For further information on Academic Career Advancements support and coaching book a free no-obligation chat with Dr. Loren M Hill at https://theacclivity.com/Consultation
Hey, this is Mark Kanty of Release Dynamics and once again I’m back with the lovely Dr. Loren M. Hill of The Acclivity. By the way, little plug here for Dr. Hill, you can find her at TheAcclivity.com. If you’re wondering about where you can learn more about her, that’s the place to start and today we’re going to be interviewing Dr. Hill again as to what’s going on in academia.
It’s crazy times right now so we’re kind of going to do an update. We’re going to get a snapshot of Dr. Hill’s perspective on where things are at this moment in time and it’s a crazy world we live in. Lots of stuff going on across the nation and we want to get her insights. So I’m going to begin by welcoming Dr. Hill.
Thank you for joining us again today. It’s a pleasure to be with you.
Hi Mark, it’s good to be back with you again thanks for having me.
You bet! So let’s dive in. Let me begin with a question for you which is, what are you finding in today’s environment? We’ve got COVID-19, we’ve got vaccinations, we’ve got a new administration in the White House and that’s just in the United States. I know you work right across North America so we’ve got stuff happening and I won’t even go into what’s going on in Canada but things are happening; the world is really moving at a fast pace right now with a lot going on. What are you seeing the problems that are currently facing educators and people that are looking to advance their career in academia? What are you finding these days?
Mark, what I’m finding is that we are a year into a pandemic, we found that as often happens, the landscape of higher ed changes, right? And I think what we weren’t prepared for in higher ed, was this pandemic. So we are dealing with COVID-19, we were dealing with not being prepared, people were literally told one day the school was shutting down. From educators to administrators to students, just pack up and leave, and so this has caused displacement across the board. We do and then we’re scrambling to find ways to deliver content and continue education because while the campuses were shut down the terms weren’t right? We still had spring term, winter term, fall term, summer term and a year into it, we’re starting to see how things were maybe a thing of the past and in many ways.
Wow yeah, and I would think one of the things that pops up for me and of course, I’m not in like you, I’m not in a formal institution and I haven’t grown up in that environment like you have but one of the things that occurs to me is that first there’s gonna be a lot of fear, a lot of people that are frozen and wondering, that have been working for years and wondering what about my job? Am I ever gonna return to it and the other thing is, I would think that there would be a lot of competition. Let’s face it, that didn’t mean all the schools completely shut down and even before the pandemic hit, schools continued to produce and graduate a lot of people who are looking at going into education.
So competition was not only because people were graduating and looking and getting into institutions but also people were being let go or put on the sides so we’ve got this whole body of people and I would think that would be a big factor. The idea of more educators less placements available. I would think it would bring up a lot of fear. You’re absolutely correct. Not only do we have the fear of the pandemic we have job loss right? People don’t always think about academia as an industry but it is. And there’s the business side of education and therefore it needs revenue. So what does the budget look like? For those institutions that may have been struggling before the pandemic this just made things even worse. So we’re thinking about closing departments or blending departments or who do we keep or who do we offer early retirements to? All of these things we are typically used to seeing in private industry. And we don’t think about it in those same terms in academia, which is something that I hope people become more aware of, that academia is an industry.
Wow that’s powerful that is a powerful concept. I hadn’t thought of it that way but so true so true and before anybody drifts away from our conversation, clicks away, stops listening, we do want you to know that we’re in the mud right now we’re going to talk a few more minutes about the mud but I also want to let you know that I know Dr. Hill has some ideas to share and we want to make sure that we give you some solutions, some ideas so hang around. Don’t drift off right now. Please hang in there, listen on, watch on, whether you’re listening on a podcast or you’re watching on video, know that we’re wanting to also give you some constructive and positive things. I do want to address one more thing and I have a question here about that is that it seems to me that even from this small experience that I’ve had and observed is that there’s probably a lot of educators out there that are still stuck in fear and have a real problem with that?
Can you talk a little bit more about that? What is causing them to be stuck? What would be the main reason that somebody in education would be really stuck in fear right now? Well Mark I think part of the reason people are stuck in here is because we all to some degree have been thrust out. We don’t know when the end is coming, when things are going to get back to normal, or meaning like pre-pandemic and sometimes what happens is pure fear can be paralyzing. That’s part of our response naturally right? We’ve all heard of the fight or flight and so part of before we make our decision of what to do is that we get stuck and then we have to make a decision of which direction to go. It doesn’t really help that many people that we know or even if we listen to the news or these types of things like everybody’s just waiting for things to get back to how they were before. That can be a bit of a challenge because I believe that the fact that we’ve been into this for so long is that we have to be expecting a new normal. Going back to what existed before the pandemic, it will take us a very long time to get there. Meanwhile things are moving forward. For example online delivery, remote delivery or distributed or distance, delivery modalities, those are ways in which we really need to be considering. As we move out of this paralyzing scary place of when are we going to get back to normal great point.
That idea of how I’ve heard it is freeze and then flight or fright or or flight or fight and really good point is we’re frozen and the other thing that comes up comes to mind for me is that we no matter what we do in the world and whatever situation we’re we’re placed up against is we have a choice to to react and to stay in a reactive mode or to be proactive and to start to turn the wheel and change the way we respond to the situation. With that in mind can can you tell me a little more about I’m an educator let’s say I am a let’s say I’m an associate professor and i’m thinking wow life was good two years ago now I don’t know where I’m going to go I’m frozen my whole goal was I was on a career path I wanted to be an promote, that was the goal. I had in mind hadn’t really mapped things out; it was just something I thought wouldn’t happen naturally. Tell me now that we’ve kind of gone through and identified some of the things that freeze us, some of the obstacles that we’re up against. What can we do to move against that? What are the things that we can do to be proactive and to advance our career? If we’re aware of this concept that you say that the normal is no longer coming back, we’ve got to adapt. What can we do about that? The first thing would be just really taking stock? What does my department look like? What does my university look like or my institution? Are we fiscally healthy? What is enrollment looking like? What have been the messages coming from administrators about what the future path is?
As we are in faculty positions many times we may not be aware of what’s going on at the administrative level so I would say one of the best things that we can do is have conversations. Ask what’s going on, what’s the path forward, can I be involved in that, what can I do to get myself involved in it and so that way we’re not just waiting for something to happen. I love that you brought up proactive versus reactive if we’re just sitting back thinking that the institution is going to take care of us or that everything’s going to be okay well it may or it may not but the more you can be involved in conversations and that means you’re going to be proactive so you’ll have an idea of what to do and you know how to perhaps pivot. What we want to think about is what is my place here and is this somewhere that I’m going to be able to stay, prosper, and thrive? Excellent points so if I think about smart educators what would they be taking advantage of in this changing environment? How would they be pivoting? How would they be acting in a proactive way? Can you give us some tips and some ideas as to what a smart educator would be doing to ensure that they are that attractive person that gets the advancement and kind of moves ahead of the pack? Absolutely! The first thing you have to do and we’ve talked about this before is really put yourself first? You have to take charge of your career. You have to take stock in it. You need to see what your skill sets are, you need to see where you can improve. What do you need to do in terms of professional development? Where are the trends right now? We all know that the main way of distributed learning is through technology. We all know Zoom or Gotomeeting or Webex. These synchronistic or asynchronistic options for classroom content delivery are where you need to be and if you aren’t there now you’re behind. So you need to take time out of your busy schedule, we know we’re all busy, but there are ways in which you can get some quick tutorials. Probably your university or your institution is already offering them.
So see what your IT department has. What is your learning platform and are there tutorials within there that you can click on. Can you make an appointment with someone to help guide you through the next thing? What you can do is go outside of your institution there’s plenty of free tutorials and webinars online. You can go to youtube and you can find some that are very basic and user friendly and so take advantage of those options that are no cost to you and readily available. Great great points I know when this whole thing happened Zoom of course got inundated and had some issues to begin with because they became so powerful and it has become one of the dominant sources of delivery but I also know I have looked and they have amazing tutorials that as you say are free on Youtube that teach you how to use Zoom. How to be good at delivery. How all the technology works, what other things can someone do to kind of put themselves ahead of the pack? For example let me ask you this question, what would you be searching for on Google if you were wanting to be proactive and kind of set yourself apart from other people?
I think what I would be looking for is how to just put in the search how to become a digital presenter or expert presenter. You can start off really simply as how to become a presenter because if you’re not familiar with it then you may be a little intimidated and then go through the series one of the things that I love about Youtube is it kind of cues things up for you. So if you are watching this then it kind of intuitively knows this might be good for you next. So try “how to be an expert presenter with digital content.” The other thing that I would suggest is look at Powerpoint. I can’t tell you how many faculty or adjuncts full-time part-time etc have great content and they’re used to the lecture format with their notes which is fine but when you’re in the digital platform you really need to have Powerpoints available, slides available something that you can refer to and give to the students the handouts. So I would say those two things are critical Powerpoint and how to be a digital expert presenter. Great points.
Once again the word that comes to mind to me is engagement and of course I work online all the time and one of the number one things we have to be aware of is boredom. We don’t want people drifting off being bored, no longer engaged with what we’re trying to do of course if they’re on a computer they can be doing any number of things. They can mute themselves, they can take their camera off and literally leave the room and we’ve lost them as students so I love that you brought in the idea of visual medium like using not just doing a lecture which can obviously be very boring over time no matter how animated you are but bringing in visuals like a powerpoint that can really help bring your point home and keep people engaged. Of course the other side of that too is as part of being a presenter they can then share you know content like you know hey here’s aPDF of my slides to my students and they can download those and all kinds of different things like that. Fantastic conversation Dr. Hill I really appreciate you sharing so openly with us today but before we go I would like to just you know ask you some final questions about how you can help someone. I mean there’s a lot I would hazard a guess there’s not just hundreds but thousands of educators out there that are perhaps paralyzed perhaps stuck perhaps in fear perhaps really wondering you know experiencing self-doubt wondering whether they even have the opportunity to advance their career in academia or whether they should give up and go and get a job somewhere else.
So how can you work with people? What are the benefits from working with you? Please give us a quick little overview of some of those ideas of how you serve people and help educators. I think that’s right, this is the time to really be reflecting about your career whether you are a novice at digital presentation or content delivery in the classroom or if you are seasoned and an expert this is an awesome time to think about where your next steps are. Normal is redefined. What we knew pre-pandemic that sort of normal we should just move on from that. We need to think about a new normal now. What we’re doing now is maybe going to be the way forward for some schools maybe they will deliver a good majority of their content virtually but I do think that there will be going back to brick and mortar so how you pivot and take stock and assess where you are what your skill sets are what your skill levels are that’s very important because it can definitely give you an idea of where you’re going to be next year. 12 months from now, 24, 36 on to retirement so I work with people to take stock of where they are now and think about a path forward.
So I’d love to hear from people just to kind of, what are you thinking about in terms of your career in this new digital age of delivery? Do you prefer to be brick and mortar? Some people have even thought about you know what I’m seasoned in this so I think I’m going to transition into administration so that I can work on policy so there’s no limit. But you really should be talking to someone who can serve as a sounding board who’s been there and done that. Who has a good idea of where you may want to navigate your career. Excellent! Well there you have it. Dr. Loren Hill is not only a clinical psychologist she’s also been there and done that and grown through academia advancing her own career and now is also offering coaching opportunities for people who want to advance their very own career. Let’s face it, education is far from done. This is not a time to give up. We’re in a tremendous point of transition and change where in fact learning and education is going to become more powerful and more important than ever. Which is all the reason to have a great coach like Dr. Hill to help you navigate that, to help you set your goals to hopefully shortcut the circuit for you and get you there faster.
Once again I want to appreciate Dr. Hill for being with us. Wherever you see this, whether you’re listening to this as a podcast or you’re watching it on youtube or on any other video channel please leave your comments. If there’s an opportunity to give us a thumbs up maybe you’re seeing it on facebook and you can give us a like please do that I think this information is extremely valuable and I hope you do too. So I would ask you to affirm Dr. Hill for putting this out there for us and do give her some lovin by liking her content and leaving your comments let’s get a dialogue going about these things leave your questions and by all means you’ll also find wherever you happen to come across this interview you’ll find contact information for Dr. Hill reach out to her. She would love to hear from you and she’s although she’s very busy she always seems to find time to fit in those students and those people that are are wanting to advance their career in academia because she’s passionate about it this is the industry that she really hangs her hat on and believes so passionately and strongly about so Dr. Hill thank you once again for being with us today and we will look forward to seeing you on the next interview any closing comments.
Please do reach out to me. I’m here for you. I look forward to hearing from you. I love speaking with people as Mark has said this is my passion. I know a lot about this and I’m hopeful that my expertise will help you move your career forward. Fantastic thank you so once again just to wrap up this is Mark Kanty with Release Dynamics and it’s been a pleasure to spend time here with Dr. Loren M. Hill of The Acclivity and you can find more information about Dr. Hill at TheAcclivity.com. So go ahead and visit her website there and you’ll also find her calendar and contact information there where you can reach out and book a free time to chat. She’s very open and happy to to visit with you and learn more about how you are advancing your career and academia and how she might be able to help thanks so much for being with us and we will see you on the next chat that we have.
For further information on Academic Career Advancements support and coaching book a free no-obligation chat with Dr. Loren M Hill at https://theacclivity.com/Consultation