Emily Read, PhD, RN

Graduate Research Recruitment Shouldn’t Start in an Inbox

A clearer, more consistent first step could make graduate student recruitment easier for both researchers and students. This post looks at what is missing from the current inbox-based approach and why I built Research Portage as an alternative.

For October’s theme/area of focus, I chose to focus on improving graduate student recruitment.

The current process for most of us is to share our email address and tell interested students to send us an email. Then a student sends an email (often a very long one…), maybe attaches a CV or transcript, maybe explains why they are interested in your work, and maybe provides some information about what they are looking for.

Then the back and forth starts. What program are they applying to? When do they want to start? Are they looking for a funded position? What are their research interests? What kind of supervision are they hoping for? Do they understand what your work is actually about? Do you run a physical lab? Is remote work possible? This list goes on…

None of this is especially complicated, but it creates a surprisingly messy and inconsistent system. It also depends heavily on students knowing what information matters, what a potential supervisor wants to know, and how to communicate all of that in an initial email. Researchers, meanwhile, are often trying to make sense of very different kinds of information arriving in very different formats.

At many universities, faculty profiles are like a mini-CV; you can find out about a professor’s education, research funding and publications, etc. However, these profiles are much less likely to explain how research actually happens or what it’s like to work with someone. Those things matter enormously, but they are often invisible until much later in the process.

That leaves students trying to infer a lot from a publication list, a short biography, and perhaps a few project descriptions. Researchers, meanwhile, receive inquiries from students who may not know the right kinds of questions to ask or who could have identified potential supervisors with a stronger fit if they had better information.

For all these reasons, I felt like the graduate student recruitment process was ready for some work redesign.

What if the first step was simply clearer for everyone involved? Students should be able to learn what a researcher studies, what kinds of opportunities are available, how they supervise, what they expect, and what it might actually be like to work in that research environment before they reach out. Researchers should be able to receive the same core information from interested students in a consistent format before deciding whether a conversation makes sense.

At one point, I considered building a matching tool (after all, questionnaire design and validation is part of my researcher toolkit). But the more I explored this, the less comfortable I became with the idea of reducing something as complex as a student-supervisor relationship to a score. The goal is not to automate judgment. It is to make the first step clearer and give both sides better information before they decide whether a conversation makes sense. That does not require a score, a ranking, or an algorithm deciding who belongs. It just requires a better starting point.

That thinking is what led me to build a web-based platform where researchers can build a recruitment page focused on graduate student recruitment and a standardized alignment fit check tool that prospective graduate students can complete if they are interested. I built Research Portage for myself to use but thought it might be helpful to others who want to improve or streamline their graduate student recruitment process. From a business perspective, I also saw an opportunity to solve a niche problem and make some extra money if people like the idea, because let’s face it, the cost of living is not going down anytime soon…

So without further ado, here is my first (and very amateur) ad for Research Portage. I used an AI tool to generate some clips of a fictional professor for the start and finish but it is my voice and real screen recordings otherwise.

If graduate student recruitment still lives in your inbox, Research Portage was built for you.

Take a look: researchportage.ca

September: Too Much Stuff

I have too much stuff. Between three growing boys, my own clothing, and a rather large fabric stash, I’ve been thinking about how much work comes with having things. This month, I’m exploring how less stuff, better systems, and better spaces might make everyday life a little easier.

Alright, it is time to write about September. This month I’ve been taking a closer look at all my clothing and stuff, and here is my conclusion:

I have too much stuff.

That’s it; that’s the post.

Just kidding… but I do have a lot of stuff and much of it is clothing (and fabric). Not only because I have three growing boys and I am a woman, but because one of my hobbies is sewing clothes.

As I mentioned, I moved at the end of August. Apparently, the average number of moves in a lifetime is between 8–12. This was almost my 40th move. That’s a lot of moving, and I’m hoping my next one will be the last move for a really long time! This move has also come with some pretty big life changes, so I’ve been doing a lot of sorting through things and figuring out what I want to keep, what I need, and what I’m ready to pass along.

It really wasn’t a big deal to move when I lived in a residence room or a small apartment, but having kids and more space naturally leads to accumulation of clothing, toys, books, house stuff, etc. It all comes in, gets used/enjoyed, and then it leaves.

I think there are basically three main things that need to happen to manage the stuff: 1) Input management, 2) Management of current belongings, and 3) Exit management (hand down, donate, sell, discard).

Importantly, making decisions about input has downstream effects on the other steps. Less stuff in = less stuff to manage and deal with when you no longer need or want it (or it is unusable).

Way to state the obvious, right?

Well, sure. But it’s not always easy to make these decisions.

Broken BBQ? Easy to replace—toss it. Super-heavy, pain-in-the-butt-to-move cable weight machine? Keep it (obviously!)… one more move to go…

It’s not just the amount of stuff I have, but the amount of work that comes with having it. Buying it, organizing it, cleaning it, storing it, moving it, and eventually figuring out what to do with it. None of these things is particularly difficult on its own (especially when you are not moving), but it all adds up.

I’d rather spend my time doing other things.

Clothing

Clothing is both easier and harder for me to manage than a lot of other belongings. Bodies change, as do styles and life stages. The kids just keep getting bigger, so that cycle is pretty easy to manage seasonally.

Well, easy in theory.

In practice, keeping track of clothing for three growing boys takes a fair bit of work. What fits? What will fit next season? What can be passed down (or not)? What do I need to buy? And where did I put those winter boots that I know I bought on sale last year?

I started trying to manage all of this with a Google spreadsheet. Nothing fancy, just a way to keep track of what each kid has, what they need, and what can be passed down. The biggest pain was adding pictures. I wanted to be able to see what we had, not just read a list of clothing items. And getting pictures into the spreadsheet was a pain in the butt.

So, I started wondering if I could make an app instead. I’ve been experimenting with AI-assisted app development, and this seemed like a good opportunity to try building something that would actually be useful.

I’m now almost done creating an app to replace the cumbersome spreadsheet and make it easier to manage my kids’ clothing, outdoor gear, and sports equipment. It’s been a lot of work, but also really fun! I’m also exploring the idea of turning this and a few other projects into a little side business.

So much for simplifying my life, right?

At the very least, I’d like to stop buying things we already have. Like another pair of snow pants when there’s a perfectly good pair sitting in a bin somewhere.

As for me, some clothes were really easy to pass along. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any use for Saturday nights at the ‘Vil outfits or Snowball formal dresses. I’m done having babies, so all my maternity clothes have been passed on.

Other things, for whatever reason (no good reason?), I’ve been holding on to. This includes a few pairs of jeans that are currently too small but maybe I’ll fit back into, my powerlifting singlet (I haven’t competed for 10 years at this point and I’m not sure I will again), and some handmade pieces that I’m hesitant to part with because I made them.

Why does one hold on to such things? Hope? Memories? An old version of ourselves that we’re not ready to say goodbye to?

I’m not sure. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

At any rate, my actual usable clothing (things that fit, look presentable, and I like) is where I should probably focus my attention.

I have a lot of clothes, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into having a lot of things I want to wear. Some things don’t fit quite right, some are more suited to a different time in my life, and some I just don’t particularly like anymore.

So, rather than getting rid of everything or buying a bunch of new clothes, I want to figure out what I actually have, what I wear, and what I need.

What goes together? What am I missing? What, if anything, should I alter or repair? And what am I keeping around for no particularly good reason?

I also need to take a look at my fabric stash. Sewing is a hobby that I really enjoy, but it’s easy to get carried away with buying fabric and planning projects. There is something very appealing about the possibility of making something. Actually finding the time to make it is another story.

And, of course, just because I can make something doesn’t mean I should.

I think this is really where the input management piece comes in. I’m not particularly interested in having a minimalist wardrobe, and I certainly don’t want to stop sewing. But I would like to be a little more intentional about what I buy and make.

Maybe I don’t need another dress. Maybe what I really need is a pair of pants that goes with the tops I already own. Maybe I should use some of the fabric I have before buying more. Working on it!

Sometimes it’s not the stuff. It’s the space.

Something else I’ve been thinking about since moving is how much our physical space affects our ability to manage all this stuff.

For example, in my current rental home I have a giant, awesome boot room. It has a place for everyone’s coats, boots, shoes, backpacks, hats, mittens, and all the other things that come and go from the house. It’s a huge upgrade from the split-entry situation in the last house (definite dealbreaker for my next home!).

With three boys, there is a lot of stuff that needs to be accessible each season. And I don’t think the solution is necessarily to have fewer things. We live in New Brunswick, Canada, where we have four distinct seasons, and often multiple weather situations in the same day. We need different kinds of footwear, coats, hats, etc.

We also have lots of gear and equipment for several sports and activities. I think it’s really important for kids to learn fundamental movement skills and have the opportunity to try different things. To keep costs down, I often pick up a pair of skates or cleats, etc. at thrift stores or yard sales when I see them. Obviously, this contributes to having a lot of stuff right now, but I know the boys will use it eventually. And when they outgrow it, I can pass it along to someone else. Eventually, it all goes through the cycle.

I’ve been thinking about this as I consider what I’d like in my next house. Rather than just looking at the number of bedrooms or square footage, I’m thinking about what we actually need to do in our home and how the space can support those things. I’ve noticed a lot of new homes lack functional storage spaces. We need linen closets and storage rooms and boot rooms, especially with kids. Many older homes have dressers and china cabinets thoughtfully built into the walls. Bring it back!

A boot room isn’t particularly exciting in the grand scheme of things, but having somewhere for the kids to come in, take off their outdoor gear, and put everything away without creating a giant pile by the door sounds pretty awesome to me. Better yet, a boot room that connects the garage to the house would be all that and a bag of chips.

So, what’s the plan?

I guess my conclusion is that I don’t necessarily want to get rid of everything. I like having things. I like sewing. I like books. I like having the things we need to do fun and interesting things as a family.

I just don’t want to spend so much time managing it all.

So now I’m going to go through my clothing, figure out what I have, what I wear, and what I actually need. I’m also going to take stock of my fabric and try to be a little more intentional about what I buy and make.

And I’ll finish making my app, because I think there is an opportunity to make managing the kids’ gear a whole lot easier.

I’m not aiming for some magical number of clothing items or a perfectly organized closet. I just want to have things that I like, that fit, and that I actually use. Ideally, without having to sort through a whole bunch of other stuff to find them.

Maybe having less stuff is part of the answer. Maybe better systems and better spaces are another part.

At any rate, I’d like to have a little less to pack when move number 40 comes around.

Except the cable weight machine.

That’s coming with me.

How I am going to Redesign one part of my Life each Month

In this post I’m going to outline my approach. First, I’ll provide a positionality statement to give some necessary context. Then I’ll explain how I plan to look at my life as a system and redesign it in a systematic-ish, iterative way.

Positionality

I am approaching this project as a cisgender White woman who is a registered nurse and tenured professor at a comprehensive university in Eastern Canada. I grew up in a lower-middle-class home in a small town in Nova Scotia. My first job was a paper route when I was 10, and I have worked many different jobs since, including as a lifeguard, personal trainer, babysitter, personal support worker, resident assistant, tutor, and lots more. I am the first person in my family to earn a PhD and become a professor.

I am also a mom of three wonderful kids and have spent the majority of my time as a parent without a partner. I have thought a lot about household management and operations, division of labour in caregiving and at home, and, more recently, about coordination and dealing with increasingly complex family logistics.

My “go-to” theory when it comes to understanding work is the Job Demands-Resources model. Very simply, the model looks at the demands people face in their work and the resources they have available to help them manage those demands. I naturally find myself thinking about this outside of work too, because people have a whole life. Work and non-work do not happen in isolation. We have one life, with a finite amount of time, energy, attention, money, space, and other resources, and demands in one area inevitably affect the others.

That is really the starting point for this project.

Looking at my life as a system

I have tried lots of approaches to productivity, organization, minimalism, planning, and household management over the years. Some have been helpful and others, not so much. I really wanted to love Getting Things Done, for example, but I have increasingly realized that I am less interested in becoming better at managing everything than I am in questioning why there is so much to manage in the first place.

I don’t want a better system for efficiently doing unnecessary work – I want to understand where the work is coming from.

So, rather than starting with a list of habits or rules, I want to start by looking at my life as a set of interconnected systems. Home. Clothing and stuff. Food. Health and fitness. Money. Work. Family logistics. Play. Technology. Relationships. The categories may change as I go, but the basic idea is that each area of life has its own tasks, routines, objects, people, decisions, technologies, handoffs, and expectations.

Each of those systems also creates demands. Some are obvious, like money or physical effort spent. Others are less visible: remembering, noticing, planning, deciding, coordinating, searching, following up, keeping track, and switching attention from one thing to another (the mental load).

And, of course, these systems are not separate. What happens in one affects the others.

Mapping before fixing

My first step each month will be to map the area I am looking at before I try to improve it. I want to understand things like:

What actually has to happen?

Who is involved?

What needs to be remembered, decided, bought, stored, maintained, moved, scheduled, or replaced?

Where are the points of friction?

Where am I duplicating effort?

What depends on me noticing something?

What falls apart when I am tired, busy, distracted, or simply having a very normal week?

What resources are already helping?

And, importantly, what is the system actually supposed to accomplish?

That last question matters because the goal is not to make everything as efficient as possible.

Some things are absolutely worth the time, money, effort, or mess they create. Playing with my kids is not inefficient because it takes time. Cooking something I enjoy is not wasteful because there is a faster option. Reading a book does not need to be optimized.

The question is whether the demands are helping produce something I actually value.

Redesigning

Once I understand the system a little better, I’ll look for opportunities to change it. If I were designing this system from scratch today, would I design it this way? If not, how might it be different and better?

I am deliberately not creating a rigid framework for this yet because I don’t know what I am going to learn. Part of the point of the project is to figure out which principles actually hold up across different areas of life.

My current process is something like:

Map → Question → Redesign → Test → Reflect

That is probably as formal as I want it to be for now.

What I am not trying to do

This is not a project about squeezing more productivity out of every hour. It is not about owning the fewest possible things (as a busy working mom having back ups are essential, not optional in my opinion). It is not about having a perfectly organized house that looks like a Martha Stewart photoshoot (love you Martha, but let’s be real).

It is not about using AI to automate every part of life.

And it is definitely not about pretending that every problem can be solved by an individual making better choices.

A lot of the demands people experience are structural (determinants of health). Workplaces, caregiving expectations, cost of living, housing, policies, social norms, available services, and the unequal distribution of unpaid work all shape what is possible. Personal redesign does not make those things disappear.

However, despite the many broader conditions that need attention, I do think there is still value in asking where I have agency and whether the systems I have built, inherited, or simply drifted into are actually serving me.

Coming up Next…

Starting in September, I’m going to choose one area of life each month and look at it closely. The first area is going to be Clothing & Stuff. This is on my mind because I am currently moving and that process always informs you of just how much stuff you have accumulated. My kids are also constantly outgrowing things and needing new things which also makes it a highly salient area for me at this stage of life.

I’ll map how it currently works, identify the demands and resources involved, question what I am doing and why, try some changes, and see what happens.

I expect some of the experiments will work. Some will probably be ridiculous. Some will create entirely new problems. I will share those too.

The point is not to arrive at a perfectly optimized life.

The point is to see whether I can deliberately use fewer resources on the things that do not matter very much, so I have more available for the things that do 🙂

Technology was Supposed to Save us Time…

I’m not that old, but as an “elder millenial” I am, at times, nostalgic for the simpler, slower times before smartphones happened and our relationship with technology changed so dramatically (for better and worse).

I grew up in Nova Scotia in the 80s and 90s, many of those years without cable TV. I remember my parents renting a VCR from Video Difference for my sister’s 10th birthday so we could watch a movie. It was a big deal.

When I was 9 I asked my parents for a computer for Christmas. I loved reading (and still do) and wanted to be a writer when I grew up and so, obviously, I needed a computer. I did not get a computer. I did, however, get a very old Underwood Typewriter which, while missing the mark entirely for 9-year-old me, is, in retrospect, actually quite charming and thoughtful in its own way.

At any rate, we did eventually get a second-hand Tandy 2000 which I thought was amazing. It required a giant floppy disk to run anything and another one to run a program. We had a writing program and a Jeopardy game (it was so hard!). It wasn’t until junior high that we got our first “modern” computer and dial-up internet started becoming available. We were the teenagers who used ICQ and then MSN messenger, livejournal, MySpace, and so forth. We still spent most of our time doing things in real life (sports, band practice, part-time jobs, hanging out at the mall, etc), we passed handwritten notes in class, watched MuchMusic (and Street Cents, obviously), and called people on landline phones.

Technology has fundamentally changed the university experience over the last several decades. I distinctly remember how difficult it was to check emails and sign up for my university classes in the early 2000s. I had to book a computer at the local library to access the internet to do this and it was painfully slow.

The 2001 university experience looked a lot different than it does today but when is the last time you really thought about it? Personally, it’s been a while since I’ve thought about how much more friction and effort was required to do basically anything back then and how much faster and easier a lot of things are now.

Forget about smartphones – most people didn’t have a cell phone, period. I went to the computer lab to check my email. I wrote papers by hand before typing and printing them (again, in the computer lab). Then I physically dropped them into my professor’s mailbox outside their office.

If I needed a research article, I went to the library, searched the catalogue, found the journal in the stacks, and either read it there or photocopied the pages I needed. Occasionally, it was actually hard to find an article because somebody else was using the only copy. And, every citation had to be typed manually. My version of Zoterro was a shoebox full of index cards with handwritten citations and notes about each reference.

Looking back, it is amazing how much time these routine tasks required. Today, many of those same tasks take seconds. We can search thousands of articles instantly. Reference managers organize our citations (thank goodness!). We collaborate online with colleagues around the world. AI can now summarize information, organize ideas, create rubrics, and answer questions almost as quickly as we ask it to. The productivity gains we have achieved through technology are remarkable.

So why do so many knowledge workers feel busier than ever?

This is the question I keep coming back to.

If technology has made us so much more efficient, why does it feel like we have less time instead of more?

I think it is because technology has changed the nature of work. Yes, many tasks that once took hours now take minutes. At the same time, technology has created entirely new work and more of it. We answer more emails because people can write more emails faster. We attend more meetings because virtual meetings are easy to schedule. We are constantly learning new software, new systems, and now, new AI tools. Peer review (generally speaking) is a hot mess because the volume of submissions keeps increasing while the pool of potential reviewers has not.

The pace of change has accelerated much faster than most of us can realistically adapt to it. As knowledge workers, we are surrounded by an endless firehose of information, decisions, tools, and opportunities. Collaboration, thoughtful scholarship, and teaching and learning take time, mental energy, and patience. Those are all limited resources.

In theory, the time we save through technology should give us more time for deep thinking, creativity, family, rest, and meaningful work. But does it? Imagine comparing a week of work in 2001 versus a week of work now. How much more work are we doing now? (A lot) And why haven’t we banked the time savings of increased productivity and given everyone a 4-day work week (or less)?

More importantly, where exactly are we headed? Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Instead of thinking of technology as a way to replace as much human labour as possible, I’m interested in exploring how we can redesign work and life in ways that help people contribute in meaningful ways to society and live a good life.

I’m interested to know, what’s one thing that would make your work or life better by not having to do it?

The Parsimony Project

A year-long experiment in redesigning work and life in the age of AI.

Whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence (AI) is the next major technological revolution, and, perhaps, our doom… (hopefully not!). AI is already changing how we work, learn, and make decisions. For knowledge workers in particular, the changes are happening quickly and in wildly different ways. For a lot us (most of us?) AI just sort of popped up into all our digital tools without much warning (or permission) and little to zero guidance.

While I acknowledge the concerns about AI, it is also exciting to be able to figure out new ways of doing things. I can only speak for myself but I have lots of ideas and never enough time! AI has saved me time doing tedious work that would normally take a lot of time or that I wouldn’t even have time to do at all.

You’re probably wondering what kinds of things? Well, things like writing SPSS syntax to recode variable labels, clean up data, and run analyses, creating specific images for me to include in presentations that I have a hard time finding (for example, nurses wearing white scrub tops specifically), and learning how to use code to make my Brightspace course sites more user-friendly for my students (yes, you can do that).

I’ve found myself thinking less about what AI can do and more about what work actually needs to be done in the first place.

We spend a lot of time talking about how AI can help us write emails, summarize meetings, or automate repetitive tasks. Those are worthwhile conversations. But I think there is a deeper question that deserves our attention: Are we doing work that is truly necessary?

And if we are, are we doing it in the best possible way?

These questions have become increasingly important to me because they sit at the intersection of so many of my interests. Throughout my career, I’ve studied leadership, healthy work environments, technology adoption, workforce sustainability, and organizational systems. Long before ChatGPT appeared, I was involved in research exploring the use of technology. These projects include exercise interventions with self-monitoring technologies (via Blackberry phones back in the day), passive home monitoring systems to help older adults age in place, exploring physiotherapists’ use of robotic exoskeletons with rehab patients, and an educational video game to promote careers in nursing homes. Looking back, technology has been a recurring thread throughout much of my work.

I’m also very fortunate to work in a faculty where innovation and creativity are encouraged. For example, our Master’s and PhD programs are primarily online now, which makes it more feasible for mid-career nurses (who are mostly women with job, mortgages, and often, caregiving responsibilities) to pursue advanced degrees. We have also become a leader in virtual reality simulation in undergraduate nursing education. It’s exciting to be part of!

I’ve also always been fascinated by productivity as a way of creating more time for the things that matter most. I love planning and organizing! And even though I love technology (when it’s awesome and works properly), I still use a paper planner in combination with digital tools. I’ve spent years experimenting with different systems, apps, and workflows. I’ve realized that the purpose of planning and creating personal productivity systems is not just to stay organized and “put the big rocks in the jar first” (and yes, those are both important), or to do just do more and more endlessly, but to be able to spend the one precious life that we have creating a meaningful life.

Beginning in September, I’ll be running a series of personal experiments to redesign my work and personal life around a simple question:

How can I spend more of my time doing the things that only I can do?

Each month over the next year, I’m going to focus on one area or theme and consider what’s working well and what isn’t, where I might want to intentionally redesign or establish a new way of doing something, etc.

Some experiments will succeed.

Some will fail.

I’ll write about both.

This isn’t a quest to become infinitely productive or to optimize every minute of my day. If anything, it’s the opposite.

It’s an experiment in stewardship.

How do we use our finite time, energy, attention, and talents more wisely?

How do we reduce unnecessary complexity?

How do we create more space for deep thinking, meaningful work, creativity, family, and rest?

And perhaps the biggest question of all:

If technology keeps making us more efficient, why do so many knowledge workers feel busier than ever?

I don’t have answers yet and that’s the point.

This project is an invitation to explore those questions with me.

Welcome to The Parsimony Project.

Professor’s Notebook: Wrapping Up your Semester of Teaching

The end of term is a busy time that often involves a lot of final assessment activities for the courses you are teaching. It can be challenging to go the extra distance to make sure that you stay organized during the transition from one semester to the next. Today I’m going to share with you what I consider the “must-dos” to close out your semester, stay organized, and learn and grow as a teacher.

1. Submit your final grades on time

This should be low-hanging fruit but you’d be surprised how many faculty members either do not keep track of the deadlines for grade submission or struggle to get all of their grading done on time (especially with final papers/essays). You need to know your institution’s policy and dates for submitting final grades. It is very helpful to add the relevant dates for each course you teach to your calendar and plan your assignments and exams in a way that gives you enough time to grade them and submit the final grades on time.

As an aside, we usually underestimate how much time it takes to grade assignments so it can also be helpful to do some time tracking when you grade so that you have a more realistic estimate of the time you will need to block off in your calendar for this. Time tracking is simply keeping track of the amount of time you spend doing things and can be as basic as writing it on a piece of paper or in a Word document. Even timing grading a random sample of papers can give you a decent estimate of your average grading time for that assignment.

Obviously, it will vary by course, level, quality of writing, etc. but moving forward, this information can help you make informed decisions about the assignments you develop for your courses. There is also the whole AI thing which means we could be (some are) moving away from more traditional scholarly papers or essays or that we need to allocate more time to grading smaller scaffolded assignments throughout the term. We may (probably) also need more time to deal with AI cheating issues for some types of assignments. Even so, you need to get your grades in on time and make a plan that allows you to do that.

2. Clean up and organize your teaching files

You should have a personal filing system that makes it easy for you to find information. Personally, I have a main folder called TEACHING with a subfolder for each of the different courses I’ve taught and another level of subfolders by year for the courses that I have taught multiple times. You might prefer to organize by year. There isn’t one best way to organize your files but you do need a system that is consistent and works for you.

When it comes to teaching, there are basically three types of files: 1) content that you’ve created for teaching and learning, 2) content that others have created that you are using for teaching and learning while minding copyright laws (e.g., book chapters, journal articles, etc.), and 3) content that your students have created during the course (e.g., assignments, discussion posts, exams, etc.).

In my view, the student-created content and your evaluations of it require the most consideration due to privacy concerns and the potential for grade appeals. As a general rule, I would recommend finding out how long you are required to keep student work at your institution and then deleting the student work once that time has passed. For example, if you need to keep it for 1 year, then at the end of this term you would delete/electronically shred all student work from the Winter 2023 term. This includes discussion posts in your LMS.

The exception to this would be excellent work that you would like to use for accreditation/program review purposes or as examples to share with future classes. If you would like to save specific pieces of work from students for these purposes, you should ask them for permission to save and share their work in those ways now and file it in a special folder. The best time to ask students is now after you’ve just taught them (and after submitting final grades). Generally, I would ask for this permission via email and then if the student replies giving their written permission, I save the email thread as a PDF in the folder with their assignment.

The other types of files that you have (created by you and resources created by others) can be kept indefinitely in your personal filing system. I like to have folders organized by class or by week of the course and then a separate folder for assignments. I also create a brand new folder for each time I teach the same course. While this does create some duplication, it means that I have an archived version of the course for each time I taught it. Note that I always update and revise my courses to improve them so no two offerings are identical.

3. Read your student teaching evaluations

It might not be your favourite thing to do, but you really do need to read your student evaluations. Yes, there are known problems with student teaching evaluations – most students are not experts in teaching and learning, people have personal biases that negatively affect their ratings of women and members of minority groups who are professors, hard classes/subjects are viewed less favourably than others, and students with strong extreme opinions are most likely to complete the evaluation – however, there can still be helpful nuggets that can help you improve as a teacher so I wouldn’t advise ignoring them or sticking your head in the sand.

I would advise you not to take the feedback personally and to approach your teaching evaluations like a researcher instead. This is data after all. Print out your evaluations and go through them with different coloured highlighters. First, highlight all of the positive feedback in one colour. Then, highlight the negative feedback in another colour. I would ignore comments that are irrelevant to teaching (for example, comments about your appearance which yes, does happen when you are a woman). Look for common themes in each category. Are students consistently saying they didn’t like the textbook? Is there a 50:50 split on loving and hating an active learning strategy that you used? What is the data telling you overall? Write a brief summary of the overall feedback and consider what you might do differently next time to improve your teaching and students’ learning. You might also want to talk to your teaching support center or colleagues, do some research about the scholarship of teaching, or attend a teaching professor conference. Excellence does not require perfection, but it does require effort and there is always more to learn.

4. Take a day off (at least)

Lastly, it’s important to take at least a day off and decompress after a busy few weeks. Go do things that you enjoy and let go of the stresses of the semester. If you can take a vacation (at least a full week) I would highly encourage you to. Sometimes it feels like there is never a good time to take one but it is super important for your health and wellbeing, and, perhaps counterintuitively, taking vacation benefits your productivity at work long-term. Burnt-out people are not productive people so let’s avoid going down the burnout path 😉

And that’s it for today. Go wrap up your teaching semester and enjoy a well-deserved break~!

On Liberal Arts Education

Worker shortages across industries are creating intense pressures to create shortcuts to educate people to fill in the holes in the roster as fast as possible. We need tradespeople, we need nurses, teachers, doctors, and the list goes on… Yes, we definitely need more people in the workforce. But, we need the right people and we need them to know what they are doing (and also, to have the insight to know what they do not know and need to learn).

The trend to shorten education programs and view them as a type of factory that produces workers for the system leads to devaluing learning that is not directly linked to on-the-job tasks and skills that are visible and obvious to non-experts outside the field. For example, as a nurse, it is absolutely essential to understand ideas beyond the knowledge and skills necessary to do medical procedures like giving medications, inserting IVs, and so forth. Understanding the human condition, the determinants of health, the structure, history, and politics of the health care system, and the ethical aspects of care are also very important.

Teachers also need to have a broad understanding of the world, civic engagement, human development, social and political issues, science, arts, history, technology, and more, along with developing their skills and knowledge specific to teaching including curriculum and lesson planning, teaching, evaluation, and classroom management. It takes time to learn all of that.

Arguably, the purpose of education is not just to provide graduates with a career (though, yes, this is important too), but also to develop their critical thinking abilities, introduce them to new ideas, inspire them to think differently, and learn more about themselves and the broader world. Liberal arts education especially provides students with the opportunity to do this because it requires students to take a variety of courses across different disciplines and prepares them to be engaged and thoughtful citizens.

As a student, I didn’t really understand what liberal arts education was or why it was important, but in retrospect, I think it has been instrumental in my personal and professional development. For example, the English courses I took early on were challenging and required me to become a critical reader and thinker, as well as further develop my writing skills. These skills were incredible assets as a kinesiology and nursing student, as well as in my career as a professor. I also learned about different ways to think about and understand the world that I had not been exposed to growing up in smalltown rural Nova Scotia.

Even as a PhD student, my supervisor required me to take graduate courses outside of nursing. Instead of the minimum four courses, I took 10, including courses in instrument development in the Department of Psychology and courses in advanced statistics and teamwork at the Ivey School of Business. These courses introduced me to valuable new perspectives and new ideas outside of my home discipline which are still highly relevant to the work that I do now.

The benefits of liberal arts education and the perils of not exposing students to broader ideas and knowledge seem even more relevant today, with the pace of social and technological change. For example, it is readily apparent that we are not well-equipped to deal with the wide-ranging negative consequences of AI, many of which involve ethical and moral dilemmas. We are also living in a society that is increasingly influenced and polarized by the echo chambers of the internet and social media. Unfathomably, science (and education) is under attack and many people lack the knowledge and skills to critically appraise information and sources. Now, more than ever, we need to foster intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, and philosophical conversations and debates about social and ethical issues. We need liberal arts education.

Academic Coaching for Student Success

In sports the role of a coach is obvious to most people: the coach’s job is to bring out the best in their players and team and win. In my books winning doesn’t just mean beating the other team on the scoreboard – it means doing your very best and holding nothing back. In the words of John Wooden, one of my favourite coaches of all time “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

The best coaches help people identify and set goals and develop a plan to achieve them. They provide specific, constructive feedback and help their coachees identify strategies to overcome roadblocks. Coaches can also make learning and practicing new skills interesting and fun, and therefore help people stay motivated to achieve their goals.

Coaching is also relevant to many other contexts outside of sport such as parenting, personal training, and career coaching. In higher education, academic coaching is becoming more prevalent in response to increased numbers of students who are unprepared for university. In my discipline of nursing, we also see clinical coaching emerging as an effective strategy to support students who need extra support to develop their competence in clinical practice.

So what exactly is academic coaching?

The Coaching in Higher Education Consortium defines academic coaching as “fostering individualized relationships with students that promote their agency, self-understanding, growth, effectiveness, and persistence within the realm of education and across their lifespan” (1).

Academic coaching services usually provide students with tailored, individual sessions with a skilled academic coach to identify goals, strengths, areas for improvement, and strategies for success. Collaborating with an academic coach can empower students to build and refine skills required for academic success including self-regulation, time management, notetaking, studying, test-taking strategies, and planning and writing academic papers.

It’s worth noting that many universities and colleges have dedicated academic coaches with expertise in academic coaching. Professors are not expected to be academic coaches, nor are academic advisors who focus on academic regulations and course/program planning. Alzen et al. (2) provide a nice diagram showing the differences between counseling, academic coaching, and student advising which you can find here.

That being said, in nursing, my experience has been that faculty members invest a tremendous amount of time and energy supporting the learning needs of students because we tend to be a passionate and caring bunch. Knowing many faculty members in other disciplines, I’m sure we’re not the only ones. However, as much as we care about our students, academic coaching adds another thing to our already very full plates and there is a power imbalance between students and professors that can make it difficult for students to share all of their needs and challenges. Dedicated academic coaches provide better support for students and free up professors’ valuable time and energy to focus on what they do best.

What does the evidence say about the effectiveness of academic coaching?

Overall, there is a need for more research but evidence to date suggests that academic coaching can be an effective approach to supporting university students. For example, in a 2021 study, Howlett et al. (3) found that students who participated in academic coaching experienced an increase in meta-cognition (thinking about thinking) and that online coaching was just as effective as in-person coaching (good news for our distance students!). In another recent study, Alzen et al. (2) found that an academic coaching intervention had positive impacts on GPA, credits earned, and student retention for first-year students in Arts and Sciences at risk of not continuing (GPA < 2.0). Not surprisingly, in this study students who completed the academic coaching program had better outcomes than those who did not. While there remains a need for more research, the preliminary evidence does support the use of academic coaching for student success.

The tricky part, as with any intervention, is to figure out what works best, for who, and in what conditions. It’s possible (and perhaps likely) that while struggling students stand to benefit the most from academic coaching, they may also be the least likely to seek it out or take advantage of it.

References

Graduate Student Supervision: Fostering an empowering work environment in your lab/research group

Today we’re going to discuss how to foster an empowering work environment in your lab/research group. Over the last year, the “great resignation” has highlighted the importance of work environments on employee satisfaction, commitment, and turnover. People are done tolerating jobs (and people) that make them unhappy – and that includes higher education. We (the university/academy) can and need to do better.

As a graduate student supervisor, you play a major role in creating the work environment and culture for your graduate students and research personnel/team. How intentional have you been in creating that work environment? What supports and structures have you put in place to empower your team? Where do you even start?

Well, let’s start with Kanter’s (1993) theory of structural empowerment. Structural empowerment is all about providing people (usually employees but in this case graduate students) with access to the support, resources, information, and opportunities to learn and grow that they need to have in order to be able to actually do their work. There is a ton of research evidence showing that structural empowerment has positive impacts on employee and organizational outcomes. In addition, support has been identified as a key determinant of graduate student satisfaction.

It is also the case that when people don’t have access to these key empowerment structures it can make it really challenging – and frustrating – to accomplish their work. It’s pretty obvious that not having the information, resources, support, and opportunities you need to get the job done makes life difficult!

So when it comes to empowering your graduate students, how exactly do you do that?

Support

This might be both the easiest and most challenging source of empowerment to provide to your students because it doesn’t cost you money but it can cost you time, which is one of your most precious and scarce resources. However, you do not need to be/should not be the only source of support for your graduate students. Support can come from peers, committee members, and the university as well.

Resources

Providing graduate students with resources is all about making sure that they have what they need to successfully complete their degree. This could be financial support, time, access to equipment and/or software or access to space, among other things. This is one reason why getting research grants is so important – it gives you resources to share with your students.

Information

This is such an important aspect of empowerment for graduate students. It obviously includes access to the university library and research articles or databases, but there is also a whole heck of a lot of information (intellectual capital) in that brain of yours that you can share with your students ranging from content expertise, research methods, who’s who, and how to get things done as a researcher.

Opportunities to learn and grow

Each one of your students is going to be unique in terms of their strengths and learning needs. Discussing learning goals each semester can help you identify opportunities of value and interest to each of your students. For example, you may have a fresh master’s student who has never written a conference abstract and a more experienced grad student with lots of experience doing this – why not pair them together? The less experienced student will benefit from the mentorship and experience of the more experienced student and the more experienced student will have an opportunity to mentor and teach. (Of course, you should still provide some guidance and feedback to both students).

Other examples of providing opportunities include sharing information about key conferences and encouraging/requiring students to submit abstracts, providing opportunities to contribute to research projects, presentations, and projects that you are working on, providing hands-on training that advance your students’ skills and knowledge relevant to your field, and introducing your students to people within your professional network, to name a few.

Conclusion

So there you have it – you now know what structural empowerment is and have some ideas about how you can provide it for your graduate students 🙂

Until next week!

Simple Stress Busters to Cope with Mid-Semester Overwhelm

It’s that time of the semester again! The end is in sight but the work is piling up! You have a lot to do before the holiday break including finishing everything for your current classes and preparing for next term so that you can actually relax for a bit.

Research suggests that a wide range of stress coping strategies can be effective. These include social support, emotion-focused coping strategies (aimed at making you feel better), problem-focused coping strategies (aimed at improving or solving the problems/situations that are the source of your stress), and cognitive reappraisal (reframing the stressor and your interpretation of it).

Here are some Simple Stress Busters to Cope with Mid-Semester Overwhelm:

Do a short guided relaxation or meditation. Apps like Calm and Headspace are particularly helpful for this. Schedule 10 min in your day to do this so that it becoms a habit. I like to do it in the car at the end of the work day before I go pick up my son and dog from daycare. It puts me in a much calmer, more mindful state of mind and provides a transition from work to non-work that I find helpful.
Have a mini dance party! Listen to 2-3 of your favourite songs and rock out. This is such an awesome way to release pent up stress energy and add a bit of fun/play to your day 🙂 Often the songs we love also remind us of fun times with friends.
Speaking of which… Connecting with a good friend can also be a great mood booster. Taking 10 min to message a friend or family member and let them know you’re thinking of them is never a bad idea. Making use of commute time to have a longer conversation is also an excellent way to build in meaningful connections during your busy life.
Do something physical. There is a lot of research showing that physical activity and exercise have positive effects on your mental and physical health. You probably already know this! If you’re finding it challenging to get motivated, just commit to doing 10 min/day to start. You will probably feel better once you get going and even a 10 min walk/workout can help break up your grading marathons and give you some fresh air.
Go the F to sleep! I mean that as nicely as possible. If you are not getting enough sleep you are living life on hard mode. Getting a good night sleep when you are stressed out can be challenging, I totally get it! However, there are many things you can do to set yourself up for the best opportunity to have a good night sleep. These include creating a dark, quiet, cool sleeping space, turning off electronics an hour before bedtime (also you should absolutely have a consistent bedtime), having a caffeine cutoff time in the early afternoon, and doing a brain dump so that you can put your mind to rest.
Stop checking your email first thing in the morning. You have more important things to do most of the time. I like to plan my most important work for early in the work day because it ensures that it actually gets done. Your inbox is a black hole of other people’s priorities. It is a bit different for me now in my current role as an Associate Dean because I do need to be available for my team and there can be urgent things that need to be responded to. Our students are in clinical so serious things can happen (knock on wood they don’t). But if you are in a regular faculty position, you may want to consider scheduling certain times each day for email management and communication.
Book a massage or spa treatment. Find a local day spa or massage therapist that specializes in relaxation. Book an appointment. Go. Enjoy. Forget all the things. It’s that easy.
Stop comparing yourself to others. You might feel like you are “behind” or that you don’t measure up to the amazing superstar researcher that you look up to. Stop wasting your energy on that! Instead, focus on the unique value and expertise that you have to share. You are awesome and one of a kind! Take 5 min to write down what makes your teaching and/or research unique. Pin that on your bulletin board so you can look at it and remind yourself.

You certainly don’t need to do all of these but consider trying one out today and see how you feel afterward – maybe you will want to keep doing it 🙂

Have a great week and hang in there!

Emily

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