we'll make sure you have a laptop We make sure you have broadband and those sorts of things But in addition, we're there for you to help you get through this experience I haven't seen that to be honest. I'm wondering how much that's contributed to the enrollment drops In one of those populations. Yeah, and honestly, I haven't seen any data about that either Um, and I think, you know, we kind of knew that in general enrollment Decreases were coming just because of the population bumps. So We might have been already thinking about it when things kind of bottomed out I know for for my institution and some other folks that I talked to Because the institutions had already been ramping up the mental health services for students Those services had already kind of gotten some word of mouth So students kind of knew that they were there. Um, and it was there was less shame attached to using those those These are existing students, right? And this is not something to advertise Um, I don't know if it's advertised, but it's not it's not hidden by any stretch of the imagination Right. I know. Yeah for students. Yeah, um I honestly I honestly don't know that I have a good answer for that. I don't I haven't seen any data or Haven't really heard anybody talk about that. I mean, oh, it sounds like Yeah, that would be a struggle for non-traditional students first generation students It could be really discouraging, especially if you have to take care of family members and you're trying to work at the same time Kitten has joined us Brian goes black and he comes back and there's a cat The timing on this your timing is impeccable today, Brian. I have to say But okay, yeah, I mean I was uh, I I personally think that's a big issue Something I find myself talking to my students a lot about Is is the is this this issue of support? And can you hear me? Yeah, no I think Rebecca Did I lose you? Yeah. Well, it's okay. Rebecca. You just froze Oh Expression on her face was you're talking, but I can't hear Rebecca can you hear us? Okay, Rebecca you've frozen up here I'm gonna get her to come back with a cat now too. We'll see We'll see if she can uh, if she can reload Um, it may be that she just has to I refresh the page Let's see if I can bring her back up again. There you are Sorry about that No problem. No problem. I'm glad Yeah, the microphone was flashing in and out again. So I had to refresh Mom was just talking about support for students. I think yeah Yeah, and I I honestly don't know because I certainly hear this from my own students and the ones who did show up Um, but you know, I found out that the students I had in the fall who consciously signed up for An unknown situation Tended to be somewhat better prepared Technically and you know, I when when my classes went remote in the spring, you know, we went remote at spring break Um, when we went remote in the spring, I had students taking the class and on phones under You know with two tin cans and a string And you know, I I I worked really hard to get everybody through and I and for the most part I did but um In the fall, I found there were less students who were operating under those kind of extreme circumstances All but one of my students actually had a laptop all but one of my students Had regular access to wi-fi or one or two there weren't very many who chose to take Um to willingly sign up for the stress Of the class Who didn't have the technical means to do it? And I think they were also a little more On the most part a little more chill about the situation than the ones in the spring Who were freaking out which makes me wonder what happened to those students from the spring You know because they didn't come back and that's that's anecdotal As a social scientist, I'm not going to base a dissertation on it But uh, but it's certainly something make my head make me scratch my head a little bit Yeah, and I think this is a this is a kind of a tangent from that But you know you said that you for the most part got your students through it That's additional emotional labor and labor labor that faculty have been doing as well And a lot of our efforts are solely focused on making sure that students have what they need and what they would What they need to get through and how we can help that But there's secondary trauma right there the more you have to do that and the more you're struggling with this yourself So I think the more that we can help faculty be healthy mentally understand what burnout is give them tools to support their students the The better we're going to keep the community going and and it's healthy as possible in this this strange time Right. Well, I'm lucky in that I'm My technological infrastructure for the most for the most parts in decent shape And I know I know how to deal the cards in this world pretty well So I didn't have that level of stress although I've worked with a lot of faculty did And um But uh, you know, and I was also lucky in the spring That I had a relatively small number of students all together only I think I had a total of about 25 students between Two classes, so I was able to give them a lot of individualized attention. I met with each one of them individually We had a conversation the first question out of my mouth was how are you doing? How's your technology doing? You know, are you you know, what do you need to do to get through the semester? And that was the launching point for the conversation Uh, and when you can do that kind of individual, I think a lot of times we have Uh, I think the biggest thing you can do honestly as far as dealing with the situation is small class sizes I was gonna say that does that that's difficult to scale But but that's what you have graduate students for I mean the the point is you've got to put together those communities Otherwise, you're gonna lose them now better students don't need that as much But at a community college level those who lack the learning skills who don't have that You know know the rhythm of getting through a semester It's a somewhat different ball game and I had students who didn't need much help But I had a lot of students who did Well, and I think when you get a lot of emotional support when you get up to us a really large class You know, even if especially first year first year students, right? If you're a first year fall student this year And what you know is a strange hybrid version of a class that would have 300 people in it You know, you're it's you it's how do you make connections? How do you get to know your faculty member? How do you know who your ta is and what you're allowed to ask them? You know, there's there's just a lot of circumstances that we just have to kind of keep thinking about Connected to our students and how we can help them while still maintaining our own Safe boundaries. Yeah, yeah, well, we need we need to rethink the education factory as a concept. Yes Why don't you put a link to your new book in the chat? Okay, we'll do Thank you We had a whole bunch of questions and comments and responses to your exchange just now I Wanted to play out a couple of them One is Dana. Forgive me Dana. I'm gonna try this Jared Auski says that a mental health professional was recommended that I do 80 percent instead of my 100 percent Like the academic 100 percent is often overboard. I tried to find merit in this advice Deborah panner or Deborah panner then jumped in right in and said there may also be a generational gap between baby Boomer administrators and junior faculty on the site of mediocrity Our leadership still is in the headspace of everything needs to be done with more more excellence Right. It's that growth culture, right? And I if someone has, you know, a better word than mediocrity I am happy to change my language It at least kind of resonates with people I think but in that growth culture You're continuing to walk up the ladder, right and that was part of my burnout was okay. Well now I'm tenured Now what do I do now? I have a book. Okay. Everything has to be a book Why don't why am I not directing a center yet? Everyone else is directing a center yet, right? There's this constant push for more and more and more that When can we be content like when do we stop and smell the roses enjoy where we are? And now is it very challenging time to do that? Obviously But where are we going to set the boundary for ourselves to to make it through this? Wow That's a that's a huge statement and that I mean on the on the tactical level of native Department in academia. That sounds like one thing but For me that just resonated with a lot of stuff that people are talking about in economics and then climate change stuff Interesting book called enough for example, just But but there were more comments that I want I want to make sure that we could bring in Andrea Gilbert Mentioned that the new national clearinghouse state of report about Fall enrollment Since that first year student moment really dropped Andrea, I talked to the author of the report yesterday when it was presented and I asked him why Community college enrollment had dropped so steeply That's where tom is teaching and he said he really thinks it's because Community colleges teach so many marginal students and so many marginal students are on the wrong side of the digital divide So tom's experience of having more students in the spring and then fewer this fall may be because those students just back or didn't at all Melanie hoag has a really good point. Um, she's at southwestern university And she says we're fortunate to have a donor-supported emergency fund for students and other things Yeah, I know my institution was shipping iPads to students and you know trying to help as much as possible in the spring We had some really good questions that circled back to our initial discussion about About scrum and agile and I want to make sure that we got those This is from uh, let's see where to go Let's say Um, this is from someone just this is just in boon. He says how was your sprint process changed during the pandemic? um Honestly for me, I've been a lot more intentional about it. Um Because I do have a book the book does need to be written I feel strongly that the book needs to be released So I have always been a binge writer and I have been okay with that But since I've really dug into the book in the last few months. I am an every day Get up at six right for an hour and a half before work So that's the way I've been kind of trying to hold myself accountable And again writing doesn't mean putting words on a page all the time. It could be reading research It could be um typing up notes. It could be reviewing something that you've written before reading transcripts So just something that helps me process what's going on and what I what I want to be writing when when I am physically at the computer to write So that it's always kind of stably in my mind I do fall but I literally just today rebooted the the scrum board And it kind of fallen away for me. I left everything in done so I could feel better about it But I want I was setting my setting myself up for the break to come so that I could kind of use that is Some solid sprint time and get the time in the writing time that I want in without overwhelming myself and still being able to relax So I I think you just you do what's best for you Thank you for the good question and thank you for the very uh, I think empowering answer We had a a related question from my keenon Solonero Um every mentioned science who says the agile world has been working on aspects of decision making and authorization How might academia ever distribute decision making for self management self authorization and flat collaboration? Oh, um I kind of wrote a little bit about this in chapter nine of the agile faculty book It was kind of a what if chapter, you know, what if mentoring was um agile? What if What if um departments were run in an agile way? um So it's a it's it's a really big thing to think about Um, can you pop the question back up ryan? I want to make sure that I've got it. Of course You can do um Okay How might it versus will it ever is probably You know, I I mean we we know We know that we almost need to reboot from the ground up in some places That we need and Our time right now is potentially giving us the opportunity to make some significant changes to our culture and to our processes And the way we work we're finding that I mean my office has been out Off campus since march and we can still do high quality work We just can't provide lunch at our workshops, right? And that's a trade-off that that we make Um for the safety of us and our participants In some ways though, I mean I think faculty this might be tenured faculty more than anyone Already have that opportunity. Um, they already do kind of run their own little their own little shows In a way, so it would be interesting to think about that for For folks who don't have as much kind of power in that sense Folks who aren't tenure or tenure track How do we think about those those wonderful folks who focus on teaching? It's always those folks. Unfortunately, they get get marginalized and and kind of taken out of Of this self-management kind of conversation So how do we make sure that we are treating everyone with respect to allow those conversations to happen and to think about how we can trust our people To do good work and empower them to do that Some of the disciplinary difference too. Yes humanities are more likely to be doing solo projects In the chat Kenan adds yes, how might it versus will it ever is an authentic Reflection Yeah, definitely. We have a couple more questions I want to bring in because they're all good and our clock is ticking again balancing questions is always This is from our dear friend of nesa veil He says how does pandemic skewed sense of time affect scheduling board and balancing in general Scheduling this board I can make sure that I understand pandemic skewed sense of time to affect the board It does feel like It's just kind of on a hamster wheel in a lot of ways and in some ways my board helps me keep time To kind of see time passing in ways that I might not see it every day from the same desk in the same place ever moving So I can use it to mark Accomplishment or and it these aren't these aren't huge accomplishments on this board These are little small things that that helped me feel like I'm taking steps toward a cumulative hole So in some ways it actually helps Because I'm the thing about the board too is it's not time bound. It's effort bound Right, so you're not necessarily judging your progress in terms of time. You're judging it in terms of effort Which is a more ideal way of thinking about Effort is a more ideal way of thinking about productivity, right? Because time is if we're thinking about it time is kind of the easiest laziest way to judge how much you're doing but when you think about effort and when you think about Contribution, that's another way to really kind of feel like you're actually accomplishing something That's a great answer and Vanessa, of course, thank you for really been a good question Related to that we had A question from Jill East at CSU Channel Islands And she asks how do you support faculty and staff? They're hearing burnout without adding another program to their calendar Yeah, and that's what we're sorting through at my institution Now we are we've had workshops. Um, and in the spring we're starting conversation groups Um for especially for women faculty to start us off Um, and I found in my own work that There is a gender difference here about who's willing to talk about this There's there's a lot of of kind of diversity issues that challenge whether people are willing to talk about this in public or not So groups are an option. I'm starting and I'm running an flc on faculty well-being of faculty learning community on faculty well-being in the spring. So those are conversations where You can learn about it without necessarily feeling like you have to bear your soul to a group Right, you're coming to that faculty learning community in a more academic or a more professional development kind of way So you can take things away from it, but you can also For yourself, but also take those back to your your departments and your in your colleges We're offering one-on-one consulting for folks Kind of real coaching in ways that we might not have done before And I know that our our faculty development person on our campus is is getting slammed with folks who really need to talk about this So it's that encouraging people having Opportunities for them to engage in this in different ways for some people a group is going to be better than Just a one-on-one session, but a lot of people if they're still in that chain cycle are going to need one-on-one attention So I think it's it's and it's I think it's also partnering with the folks that are already on campus All those there's so many student mental health professionals that are on campus partnering with your hr to make sure that your eap Supports the kind of support that we might need faculty need because we can't take care of our students if we're not taking care of ourselves Right, and I think the message normalizing the message You know putting out little things in your newsletter that just remind people to be mindful or to take a break or to get some movement in The more we can do those little things The better as we're building up to potentially some of the bigger things that might be options Wow, thank you. That's that's a really really good answer The chat box is lit up with people chiming in different ways Uh, my favorite is Lisa derv who says that her office helped she has a good space But it's uh recently repurposed as santa's wrapping workshop Mark over wilson points to the lean innovation educators summit I don't know and she and he says that they seem to be working in a similar space. So Thank you for showing that up But the gender aspect is very very interesting Eric cornier just said his self or their self-care sessions have viewed 80 20 female to male and then The excellent michelle denise miller at northern arizona university just added this question I think that for women, especially moms Hockey cultural idea that we can sort of organize and plan and time manage our way out of what's Untanable set of demands thoughts on this I think you're absolutely right. I think um, I personally don't have children. Um, but I It is toxic it and it's you know, because we are women are faculty are already doing a lot of additional emotional labor And if you are also a faculty member of color, there's additional labor on top of that and other marginalized groups of faculty who get much more student interaction But the culture is toxic. It always has been toxic to women, right? And I've talked to people who Who have kind of had to step back and say, you know, I'm not going to make the cookies for this party That's not my job as a faculty member is to make cookies, right? Or to to run the Run the reception because I'm the woman on on our staff Um, so it's and it flips in a way too because as a woman who doesn't have children I was also expected to do more Because folks with families could not attend certain events So the the expectations are wonky all the way around So it is an issue of us using this time. I think to really Make those arguments that things have to change and show how they can change And I think we go back to that. Can you do 80 percent or you know, and unfortunately we know that the numbers of women in the workplace are They're kind of abysmal right now how how the the pandemic is affecting women in the workplace And it's terrifying and it's awful and it's you know, we have some power to maybe raise our voices And to make some of those those culture changes Now because if we're talking about burnout, we're talking about toxic culture Right, you you don't one causes the other right people don't cause burnout They do it from a cultural perspective. It's a social issue Right, so if we can start making some of those cultural changes and raising those voices in mass Maybe that then starts to trickle out We've got some we've got some thanks from Maria Rankin-Brown Who really appreciates that and I just want to second that point that burnout is a cultural thing That's a huge huge issue. Yep. I've lost you Brian. If you can hear me you're frozen Sure. Yep Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now Rebecca? Yes very good We have One question left and this comes actually from me Which is looking at 2021 looking at the spring Falls ministers Where do you think this is going to take us? I mean that is you know, these these huge pressures of demands Are you do you think we're going to ratchet back? our assignments for students for example We think that this will cause issues with Applications to grad schools or applications to jobs or perhaps changing and grading or do you think the All the promotion clocks will be set back in time a little bit Everything from 10 year to staff promotions. So What do you think we're just going to deal with an epidemic of people burned out and quitting? Their jobs because they can't do it anymore. What do you expect will happen? None of those sound wonderful. Do they? You know, how do we continue to make sure that our students are learning? In vibrant environments, how do we balance quote unquote rigor with personal attention? And in the needs of our students individually, how do we not burn out? I think one of the ways that we do that is that we we talk about it a lot Right. We sound the alarm We don't kind of rest on our laurels or just return to where we were when Hopefully the vaccine starts to work and we can get together again We have to be raising our voices and we have to be kind of making Keeping track of these changes that that need to be made so that when we can stop reacting We can start pro-acting on these issues That's a really really great great point to end on I really really want to be at that point I mean, Kenan actually follows up And says when we are focused on surviving Yes, workplace The secondary parts of the system become even more fragile Workplaces are toxic, especially for women. What does that do for children of these women? If it's toxic to teachers, would it? Yeah This is urgent. We've got to get as you say Thank you so much Thanks for having me. It's always good to be here It's great for you to come. You're doing such an incredible work in your search Let me ask Is the best way to keep up with you on twitter rpr agile or is there another way to keep up? Yeah, twitter. It's rpr underscore agile. And then if you go to just rebeccapoperiwark.com We'll find my website and my services and a lot of my links to all the Ways that you can listen to me and talk to me as well. That's great. That's great. Everyone should do that Please do love to talk to you. She's a vital resource for us all right now. Thank you Rebecca. Thank you Don't go away friends. I just want to Since this is the very very last session of 2020 I just want to point out where things are going and I I want to draw your attention to the nicest thing that I've read all day In chat Maya odd said that the forum has been sustaining and she wanted to thank us for offering An ongoing community and conversation this year at this for her the forum feels like self-care And I want to thank her for that that's incredibly kind And I want to say that all of you help make this happen This is a terrific terrific special community and I'm just honored honored to be able to work with you all Looking ahead a bit remember that we have the next two weeks for holiday We have the darkest night of the year literally coming up in just a few days for the solstice But I want to make sure that everyone takes time to celebrate And that you take some time to refresh regenerate rethink and start looking ahead to 2021 You know, we have our first event For the first week of january and this is the first time anyone's seen the url for this Is about coping with cove it and we have the two authors of a fantastic new book Just go to schindig.com slash login slash event slash low density We can sign up for it And we have a whole bunch of other events aligned up right now covering everything from innovation To liberal arts colleges to rising a tech star to what happens to staff And remember the book club is still going on. I'm really looking forward to our discussions on monday And if you want to keep all other discussions going as usual, we're all over social media And if you want to go back into the past if you want to look at rebecca poble works previous session It's there along with more than 230 other sessions covering an awful lot of ground In the meantime, I just I thank you all again Thank you all for contributing so much This means a lot and I think we can shine a pretty good candle But it's sometimes been a dark year Everyone please take care. Please be safe And we'll see you online and we'll see you next time Bye. Bye