Thursday,%20October%2023,%202014

1
New media working groupprofessionalization
workshop with gail23 October 2014

• Thursday, October 23, 2014

2
A bit about gail

• Stanford, 1994, BA in Modern Thought
  Literature, MA in Humanities
• Joined for-profit education start-up (almost went
  to Harvard Law School)
• Chief Operating Officer of a wholly owned
  subsidiary of The Washington Post Company in
  1999 quit the day after 9/11
• Northwestern, 2008, Ph.D. in Comparative Literary
  Studies (home department RTVF/Screen Cultures)
• Applied to 12 jobs, received 3 offers (1 Visiting
  Lectureship 1 year at a UC, a T-T position at
  Columbia College Chicago, and UCB)
• Worked at Columbia College Chicago for 1 year
  while UCB offer finalized
• Assistant Professor in Berkeley Center for New
  Media Department of Theater, Dance, and
  Performance Studies
• Published in Cinema Journal, Modern Drama,
  International Journal of Communication,
  Performance Research forthcoming, other
  journals, essay collections book forthcoming
  from MIT Press
• Just completed tenure review (will hear in summer
  2015)

3
QUESTIONS
4
stress

• CHALLENGES
• The constant reminder that academic positions
  are scarce and/yet we lack real-world experience
  to find work/relevancy elsewhere.

5
Time Management and Multitasking

• CHALLENGES
• Making time for networking.
• Prioritizing what to do this year.
• Finding enough time in a day to work on the
  dissertation after all other teaching, research,
  life duties are met.
• Balancing research and teaching.
• How to manage my time between differing
  responsibilities. (from multiple-choice menu)

6
ROUNDING OUT SKILL SET

• WHAT YOU HAVENT MASTERED YET (from
  multiple-choice menu)
• How to get essays published in great journals
  (including how to decide where to submit essays).
  (3 votes)
• I'd be very curious to hear about the journal
  publication process, knowing which are the most
  reputable journals in a given field and
  sub-field, and how to get a sense of who some of
  the important but maybe not super-famous or even
  just famous scholars in a field are.
• How to organize and run an event (symposium,
  conference, lecture series, film screening, etc.)
• How to write a great dissertation.
• How to choose what conferences to go to (and get
  in).

7
MANAGING UP

• CHALLENGES
• My mentor is on sabbatical! AAAAAAACK!
• Finding additional faculty members from my
  department that are interested enough in my own
  research areas for me to work with.
• I feel like I try to not go in and talk too
  often because I don't want to take up my
  committee's valuable time, but then I end up
  feeling a little out of touch about my research.
• How can I navigate the very different
  methodologies and areas of interest among my
  committee members and assert my own research
  goals? I sometimes feel like I'm being pushed in
  different directions.

8
BUILDING THE CV/ESTABLISHING REPUTATION/SELF-BRAND
ING

• CHALLENGES
• I need to be legible in a field that is not my
  home discipline.
• Assuming that fields provide the necessary
  backgrounds for our dissertation, which makes us
  legible to academic markets How does one
  structure a field (for the QEs) that is both
  interdisciplinary and yet legible to disciplinary
  positions?
• Coming from BCNM and similar interdisciplinary
  programs/backgrounds, what is the best way to
  market yourself, and how do you determine which
  kinds of departments you might find a home in?

9
CV/REPUTATION/BRANDING (CONTD.)

• It's been shared that service-projects will not
  service you in obtaining an academic job. As
  current graduate students, what should we
  primarily focus on to be eligible and competitive
  for the academic job market?
• Are there any general markers that students can
  use to gauge their own progress leading up to
  going on the market? In other words, a certain
  number of publications/presentations, etc.?
• Getting started with my dissertation while also
  recognizing the importance of getting multiple
  publications in the pipeline.
• How to make a name for myself prior to going on
  the market.

10
THE ACADEMIC JOB MARKET

• CHALLENGES
• Where to look for all the best job and postdoc
  postings.
• Given the scarcity of jobs, does it make sense
  to position ourselves in relationship to a
  desired job at a particular university, or more
  generally?
• How to survive a skype interview.

11
THE JOB MARKET OUTSIDE OF ACADEMIA

• CHALLENGES
• How to figure out a plan B.
• Which sectors/industries value "qualitative
  research" and critical analysis skills that we
  are trained to do? How do you find/apply/obtain
  such positions?
• Why would anybody in tech want to hire a PhD?
  How do you market yourself? How do you get the
  technical skills needed on top of all the other
  time commitments of being a PhD student?

12
Non-academic job market (contd.)

• I don't think I know what opportunities exist
  outside of academia. It's hard to know how my
  skillset translates to non-academic spaces. In
  addition, I would love to learn about how to
  think about non-academic jobs that can be done
  while I'm in school.
• What non-academic jobs are available to me?

13
A career in the academy the early years

• How often are junior faculty members denied from
  tenure and what are the most common
  "explanations" for denials?
• How do you stay on the cutting edge of your
  field? Sometimes my research interests take me
  places I feel are unexplored, but hardly the
  "hot" item of the moment. This can sometimes make
  me feel a bit isolated.
• 1. What are the publishing expectations?2. What
  are the service expectations?3. Are non-tenured
  tenure-track faculty treated any differently from
  an administrative perspective than tenured
  faculty?

14
ACADEMIC career (contd.)

• What was your first post PhD gig? How did it
  prepare you for where you are now?
• How can you balance teaching and mentoring with
  doing enough research and getting published? How
  can you be a great teacher while still making
  enough time for your own work?
• Any advice on developing a work/life balance is
  always beneficial. Sometimes it important for us
  to be reminded of why those who are faculty
  continue to do this. How do you create time to
  write? Any thoughts on the writing process and
  how to move from literature reviews to making
  original contributions to a field of literature
  would also be appreciated.

15
ACADEMIC career (contd.)

• How can I avoid getting stuck in adjunct
  purgatory?

16
Nobody taught me these things, either

• Too afraid to ask/confident (arrogant) enough to
  think I didnt need professional development.
• First generation of the interdisciplinary Ph.D.
• Changing profession
• The neoliberal university pushes down
  responsibility to campus depts/units and demands
  less eccentric, more well-rounded and socially
  skilled individuals who can manage and direct
  people and organizations as well as teach and do
  their own work.
• Professors today must be community leaders.