A Guide to Thriving in Academia for Underrepresented Minority Faculty

Navigating the unwritten rules

The National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) is the mentor/coach you never had to give you the low-down on all the things no one really talks about in Academia.

NCFDD offers workshops and resources for navigating Academia. One popular resource is their Core Curriculum, a 10-part webinar series on themes that shape our professional careers.

I would even say this series should be required for underrepresented minority faculty. Many of us come from backgrounds with no model of professionalism, or generational knowledge of unwritten rules.

I have no affiliation with NCFDD other than completing (and benefiting from) the Core Curriculum.

Below are some notes I took while completing the Curriculum. An asterisk indicates the must-watch webinars for underrepresented minority faculty.

*Skill #1: Every Semester Needs a Plan

I plan to rewatch this and the next video at the beginning of each semester to create a strategic plan. Goals need to be SMART: Strategic, Measurable, Attractive, Realistic, and have a Time-frame.

*Skill #2: How to Align Your Time with Your Priorities

“All your s*** just ain't gonna fit”

When you do a brain dump of all the things you have to do and match the tasks to your calendar, it’s clear it’s not all going to fit and you’ll need to get real and make some tough decisions. Choose yourself first. This webinar helps you structure your calendar, schedule writing time, and set up a Sunday Meeting with yourself to assess and adjust your schedule as needed.

Skill #3: How to Develop a Daily Writing Practice

THE structural challenge of Academia is that the most important tasks (writing) have the least accountability while the least important tasks have the most. We tend to dedicate our time to things that are urgent but unimportant. We also cling to old ways of writing we picked up in graduate school (working in large blocks of time) which are no longer tenable within our increasingly fragmented schedules. Blocking out 30 minutes of writing a day is like compound interest, it makes a difference.

Skill #4: Mastering Academic Time Management

After accepting the reality that we have more work than time, you will need to reorient how you spend that time. Aligning time with priorities helps weed out urgent but unimportant tasks.

Skill #5: Moving from Resistance to Writing

Because writing has no built-in accountability, writing daily for short amounts of time (30 minutes) will lead to steady productivity and less stress. We often resist writing because it requires a mental shift (recognizing writing as the most important part of success) and a behavior shift (setting aside time to write every day). For most people (even night owls), the best time of day to write is first thing in the morning because you achieve the most important thing before your brain is fried, guaranteeing productivity every day.

*Skill #6: The Art of Saying No

Saying yes can lead to overwork and exhaustion on tasks irrelevant to T&P (tenure and promotion). We say yes because: as minorities, we simply receive more requests; we simply don’t know how to say no; we have no criteria to base our decisions on because we don’t ‘match tasks to time’. The examples of how to say no were relevant and I’ll use them in the future.

Skill #7: Cultivating Your Network of Mentors, Sponsors & Collaborators

I didn’t get as much out of this webinar as I’d hoped. Many recommendations were overwhelming as a minority with deeply ingrained cultural behaviors and attitudes that don’t mesh well with Academia. Someone could/should create an entire series on this.

Skill #8: Overcoming Academic Perfectionism

Perfectionism leads to lower productivity. To break the cycle of perfectionism, set realistic goals, work within an accountability structure, celebrate daily achievements, rewrite your internal dialogue, and share your work early and often with others.

*Skill #9: How to Engage in Healthy Conflict

Rage is a normal response to persistent racial/gender injustice, but there are few socially acceptable forms of expression of rage for women or people of color. Every minority faculty should watch this one.

Skill #10: How to Manage Stress, Rejection & the Haters in Your Midst

Rejection is the reality in Academia. Slow and steady stress relievers include Daily Writing, the Sunday Meeting, community, and accountability.

Final Note:

Most Universities have subscriptions to NCFDD giving you free access to all of their online resources like the Core Curriculum, WriteNow, Monday Motivator email subscription, and others.

The free resources have changed the way I work and when and where I don’t.