I’m back to doing some yoga and does it feel great! I forgot how much I need yoga and stretching in my life. I also have taken to doing some active meditation. The thing that I like about some of the classes is that I’m seeing fewer flexy sexies and more regular practitioners.
As far as meditation, I have tried a few apps and will write about them at another time. I need to see which ones turn out to be the best fit for me. Sharing a photo of my cup of coffee.
You’d be hard pressed to not know what the #MeToo movement or hashtag is. The words really resonate with the fact that so many people are survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault. The numbers are higher for women as survivors of harassment or assault. In Canada, almost 500,000 will be sexually assaulted each year. This number might sound high or low to some. I am going to offer that the number is likely too low. Statistics in the US are also overwhelming. From RAINN we see that in the US every 98 seconds a woman is sexually assaulted. These stats essentially mean that we all know several people who are survivors.
We are at a tipping point and people are listening to women, girls, and others about different untenable situations that they have faced. It used to be that we didn’t talk about our me too situations. They are ugly and we likely want to move on and not remember the ugliness from work, home, a bar or just about every darn place that we live. My first #MeToo was in junior high, but the me too moments or situations that stung the worse were with partners or in the workplace. There are too many stories to tell.
I took this photo in an Old Navy. It is a shirt in celebration of International Women’s Day, March 8th.
I have mixed feelings with academic quit lit. To explain, quit lit is the post or letter about leaving academe. The job market stinks and one could spend their entire academic career trying to piece together courses and live at or close to the poverty level. The quit lit genre feels close to home and that is likely one reason why I am uncomfortable. I spent the better part of my career as a lecturer or sessional. Part of it allowed me to get teaching experience and start my family.
The other part of this is the luxury of having a gainfully employed partner and my absolute unwillingness with moving off the West Coast. I insisted that staying near my family of origin was necessary. But, quit lit also makes me sad, as I see most of the posts or letters penned (er, typed) by women academics. I am also reminded of my research about women in political science and all the 1970-1990 early quit lit letters to the Women’s Caucus in Political Science. Yes, the archives included personal stories about leaving political science.
I also have guilt. I ended up moving up the coast and immigrating to Canada to start over. I co-owned a business, applied for government work and had a few interviews, and on a whim, I applied to teach a class at a local university. I got on the part-time track again, but this time after a few years I moved to the tenure-track. I feel like an academic unicorn. The quit lit stories hit me in a sore spot and my sense of empathy is raw. Last hired, first fired. It’s a rough place to live. I remember. I’m including a photo of San Diego State, where I earned my BA in Women’s Studies, and MA in Liberal Arts and Sciences. I’m in town for a family issue. And, it was at State where I decided that I wanted to be a college professor.
I am doing my best to try to stay healthy. But, it seems like there has been more illness around me at home and at work. I was my hands lots, take vitamins, exercise and try to get enough sleep. I have asked my students to not come to class sick, so that they don’t infect the rest of us. I encourage my staff at work to not come into work sick, too.
I likely think more about these sort of issues thanks to living with someone who is immune compromised. With this, I am mindful of not wanting to get sick. However, this does not always work. What is your routine for staying healthy?
I love to read. I find reading relaxing. I also like Bananagrams and board games. I’m looking forward to adding the extra cards from my Cards Against Humanity additions.
I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. Working in higher education, I live the academic year cycle and typically start a new school year thinking about what I resolve to do. But, this year, I have decided that I wanted to learn how to knit. It’s not so much a resolution, though. I have wanted to learn for more than a decade and on a whim I bought a “Learn to Knit” kit at the store.
I was not too surprised to find so many people around me know how to knit and have offered to help me. I am already liking this year.
Planning requires that you’re organized. Planning is not painful, yet we often see lots of mocking around planning. Well, maybe I do. Let’s get to it. I am referring to strategic planning, which is important to any unit, department, faculty, campus or business for that matter. However, it is also helpful for personal goal setting. I believe in lists and planning. I have different journals or online tools for work and projects.
I have a special, leather journal for a book that I’m writing. I only handwrite in this journal, given the book’s topic. I keep the handwriting for important projects where good notes are needed. How do you plan? Which tools do you use to help you, as you plan and organized? I like coffee or tea, while I think. And, I’m a big fan of Silk Road Tea. I include a photo from their store.
The #MeToo tag and subsequent anecdotes have gone viral. The tag was first referred to by Tarana Burke, an activist, who recounted her own story. But, in the last week, Actress Alyssa Milano used the tag and it spread like wildfire on social media and beyond. The legacy media responded by covering the story and it would be pretty hard to avoid the stories. We are at a tipping point. In the last two years, more stories came out regarding the current President of the United States—some thanks to the leaked audio and others thanks to the women coming forward. We also witnessed women coming forward regarding their terrible stories with actors and Hollywood moguls.
Sexual harassment and sexual assault are not new. It’s a known fact that rape is often used as a weapon of war during conflict. But, it was just in my lifetime that marital rape was coined. And, it was also in my lifetime that academic job interviews were moved from hotel rooms to lobbies or more public meeting places. I am certainly not condoning this behavior. I am stating fact. The stories that are flooding papers, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere are important to listen and read—even if they are painful. These stories are too familiar.
Like most women, I have my own stories. The situations that stem from a tween through recent situations. But, where I have some semblance of power is the way that I support people around me. I am empowered, if not required, to speak up and support others. And, I do. My last post referred to a more common contact that I’m seeing on my social media channels—unwanted contact by men. I’ve taken to blocking once these sorts of contacts, as I don’t want to be hit on via LinkedIn, Instagram or other social media networks.
As a leader, I am familiar with the policies at work, and as a mentor, I am also supportive of my mentees and helping them maneuver any issues. LIkewise, I am glad to see that we are talking about sexual assault and harassment and the conversations are including men. Good. Overall, we are all responsible with making change and moving forward, so that the #MeToo stories become less common. However, I want to see more frank discussion about stopping violence against women and conversations about unacceptable behavior.
I’ve found LinkedIn useful; however, for the better part of a year I’ve noticed more posts that reminds me of Facebook. I don’t need to know my work related contacts’ birthdays. I want to network and share information. If I want to wish people birthdays or other personal news, I’ll do on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I’m also finding more men contacting me and it’s ultimately not work related.
Sample A from this weekend:
Look, I am happily married. And, I am not on LinkedIn for anything but work related networking or to help my students find work. So, let’s keep LinkedIn work related. It’s not a dating app.
I was promoted almost five years ago. I was leaving the classroom full-time to run an academic service department that serves all of campus. This meant that I was going to lead a new department that was reorganized from two previous departments. I took the promotion with verve and through myself into my new job. I was thankful that I was still in the classroom, but not as much as before.
One of my peer mentors supported me through this transition and I still remember a meeting with him. We were chatting about the process and this would have been several months into the job. He looked at me and offered that I needed to listen more. I can’t remember his words verbatim, but they were something like this. “You need to listen. You need to learn.” We chatted and the overall tenor was that I was not a professor in the room, but part of this team working toward the same goal. I needed to act like I wasn’t in a classroom environment. We chatted some about the meeting’s content and I left his office.
I mulled his comments and my mantra became: Listen. Learn. Lead. I was set on leadership to the point that I was not thinking about listening. I was learning lots, but thanks to his feedback, I was listening more. Now this doesn’t meant that professors don’t listen. Don’t Learn. Don’t Lead. I needed my mindset to include more listening. I’m a hard extrovert and I’m known for my energy. But, I wasn’t always a good listener. I spent the next year thinking of this mantra and doing my best to listen actively.
When I got my second tattoo more than a year ago, I had Listen Learn Lead placed on my inner left arm. My right wrist has Mentor. And, yes, I did use Times New Roman. My former students will smile at the font name, as it is my preferred font. I used the Maple filter for the triple L. The Mentor is fresh from the studio and that is why it’s raw looking.
When I first started teaching, I was too nice. I had to establish better boundaries for deadlines, protecting my time, and protecting the learning environment of the classroom. Then, I swung to hard to the opposite side and was too strict and demanding. I’ve taught at four institutions and they spanned the gamut of a community college, comprehensive, and research one institution. What happened?
1. I caught a cheating ring in a class. All of the students submitted the same paper, but had moved some paragraphs around throughout the paper. They all earned a 0 on the assignment. One of the guilty students saw me in the library a few weeks later and bellowed at me, “You’re the reason I am not staring law school in September.” I knew most of the libraian staff and some came closer. While my heart was racing, I looked over and said, “You’re the reason you’re not going to law school in the Fall.” I walked away. This student was the only one who tried to deny that he cheated. The others dropped quickly and admitted it. Occasionally, I wondered if he did get into law school and if he’s a practicing lawyer. What I can say, he was a cretin. He was terrible to me and if I got treated this way today, things would play out differently.
2. I accepted any excuse for late work and was surpised to bump into deathly ill students in the campus pub, staffing a table, or at the gym. I soon realized that I needed to have a late policy that was more firm. But, I also didn’t like this “gotcha” culture with late work. I had to work almost full-time throughout my university experience and I’m sympathetic to work/life balance. Now, I rarely ask for proof. It’s just not worth my time or my students. The wording in my syllabus is firm, but in reality, I just want them to be successful and I don’t need them to go spend $25 on a doctor’s note.
3. I dress up for work and class. The first time I wore jeans to class at one institution a few of my students talked loudly about how I had jeans on and it was not professional. I had a nice blouse and blazer on and ignored their banter and started class. Fast foward almost twenty years and I still tend to dress up for class. But, if I could relive that time, I think I would have asked the two students to stay after class and chat about their comments. I wore jeans again, but in a more defiant way. I belonged in that classroom and in that institution even if there weren’t many who looked like me.
4. When I was pregnant and teaching, this opened up my eyes to the way in which my body was viewed as public property everywhere and how my body excited some and repulsed others. While lecturing the Cletus the Fetus moved its arm, and through the shirt the students could see an elbow and I thought a few students were going to pass out. Their eyes opened huge and they looked startled. It was quite funny to me. What I didn’t like, was the touching. I announced to the class that I did not want anyone touching my pregnant belly. It was uncomfortable. Imagine my surprise, when the chair of the Women’s Studies Department emailed me during the Western that a student had complained about this. The Chair supported me, but I still smirk that a student contacted the Chair and argued that it should be OK for her to touch my pregnant belly. It’s comical.
None of these scenarios took place at my current institution, but they all impacted me during those first five years of teaching. The biggest takeaway for me is that I am not here to police the students, to weed them out, to punish them or belittle them. I am here to ensure that they learn about the subject matter and during this time they’ll get a feel for the learning environment that I am in charge of and get a chance to think, write, and interact. This is simplistic, but this is one of several posts about what I’ve learned in two decades of teaching in Political Science, Women’s Studies, and Technology and Society.
Dr. Janni Aragon 