Constructing and Communicating Your Professional Identity
Format: 90-minute interactive workshop
Audience: grad students and postdocs; all disciplines
In this workshop, participants will identify conceptual and practical issues in communicating professional identities. Attendees will develop tools for constructing and communicating their professional identities. Participants will leave the workshop with a professional bio and elevator pitch and an understanding of how to adapt each for different academic and professional audiences in-person and in writing.
How Grant Reviewers Read
Format: 45-minute presentation with 15-minute Q&A
Audience: grad students; postdocs; early career faculty; all disciplines
In this webinar, Dr. Brandy Simula draws on her experience as a grant and fellowship advisor and reviewer, along with the sociological literature on academic evaluations and grant review processes to help participants understand grant reviewers as an audience. The webinar discusses how application packages are read as well as how reviewers read each component of common application requirements (e.g. proposal, budget, recommendations). The webinar also provides an overview of common mistakes in grant applications and how to avoid them and strategies for developing successful funding applications.
Flourishing During Job Searches
Format: 90-minute interactive workshop
Audience: advanced grad students and postdocs; all disciplines
In this interactive, reflective workshop, participants will develop individualized strategies for flourishing during job searches, including for traditional faculty positions as well as diverse careers in and beyond the academy. The workshop addresses how to develop and hold effective boundaries around intellectual and emotional job search labor, strategic management of the job search process, and how to balance a job search with research and teaching, personal and family commitments, and self-care. Participants will leave the workshop with a personalized plan for combating job search-related stress and uncertainty, a diagram of their job search support network, and strategies for navigating the job market during a global health pandemic and the resulting economic downturn.
Preparing and Revising Academic Manuscripts
Format: 45-minute presentation with 15 minute Q&A
Audience: advanced grad students, postdocs, early career faculty; all disciplines
Drawing on her own experience publishing numerous academic articles and book chapters, as well as her experience as a reviewer and editor of several special issues and edited volumes and as incoming Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Positive Sexuality, Dr. Simula shares strategies for preparing academic manuscripts, identifying potential manuscript homes, communicating with editors, and responding to reviewers. Participants will take away from the workshop a clearer understanding of the academic review process, tools for effectively communicating with editors and reviewers, and strategies for managing and responding to critical feedback.
Developing and Running a Research Agenda and Publication Pipeline
Format: 60-minute interactive workshop
Audience: advanced grad students, postdocs, early career faculty; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, attendees will learn strategies for developing an intentional, focused research agenda and tools for developing a realistic publication pipeline and timeline. The workshop will address how to build a research agenda that moves forward multiple projects in different phases of research (e.g. development, data collection, drafting, revising), how to effectively manage collaborative projects, and how to set realistic, sustainable research and publication goals.
Creating and Sustaining Your Mentoring Network
Format: 60-minute interactive workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs, early career faculty, early career administrators; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, participants will develop an understanding of how mentoring can help advance their scholarly and/or professional goals and contribute to personal and professional flourishing. The workshop is focused on how to develop a mentoring network, including identifying one’s areas of mentoring needs, understanding the distinctions among advisors, mentors, and sponsors, identifying and approaching potential mentors, setting mentoring relationship expectations, and navigating challenges in mentoring relationships. Participants will leave the workshop with a map of their own ideal mentoring network and concrete strategies for developing and sustaining their mentoring network.
Project Management for Academics
Format: 90-minute interactive workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs, faculty, administrators; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, attendees learn the basic principles, concepts, and tools of project management and how to apply those to academic projects, from dissertations to books to course design and preparation and beyond. Focusing on project management techniques that maximize efficiency and productivity while minimizing burnout, rework, and overwhelm, this workshop provides concrete strategies for managing academic life and work, including time management and organization. Participants will leave the workshop having learned how to develop and use a project management plan to keep work organized and on track and will complete their own project management plan for a project of their choice.
Preparing and Searching for Higher Ed Careers Beyond the Professoriate
Format: 45-minute presentation with 15-minute Q&A
Audience: grad students and postdocs; all disciplines
In this hour-long webinar, participants will develop an understanding of the diverse range of higher ed career paths beyond the professoriate, what they can do now to develop skills and build networks to help prepare for careers, and strategies for successfully conducting a job search for diverse careers at colleges and universities. Participants will leave with an understanding of how to identify their transferrable skills, how convert an academic CV to an administrative CV, how to most effectively leverage experience in a cover letter for non-faculty positions within higher ed, and the interview process for diverse higher ed careers. Drawing on her own experience with several successful job searches for positions beyond the professoriate in higher ed as well as her research on the career outcomes of PhDs employed in diverse positions at colleges and universities, Dr. Simula will help attendees understand the rewards of these career paths and how to most effectively prepare for them.
Out on the Market: Job Searching as an LGBTQIA Applicant
Format: 60-minute workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this hour-long workshop, participants explore their own values and decisions about whether and how to be out on the market, including in application materials and in their online presence. The workshop addresses how to handle questions about gender and sexuality in the job search process, responding to micgro-aggressions, whether and how to discuss LGBTQIA-related research, teaching, and service, and assessing the campus or employer climate for LGBTQIA folx.
Cultivating Professional and Personal Flourishing as an Academic
Format: 60-minute workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, participants will identify their core values and learn how to use those values to set goals, and develop their academic mission and vision. Participants will identify practices and strategies for developing and sustaining work-life balance and holistic well-being while enhancing professional productivity and achievement. Attendees will learn about the common limiting beliefs and ruts that lead to burnout and overwhelm among academics and strategies for addressing those challenges. Workshop attendees will take away their personal plan for cultivating their own individual flourishing.
Crafting Your Semester Strategic Plan
Format: 90-minute workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, participants will develop a personalized plan for using their values to set goals and strategic plan for the semester. The workshop will discuss how to set productive, realistic goals, developing an individual strategic plan that supports both professional and personal flourishing, translating big-picture goals into actionable steps, and how to use strategic planning to guide day-to-day work and prioritizing commitments. Participants will leave the workshop having developed their own personal semester strategic plan.
Flourish While You Write: A Virtual Writing Retreat
Format: 3-hour writing retreat
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this three-hour retreat, participants identify concrete, achievable goals for a writing project of their choice to work on during the retreat, receive structure and support in achieving those goals, learn tips and strategies for simultaneously deepening their flourishing and productivity while you work, and spend 2 ½ hours making progress on the writing project they bring to the treat.
Format: 90-minute interactive workshop
Audience: grad students and postdocs; all disciplines
In this workshop, participants will identify conceptual and practical issues in communicating professional identities. Attendees will develop tools for constructing and communicating their professional identities. Participants will leave the workshop with a professional bio and elevator pitch and an understanding of how to adapt each for different academic and professional audiences in-person and in writing.
How Grant Reviewers Read
Format: 45-minute presentation with 15-minute Q&A
Audience: grad students; postdocs; early career faculty; all disciplines
In this webinar, Dr. Brandy Simula draws on her experience as a grant and fellowship advisor and reviewer, along with the sociological literature on academic evaluations and grant review processes to help participants understand grant reviewers as an audience. The webinar discusses how application packages are read as well as how reviewers read each component of common application requirements (e.g. proposal, budget, recommendations). The webinar also provides an overview of common mistakes in grant applications and how to avoid them and strategies for developing successful funding applications.
Flourishing During Job Searches
Format: 90-minute interactive workshop
Audience: advanced grad students and postdocs; all disciplines
In this interactive, reflective workshop, participants will develop individualized strategies for flourishing during job searches, including for traditional faculty positions as well as diverse careers in and beyond the academy. The workshop addresses how to develop and hold effective boundaries around intellectual and emotional job search labor, strategic management of the job search process, and how to balance a job search with research and teaching, personal and family commitments, and self-care. Participants will leave the workshop with a personalized plan for combating job search-related stress and uncertainty, a diagram of their job search support network, and strategies for navigating the job market during a global health pandemic and the resulting economic downturn.
Preparing and Revising Academic Manuscripts
Format: 45-minute presentation with 15 minute Q&A
Audience: advanced grad students, postdocs, early career faculty; all disciplines
Drawing on her own experience publishing numerous academic articles and book chapters, as well as her experience as a reviewer and editor of several special issues and edited volumes and as incoming Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Positive Sexuality, Dr. Simula shares strategies for preparing academic manuscripts, identifying potential manuscript homes, communicating with editors, and responding to reviewers. Participants will take away from the workshop a clearer understanding of the academic review process, tools for effectively communicating with editors and reviewers, and strategies for managing and responding to critical feedback.
Developing and Running a Research Agenda and Publication Pipeline
Format: 60-minute interactive workshop
Audience: advanced grad students, postdocs, early career faculty; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, attendees will learn strategies for developing an intentional, focused research agenda and tools for developing a realistic publication pipeline and timeline. The workshop will address how to build a research agenda that moves forward multiple projects in different phases of research (e.g. development, data collection, drafting, revising), how to effectively manage collaborative projects, and how to set realistic, sustainable research and publication goals.
Creating and Sustaining Your Mentoring Network
Format: 60-minute interactive workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs, early career faculty, early career administrators; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, participants will develop an understanding of how mentoring can help advance their scholarly and/or professional goals and contribute to personal and professional flourishing. The workshop is focused on how to develop a mentoring network, including identifying one’s areas of mentoring needs, understanding the distinctions among advisors, mentors, and sponsors, identifying and approaching potential mentors, setting mentoring relationship expectations, and navigating challenges in mentoring relationships. Participants will leave the workshop with a map of their own ideal mentoring network and concrete strategies for developing and sustaining their mentoring network.
Project Management for Academics
Format: 90-minute interactive workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs, faculty, administrators; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, attendees learn the basic principles, concepts, and tools of project management and how to apply those to academic projects, from dissertations to books to course design and preparation and beyond. Focusing on project management techniques that maximize efficiency and productivity while minimizing burnout, rework, and overwhelm, this workshop provides concrete strategies for managing academic life and work, including time management and organization. Participants will leave the workshop having learned how to develop and use a project management plan to keep work organized and on track and will complete their own project management plan for a project of their choice.
Preparing and Searching for Higher Ed Careers Beyond the Professoriate
Format: 45-minute presentation with 15-minute Q&A
Audience: grad students and postdocs; all disciplines
In this hour-long webinar, participants will develop an understanding of the diverse range of higher ed career paths beyond the professoriate, what they can do now to develop skills and build networks to help prepare for careers, and strategies for successfully conducting a job search for diverse careers at colleges and universities. Participants will leave with an understanding of how to identify their transferrable skills, how convert an academic CV to an administrative CV, how to most effectively leverage experience in a cover letter for non-faculty positions within higher ed, and the interview process for diverse higher ed careers. Drawing on her own experience with several successful job searches for positions beyond the professoriate in higher ed as well as her research on the career outcomes of PhDs employed in diverse positions at colleges and universities, Dr. Simula will help attendees understand the rewards of these career paths and how to most effectively prepare for them.
Out on the Market: Job Searching as an LGBTQIA Applicant
Format: 60-minute workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this hour-long workshop, participants explore their own values and decisions about whether and how to be out on the market, including in application materials and in their online presence. The workshop addresses how to handle questions about gender and sexuality in the job search process, responding to micgro-aggressions, whether and how to discuss LGBTQIA-related research, teaching, and service, and assessing the campus or employer climate for LGBTQIA folx.
Cultivating Professional and Personal Flourishing as an Academic
Format: 60-minute workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, participants will identify their core values and learn how to use those values to set goals, and develop their academic mission and vision. Participants will identify practices and strategies for developing and sustaining work-life balance and holistic well-being while enhancing professional productivity and achievement. Attendees will learn about the common limiting beliefs and ruts that lead to burnout and overwhelm among academics and strategies for addressing those challenges. Workshop attendees will take away their personal plan for cultivating their own individual flourishing.
Crafting Your Semester Strategic Plan
Format: 90-minute workshop
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this interactive workshop, participants will develop a personalized plan for using their values to set goals and strategic plan for the semester. The workshop will discuss how to set productive, realistic goals, developing an individual strategic plan that supports both professional and personal flourishing, translating big-picture goals into actionable steps, and how to use strategic planning to guide day-to-day work and prioritizing commitments. Participants will leave the workshop having developed their own personal semester strategic plan.
Flourish While You Write: A Virtual Writing Retreat
Format: 3-hour writing retreat
Audience: grad students, postdocs; all disciplines
In this three-hour retreat, participants identify concrete, achievable goals for a writing project of their choice to work on during the retreat, receive structure and support in achieving those goals, learn tips and strategies for simultaneously deepening their flourishing and productivity while you work, and spend 2 ½ hours making progress on the writing project they bring to the treat.