Friday evening a Twitter friend announced she was officially leaving her MA program.
It is a courageous and difficult decision to leave academia, and particularly to leave mid-program. So much time, money, and effort has been invested in the pursuit of a degree, yet so much more investment is still required. Is it worth it? The answer isn’t easy.
To those who choose to leave for a different path, I want to say: Academia, like banking or plumbing, is not for everyone, and it’s ok if it’s not for you. You are not a quitter if you leave. There is no shame in finding a different path that is more rewarding and better suited to you.
Your well-being, health and happiness are more important than any degree. If your degree is not giving you that, then look for a different path. Without health and happiness, what is your degree worth?
Leaving doesn’t mean you don’t care about your field or discipline. It doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to still contribute if you wish.
It’s such a shame.
But she was so close to finishing!
He just couldn’t hack it.
Why on earth would she quit now?
I heard he quit after just one semester!
To those who stay, I want to say: Please think before saying things that suggest shame or failure when someone leaves your programs. Others are listening and internalizing what you say. From faculty, fellow student, friend, or onlooker, comments that suggest it is the leaver’s “fault” they “couldn’t make it” contribute to an unhealthy culture.
Framing it is a the leaver’s fault also obscures the role that academia as an institution may play in that decision. The system is far from perfect, and many good scholars with excellent ideas get forced out or flee from toxic departments before they can realize their goals.
So yes, I applaud those who take the brave and scary step to leave their programs because they know it’s best for them.
I live-tweeted the Wednesday evening session and some Thursday panels of the 113th Annual Meeting of The Classical Association of the Middle West and South at Kitchener/Waterloo (April 5 & 6, 2017).
Panels/Sessions:
Opening Evening Featured Panel: Grace Harriet Macurdy (1866-1946) and Her Impact on the Study of Women’s History (Elizabeth Carney, Ann R. Raia, Maria S. Marsilio).
Euripides: Gender and Sex (Joshua M. Reno, Teresa Yates, Thomas K. Hubbard, Daniel Turkeltaub)
Roundtable: The Thersites Project (Monica Florence and Dianna Rhyan)
Roundtable: Increasing Diversity among Classics Students (Debby Sneed and Lauren T. Brooks)
Pedagogy: Tools and Resources (Ann R. Raia & Maria S. Marsilio, Marie-Claire Beaulieu & Anthony Bucci, Summer R. Trentin, J. Matthew Harrison)
Pedagogy: Classics for Everybody (Lauren T. Brooks, Leanna Boychenko, Blanche C. McCune, Mark P. Nugent, Aaron Wenzel)
I mentioned when I was hosting @wethehumanities on Twitter that I have a number of stock seminar (class) activities that I pull out from time to time, and, as requested, I plan to write about some of them here on the blog. This is, hopefully, the first in an occasional series!
The activities are not tied to specific texts and require little in the way of , so I can switch them up as I need. For example, if I have just finished marking essays, or students are about to start writing essays, I can pull out an activity that addresses some of the common problems students have. If my concussion headache is particularly bad, I can pull out an activity that is more student-driven and relies less on me interacting with the entire class at once.
The list, of course, is an ongoing project. I have been building it for almost a decade now and there are frequent additions and variations and the occasional deletion. I imagine most educators have similar lists they draw from. I like to provide a variety of ways for students to engage with materials over the course of the semester. This is not just to keep them entertained and interested, but to also teach them the critical writing and reading skills that are integral to a humanities course.
The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, by Francois Perrier, 17th century. Public Domain.
Today for seminar we were discussing Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis. I forget how wonderfully complex this play until it comes time to teach it again; I am enamoured with Medea, so that week always tends to the highlight of the semester for me. But there are so many interesting explorations of heroic nature and the role of fate to be had in Iphigenia in Aulis and its complex plot of twists and turns, misunderstandings and missed timings, decisions and changed minds, makes we wish our first year seminar was 2 hours long, not a mere 50 minutes.
This week, I decided to pull out my essay writing activity (I’m afraid I don’t have a more exciting name for it) and I added a twist to it that actually worked very well.
Introductory discussion
The seminar is pretty straightforward. I usually start with getting a sense of how many students have ready, or tried to read, the play, how far they got through it, and how much of it they understand. Experience has taught me that only a few will make it all the way through (and that number is significantly less when class is on a Friday afternoon on St. Patrick’s Day!). A number will say they have attempted it and others will admit they didn’t.
I’m careful not to shame or lecture for students for not doing the readings. I need the students to be honest with me about how they have prepared so I can make the most of our seminar. Students know they need to do the reading, and I do emphasize to them that they will get more out of seminar if they come prepared, but unless unpreparedness is a widespread, consistent issue in a seminar, I try not to pay it too much mind. (Unless it’s Medea they haven’t read. Then I might tell them they have made kittens cry 😉 )
So the first part of any seminar is going over the plot of the play. Sometimes I outline on the whiteboard, sometimes I don’t. I find students are generally quite good at the broad strokes of a myth, but I question and encourage them to go into more detail than they do naturally. I’m not sure why students are averse to details, but this is a consistent problem I see across classes, essays, and assignments, and part of what the essay activity is designed to address.
Whiteboard–Discussion of Iphigenia at Aulis & key characters
Activity Preparation
I then move into preparing the class for the actual activity. With the theme for this week about expanding and exploring the complex definition of the hero, we briefly reviewed the cast of characters from the play (Iphigenia, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Achilles, Menelaus) and their roles in the play, eg, daughter, sacrificice, father, husband warrior, king, general, wife, mother, etc.
Activity
Students are paired off and each pair is given a sheet of paper. Working together, they will need to come up with a thesis statement in response to my prompt question. In this case, my prompt question was to argue how each character was heroic. Each pair did a different character, and some characters were easier to develop a thesis for than others. While on one level the activity is to help them develop better thesis writing skills, on another it is more about the discussions they have with each other about the character.
I circulate among the groups, checking in with each and offering feedback and suggestions on improving their theses. As I know a certain number of students won’t be prepared, I make note on the board of some key passages in the text related to each character.
This time, I added a new element to the activity. When students seem to be mostly finished this step, I ask them to pass their papers to the pair on their right. Again, my focus isn’t on the the perfectly written thesis, so if students haven’t quite got it finished, it’s ok.
The students now look at the new thesis for the new character. They are invited to make any improvements to it that they think are necessary, and then to proceed to outlining one supporting point. They must include references to line numbers that back up their point.
I continued this as time permitted; each group got to look at three characters (including their first one) before we had to wrap up. During the activity, I circulated amongst the students, listening to their ideas and offering suggestions of other things to consider or passages to look at.
The nice thing with this activity is that it can be made as long or as short as time permits; whether students only get to look at one other character or whether they examine all five, they are having valuable discussions about the heroic nature and constructing arguments.
Wrap Up
To wrap up the class, I had students share the page that was in front of them with the rest of the class. For the sake of time, I didn’t have students give line numbers in their presentation, but they did need to share the thesis and supporting points.
I encouraged students to provide additional feedback, particularly if I heard someone discussing something that did not make it on the page but was still important. I also provided some feedback on key ideas that may have been missed.
In Conclusion…
I aim to use this activity at least once a semester. As I mentioned, I find students are reluctant to engage with specific details of a text to support their idea. Engaging with the text is a skill and habit that has to be taught and reinforced over the course of the entire semester. By presenting the activity as an essay activity, but having students work with pairs, they practice articulating their ideas and supporting their arguments.
Iphigenie, by Anslem Feuerbach 1862. Public Domain.
Adding the rotation of the papers was an excellent addition. Not only were students practicing expressing their own ideas, but they were also practicing critiquing and editing others’ writings. In addition, it gave students the chance to have a series of short but focused conversations about several different characters, so they were examining the idea of the hero from multiple perspectives and, hopefully, developing an appreciation for the complex nature of heroes and fate.
The nice thing with this activity is that it can be made as long or as short as time permits; whether students only get to look at one other character or whether they examine all five, they are having valuable discussions about the heroic nature and constructing arguments.
How much of a monster is Polyphemus, really? Sententiae Antiquae challenges us to think more sympathetically.
As horrifying as his earlier behavior had been, and as menacing as his threats to repaint his walls with Odysseus’ blood may sound, this speech is nevertheless given in the context of a much more deeply humanizing emotion: Polyphemus’ solicitous concern for his ram. He knows these animals, and evinces a tender regard for their well-being even in the midst of his own suffering. Indeed, this affectionate concern for his ram serves as a stark counterpoint to the actions of Odysseus, who throughout the poem shows no apparent serious regard for his companions. At no point in the poem does Odysseus show any outward emotional attachment to his men, and it is notable that even in his own tale of his sufferings, the loss of his men is primarily framed as something which happened to him. Polyphemus is thus portrayed as being, despite his monstrous qualities, a more compassionate figure than Odysseus.
[B]logging is in and of itself academic writing and academic publication. It’s not an add-on. It’s now part and parcel of the academic writing landscape. As such, it is of no less value than any other form of writing. Even though audit regimes do not count blogs – yet – this does not lessen their value. And therefore those of us who engage in bloggery need to stop justifying it as a necessary accompaniment to the Real Work of Serious Academic Writing. Blogs are their own worthwhile thing.
I had the privilege to write about podcasting for British Naval History this week. It’s a pretty decent post, if I do say so myself, and I invite you to give it a read and let me know what you think!
In the post, I talk about the popularity of podcasting, the use of podcasting within academia, and the potential podcasting has for communicating the humanities beyond the university. I also include some thoughts on how scholars can support indie podcasting.
Podcasts offer a unique opportunity for what some scholars call outreach, although I prefer the term HumComm—humanities communication (adapted from the term SciComm used by our colleagues in the sciences).
Humanities communication is all about showing the public what we do and why it’s relevant. After all, why should the public care about our scholarship efforts (and, ultimately, our survival) if they don’t understand why our research is important and how it impacts their lives?
The obvious answer, given that I am a podcaster writing about podcasting, may be to produce a podcast. While that’s certainly an option, not everyone has the time and inclination to undertake such a project. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of the podcast movement, though.
Reverse outlining is a new technique to me and I’m planning to give it a go. This post by Ellie Mackin demonstrates how the method works.
So, what’s the point of reverse outlining? Breaking things down in a paragraph-by-paragraph way lets you look at the overall structure in a much smaller, and therefore clearer, way. Sometimes, if I am stuck, I will write out the topic of each paragraph of a post-it note and play around with the way they might fit together (another variation on this is to cut out the actual paragraphs and play with the order). It means I can do some fairly major restructuring with great(er) ease. It often just seems so obvious that the order of paragraphs (and sections) is wrong.
I’m guest-hosting at @wethehumanities this week, February 27 to March 5. Here’s an introduction to me–what I do and what I hope to talk about this week. Come join the conversation on Twitter!
Hello! I’m Alison and I’ll be curating @wethehumanities for the week of February 27th. I’m looking forward to chatting with you about diverse topics: social media, blogging, podcasting, pedagogy, and public engagement in the humanities.
A bit about me: After completing a BA Hons in history, I worked in the museum field for several years before deciding to return to university to do a second degree and graduate school in Classics. I eventually received my MA in Classics at Brock University, Canada, in 2013, with my thesis “Gender and Healing in the Hippocrates Corpus.” I made the difficult decision not to continue with PhD studies but to look for other ways I can stay connected and contribute to the academic community.
One way I stay connected is through my work as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Classics at Brock University. I started there in 2009 as part of my MA funding plan and found, through the mentorship of professors and the professional development opportunities on campus, a passion for teaching and working with students. I have been fortunate to TA for a wide variety of courses, including topics such as Greek and Roman history, cities and sanctuaries, Cleopatra, women in the ancient world, and Greek mythology.
I found towards the end of MA my academic interests had shifted somewhat. I remain very interested in ancient ideas about gender, medicine, and science, but I am also interested in how Greco-Roman ideas have influenced modern ideas about gender and the practice of health care. I have also developed interest in the reception of Greco-Roman mythology and female figures within mythology.
More recently, I began work as the Social Media Coordinator for the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University. This has been an exciting venture, as it is a new role within the faculty. I manage the faculty’s social media accounts—Twitter, Facebook page, Instagram (@brockhumanities), and blog—covering the news and events within the faculty. This has allowed me to connect with students in a new way and to experience the diversity of humanities from a new perspective.
My social media work has been a great fit, as I am passionate about communicating the relevance and necessity of the humanities to an audience beyond the university. The idea of public engagement is an important conversation happening now in the Classics community and I have been fortunate to participate in this conversation somewhat through social media. I am interested in hearing about the conversations happening in other disciplines.
In addition to my own Twitter and Instagram (both @innesalison), I also blog at http://AlisonInnes.wordpress.com, where I work out my ideas about academia, pedagogy, and social media. I am interested in hearing from others how they use social media in their academics and ways we can use it to encourage interdisciplinary work and engage non-academics.
Finally, I am also a podcaster. I co-host and produce MythTake with Darrin Sunstrum (@DarrinSunstrum). Podcasting is experiencing a surge of popularity at the moment and I am interested in ways that the academic community can capitalize on this for both pedagogy and public engagement.
So that’s me! I look forward to meeting you and sharing ideas February 27- March 6. I hope you’ll join in!
It’s a pretty big, and pretty important, question. When I’m asked, I usually say something along the lines of it being academics on Twitter, but that’s not quite right. It’s more than that, but it’s hard to explain until you experience it.
I’ve brought together some of the responses to @savsavasava’s question here, so that those not on Twitter can hopefully get a glimpse of why some of us like it so much.
The modern water cooler
I like to say that Twitter is the modern agora. It is a (privately owned) public space where people come together to chat, exchange knowledge, do business, complain, share cat pictures, and generally try to make sense of what’s going on in the world.
Twitter–any social media, in my opinion–should be about the people who use it. Social media is simply being social through a medium. This allows broad communities and networks to form, which in turn fosters creativity, connection, knowledge exchange, and public engagement. Academic Twitter breaks down the barriers of status–tenured faculty, contract, independent scholars, alt-academics, para-academics– and becomes about the ideas people have, not the rank a person holds in an institution or organization.
@savasavasava a loose collection of academics, alt-academics, and para-academics who often chat about scholarship- & college-related topics
A never-ending conference may not sound like fun to some, but in some ways, that’s what Twitter is. But don’t worry: It’s the fun networking in the bar after the panel presentations part of conferences, and you can dip in and out of it as you wish. Also, no expensive hotel fees or air fare.
@savasavasava One of the many ways I think about Academic Twitter is like an ongoing, time-shifted interdisciplinary conference.
Twitter is public and provides a platform for us to do our discipline publicly. But it’s not just about sharing facts on ancient Greece, say. @OmanReagan hits the nail on the head: Twitter allows us to humanize our work. When we allow our personality and personal interests to come through on Twitter, the public can see scholars as relatable. Our enthusiasm comes across. We are interesting people doing interesting things, no more or less human than anyone else. Engagement is about connection, and we best connect with people when we allow ourselves to be seen as people.
@savasavasava Academic Twitter is also a way to *do* your discipline in public: to read in public, to share research, to explain your field.
The importance of Twitter and social media to the disabled community is often under-appreciated, but it is a vital tool. Live-tweeting may make a presentation easier for someone to follow. Networking on social media doesn’t require the same energy investment that travel and meetings do. In addition, Twitter is a way to find other marginalized people who share the same challenges and can provide support during difficult times.
@savasavasava Other things: a disability resource to improve access to community, conversation, professional networks.
A network that breaks down institutional hierarchies and silos
Twitter allows us to engage with other people as people first, and gives us access to people who we might not otherwise meet. It’s pretty awesome to be able to tweet to someone you respect, and even cooler when they reply or RT. I know I’ll never forget getting a RT from an academic hero!
Twitter gives space for the voices that are often marginalized and unheard in traditional spaces. By listening to –and amplifying–people from marginalized groups, we learn to be better people and better academics. Twitter is a classroom where, if we choose to listen, we can learn from each other.
@savasavasava the network that connects shared intellectual interests beyond traditional institutional models.
Twitter, if used well, breaks down barriers of disciplines, departments, faculties, and hierarchical rank to encourage cross collaboration. It’s way to work out ideas and get input from other perspectives.
@savasavasava Collaboration: Every paper panel, conference paper, and journal article I’ve written in last 3 years has started here.
Academic Twitter is complex. But however we describe it, it is a community: a community we create as individuals coming together to listen and learn and share with each other.
Alison Innes 