Ali Black on doing academia differently...caring, connecting & becoming

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Welcome to Changing Academic Life. I'm Geraldine

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Fitzpatrick. And this is a podcast series where academics

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and others share their stories, provide ideas and provoke

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discussions about what we can do individually and collectively to

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change academic life for the better.

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My guest today is Dr. Ali Black from the School of Education at

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the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

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Ali tells stories of courage and care and connection. Stories

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that grew out of painful interactions with what she calls

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'the academic machine' and feeling like a failure. She

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talks about creating a different way of engaging in academia, one

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that is based on authenticity and meaning, and connecting to

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what is important on being and becoming, and on creating a more

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caring and collaborative culture. An important step in

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this for her was reaching out to colleagues and forming a women's

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writing group to write together and to explore their versions of

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what slow scholarship might mean. Just advance notice too

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though, that there was a bit of a delay on the line when we were

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talking and that made it interesting trying to have a

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fluent conversation. But still, I know I found this conversation

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really deeply thought provoking and trust it will speak to you, too.

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So, Ellie, thank you for talking with me. I'm really delighted to

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speak with you and especially to speak with someone who comes

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from a different disciplinary area to the people that I've

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normally spoken to.

Ali: 00:01:46

Thanks, Geraldine. I'm really looking forward to

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talking with you today.

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And the way we got in touch, it's quite interesting.

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You just emailed me after listening to one of the

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podcasts. And it seemed like you have a really interesting story

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to tell. And it happens that you come from my home state, but

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we've never met each other. Just to give a bit of background, can

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you just say very briefly where you're coming from? Career-wise.

Ali: 00:02:13

Yeah, well, I guess. I've been in academia for a long

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time. I added it up and it's my 22nd year. And so that feels a

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really long time. But I feel like despite that, I've had a

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very slow career with lots of what academia would call career

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interruptions, having children and taking leave of various

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kinds, and taking unpaid leave and relocating and teaching in

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schools in between, times between universities. And that

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sort of thing. I've worked at three universities now. And I

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started off [Geri: What's your disciplinary area?], well,

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education is my area and specifically early childhood

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education is my specialization. But I've also become very

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interested, since my PhD, which was way back in 2000, become

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very interested in narrative inquiry. And I guess that's

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become more focused in arts based research, and more

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recently, that's turned itself into life writing and creative

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writing and researchers writing. So I play in two spaces really,

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I play in my discipline space, and I play in my narrative, arts

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based researcher space, and I guess I'm enjoying having those

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two spaces to become the academic that I'm becoming.

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Mm hmm. So I like the becoming. Can you say a little

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bit more about the leaves and the disruptions and the breaks

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that you said you had over those past 22 years?

Ali: 00:04:14

Yeah, well, it's hard to you know, having children

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whether that's been planned or not, but so I guess they weren't

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planned as such, but they were, they are what happens when

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you're a female academic. And so I took maternity leave for my

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first child and then took six months, had six months off and

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then came back to work. And then with my second child, I ended up

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taking two years off, so I took maternity leave and I took long

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service leave and I took a year of unpaid leave. And later my

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mother passed away and I took a couple of months bereavement

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leave and following, I guess that grieving time we ended up

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in a place called Agnes Water. My mother was buried, not far

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from there. So we went there for her funeral. And my husband is a

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surfer and so we stayed at Agnes Water and he bounded out of the

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surf one day and said, let's live here. And so we ended up

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then working towards the sea change. And that meant time

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changing universities and little break times like that. So I

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guess there've been planned, yet unplanned things. And I guess

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that's probably began my writing about the blurring between the

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personal and the professional, because I felt like some of

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those things were named by the Academy as interruptions and as

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things that shouldn't be talked about, or that shouldn't affear

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with your track record, or your early career research or status

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and things like that. So I guess in my writing and my research

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I've been troubling those sorts of things.

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So you're, this is sort of saying that the professional

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face we put on always deletes those aspects of our lives,

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which are part of being an academic.

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I think we feel a pressure that we have to put on a

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professional face, and that we certainly don't talk about.

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Being up all night with our child who had colic or feeling

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in a terrible emotional state, because we're grieving the loss

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of a loved one. Those sorts of things are meant to be set

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aside. And, you know, I recall coming back to work after some

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space after burying my mother, and a well known and well

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respected professor came up and said, you know, how's your

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research going? And I said, I hadn't written for a little

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while. And he started saying, 'Well, you Ali, you've just got

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to do it, you can't'. You know, he started giving me a little

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mini lecture, and I just had to stop him and say, you know, I

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get where you're coming from, but this is what's just happened

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in my life. And I think it might have been a wake up call for

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him. But it was also a reminder for me that the Academy needed

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to recognize that we're human beings, and these things happen.

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And so I guess what I'm doing now is writing about these

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personal, professional blurrings. And yeah, I mean, I'm

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intrigued about how we might cultivate ethics of care and

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caring where we acknowledge our human dimensions and actually

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care for one another as part of our work.

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Have you had any experiences of where that has

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been done well, and you felt that sort of support and care?

Ali: 00:08:17

Well, something that, I guess happened serendipitously,

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and which I initiated inadvertently, I was just

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visiting some students being their prac supervisor, and I

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was, it was the anniversary of my mother's death, [Geri: 'It

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had been a practical?'] yeah, practical. And it just happened

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to be the anniversary of my mom's death. And so I was in the

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car after visiting some students and I was reflecting on how it

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would be really great to have mum to talk to and to share my

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stories with and then I kind of had an epiphany and it was like,

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she was giving me this idea. And I had an epiphany that I'm

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surrounded actually by wonderful women friends, who have amazing

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lives and wisdom to share. And so I thought, well, I think we

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need to share that, I think we need to share our stories. So I

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thought about it for a while and let my ideas simmer. And then I

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asked a handful of my closest friends and I guess because I'm

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in academia and education, they did all happen to be educators,

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either in schools or in universities. And that just

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seemed to be an aside really, I was thinking of them as friends

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who had given input into my life and I asked them, would they be

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willing to write a story about their lives and it could be

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anything that they wanted to share. Really, I asked them to

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think about what it was like, I guess, to be in the afternoon of

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our lives, because we're all middle aged women. And I shared

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a little bit about where I felt I was in this stage of my life.

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And so I just asked them to think about a story that would

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be unique to them and was really open ended. I said, it might be

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about struggle, or it might be about joy, might be about

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blessing, might be about learning, can be about your

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hopes and dreams, it might be what you'd like to tell your

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younger self or your older self or anything at all. And everyone

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I asked was really touched and felt honored to be asked, and

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they embraced that invitation.

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And so for a year, we just engaged in this process. So we

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spent a couple of months where we just listened to ourselves

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really, and tried to understand the story that we might share or

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tell, or the learning that we had engaged with that we might

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want to share or tell. So we spent a couple of months just

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letting that percolate. And then we set aside a time where we

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would come together and share our first 1000 words. And so we

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did that and had a little workshop. And we all just shared

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what we thought our story was going to be about. And that was

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so incredibly moving. And it was moving because I was the only

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one they knew. So I knew all of them. But they trusted me to

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create a space where they could share with women that they

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didn't know. And so after the end of that workshop, and that

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was through Zoom technology, so it wasn't face to face, we were

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all scattered across Australia. We, oh we shed tears, and we

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laughed, and we just found a connection that was incredible.

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And so a few months later, we kept writing. And we responded

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to each other's story giving gentle feedback about what we

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thought the stories were about, and what we thought the

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strengths were and what we'd like to hear more about. And so

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we worked on those stories for a couple of more months, and then

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met together for you know, another draft. And again, the

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experience was so rich and connecting. And I think out of

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that we just discovered how amazing women are, and

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particularly women in that middle phase that afternoon

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phase of their lives, what we all deal with, and grapple with,

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and manage.

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And strangely, that writing began to spill over into our

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academic writing and work. And we stumbled across this notion

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of slow scholarship that Alison Mountz and a stack of her

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colleagues have written about and we read books. There's a

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book called 'The Slow Professor'. And more and more

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people are writing about slow scholarship in academia and the

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importance of ethics of caring, and the importance of research

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as friendship and being human and leaving behind all this

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measurement and competition and individualization and these

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unproductive ways of being and actually trying other ways of

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being an academic. And so we've been writing together

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collectively in academic spaces and presenting at conferences.

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And, I guess the energy and the momentum for us, as individuals,

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but also as academics has been enormous and unexpected. And so

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therefore, a wonderful gift and surprising. And so it's kind of

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helped us all be a bit more deliberate and intentional in

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terms of how we work in academia and what we let it do to us.

Geri: 00:14:23

Yeah. Can I just go back? Because I want to pick up on the

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ways in which you're being more deliberate and intentional. But

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just to go back to, you know, I think it's brilliant that rather

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than just sit there and go, 'Oh, I wish I had someone to talk. I

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wish my mother was here.', you did go and just do something and

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acted on a gut feeling that this is something you needed to do

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and it just seems like so much has come out of it. I'm also

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interested just to hear what were some of the common themes

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and experiences that you had, as your stories emerged that you

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were sharing together.

Ali: 00:15:03

I think, I guess what we came to understand is just the

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complexity of lives that we're living. So if I just talk you

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through some of the personal nature of the stories, one of

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the writers has a child with Down syndrome. One of the

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writers was trying for IVF, for many, many years unsuccessfully.

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And she wrote about feeling of failure. One of the writers was

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So what we came to understand is just how full our lives are, and

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what amazing women we are really, because we're

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negotiating all these things. And you know, that's without

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talking about her grieving for her husband. When she began her

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looking into workplaces and workloads. And, you know, just

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our life histories were huge. And so I think, another theme

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that came out of it was just the importance of listening to

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ourselves, but also sharing and responding. So responding became

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story, her husband was actually alive, but he died in the

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a very important theme, that it's one thing to share your

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story and to be vulnerable, and, you know, engage in that kind of

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process where you're willing to disclose and expose aspects of

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process of writing her story. And so her story tracked living

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your life. But it's very, very important that someone is there

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to respond and say, 'I hear you', or 'This is important', or

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'You're amazing'. And I guess that's why I emailed you, as

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with an alcoholic. And then we had stories, just I guess, of

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part of that lesson is that I stumbled across your website, I

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gained inspiration and support from listening to the podcast,

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and from the encouragement that you have there. And I wanted to

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say to you, Geraldine, thank you so much for creating this site,

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the regular things that we negotiate being well, not

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it's really meaningful, and it's really helpful. So I think

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responding is really important. And I think, I guess another

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thing that I really value is that often we receive a lot of

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overworking, remembering our families, and giving time to our

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criticism, and I love that quote by Theodore Roosevelt that says,

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'It's not the critic who counts, but it's the man or we say, the

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woman in the arena, with the blood, sweat, and tears.', and I

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families, and wellness, mental health, depression, those sorts

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think that's what we've got to remember is, you know, it's,

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we're in the arena, and we need to be valuing each other for

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actually having the courage to stay in the arena, and to do our

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of things.

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best and to care.

Geri: 00:18:33

So these are really and I thank you for contacting me, I

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did really appreciate it as well. And the fact that it's led

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to us being able to just chat is brilliant. And to share this

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with so many people as well. And the values that you're talking

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about there are so different to the values that are embodied in

Geri: 00:18:54

the way academia is being run at the moment, isn't it?

Ali: 00:19:00

Yeah, it's so confronting, because at the same time as

Ali: 00:19:05

we've have engaged in this empowerment, it's two years on

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really since we've been writing together and there are spaces

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and phases, I guess, where we all can fall back into the pit,

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if you like, or into the mire where we do get caught up in the

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managerialism and the accountability and it is

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paralyzing and it is like a steady poisoning. I don't wanna

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say, if you want to go for a promotion, or if you're on

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probation, or if you're told that at your particular level,

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you need to bring in X amount of research funding and things like

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that. So we're constantly feeling like we're not enough

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and so it is really very important I think that we try

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to, at whatever level we are, change the culture, change the

Ali: 00:19:58

local culture, so that we can change the wider culture,

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because it is, in the end political, and the personal

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becomes political. So I think we do have to make decisions to

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care for one another and to support one another, to read

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each other's drafts, to respond with the support of email, to do

Ali: 00:20:19

those caring everyday things that probably don't count, in

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terms of, you know, an application for something or an

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award for something, but they count in terms of the quality of

Ali: 00:20:31

our lives and our values.

Geri: 00:20:36

Yeah. So it's an interesting tension, though,

Geri: 00:20:40

isn't it, that many of us, you know, and many of people that

Geri: 00:20:45

I've spoken to, we recognize that this accounting,

Geri: 00:20:49

accountability culture and what gets counted, isn't helping,

Geri: 00:20:54

isn't supporting and is creating all sorts of pressures with

Geri: 00:20:59

impacts in all sorts of ways. And yet, we're still within the

Geri: 00:21:04

system. And you talked about progressing or being recognized

Geri: 00:21:09

and valued and this change process of changing, making

Geri: 00:21:13

changes locally and trying to affect wider changes. There's a

Geri: 00:21:18

time lag. So how do you negotiate the fact that you're

Geri: 00:21:22

trying to do a different way of being an academic and doing

Geri: 00:21:27

academia, but you're still within the system where numbers

Geri: 00:21:32

count, and there are different values being held up.

Ali: 00:21:36

Are certainly difficult. And I've got some wonderful

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colleagues who are part of the women who write group who have

Ali: 00:21:44

written a book, or written a chapter in a book called 'The

Ali: 00:21:48

Academic Machine'. And, you know, we're up we are part of

Ali: 00:21:52

that academic machine, whether we like it or not, and we, in

Ali: 00:21:57

some ways, perpetuate the functioning of that academic

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machine. So it is attention. But I think, it's worth having a go,

Ali: 00:22:06

I think we can be afraid and say, Well, I can't, I have to do

Ali: 00:22:10

it this way. I have to get so many publications, I have to be

Ali: 00:22:14

competitive, I have to whatever, you know, we think the uni

Ali: 00:22:19

rhetoric is telling us we have to be like, but I think what

Ali: 00:22:23

I've discovered is that you're more alive when you follow what

Ali: 00:22:28

matters to you. And so I guess I've been trialing this for

Ali: 00:22:32

myself for the last year or so. So perhaps I need to put it in context.

Ali: 00:22:37

When in my career interruptions, when I'm shifting from

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universities to universities, my previous university before this

Ali: 00:22:44

one, I was a senior lecturer there for six years. And when we

Ali: 00:22:50

decided we needed to relocate again, because where we were

Ali: 00:22:55

didn't have a school, a high school for my children close,

Ali: 00:23:00

and they were traveling two to four hours each day, and that

Ali: 00:23:04

just became unsustainable, we decided we needed to move. So I

Ali: 00:23:09

let the university that I'm at now know that I was looking for

Ali: 00:23:16

a space and you know, would they let me know that, if any places

Ali: 00:23:20

are coming up? And I got communication straight back

Ali: 00:23:22

saying 'Oh, yes, there'd definitely be some positions.',

Ali: 00:23:25

they'd be probably a D and a C and a B, you know. So when I

Ali: 00:23:31

talk about Ds and Bs whatever, so a D would be an associate

Ali: 00:23:38

professor position, or C would be a senior lecturer position,

Ali: 00:23:41

or B would be a lecturer position. So I'd been a lecturer

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for many years at my first university and senior lecturer

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for six years at the second University. And so I was hoping,

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at least to maintain that position, or to upgrade to be an

Ali: 00:24:01

associate professor and my publications and my outputs and

Ali: 00:24:05

all those things that count were pretty good. And I believe that

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I should have been a sure in for that sort of position. But of

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course, as luck would have it, they didn't advertise for any

Ali: 00:24:21

other positions than a level B, which was lecturer position,

Ali: 00:24:24

which I'd been way back, you know, six years ago, and I'd

Ali: 00:24:28

held that position for eight years or something previous to

Ali: 00:24:32

that. So in order to get employment, I figured well,

Ali: 00:24:37

better to get a foot in the door. And so I applied for the

Ali: 00:24:42

position, and I was told I was the successful applicant for

Ali: 00:24:47

that position. Now, they wouldn't allow me to negotiate

Ali: 00:24:50

because they said the position that advertised was a B, and so

Ali: 00:24:55

that was what they were offering. So that meant of a

Ali: 00:24:59

reduction of at least $30,000 a year, it meant a return to a

Ali: 00:25:07

lower level and I had to be on probation at that lower level

Ali: 00:25:13

for three years. And they initially told me that I'd be

Ali: 00:25:17

able to go for promotion straightaway. But of course,

Ali: 00:25:20

when I got to the university and looked at the fine print, you

Ali: 00:25:23

had to be employed for two years before you could apply for

Ali: 00:25:26

promotion.

Ali: 00:25:28

So, out of that experience, even though I got employment, and I

Ali: 00:25:32

don't want to sound ungrateful, I really felt like a failure. I

Ali: 00:25:36

felt like walking into a new position I wasn't valued. What I

Ali: 00:25:42

brought with me wasn't valued or recognized. And to add salt into

Ali: 00:25:48

the wound, six months later, they appointed someone from the

Ali: 00:25:51

unsuccessful applicant pool, they made an unadvertised senior

Ali: 00:25:55

lecturer position for that person. And so that just opened

Ali: 00:26:30

But then, at the same time, in that timeframe, was when I began

Ali: 00:26:35

this, what I call the wise women writing with my friends, where

Ali: 00:26:40

we were writing stories of our lives, and somehow, that became

Ali: 00:26:45

a saving space. And it created this space for slow scholarship

Ali: 00:26:50

and actually listening to myself and what mattered to me, and

Ali: 00:26:56

recognizing that there were caring people around me. And so

Ali: 00:27:00

then when I spilled into my academic life, and we can't be,

Ali: 00:27:03

up the wound [Geri: What?] Yes, so that just opened up the wound

Ali: 00:27:05

we became rather prolific in our writing, and what, you know,

Ali: 00:27:10

that track record building type notion of publication and

Ali: 00:27:15

conference presentation, I found my energy for my work picking up

Ali: 00:27:21

and I just found myself separating from the despair of

Ali: 00:27:25

the academic machine and found my own ways of working on what

Ali: 00:27:29

all over again. And so for the first two years there, I felt

Ali: 00:27:30

mattered to me. So I ended up putting together a promotion

Ali: 00:27:35

application, which I think was quite unusual, where I actually

Ali: 00:27:39

quite wounded, as a person, and as an academic. And of course,

Ali: 00:27:40

did say, I've done some things that are those intangible things

Ali: 00:27:45

they weren't backward in coming forward in loading me up with

Ali: 00:27:45

that aren't recognized in these boxes, and I list them. And I

Ali: 00:27:50

put in community engagement type things that had rippled out of

Ali: 00:27:56

this story writing. And so you know, I've run some workshops on

Ali: 00:28:01

women writing, and we've presented in regional areas. And

Ali: 00:28:03

senior lecturer type responsibilities and things. So

Ali: 00:28:06

I felt pretty annoyed about that.

Ali: 00:28:06

there's been a great interest in momentum about just regular

Ali: 00:28:11

women writing their stories and valuing life writing as a

Ali: 00:28:15

strategy for listening and sharing our lives. And so I

Ali: 00:28:20

guess what I did was, I figured it's a bit like a CV, I can't

Ali: 00:28:25

wish to be somebody else. My CV is my CV. And that's the beauty

Ali: 00:28:30

of my CV is that it's mine. And it reflects my life and my work.

Ali: 00:28:36

So I kind of created this promotion application that was

Ali: 00:28:40

very much like me. And I inserted images and visual

Ali: 00:28:44

examples of contributions that I'd made and Twitter feeds and

Ali: 00:28:50

things like that. And thankfully, I got promoted. So

Ali: 00:28:54

I'm back to where I began. But I guess what that showed me is,

Ali: 00:28:59

hey, I got that without playing the game perfectly, without

Ali: 00:29:04

playing the game that I thought they wanted me to play. And so

Ali: 00:29:09

that's given me confidence as well. That in the end, I can

Ali: 00:29:14

only be myself, and I'm very good at being myself.

Geri: 00:29:18

Yeah. Oh, there's so much to think about there just in

Geri: 00:29:29

turning around an experience that was initially experienced

Geri: 00:29:34

as so demoralizing, and disempowering, and frustrating.

Geri: 00:29:38

I was sitting here feeling all sorts of emotions on your

Geri: 00:29:42

behalf, or around the injustice of that situation. But just the

Geri: 00:29:46

ways in which you turned it around, and it seemed to be the

Geri: 00:29:49

importance of connecting to who you were, the values that were

Geri: 00:29:52

important to you and somehow finding a way to express that.

Geri: 00:29:56

But you still were able to relate to the system enough that

Geri: 00:29:59

could enable the promotion to be accepted.

Ali: 00:30:05

So I guess that's why I find it encouraging that I think

Ali: 00:30:09

we tell ourselves that we have to do it their way. And perhaps

Ali: 00:30:13

we don't, perhaps we can do some of it their way, but perhaps way

Ali: 00:30:19

more productive and more, I don't know, more engaged, more

Ali: 00:30:26

alive and professional when we're doing it our way within

Ali: 00:30:30

some of their frameworks. And I guess the other thing I'd like

Ali: 00:30:33

to say is, you know, it wasn't all this lovely, happy story.

Ali: 00:30:36

Failure is pretty devastating. And, you know, I had, you know,

Ali: 00:30:42

I had depression, I felt pretty low during this phase, and, but

Ali: 00:30:49

what I came to realize is that failure is actually a gift,

Ali: 00:30:52

because there's nowhere to go, you're at the bottom of the

Ali: 00:30:56

heap. So you can only decide, what will I do now? And so it

Ali: 00:31:03

became an invitation in a way and a gift to go. What do I want

Ali: 00:31:09

to do differently? And what isn't sustainable? What am I not

Ali: 00:31:13

prepared to do any more. And I've, I mean, I still have to

Ali: 00:31:18

remind myself. My office is surrounded by inspirational

Ali: 00:31:24

things and messages. And I've taken up planning, if anybody's

Ali: 00:31:28

into planning where I decorate my diary with washi tape and

Ali: 00:31:33

inspirational quotes and happy little things. But I've just

Ali: 00:31:38

written something in the last couple of days that I read where

Ali: 00:31:41

I've got it on my desk, and it says, 'Is this task vital?',

Ali: 00:31:46

does it really matter to me, or someone I love and care about,

Ali: 00:31:51

give my energy to what matters to me and to what inspires me.

Ali: 00:31:56

So I probably I will, I may as well say it on tape. What I do

Ali: 00:32:01

as a result of that sort of thinking is that I don't go to

Ali: 00:32:04

any faculty meetings anymore. My diary used to be filled up with

Ali: 00:32:08

so many meetings that I didn't want to go to, but I thought I

Ali: 00:32:11

should be seen at, or should go to, so I rarely go to any of

Ali: 00:32:17

those things. I don't go to anything that I find deadening

Ali: 00:32:21

to my soul, or my joy, or my sense of hope, if I can help it.

Ali: 00:32:26

Sometimes you have to go to some things that I take along my

Ali: 00:32:31

happy planner, and I look, you know, I distract myself with,

Ali: 00:32:36

you know, things that I want to take in this space. Ideas that I

Ali: 00:32:42

want to be pondering on [Geri: 'This round yourself.'] Yeah,

Ali: 00:32:46

well, watch my breathing or something, you know, I distract

Ali: 00:32:49

myself from the day of the terrible meeting and

Geri: 00:32:54

But I'm always a bit torn by this as well, because I think

Geri: 00:33:00

what you've said is just so important about just checking in

Geri: 00:33:05

with ourselves all the time about why we're doing things,

Geri: 00:33:08

and what are our motivations and where is our center and core

Geri: 00:33:13

what gives us joy with where we think we can contribute. But I'm

Geri: 00:33:17

also conscious that we're part of a bigger system, and that to

Geri: 00:33:22

make the bigger system work, sometimes there are jobs that

Geri: 00:33:25

need to be done, and that we all need to contribute and that if I

Geri: 00:33:28

don't play my part, then it puts extra burden on other people, my

Geri: 00:33:35

colleagues and I sometimes I find it hard, I think it can be

Geri: 00:33:39

hard to navigate that balance. What are the things that we,

Geri: 00:33:45

that are to be contributed to even if they're not really part

Geri: 00:33:49

of our little jolts of joy that we love doing?

Ali: 00:33:54

Yes, I'm certainly not saying don't contribute. I guess

Ali: 00:33:59

what I'm saying is find say 'yes' to the spaces and places

Ali: 00:34:03

to contribute that you're going to like a lot more or that you

Ali: 00:34:08

find meaningful or that fit into your values. So get out the

Ali: 00:34:14

university strategic plan. And if it's talking about

Ali: 00:34:19

sustainability, and that's something that matters to you,

Ali: 00:34:22

then say 'yes' to the projects that are facilitating that

Ali: 00:34:26

vision and that strategy, and you know those values. If you're

Ali: 00:34:32

concerned about the welfare of students and their success, then

Ali: 00:34:37

certainly in your teaching, you're going to be wanting to

Ali: 00:34:40

promote that you're going to be wanting to be engaging in the

Ali: 00:34:44

wider university committees that support students' success, so

Ali: 00:34:49

I'm certainly not saying don't contribute, but there are

Ali: 00:34:53

aspects in our everyday life that if we said 'yes' to

Ali: 00:34:56

everything, we would be overwhelmed, overworked and we

Ali: 00:35:00

wouldn't be able to focus on what matters to us. So I guess

Ali: 00:35:05

when I say that question about, you know, does it really matter

Ali: 00:35:10

to me or someone I love and care about or love or care about?

Ali: 00:35:14

I've got a wonderful head of school, who's my immediate

Ali: 00:35:17

supervisor, and she asks us could we ensure that there's

Ali: 00:35:22

good staff representation at this deadening meeting? Well, I

Ali: 00:35:26

will go because I care about her and I care about our school and

Ali: 00:35:30

how our school's represented. But I guess that changes my

Ali: 00:35:34

framing. So instead of thinking, I've got to go to this meeting,

Ali: 00:35:37

and if I don't go, I'll look bad, or, you know, it's kind of

Ali: 00:35:42

a different frame. And so it doesn't have that drain of, I

Ali: 00:35:49

don't know, no energy or the shoots. Yeah.

Geri: 00:35:56

Yeah. This it's, you're also reminding me a lot of the

Geri: 00:35:59

work around strengths that Martin Seligman and his people

Geri: 00:36:04

have done in the positive psychology area, which is very

Geri: 00:36:06

much talking about recognizing what your key strengths are, and

Geri: 00:36:11

bringing them into what you do. And I think that's also sort of

Geri: 00:36:15

a complimentary viewed to values. It's unseen what your

Geri: 00:36:18

values are, but also what you're good at and what you can

Geri: 00:36:21

contribute. And when you're working from your strengths,

Geri: 00:36:24

you'll also find a place of energy and joy and happiness,

Geri: 00:36:30

actually.

Ali: 00:36:31

Yeah, it is being reflective. And joy isn't a word

Ali: 00:36:33

that we typically associate with academia. And you're absolutely

Ali: 00:36:38

right. I mean, I think that work by Martin Seligman is important,

Ali: 00:36:44

that positive education and where we are focusing on our

Ali: 00:36:49

character strengths, and, you know, I love those character

Ali: 00:36:53

strength tests where you can actually get some insight into

Ali: 00:36:56

who you are. I think self understanding is really critical

Ali: 00:36:59

and because my field is education, I think it's even

Ali: 00:37:03

more critical, because Parker Palmer, who I love, he says, 'We

Ali: 00:37:07

teach who we are.'. So you can be, you know, have the best

Ali: 00:37:11

behavior management strategies in Australia, and like many

Ali: 00:37:14

countries in the world are a full on about the quality

Ali: 00:37:18

teaching and assessing the standard of quality of our

Ali: 00:37:22

teachers and our pre-service teachers. But ultimately,

Ali: 00:37:25

they're going to teach who they are. And so these kinds of ways

Ali: 00:37:30

of knowing ourself and values and an emotional intelligence is

Ali: 00:37:35

all very, very important.

Geri: 00:37:39

But not reflected in any of our metrics at the moment.

Ali: 00:37:44

No, but perhaps we can bring it into impact somehow.

Geri: 00:37:47

So, you said before about being very deliberate and

Geri: 00:37:53

intentional. And you also talked about working at making changes

Geri: 00:37:58

locally and making wider changes. You've mentioned a

Geri: 00:38:01

couple of things about just responding to people and

Geri: 00:38:05

acknowledging and recognizing. You've talked about some of the

Geri: 00:38:08

things you're doing now about how you make choices, and reckon

Geri: 00:38:14

more importantly, why you're making choices. What might be

Geri: 00:38:19

some other ways that you would talk about being deliberate,

Geri: 00:38:21

intentional, or effecting local change?

Ali: 00:38:28

I think it's making time for those human interactions,

Ali: 00:38:33

whether it's in your research, or whether it's in your

Ali: 00:38:36

engagement with community or your collegial relationships. So

Ali: 00:38:41

I was inspired by the slow scholarship work. And, you know,

Ali: 00:38:47

they have a whole lot of suggestions in their article.

Ali: 00:38:52

The title of it if people want to search for it is called 'For

Ali: 00:38:55

slow scholarship, a feminist politics of resistance through

Ali: 00:38:59

collective action in the neoliberal University'. And

Ali: 00:39:03

Alison Mountz, M-O-U-N-T-Z is the first author in that.

Geri: 00:39:10

I'll put links to all of these on the bottom of the

Geri: 00:39:12

webpage as well, for people to access.

Ali: 00:39:16

Yes, so some of the strategies that they talk about,

Ali: 00:39:27

which I guess I've been doing inadvertently, but also, I

Ali: 00:39:39

guess, since I've been engaging with this kind of writing and

Ali: 00:39:52

reading, to be more deliberate about is actually talking about

Ali: 00:40:05

these slow strategies and making time with peers and colleagues

Ali: 00:40:19

And so I think we need to recognize we need time to think,

Ali: 00:40:19

to have conversations and to respond to them to listen to

Ali: 00:40:23

so when you're busy filling in spreadsheets, documenting all

Ali: 00:40:28

the work that you're doing and your workload, documents and

Ali: 00:40:31

what they're finding overwhelming. And I guess to

Ali: 00:40:33

things, it doesn't capture time well, and generally, they try

Ali: 00:40:37

and limit the time. So I know that at our university, they'll

Ali: 00:40:42

say, 'Okay, we'll give you a maximum of 25 hours a year for

Ali: 00:40:42

urge them to say 'no' to those wild expectations of

Ali: 00:40:47

research supervision, if you're supervising with another

Ali: 00:40:51

supervisor.', now 25 hours a year, I would use up in three

Ali: 00:40:53

productivity, and to just do what they can do and be well at

Ali: 00:40:55

meetings, you know, in terms of reading your students' work and

Ali: 00:41:00

responding and having conversations. So, you know,

Ali: 00:41:04

though, that view of time isn't realistic, and it doesn't value

Ali: 00:41:06

the same time. Also, I think it's things like valuing quality

Ali: 00:41:09

what we do. So I guess it's having courage and engendering

Ali: 00:41:13

courage into our, with each other to say, well, let's count

Ali: 00:41:18

in some different ways. And we do need to value time and we do

Ali: 00:41:19

over quantity and valuing thinking. And for universities,

Ali: 00:41:23

need to value thinking. And so some of the things we need to do

Ali: 00:41:28

is organize spaces and what we do differently. So I think

Ali: 00:41:32

I feel like thinking is becoming a quality that's actually

Ali: 00:41:32

things like encouraging writing groups, and encouraging a common

Ali: 00:41:37

time where you tend to meet in the staff room and just have

Ali: 00:41:42

conversations like actually having some intentional

Ali: 00:41:44

getting lost in our effort to please the bean counters.

Ali: 00:41:46

conversations that you arrange. I think that's important, as

Ali: 00:41:50

well. And to, I guess one of the biggest things is caring for one

Ali: 00:41:55

another.

Geri: 00:41:58

Yeah, we do have the delay here. It's quite interesting. I

Geri: 00:42:02

was just going to say that Kia Höök talked about having their

Geri: 00:42:05

fika in Sweden, where they make everyone come and have coffee,

Geri: 00:42:08

which is an example of that.

Ali: 00:42:11

Yes, I think taking time to meet to discuss ideas. And often

Ali: 00:42:16

I mean, I know the pressure myself, I'll go, I'll be in my

Ali: 00:42:19

office and then people will be calling in and I'll be, you

Ali: 00:42:21

know, there's a little voice in the back of my head going, I'm

Ali: 00:42:24

not getting what I was trying to get done, done. I'm having this

Ali: 00:42:27

conversation and I really need to get my work done and I've got

Ali: 00:42:30

to actually stop that little voice and go, 'no, this is

Ali: 00:42:32

important.'. This connection and caring and listening is

Ali: 00:42:37

important. I need to give time to this, because it matters and

Ali: 00:42:40

it affects our collegial culture. And I might be the only

Ali: 00:42:47

person in this person's day, who's going to listen, so I want

Ali: 00:42:51

to be that person. So you know, it is taking care of others. But

Ali: 00:42:57

also, I guess the other thing is that we have to take care of

Ali: 00:42:59

ourselves before we can take care of other people.

Ali: 00:43:02

So I guess, the thing about my planning that I was talking

Ali: 00:43:07

about before, I've got a planner where and my little girl

Ali: 00:43:11

introduced me to it. So we're mad planner addicts. So that

Ali: 00:43:14

involves stickers and decoration and things like that. So what I

Ali: 00:43:18

did, I've had a crazy couple of weeks where I just went through

Ali: 00:43:22

got ahead of myself and I planned way into the future. I'm

Ali: 00:43:25

up to about September. But all my weekend spots, I've decorated

Ali: 00:43:30

with pictures of cups of tea and cats and sleeping in and family

Ali: 00:43:37

pictures and whatever. And so there is no space in my diary

Ali: 00:43:41

for work tasks. So I used to work on weekends often. And I

Ali: 00:43:46

used to think I have to work on weekends, because that'll make

Ali: 00:43:49

it easier for the upcoming week. And it'll take the pressure off.

Ali: 00:43:52

And it just never did. All it meant was I never got a break.

Ali: 00:43:55

So just in my planner now that there's absolutely no space to

Ali: 00:43:59

write in any jobs. I've got reading books, and I've got all

Ali: 00:44:03

these sort of guilt offerings to say you'll read a book you

Ali: 00:44:06

won't, you know, and it'll be a chiclet book, it won't be a

Ali: 00:44:09

theory book. And so I'm making different choices where my

Ali: 00:44:13

weekends, my sacred self care, family care times and do that's

Ali: 00:44:20

made a huge difference just doing that. So I still tend to

Ali: 00:44:23

work long hours, but also they're on things that matter to

Ali: 00:44:28

me. So they might be on community projects related to

Ali: 00:44:33

sustainability, or they might be on funding that I want to get to

Ali: 00:44:36

support an initiative that I think matters for wellbeing. So

Ali: 00:44:41

I'm still putting in hours, but I guess I'm changing the hours

Ali: 00:44:45

that I put. You know what I'm focusing that work on. The other

Ali: 00:44:50

thing I'm trying to do is not

Geri: 00:44:51

You also talked about a very different energy when

Geri: 00:44:54

you're doing those things that you care about before. Where you

Geri: 00:44:59

can still work long hours, but it's a different type of work.

Geri: 00:45:03

There's a different energy and engagement with that, because

Geri: 00:45:07

that's work that you do care for.

Ali: 00:45:09

That's right. It is, it's very different. And I think

Ali: 00:45:13

that's a signal. It's a signal for us as human beings, because

Ali: 00:45:18

that tells us, our body tells us and our energy levels tell us

Ali: 00:45:22

and our creativity levels tell us when something is helpful for

Ali: 00:45:27

us, and when something is not helpful for us. So I think,

Ali: 00:45:31

yeah, I think we need to listen to ourselves and take care of

Geri: 00:45:34

Absolutely. And there's research evidence to support

Geri: 00:45:36

ourselves. And I was just reading, there's a blog that I

Geri: 00:45:40

read by Agnes, not sure of his how to say her surname, it's

Geri: 00:45:45

like "Bossgunner", or something like that. [remark: her surname

Geri: 00:45:49

is 'Bosanquet'] And she talks about, it's a slow, slow

Geri: 00:45:54

scholarship blog. And I'll send you the link so that you can put

Geri: 00:45:58

it there. But she was saying today about not forgetting about

Geri: 00:46:02

that.

Geri: 00:46:03

the importance of downtime, that that's a time when often your

Ali: 00:46:06

Yeah. So I think making time to think and making time to

Ali: 00:46:08

creative thoughts gel on something that you haven't been

Ali: 00:46:12

able to solve or work through comes together when you're

Ali: 00:46:16

having some downtime. So I think we need to stop thinking that

Ali: 00:46:21

activity means productivity, sometimes slowing right down is

Ali: 00:46:25

where the productivity happens. So making time to think.

Ali: 00:46:36

write is really important. And I guess for me, writing has been a

Ali: 00:46:42

savior. So I don't know whether I'm, you know, some of what I'm

Ali: 00:46:46

writing about is saying that there is a therapeutic aspect to

Ali: 00:46:51

it. But I think we all need to be creative, and whether that's

Ali: 00:46:55

planning or drawing or whatever, but if it can be writing, and

Ali: 00:47:02

you're writing research papers about something that really

Ali: 00:47:07

turns you on, and that is part of your values and inspirations,

Ali: 00:47:13

then I guess you can say you're ticking two boxes there, you're

Ali: 00:47:17

ticking your work box, but you're also ticking your

Ali: 00:47:19

personal box. So I think writing is a really wonderful process

Ali: 00:47:25

and product, if people can lean into writing as research. So

Ali: 00:47:31

that's definitely been a savior for me as well, because that's a

Ali: 00:47:35

slowing down process and a thinking process, as well. And

Ali: 00:47:40

the other thing that I guess I've turned in my writing into

Ali: 00:47:43

is a collective process. So for a long time, I was sole author

Ali: 00:47:47

on lots of things. And that wasn't how I wanted it to be, it

Ali: 00:47:50

was due to my supervisor retired, right at the minute

Ali: 00:47:54

that my PhD was conferred. And I took those career breaks having

Ali: 00:47:58

children and when you shift universities, you lose

Ali: 00:48:02

collaboration links, and things like that. And you have to start

Ali: 00:48:06

new networks. So there's lots of things like that, that can can

Ali: 00:48:09

challenge collaboration. But this is why I think finding

Ali: 00:48:13

like-minded people and caring for one another and writing

Ali: 00:48:17

groups and writing collectively, they're all wonderful things for

Ali: 00:48:21

also supporting the productivity of the academic machine while

Ali: 00:48:25

also being fulfilling for the personal, for the human being.

Geri: 00:48:31

So I like the way that it doesn't have to be an either or.

Ali: 00:48:36

No, it's an 'and'.

Geri: 00:48:37

We can find a way. Yes. And it's finding what that 'and'

Geri: 00:48:43

is for us as individuals.

Ali: 00:48:46

Yes. And so you don't always have to say 'no', you

Ali: 00:48:48

certainly can say 'yes', but it's finding the 'and' in the

Ali: 00:48:53

'yes'.

Geri: 00:48:54

Yeah. Are there other things, you talked about the

Geri: 00:48:58

importance of taking care of ourselves and being well, and

Geri: 00:49:02

you talked about the way you plan and protect your weekends,

Geri: 00:49:06

which I love, I'd love to see the planner, maybe you could

Geri: 00:49:10

send us a picture as well that I put on on the webpage

Ali: 00:49:14

It's a bit crazy, but yes, I'm happy to do that.

Geri: 00:49:16

That would be fun. What else do you do to look after

Geri: 00:49:20

yourself to care for yourself?

Ali: 00:49:24

I've still got a long way to go. So I've got a to-do list

Ali: 00:49:28

in a way like so I know I need to fit exercise in much more

Ali: 00:49:34

firmly into my timetable. And so I'm making decisions like

Ali: 00:49:39

instead of taking the lift, I will take the stairs and I'm

Ali: 00:49:43

making decisions to choose healthy meals and to take a

Ali: 00:49:49

break and not just work right through things to actually get

Ali: 00:49:55

out of my office and ideally come back and eat with a friend,

Ali: 00:50:01

so that there is that connection making. So it's those sorts of

Ali: 00:50:05

things. And I think the other thing, I mean, I read widely and

Ali: 00:50:11

so I think that's helpful, too. And I follow lots of different

Ali: 00:50:14

blogs. So I'm interested in preserving my own well being. So

Ali: 00:50:19

I am also interested in my mental health and my spiritual

Ali: 00:50:22

health. So I follow blogs like Krista Tippett's on being and am

Ali: 00:50:28

inspired by that. I read people like Brené Brown and Richard

Ali: 00:50:36

Rohr, you know, different thinkers. And so I'm giving away

Ali: 00:50:43

this idea that I have to strive for perfection, that I have to

Ali: 00:50:49

be somebody that I'm not, that I've got to aspire to be like

Ali: 00:50:53

that professor or this person, I'm going to be content to be

Ali: 00:50:58

me, but I want to be the best version of me. So yeah, I think

Ali: 00:51:05

exposing ourselves to other viewpoints, so we're not just

Ali: 00:51:07

hearing the university rhetoric, and also to give time to

Ali: 00:51:13

listening to ourselves, and that voice that says, when you know,

Ali: 00:51:16

when you're reading something that's meaningful that you go,

Ali: 00:51:19

this is, so where I am right now, or, this is such wonderful

Ali: 00:51:23

advice, I'm going to write that down, or I'm going to actually

Ali: 00:51:26

print out that quote, and put it somewhere where I see it every

Ali: 00:51:32

day. So I think it's doing stuff like that. And I've even, I

Ali: 00:51:36

mean, you're going to I'm going to sound like a nutcase a bit to

Ali: 00:51:39

your listeners. But I think becoming intentional is a visual

Ali: 00:51:43

thing as well. So I've created a vision board for myself that

Ali: 00:51:47

actually tracks things that I want to do and be in my work. So

Ali: 00:51:51

I want to be present. And I definitely want to create, and I

Ali: 00:51:57

definitely want to write, and I want to spread kindness, and I

Ali: 00:52:02

want to do no harm. So that's one for 2017. Something that I'm

Ali: 00:52:07

trying to think about every day is 'Do no harm.'. I think that's

Ali: 00:52:11

really important in our workplaces, it's so easy to do

Ali: 00:52:14

harm with our students or with our colleagues or to ourselves.

Ali: 00:52:19

So I think having some tangible things that represent your

Ali: 00:52:25

vision, and you know, for me, I'm a visual person. So I like a

Ali: 00:52:30

vision board type thing, rather than writing a list of goals. I

Ali: 00:52:34

don't like goals that I have to meet particularly. Yeah. But I

Ali: 00:52:45

guess, if they're in a nice planner form with a sticker

Ali: 00:52:47

maybe.

Geri: 00:52:47

I like that. But I like the fact that this vision board

Geri: 00:52:52

wasn't just about doing and achieving, but being. [Ali:

Geri: 00:52:57

Yes.] And that the aspects that you are being and doing for

Geri: 00:53:02

covered, you know, work productivity things, as well as

Geri: 00:53:06

caring for colleagues, as well as caring for yourself.

Ali: 00:53:10

Yeah, I think that is just spot on. In Australia, we have

Ali: 00:53:16

an early years framework called, I've just had a mind blank, but

Ali: 00:53:22

it's 'being' are 'becoming' are key words in there and I should

Ali: 00:53:26

note, because I refer to it all the time. 'being, belonging and

Ali: 00:53:28

becoming'. And I think those three words are really important

Ali: 00:53:32

for us all. And that being an educator is just as important as

Ali: 00:53:40

doing. You're doing the work of an educator. So I love that

Ali: 00:53:45

focus on being and becoming and being versus doing, because I

Ali: 00:53:50

think we get caught up that we have to do all these things. And

Ali: 00:53:53

maybe if we are being a certain way as we do certain things,

Ali: 00:53:58

that's the difference. It's not the doing of lots of things that

Ali: 00:54:02

matters in the end. It's who we are when we do them.

Geri: 00:54:06

Yeah. And the becoming also is really nice, because it

Geri: 00:54:10

says that we're on a journey that we can always be learning

Geri: 00:54:14

and exploring. That it is a process. It's not a destination,

Geri: 00:54:18

is in to, you know, use a cliche.

Ali: 00:54:23

That's right and I think with becoming, it takes the

Ali: 00:54:26

pressure off. So there'll be days where you are steamrolled

Ali: 00:54:30

by the academic machine and you have a shitty day and things

Ali: 00:54:34

don't work out and you snapped at somebody or you've, you know,

Ali: 00:54:39

you didn't, you weren't the person that you wanted to be.

Ali: 00:54:43

But you can just wake up the next day and it's a fresh day

Ali: 00:54:47

and you can become into that person the next day and we're

Ali: 00:54:50

always becoming.

Geri: 00:54:52

Lovely. I wonder sort of be looking at it just wrapping

Geri: 00:55:00

up a little bit, but I'd like to read something that you wrote on

Geri: 00:55:04

an article that you pointed me to on the research whisperer

Geri: 00:55:07

website that I think is just lovely and just reflects also so

Geri: 00:55:12

much of what you have talked about here and your presence

Geri: 00:55:17

here with us in this discussion, you know, and I say us with

Geri: 00:55:20

everyone who's been listening. And just reading from what you

Geri: 00:55:24

wrote, and this article is called 'Saved by slow

Geri: 00:55:27

scholarship', you say, 'It's important to shed light on our

Geri: 00:55:31

academic experiences to make public the stories of what it is

Geri: 00:55:34

felt like and feels like to be an academic. It's important that

Geri: 00:55:39

collective conversations about academic culture and what

Geri: 00:55:42

constitutes our social, political and intellectual life

Geri: 00:55:45

in the academy can take place. We need to share our findings on

Geri: 00:55:50

what matters to us and how we might cultivate kindness in the

Geri: 00:55:53

academy, foster careful work and count that which is not being

Geri: 00:55:58

counted. And I just want to thank you so much Ali for for

Geri: 00:56:02

living and being that here. Are there any sort of final thoughts

Geri: 00:56:06

that you would have, or any things that you would like to

Geri: 00:56:10

say, still?

Ali: 00:56:13

No, I just like to thank you for the opportunity of

Ali: 00:56:16

talking with you and with your listeners and just, I guess,

Ali: 00:56:22

that we need to find spaces of hope, and be differently in

Ali: 00:56:28

academia by being ourselves.

Geri: 00:56:32

And you're a great role model for that process and

Geri: 00:56:37

seeing what that is. And I guess, we could encourage people

Geri: 00:56:42

to look at what might be their own version of the wise women

Geri: 00:56:45

writing group. And I recall, Katherine Isbister, talking

Geri: 00:56:51

about a group of friends who have a call together, I think

Geri: 00:56:57

she said every week or every fortnight just to support one

Geri: 00:57:00

another and check-in. And it seems like, you know, that's her

Geri: 00:57:04

version of what might be your wise women writing group. So

Geri: 00:57:07

maybe there's also encouragement for us to see about how we can

Geri: 00:57:11

within our local context and with people that we connect

Geri: 00:57:14

with, find our own groups as well and start growing that.

Ali: 00:57:20

That's right. And I should say, I mean, I'm not being that

Ali: 00:57:23

good at adding to these sites. But as part of this process, I

Ali: 00:57:30

have created a couple of websites as spaces and

Ali: 00:57:34

resources. And like I said, I follow lots of blogs. So I

Ali: 00:57:37

encourage people to find their own meaningful resources and

Ali: 00:57:42

blogs and websites. But I have created two websites, if people

Ali: 00:57:47

are interested in looking at them. One is, it's called

Ali: 00:57:52

wisewomen.world. And there, I've put a range of different

Ali: 00:57:57

resources, inspirational TED talks, writing ideas, just a

Ali: 00:58:04

range of different things, I guess, to help us start

Ali: 00:58:08

listening and gaining inspiration to what matters to

Ali: 00:58:12

us. And then the other website that I've created is called

Ali: 00:58:18

thewomenwhowrite.com. So it's actually got the 'the' in front,

Ali: 00:58:21

because women who write was already taken by somebody else.

Ali: 00:58:23

So that's someone else's group. So if you go to

Ali: 00:58:26

thewomenwhowrite.com, there's also some links there about what

Ali: 00:58:31

we're trying to do as a wider writers' group. But I think it's

Ali: 00:58:36

important that you find local connections, because it's harder

Ali: 00:58:41

virtually, with people that you don't know, to kind of, say,

Ali: 00:58:44

'let's ride together'. So what you can do is put conferences

Ali: 00:58:49

and writing ideas and support blogs and things there. But I

Ali: 00:58:55

think whilst these websites and resources can be supportive and

Ali: 00:59:00

helpful, really, it's in the everyday interactions with those

Ali: 00:59:03

nearby that I think is going to make the difference with people

Ali: 00:59:08

who are perhaps already in our lives that we just need to

Ali: 00:59:11

cultivate some stronger relationships or set some goals,

Ali: 00:59:17

like we did. Let's write a memoir, and just engage in a

Ali: 00:59:23

slow writing process and see where that takes us. So you

Ali: 00:59:26

don't need to actually identify what the exact output's going to

Ali: 00:59:31

be. But maybe you set upon a process.

Geri: 00:59:34

And the key thing in that process is just the connecting

Geri: 00:59:37

with one another. [Ali: Exactly.] And as you said, the

Geri: 00:59:39

listening, sharing and responding.

Ali: 00:59:42

Yes, yes, yeah.

Geri: 00:59:45

Well, you're a wonderful woman. Thank you for sharing.

Ali: 00:59:50

Yes, thank you.

Geri: 00:59:51

Thank you, Ali.

Ali: 00:59:52

Thank you, Geraldine.

Geri: 00:59:56

You can find the summary notes and related links for this

Geri: 00:59:59

podcast on www.changingacademiclife.com.

Geri: 01:00:04

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Geri: 01:00:08

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Geri: 01:00:13

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Geri: 01:00:18

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Geri: 01:00:24

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