Jennifer van Alstyne and Dr. Sheena Howard designed this live interactive virtual event for professors and researchers like you. Especially if you’ve ever felt like, “I don’t need to do this for me, but I should do this for my book” when it comes to your online presence. Or, if you worry about self-promotion but know your writing / research can help more people if you’re open to sharing it.
Join Dr. Sheena C. Howard and Jennifer van Alstyne for a90-minute virtual event to help academics and researchers amplify your work, attract media opportunities, and share your book in meaningful ways.
We hope you can join us on April 12, 2025 for Promoting Your Book Online for Academics. You’re invited! 💌
What: 1.5 hour interactive workshop When: April 12, 2025 at 11:30am Pacific Time / 2:30pm Eastern Time Where: Live on Zoom (there will be a replay) With: Jennifer van Alstyne and Dr. Sheena Howard
A workshop for academics who have a book or research project you should be sharing with the world ✨
April 12, 2025 on Zoom at 11:30am Pacific Time / 2:30pm Eastern Time. Sign up.
About the workshop
Promoting Your Book Online for Academics is on April 12, 2025 at 2pm Eastern / 11:30am Pacific Time. It will be recorded for when you can’t make it live.
You should sign up if you’re open to
Sharing your book (or your research project)
Opportunities for your book to be featured in media (but aren’t sure where to start)
Helping more people with the writing / research you already do
Aim to attract funding
Want to build partnerships or collaborations for your equity focused work
At the end of this workshop you’ll know what’s effective use of your time for media and online presence.
What’s included?
Our live interactive workshop is on April 12, 2025 on Zoom (1.5 hours)
Replay of the event (video and audio only if you prefer to listen)
Worksheet to help you take action and Resources guide to keep
A private scheduling link for your follow up consultation with Jennifer
What inspired this event
Hi, I’m Jennifer van Alstyne (@HigherEdPR). I’ve been working 1-on-1 with professors on their online presence since 2018. When I look back on the transformations my clients have gone through, there’s often an emotional journey, not just the capacity-building work we do for your online presence. Most of my clients are authors. The professor writers I work with want their words to reach the right people, but felt unsure about how to go about that online.
Your book deserves to reach the people you wrote it for. When I ask professors who haven’t promoted their book, “do you hope more readers find this book?” The answer is often “Yes,” even if the book is older. Even when the book didn’t sell as well as you may have hoped. Even when your book is out of print there are things you can do to have agency in sharing it online.
In 2021, Dr. Sheena Howard and I teamed up for an intimate live event that helped academics around the world. We’ve been wanting to do another one since. But we wanted something that was really going to help you. For years, authors have opened up to each of us about what stopped them from sharing their book for years. When we were brainstorming who we want to help most with this Promoting Your Book Online for Academics event, these are some of the stories that came up:
I thought I’d have more support in marketing my book from the press…but it seems to be mostly on me.
My publisher asked me to build up my social media presence for my new book…I’m not really a social media person.
My books in the past didn’t do well…I’m worried my new book won’t do well either.
I shared my book once. But I haven’t share it again since on socials.
I am unsure if it is too early (or too late) to promote my book.
If I want to promote my book, when should I be reaching out to media? Before the book launches? After the book launches? I don’t know where to start.
I don’t think anyone will care about my book.
I want to go on podcasts to talk about my book, but I haven’t done anything toward that, no.
Dr. Sheena C. Howard (@drsheenahoward), a Professor of Communication. She helps professors get media coverage and visibility through Power Your Research (without the expense of a publicist). She’s been featured in ABC, PBS, BBC, NPR, NBC, The LA Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more for her research on representation, identity, and social justice. Her book, Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation won an Eisner Award. The Encyclopedia of Black Comics, which profiles over 100 Black people in the comics industry. Her book, Why Wakanda Matters, was a clue on Jeopardy.
She’s a writer without limits. I’ve recommended Sheena to some of my clients because she’s someone who helps people move past the limits we sometimes set for ourselves as writers. The worries or beliefs that sometimes hold us back. She’s worked closely with writers and creatives to build their capacity, to have agency in your media presence so you can make an impact when it matters. You want visibility that makes a difference for you. That invites readers. That can attract opportunities when they’re aligned with with what you want for yourself and the world.
This event is for you even when you want to do it yourself for your online presence. You won’t have to work with us after the workshop ends. This live event is about implementable strategies, and finding focus for what makes sense for sharing your book or research project.
FAQs for Promoting Your Book Online for Academics
Frequently asked questions you may be wondering about.
Where is the workshop?
This is a live virtual interactive event on Zoom on April 12, 2025 at 11:30am Pacific Time / 2:30pm Eastern Time.
What if I can’t make it live?
At our last event, some people knew they wouldn’t be able to attend live when they signed up. A couple people also couldn’t make it live unexpectedly. If you’re unable to join us live on April 12, 2025, you’ll have everything you need.
Jennifer will email you the event replay when it’s finished processing. You’ll get a copy of the take home worksheet to help you take action and the resources guide. That email will also have your private scheduling link for a follow up meeting with Jennifer if you’d find space to chat about your online presence supportive.
Outside of the United States? We had people register from around the world last time. If you run into an issue checking out, Jennifer is happy to create an invoice for you through Wise. Email [email protected]
This event is non-refundable. If something comes up and you’re unable to join us live on April 12, 2025, you’ll have everything you need.
Jennifer will email you the event replay when it’s finished processing. You’ll get a copy of the take home worksheet to help you take action and the resources guide. That email will also have your private scheduling link for a follow up meeting with Jennifer if you’d find space to chat about your online presence supportive.
Can I use professional development funds or research funds to pay for this event?
Yes. If a custom invoice would be helpful for you, please reach out to [email protected]
I’m interested in working with Jennifer and Sheena privately. Is this event still for me?
Jennifer and Sheena team up for online presence VIP Days. And some of our clients have worked with us separately depending on your goals.
While I’m happy to see how we can work together, this is not a sales event. At our last event, people found having a bit of private space after the event was helpful. So we wanted to be sure you get that private follow up consultation too. If you’re interested in working with us, please do sign up for that Zoom call. We can save time to chat about what may be helpful for you.
This workshop isn’t in my budget…I still want a stronger online presence for my book / research.
Yay, I’m glad you found this page because I want that for you. You deserve a stronger online presence if that’s something you want for yourself. Best wishes for your online presence, you’ve got this! There are free resources here on The Social Academic blog to help you have a stronger online presence for your book and your research. You can search by category to find what’s helpful for you. You might start resources related to Authors and Books.
I don’t think this event is right for me, can I share it with a friend?
Yes! I’d love that. If this event isn’t right for you, but you think it may be helpful for your friend or colleague, please share it with them. We appreciate you!
Questions about this event? Please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m happy to answer your question, hesitation, or concern.
I never intended to become a poster boy for cancel culture. Nor do I intend to let those four months of Georgetown farce define my life or career. But I’m using this chance to expose the institutional rot in academia and trace it to the illiberal winds blowing across America.
Those words are from Ilya Shapiro’s latest book, about which more will be said in a moment. But a few “set up” words first.
Today, Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute and director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies. And as before, Shapiro continues to file briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ilya Shapiro speaking at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore / Flickr.com)
But his today comes against the backdrop of a quarrelsome yesterday involving a ‘cancel culture’ dispute at Georgetown Law School where he was slated to work with Professor Randy Barnett and others at the School’s Center for the Constitution. But things started to go south after Shapiro wrote that “we’ll get lesser black woman” instead of Biden’s pick of Judge Sri Srinivasan. He later apologized. Following a four-month law school investigation, Shapiro was reinstated, only thereafter to resign on June 6, 2022:
After full consideration of the report of the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action (“IDEAA Report”), and upon consultation with counsel, family, and trusted advisers, it has become apparent that my remaining at Georgetown has become untenable. Although I celebrated my “technical victory” in the Wall Street Journal, further analysis shows that you’ve made it impossible for me to fulfill the duties of my appointed post.
[ . . . ]
I cannot again subject my family to the public attacks on my character and livelihood that you and IDEAA have now made foreseeable, indeed inevitable. As a result of the hostile work environment that you and they have created, I have no choice but to resign.
Ilya Shapiro resigns from Georgetown following reinstatement after 122-day investigation of tweets
News
After a more than four-month investigation that led to his reinstatement last week, Ilya Shapiro resigned today from Georgetown University Law Center.
In the midst of the controversy, FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein wrote:
Shapiro’s targeting marks the 10th attempt to get a professor sanctioned for ideological reasons at Georgetown University since 2015. Five attempts have been successful, with sanctions involving investigation, resignation, suspension and termination. . . . Higher education’s credibility rests on the public belief that it is a place where all sides of every argument are subject to robust debate, disputation and discussion. If it becomes clear that these discussions are impossible on campuses, the reputation of higher education — and the shared world of facts it was intended to create — will suffer.
In the past, Columbia Law School produced leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now it produces window-smashing activists.
When protestors at Columbia broke into a building and created illegal encampments, the student-led Columbia Law Review demanded that finals be canceled because of “distress.”
Law schools used to teach students how to think critically, advance logical arguments, and respect opponents. Now those students cannot tolerate disagreement and reject the validity of the law itself. Rioting Ivy Leaguers are the same people who will soon:
Be America’s judges, DAs, and prosecutors
File and fight constitutional lawsuits
Advise Fortune 500 companies
Hire other left-wing diversity candidates to staff law firms and government offices
Run for higher office with an agenda of only enforcing laws that suit left-wing whims
In Lawless, Ilya Shapiro explains how we got here and what we can do about it. The problem is bigger than radical students and biased faculty — it’s institutional weakness. Shapiro met the mob firsthand when he posted a controversial tweet that led to calls for his firing from Georgetown Law. A four-month investigation eventually cleared him on a technicality but declared that if he offended anyone in the future, he’d create a “hostile educational environment” and be subject to the inquisition again. Unable to do the job he was hired for, he resigned.
This cannot continue. In Lawless, Shapiro reveals how the illiberal takeover of legal education is transforming our country. Unless we stop it now, the consequences will be with us for decades.
A few selected quotes:
Is there anything we can do to stop or reverse . . . ill liberal tendencies? Should we — those of us who care about universities’ traditional truth-seeking mission and law schools’ commitment to the American constitutional order — just throw up our hands, gird our loins, and regroup to fight elsewhere? Surely we need to develop novel responses to heterodox challenges, ones that involve culture, legislation, and institution building.
The real issue here is taking exclusionary action — real discrimination, not a mere assertion that someone’s position on Israel (or anything) is ‘harmful’ or denies someone’s right to exist.
More than a 100 institutions have endorsed a version of the Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago (known as the Chicago Statement), which is the gold standard. The problem is that, as I experienced personally, so many of these speech-and-expression policies aren’t worth the paper (or pixels) they’re written on, falling by the wayside when seeming to conflict with the demands of DEI.
Cancellation victims, and others who make national news are the tip of the iceberg. As we see from survey results, self-censorship pervades academia, detracting from any intellectual mission, to say the least. Knowledge is never developed, and many old-school professors leave academia entirely — such as the famed First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh’s move from the UCLA school of law to the Hoover Institution and the early retirement of five right-of-center law professors from the University of San Diego (which used to be a bastion of originalism). Universities are at best failing to resist these illiberal forces and at worst encouraging them.
Forthcoming book on ideology, science, and free speech
An unparalleled group of prominent scholars from wide-ranging disciplines detail ongoing efforts to impose ideological restrictions on science and scholarship throughout western society.
From assaults on merit-based hiring to the policing of language and replacing well-established, disciplinary scholarship by ideological mantras, current science and scholarship is under threat throughout western institutions.
As this group of prominent scholars ranging across many different disciplines and political leanings detail, the very future of free inquiry and scientific progress is at risk. Many who have spoken up against this threat have lost their positions, and a climate of fear has arisen that strikes at the heart of modern education and research. Banding together to finally speak out, this brave and unprecedented group of scholars issues a clarion call for change.
“Higher education isn’t what it used to be. Cancel Culture and DEI have caused many to keep their mouths shut. Not so the authors of this book. This collection of essays tells of threats to open inquiry, free speech, and the scientific process itself. A much-needed book.” — Sabine Hossenfelder, Physicist and Author of Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions
Campus speech conflicts continue
Campus free speech podcasts
In recent weeks, the Academic Freedom Podcast has released two new episodes focusing on campus free speech issues.
First up was a conversation with Timothy Zick, the John Marshall Professor of Government and Citizenship at William & Mary Law School. He is the author most recently of Managed Dissent: The Law of Public Protests. The episode focuses on the law surrounding public protests on and off college campuses.
The White House barred a credentialed Associated Press reporter and photographer from boarding the presidential airplane Friday for a weekend trip with Donald Trump, saying the news agency’s stance on how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico was to blame for the exclusion. It represented a significant escalation by the White House in a four-day dispute with the AP over access to the presidency.
The administration has blocked the AP from covering a handful of events at the White House this week, including a news conference with India’s leader and several times in the Oval Office. It’s all because the news outlet has not followed Trump’s lead in renaming the body of water, which lies partially outside U.S. territory, to the “Gulf of America.”
Volokh weighs in on AP exclusion controversy
[1.] The Administration has no First Amendment obligation to provide any press conferences or interviews. The question, though, is whether, once it starts doing that, it may exclude the press based on its viewpoint, or on its supposedly unfair coverage, or on its use of terms that are seen as expressing a viewpoint.
[2.] It seems pretty clear that government officials can choose — including in viewpoint-based ways — whom they will sit down with for interviews. The President may choose to give interviews to journalists whose views he likes, and to refuse to speak with those whose views he dislikes. Indeed, a government official may even order employees not to talk to certain reporters, without thereby violating the reporters’ rights. Baltimore Sun v. Ehrlich (4th Cir. 2006).
[ . . . ]
[3.] It also seems pretty clear that government officials, even in large press conferences, can choose to ignore questions that express views they dislike, or to ignore questioners who have expressed those views. . .
[4.] This having been said, there are precedents (Sherrill, TGP, and John K. Maciver Inst. for Public Policy v. Evers (7th Cir. 2021)) that recognize a right not to be excluded based on viewpoint from large press conferences that are generally open to a wide range of reporters. Those precedents treat those press conferences more or less like “limited public fora” or “nonpublic fora” — government property where the government may impose viewpoint-neutral restrictions but not viewpoint-based ones.
[ . . . ]
[5.] But what about in-between events, which are open only to a small set of reporters? Air Force One apparently has 13 press seats, and I take it the Oval Office is likewise limited.
[ . . . ]
[6.] So I think that for Air Force One and Oval Office appearances, the best I can say is that the First Amendment analysis is unsettled.
FIRE weighs in on AP exclusion controversy
As one federal court proclaimed, “Neither the courts nor any other branch of the government can be allowed to affect the content or tenor of the news by choreographing which news organizations have access to relevant information.”
And because denying press access involves the potential deprivation of First Amendment rights, any decision about who’s in or out must also satisfy due process. That means the government must establish clear, impartial criteria and procedures, and reporters must receive notice of why they were denied access and have a fair opportunity to challenge that decision.
The AP — a major news agency that produces and distributes reports to thousands of newspapers, radio stations, and TV broadcasters around the world — has had long-standing access to the White House. It is now losing that access because its exercise of editorial discretion doesn’t align with the administration’s preferred messaging.
That’s viewpoint discrimination, and it’s unconstitutional.
This isn’t the first time the White House has sent a journalist packing for reporting critically, asking tough questions, or failing to toe the government line. During Trump’s first term, the White House suspended CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass after he interrogated the president about his views on immigration. After the network sued, a federal court ordered the administration to restore Acosta’s pass.
Related
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sues NBC
Sean “Diddy” Combs is suing NBC Universal over a documentary that he says falsely accuses him of being a serial murderer who had sex with underage girls as he awaits trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York state court says the documentary, “Diddy: Making of a Bad Boy,” included statements that NBC Universal either knew were false or published with reckless disregard for the truth in order to defame the founder of Bad Boy Records.
“Indeed, the entire premise of the Documentary assumes that Mr. Combs has committed numerous heinous crimes, including serial murder, rape of minors, and sex trafficking of minors, and attempts to crudely psychologize him,” the complaint reads. “It maliciously and baselessly jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Combs is a ‘monster’ and ‘an embodiment of Lucifer’ with ‘a lot of similarities’ to Jeffrey Epstein.”
2024-2025 SCOTUS term: Free expression and related cases
Cases decided
Villarreal v. Alaniz(Petition granted. Judgment vacated and case remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam))
Murphy v. Schmitt (“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam).”)
TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd v. Garland (The challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.)
This article is part of First Amendment News, an editorially independent publication edited by Ronald K. L. Collins and hosted by FIRE as part of our mission to educate the public about First Amendment issues. The opinions expressed are those of the article’s author(s) and may not reflect the opinions of FIRE or Mr. Collins.
Every leader’s weaknesses are clear before they rise to power if you look in the right places. We knew Gordon Brown’s seriousness could merge into tantrums long before the revelations about throwing phones at staff came to light, and we knew Boris Johnson’s joie de vivre hampered an eye for detail long before he caught the ball ‘from the back of the scrum’ and entered Number 10. If Nigel Farage ever makes it to the top job, as ever more people seem to be predicting, no one will be able to claim his destructive approach to politics was previously hidden.
Similarly, this new biography of Trump written by two New York Times journalists proves the US President’s weaknesses were evident beneath the bluster throughout his long business career in hotels, casinos and golf courses. If the authors are right, Trump has long been prone to taking big risks on a hunch, to acting litigiously and to seeking credit for things that aren’t his doing. The title suggests he was a Lucky Loser, though perhaps that is just an uncharitable way of saying he was a big winner against the odds.
As a businessman, the book shows how Trump began lucky, with ‘the equivalent of half a billion dollars from his father’, and ended lucky, with ‘another half billion as a reality television star’. These allowed him to take on huge debts, aided by paying as little tax as possible and reclaiming what tax he had paid whenever he could (as during Obama’s Great Recession recovery programme).
Trump’s dollars from the TV show ‘The Apprentice’ came not so much from appearance fees as from his right to half the profits from any sponsorship deals and from lending his name to all sorts of businesses attracted by his TV success, from health supplements to early video phones. These enabled him to keep afloat. But there were many lows to Trump’s business career and a number of his big projects declared bankruptcy in the 1990s and 2000s, leading the two authors to conclude, ‘He would have been better off betting on the stock market than on himself.’
If there’s one person responsible for Trump’s rise to the top, it is Mark Burnett, a British Falklands veteran who is now the United States Special Envoy to the UK. Burnett invented the TV programme ‘Survivor’ before creating an urban equivalent in The Apprentice (and later also creating ‘The Voice’). And if there’s one thing responsible for Trump’s rise it seems to be vanilla-and-mint Crest toothpaste as Proctor & Gamble were the first mass consumer company to do serious sponsorship of The Apprentice. They paid $1.1 million to get the contestants to come up with a new toothpaste, thereby drawing attention to the actual new vanilla-and-mint product sitting on shop shelves.
Ostensibly, this all has little to do with higher education. But Trump University (also known as Trump U) is one of the most notable of all the current US President’s past projects and one of the ventures undertaken just before he stood for the Presidency for the first time. Trump not only lent his name to the project, he also invested millions of dollars in return for 93% of the business –like Victor Kiam, he liked it so much he bought the company. But the authors of this book conclude the whole thing was a disaster from start to finish.
Beginning as a way to sell recorded lectures to small and medium-sized businesses, Trump University quickly moved into get-rich-quick in-person seminars. The Trump Elite Gold programme had a fee of $34,995 (about the same as the entire cost of a three-year degree in England or Wales). Prospective learners were told, ‘There are three groups of people … People who make things happen; people who wait for things to happen; and people who wonder, “What happened?”’ If you wanted to be in the first group, you were encouraged to open your wallet or else borrow the necessary fee.
One failed applicant for The Apprentice, Stephen Gilpin, found himself tapped up to work for Trump U but later wrote an exposé that claimed, ‘the focus for Trump University was purely on separating suckers from their money.’ At the time, Trump said he hand-picked the instructors, but he did no such thing. The whole venture ended up in three major lawsuits, which were settled just as Trump became President for the first time.
In the end, the story of Trump University confirms a truism: it is vital to protect the use of the term ‘University’ and to police it actively and in real time. The book serves as a reminder that – as Jo Johnson has argued persuasively on the HEPI blog – pausing new awards for University Title means the Office for Students is giving less attention to this area than it should.
It is ironic that the global leader of right-wing populism should not only have sought to establish his own ‘University’ but that, having done so, it should embody in such exaggerated form all the negatives that populists tend to ascribe to traditional universities: poor value for money; an unoriginal curriculum taught by ill-trained staff; and insufficient personal attention to students. However, if a new book being published today attacking UK and US universities, Bad Education: Why our universities are broken and how we can fix them by Matt Goodwin, is any guide to populism more generally, then the failure of Trump U has not deterred the attacks on places that actually do have the legal right to call themselves a ‘University’.
Goodwin starts with a chapter called ‘Why I decided to speak out’ though it could just have easily been called ‘The grass is always greener’ or ‘Looking back with rose-tinted spectacles’. The book’s core argument is that:
the rapid expansion of the university bureaucracy, the sharp shift to the left among university academics and the politicization of the wider system of higher education have left universities in a perilous state.
As a result, Goodwin argues, ‘our universities are not just letting down but betraying an entire generation of students.’
He notes that, as the number of EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) champions has gone up, some types of diversity, such as diversity in academic thought, have gone down. But Goodwin is a political scientist rather than a historian and the problems he identifies are not as new as he makes out. Far-left students used to disrupt Enoch Powell, Keith Joseph and Leon Brittan when they spoke on campus; now they try and block Helen Joyce, Kathleen Stock and Jo Phoenix. The issue of whether such individuals should be allowed to speak even if some people on campus will be ‘offended’ are the same. The recourse to legislation in response is the same too: the rows of the 1980s led to the Education (No. 2) Act (1986) and the rows of today led to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act (2023).
Notably, Goodwin’s views seem to have changed even more over time than the institutions he criticises. Two decades ago, Goodwin was a progressive studying for a PhD under Professor Roger Eatwell, an expert in fascism and populism at the University of Bath, after which he moved to Manchester and Nottingham, where he worked with political scientists like Rob Ford and Philip Cowley, and thereafter to Kent. These days, Goodwin has not only given up his professorship but is found speaking at Reform UK meetings while accepting a job as a GB News presenter.
And while Goodwin says his book has been 20 years in the making, it reads like it was 20 weeks in the writing. That is not meant to be rude for the piece is pacey, personal and polemical – and all the more readable for that. But while it is based in part on others’ research – including pieces of HEPI output – it generally draws from just one well: the place inhabited by Eric Kaufman, Jonathan Haidt and Niall Ferguson. The dust jacket includes endorsements from Douglas Murray, Claire Fox and Nigel Biggar among others.
Goodwin’s pamphleteer-style of writing ensures his text has little in common with the meticulous research on recent university history by Mike Shattock or Roger Brown and Helen Carasso or Steve Jones (who will be writing his own review of the book for HEPI in due course). Nonetheless, whisper it quietly but – whether you like his general approach or not, whether you like his new acquaintances or not and whether you like his writing style or not – Matt Goodwin may have something of a point.
Universities do not always welcome or reflect the full diversity of viewpoints in the way that perhaps they should, given their business is generating and imparting knowledge. It has been said many times before by others, so it is far from original, yet that doesn’t make it false. Goodwin quotes the US economist Thomas Sowell: ‘when you hear university academics talk about diversity, ask them how many conservatives are in their sociology department.’ It seems a fair question.
But grappling with that is not easy. The best answer, Goodwin argues, is a muscular response. Rather than leaving it to the sector to resolve its own issues, he wants to see hard-nosed interventions from policymakers and regulators:
only government action and new legislation, or pressure from outside universities, can change the incentive structures on campus. This means adopting a proactive rather than a passive strategy, making it clear that the individual freedom of scholars and students is, ultimately, more important than the freedom or autonomy of the university.
At the very end, Goodwin even argues someone should ensure ‘all universities be regularly audited for academic freedom and free speech violations’, with fines for any that transgress. Yet that begs more questions than it answers: we don’t know who would do the audit or what the rules for it would be.
So there is a paradox at the heart of Goodwin’s critique. He ascribes the problems he sees to flaws in the ‘system’ whereby the number of university administrators, institutions’ central bureaucracy and the pay of vice-chancellors have all increased rapidly. But such changes have often reflected:
external influences, such as the increase in the regulation of education (in response to scandals of the Trump U variety);
the need to have flattering statistics (such as to present to the Treasury in the battle for public resources); and
recognition that the old ways of working are not going to root out inappropriate behaviours (for example, sexual harassment).
Perhaps making universities more accountable to regulators and policymakers will make them bastions of free speech in the way Goodwin hopes, but might it not just clog up the lives of academics even more?
Reprinted with permission of ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. All rights reserved.
What is a climate justice university, and how can our universities transform into institutions that truly promote the well-being of the earth and humanity? Jennie C. Stephens’s new book, Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a Hopeful Future for All (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), sets out to answer that question. It outlines where today’s universities fall short in their handling not only of the climate crisis but also a wealth of other modern social issues.
The book lays out broad ideas for transforming how universities function in society, such as shifting research practices to collaborate with people and communities affected by the issues, like the climate crisis, at the center of that research. Stephens, who is a professor at both the National University of Ireland Maynoonth and Northeastern University, acknowledges in the introduction that such a transformation would be a major undertaking, and one that many universities would be disinclined to tackle. “Because of the internal pressure within higher education to maintain institutional norms, this book and its proposal for climate justice universities are, in some ways, radical acts of resistance,” she writes.
In a phone interview, Stephens spoke with Inside Higher Ed about her vision for climate justice universities—and how modern institutions fail to meet it. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: It was interesting reading that your perspective on these issues comes both from your scholarly work and from a time that you worked on the administrative side of academia. Could you describe how those experiences came together to inspire this book?
A: I’ve been working in academia my whole career—more than 30 years—and during that time, I’ve been focused on climate and energy issues and sustainability from a very social justice perspective. What has happened through my experiences over time is that I see part of society’s inadequate response to the climate crisis mirrored in academia.
I think higher education has a really big role in society—in what we are doing and what we’re not doing, in how we’re teaching and learning, in what we’re doing research on and what we’re not doing research on—and I think that our collective insufficient response to the climate crisis is related to what’s been happening in our higher education institutions, which are increasingly very financialized. They’re driven by profit-seeking priorities and new tech and start-ups and focused on job training. We’ve drifted away from a public-good mission of higher education: What does society need in this very disruptive time, and how can our higher education institutions better respond to the needs of society, particularly of vulnerable and marginalized communities and people and households who are increasingly struggling with all kinds of precarity and vulnerabilities?
Q: How would you define the term “climate justice university”?
A: The idea of a climate justice university is a university with a mission and a purpose to create more healthy, equitable, sustainable futures for everyone. So, that is a very public-good mission. The idea is to connect the climate crisis with all the other injustices and the … multiple different crises that are happening right now; the climate crisis is just one among many. We also have a cost of living crisis; we have a mental health crisis, we have financial crises; we have a plastic pollution crisis and a biodiversity crisis; we have a crisis in international law and a militarization crisis. We have all of these crises, and yet what we’re doing in our universities tends to continue to be quite siloed and trying to address parts of specific problems, rather than acknowledging that these crises are symptoms of larger systemic challenges.
For me, climate justice is a paradigm shift toward a transformative lens, acknowledging that things are getting worse and worse in so many dimensions, and that if we want a better future for humanity and for societies around the world, we actually need big, transformative change. A lot of things we do in our universities are reinforcing the status quo and not promoting or endorsing transformative change. So, climate justice is a paradigm shift with a transformative lens that focuses less on individual behavior, more on collective action, less on technological change, more on social change, and less on profit-seeking priorities, more on well-being priorities. What do human beings need to live meaningful, healthy lives, and how can society be more oriented toward that?
Q: Can you talk a bit more about how the current structure of the university maintains the status quo with regard to climate?
A: One of the ways that I think universities kind of perpetuate the status quo is by not acknowledging what a disruptive time we’re in with regard to climate crisis, but other crises as well. There’s an encouragement on many campuses for kind of being complacent, like, “Oh, this is the way the world is.” Not necessarily encouraging students and researchers to imagine alternative futures.
There’s also a focus on doing research that billionaires or corporate interests want us to do, and—in particular, in the climate space—what this has led to is a lot of climate and energy research that is funded by big companies and other wealthy donors who actually don’t want change. We have more and more research to show who has been obstructing climate action and transformative change for a more stable climate future. We know many of those same companies and same fossil fuel interests have also been very strategically investing in our universities. What that does is constrain the research and also the public discourse about climate and energy futures toward very fossil fuel–friendly futures.
Early on in my own career, I worked on projects that were funded by the fossil fuel industry on carbon capture and storage, and a lot of the climate and energy research in our universities is focused on carbon capture and storage, carbon dioxide removal technology, geoengineering—all these technical fixes that assume we’re just going to keep using fossil fuels. What we really need, if we had more climate justice universities that were focused on the public good and what the climate science has been telling us for decades, is to phase out fossil fuels. We need a global initiative to phase out fossil fuels. But we don’t have in our universities much research on how to phase out fossil fuels.
Q: In your book, you discuss the concept of exnovation—the process of phasing out inefficient or harmful technologies. Why is research into exnovation not already more common in higher education, and what are the main barriers for researchers who want to take this approach?
A: I do think funding has a lot to do with it. There’s a whole chapter in the book about the financialization of higher education institutions, which has resulted from kind of a decline in public support toward more private sector support, which means that universities are beholden to private sector interests, increasingly, and they’re encouraged and incentivized to cater to and partner with … private sector interests. I think that has really changed the kinds of impact that higher education institutions and research has had.
Of course, there are a lot of people within universities who are interested in the public good and doing research on exnovation. But the incentive structure, even among those of us who would want to contribute in those ways, is such that we are increasingly incentivized and promoted based on how much money we can bring in, how many papers can we get published and the scale of resources available to do research. So, there’s a larger, long-term strategy to orient research toward the technical fixes, particularly when it comes to climate and energy, and a lot less funding available for social change or governance research on how to bring back the public-good priorities in our policies, our funding, in our universities. It’s really a longer-term trend that has led to this financialization.
Q: You lay out a lot of alternative ideas for financing universities, which is important given that anxiety over funding is at an all-time high at some institutions. Walk me through some of your ideas and talk about the feasibility of restructuring how universities are funded.
A: One idea in the chapter on new ways of engaging and being more relevant is what if we imagine higher education institutions more like public libraries? Public libraries, we all kind of recognize as valuable resources for everyone; every community should have some access to a public library. What if higher education could be [better] invested in that sense of being a resource and not being an ivory tower that is really hard to get into and only some privileged people get access to? What if our higher education institutions were designed and funded to provide more accessible and relevant resources, co-created with communities? That’s kind of one of the big ideas of imagining what this really valuable resource could be more relevant and more connected to the needs of society and of communities.
You also asked about feasibility, and one of the things that I want to point out is that this book is not a how-to; every context and region and different place in the world has different things going on with their higher education institutions. The idea with this book is to invite us all to kind of think about, what is the purpose of higher education institutions? And how can we better leverage all the public investment that is already spent on higher education institutions? How can that be oriented toward better futures for everyone?
At higher education institutions that are feeling very vulnerable, having a lot of anxiety about funding levels—the ideas in this book don’t provide a prescription on how to fix that in the near term. But the ideas in the book are really to encourage us all—and especially those involved in higher education policy and higher education funding—to re-evaluate and reclaim the public-good mission of higher education and reconsider how to restructure higher education so that the value and the resources are more accessible, more relevant and more transformative, in terms of fitting the needs of a very disruptive time for humanity and for societies and communities around the country and around the world.
Morning all. You know it’s getting towards XMAS when I start writing about the higher education books I’ve read recently. So, yes, those are Christmas bells ringing you can hear as you open this email and perusing my takes on the stuff I’ve read since Canada Day (I’ve already posted my January-June takes). Hopefully you can find a stocking stuffer or two in here for your own higher education nerd.
To start with the non-higher ed stuff. On the fiction side, I’m not having a great year. I think my favourite in the past six months have been Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (I’m a huge Vazquez fan, his The Shape of The Ruins might be my favourite Latin American novel of all time). I’ll throw in a Japanese novel, too. Not Murakami’s new The City and Its Uncertain Walls (which was better than his previous novel Killing Commendatore, but not much), but rather Asako Yuzuki’s Butter; a Novel of Food and Murder.
On the non-fiction side, conflict of interest rules forbid me from giving too much praise to Gerald Friesen’s The Honourable John Norquay: Indigenous Premier, Canadian Statesman, a timely book on Canada’s first Métis head of government, but you should read it anyway. My favourite from the past few months was The Soviet Sixtiesby Robert Hornsby, which is about that regime’s one decent decade and is quite excellent. I also enjoyed Wolfgang Münchau’sKaput: the End of the German Miracle, which suggests that the real historical anomaly was Germany’s accidental “good” decade of 2005-2015, not the train wreck of 2016-onwards (and the whole time all I could think about was everyone in Canada insisting that Canada could be just like Germany if only we did more apprenticeships…if you know anyone who still things like that, this book is a good antidote).
As for my higher education books: you’ve probably noticed my increasing tendency to turn books I have read recently into podcasts (subscribe to our YouTube channel! Never miss an episode!). Our episode about Mary C. Wright’s Centers of Teaching and Learning: the New Landscape in Higher Education ended up being our most-watched of the fall. Joseph Wycoff’s Outsourcing Student Engagement: the History of Institutional Research and the Future of Higher Education is a kind of quirky book, but is an excellent history of the most specific of higher education occupations, and the weird way in which it pre-surrendered to academic bullying to keep itself from being perceived as an alternative source of authority on academia. And finally there was Global Mega-Science by David Baker and Justin Powell which is an intriguing theory about the way that the massification of education has been a massive cross-subsidy to science.
In the same vein, there are another two books that I don’t feel I can tell you much about because I will be speaking to the authors on the podcast in the next few weeks. There was Maya Wind’s Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, which lays out the case for sanctions on Israeli universities. And there was The Governance of European Higher Education by Michael Shattock, Aniko Horvath, and Jürgen Enders. It’s one of a series from Shattock (who has also authored tomes on governance in British universities and on international trends in university governance), and it’s an excellent precis of how European universities in their three broad forms (Anglophone, Germanic, and Napoleonic) have moved in the last 40 years or so. Stay tuned.
Two other fairly ancient books I have covered in the blog already were TheBlight on the Ivy by Dr & Mrs. (sic) Robert Gordon (a scream, but not always of the good kind) and TheUniversity, Society and Government, which was the report of the Commission on Relations Between Universities and Governments in 1970, which for the era presented an amazingly decentralist vision of Canada (I wonder, after decades of provincial indifference to postsecondary education regulation, what the authors would say now about the prospect for provincial leadership in science and research?)
When in Paris, I picked up a couple of books on French higher education, including Autopsie de l’Université: un regard sur l’enseignement universitaire et son évolutionby Stéphane Louryan, which portrays the university (not entirely coherently) as being poised between the modern evils of “managerialism” and “wokeism” and Reconstruire l’Université by Louis Vogel, which is a long kvetch about the state of French universities and (at a very high level of abstraction) why they should be more Anglo-Saxon. A trip to the Architecture Museum in Montreal netted me a very slender book of essays by and about Arthur Erickson (architect of record for both Simon Fraser and Lethbridge) called Arthur Erickson on Learning Systems, which is mostly a bunch of ideas around how university architecture can influence the organization of knowledge at universities. It’s mostly hopium and reads a lot like some of the stuff Buckminster Fuller was writing at the time, but at least it’s interesting hopium.
Four the better books I read were Follow the Money: Funding Research in a Large Academic Health Center by Henry Bourne and Eric Vermillion; The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in Indiaby Ajantha Subramanian: Burton Clark’s 1970 book, The Distinctive College: Antioch, Reed and Swarthmore; and David Staley’s Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education. The first is a detailed look at how the University of California, San Francisco actually works financially (and in general a useful handbook to understand the way America funds research, in the same vein as Paula Stephan’s How Economics Shapes Science. Subramanian’s book is good on how educational attainment “merit-washes” family wealth (and should be read by anyone who is under the deeply mistaken impression that meritocracy is a particular symptom of neo-liberal late capitalism). Clark’s book is an interesting examination of the “sagas” of Antioch, Reed and Swarthmore Colleges and it’s worth reading not just because they are interesting case studies in an of themselves, but for its excellent understanding of how university cultures develop over time. Staley’s book is bog-standard futurism (a bunch of ideas for future institutional forms that are not even vaguely examined in terms of the likelihood that they would ever find public or private funding), but it’s interesting and thought-provoking bog-standard futurism.
I also consumed HBCU: The Power of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, by Marybeth Gasman and Levon Esters, which managed to turn an interesting subject into something that really was kind of boring, and also Linda Tuhiwa Smith’s Decolonizing Methodology: Research and Indigenous Peoples, which I think should be more widely read not because it is a page-turner or anything, but rather to debunk certain ideas about what “decolonization” in academia means (it’s half about putting research at the service of indigenous peoples, which should be utterly incontestable, but the other half has an awful lot of French post-structuralism in it).
A couple of other single-college histories to mention are The University of Winnipeg: A History of the Founding Colleges by A.G. Bedford and Higher Education on the Brink: Re-imagining Strategic Enrolment Management in Colleges and Universities. I know, the latter doesn’t sound like it’s an institutional story, but it’s really just the author’s experience running Pittsburgh Technical College, written in universalist language. The former is pretty stultifying, with almost as much space given up to intra-mural sports as it is with actual intellectual, and its account of the Crowe Affair, (one of the huge academic freedom cases of the 1950s is, shall we say, highly tendentious, but, well, if you want to understand about how the politics of institutional federalism and the merger of the Methodist and Presbyterian churches affected higher education in Winnipeg (which I recognize is a fairly specific demographic) then this is your book.
But the very best higher education book I read this year was L’université de Montréal: une histoire urbaine et internationale by Daniel Poitras and Micheline Cambron. I know institutional histories aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this book is genius. It’s not an institutional history so much as it is the political history of one of Canada’s most important community institutions as well as an intellectual history of the city of Montreal as well as a history of an evolving community of scholars (it might be the most “international” history of any Canadian institution ever written). It’s massive, beautifully illustrated, and will make you re-think what institutional histories can be.
It’s absolutely the book of the year. Honorable mention to the novel How I Won a Nobel Prizeby Julius Taranto.
The holiday break is a perfect time for leveling up your knowledge, igniting your HR spark, and collecting wisdom to share with your team. These book recommendations have been hand-picked by CUPA-HR colleagues for their insights into topics like change management, inclusion and belonging, and daring leadership. They make great team book club reads, too!
Grab a warm beverage and cozy up with one of these HR reads.
For bold leaders…
Vulnerability might not spring to mind as the most important trait in a leader, but in Dare to Lead, Brené Brown encourages leaders to tune into their hearts as much as their minds.
For the everyday superstar…
In Hidden Potential, Adam Grant, a Wharton School of Business professor, says that we all have the ability to improve. You don’t have to be a prodigy or work yourself to the point of burnout, but instead be willing to learn and develop your character.
For the inventor…
If you’ve ever pondered creative ways to do more with less, check out A Beautiful Constraint by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden. Jay Stephens, vice president of people and culture at the University of Montana, says “it’s a great book for higher ed, where we tend to live with a scarcity mindset.”
For the team leader who’s always learning…
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni is a perennially popular book. Written in the form of a fable, it addresses some common team issues, like lack of trust, fear of conflict, and avoidance of accountability.
For those looking to stress less…
Jennifer Moss, a keynote speaker at the 2024 CUPA-HR Annual Conference and Expo, is a leading voice in fighting burnout. The Burnout Epidemic argues that organizations must take the lead in developing an anti-burnout strategy that moves beyond apps, wellness programs, and perks.
For out-of-the-box thinkers…
Miranda Arjona, assistant director of HR at Rollins College, encourages embracing the qualities that make children special (and that we tend to forget when we’re all grown up). Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss “encourages readers to embrace new experiences, face obstacles with courage, and keep moving forward,” while Curious George by H.A. Rey and Margret Rey “emphasizes the importance of curiosity, exploration, and learning from one’s mistakes.” Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne “offers insights into the importance of enjoying the present moment, valuing simple pleasures, and appreciating the quirks of those around us.”
Bonus tips for the book club leader (no required reading!)…
As the content specialist in training and development, Corrie Grint hosts two different book clubs at the University of Utah. Here are her tips for success.
Vary book choices. Grint chooses a mix of classic leadership books, new and popular books, and untraditional books.
Build in flexible participation. Grint bases her questions on the general principles of books like Atomic Habits, “so anyone can participate, even if they haven’t read the book.”
Structure clubs inclusively. Participation is virtual and capped at one hour.
Offer pre-session and during-session support. A week before, Grant emails out other options to supplement or replace the reading, such as a book summary PDF or YouTube video. She also provides questions similar to the ones they’ll discuss. During the meeting, she provides a summary of the principles taught, along with quotes, and asks questions along the way.
Here’s the full list of recommendations, chosen by CUPA-HR colleagues:
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield
Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear
A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden
Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay by Liz Fosslien and Molly West Duffy
The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It by Jennifer Moss
Career Self-Care: Find Your Happiness, Success, and Fulfillment at Work by Minda Zetlin
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Joseph Grenny and others
Curious George by H.A. and Margaret Rey
Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy by Rachel Ricketts
The Dream Manager: The Secret to Attracting, Engaging, and Retaining Talent by Matthew Kelly
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
Endurance: A Year in Space and a Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly
The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy by Jon Gordon
First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham
Fish!: A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results by Lundin, Christensen, and Paul
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People by Gary Chapman and Paul White
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
The Guide to Good Leading series by Ari Weinzweig
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant
HR on Purpose: Developing Deliberate People Passion by Steve Browne
I’m No Philosopher, But I Got Thoughts: Mini-Meditations for Saints, Sinners, and the Rest of Us by Kristen Chenoweth
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Leadership and Self-Deception, Fourth Edition: The Secret to Transforming Relationships and Unleashing Results by The Arbinger Institute
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo
The Long-Distance Teammate: Stay Engaged and Connected While Working Anywhere by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel
Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change by William Bridges
No Ego: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Workplace Drama, End Entitlement, and Drive Big Results by Cy Wakeman
Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss
The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves by The Arbinger Institute
Own Your Own Work Journey! The Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change by Edward D. Hess
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim VandeHei and others
Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles Duhigg
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara
When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen and Solved by Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride
November 20, 2023, I attended an online launch celebration event for a magnificent project. The book Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures brought together 71 authors around the globe to create 27 chapters, as well as multiple pieces of artwork and poetry. Editors Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin shared their reflections of writing the book and invited chapter authors, and Larry Onokpite, the book’s editor, to celebrate the release and opportunities for collaboration. In total, the work represents contributions from 29 countries from six continents. Laura Czerniewicz was invited to talk about the book by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), where she describes the values of inclusion woven throughout this project.
Higher Ed for Good Aims
At Monday’s book launch, Laura shared how the authors aimed to write about the tenants that were directed toward the greater aims of the book. Catherine described the call for authors to engage in this project, such that the resulting collection would help people:
Acknowledge despair
Engage in resistance
Imagine alternative futures and…
Foster hope and courage
Laura stressed the way articulating what we stand for and not simply what we are against is essential in facilitating systemic change. Quoting Ruha Benjamin, Laura described ways to courageously imagine the future:
Only by shifting our imagination, can we begin to think of a world that is more egalitarian, less extractive, and more habitable for everyone not just a small elite.
It was wonderful to see the community who showed up to help celebrate this magnificent accomplishment. Toward the end of the conversations, someone asked about what might be next for this movement. Frances Bell responded by joking that she wasn’t sure she was necessarily going to answer the question, as she is prone to do. Instead, she described her use of ‘a slow ontology,’ a phrase which quickly resonated with me, even thought I didn’t know exactly what it meant.
Since February 2007, International Higher Education Consulting Blog has provided timely news and informational pieces, predominately from a U.S. perspective, that are of interest to both the international education and public diplomacy communities. From time to time, International Higher Education Consulting Blog will post thought provoking pieces to challenge readers and to encourage comment and professional dialogue.
When you write a book, it’s lasting. It’s sharable. Your book is findable online which for professors that means you can help more people with your research, teaching, and the things you care about most. I’m delighted to share this featured interview with you.
Dr. Jane Joann Jones is a book coach for minoritized women professors. She left the tenure track 8 years ago to help you confidently write your book.
Jane says, “You’ve done this research. It’s really meaningful to you. And you wanna see it out in the world.” If you want a book, I want you to have a book! I hope this interview resonates with you.
Welcome to The Social Academic blog and podcast. We’re also on YouTube! I’m Jennifer van Alstyne (@HigherEdPR). Here we talk about managing your online presence as a professor. You can build skills to have a strong digital footprint to share your research and teaching online. And I’m here to help you.
In this interview, Dr. Jane Jones and I talk about
Meet Dr. Jane Jones
Jennifer: Welcome to The Social Academic. Today I’m talking with Dr. Jane Jones of Up In Consulting.
We’re gonna be talking about books. So, authors, please listen up. This one is for you. Dr. Jane Jones, would you please introduce yourself?
Jane: Sure. My name is Jane Jones. I am a New Yorker and I am a book writing coach. I came to book writing after I left my tenure track job. I was an Assistant Professor of Sociology. That’s where I have my PhD, in sociology.
I started out as a developmental editor and then transitioned into coaching. The business I have now is a book coaching business where I work with women in academia who are writing books in humanities and social sciences. I help them get those books done through a combination of developmental editing, coaching, and project management support.
Jennifer: I love that. Now, can I ask, what do you like most about coaching? Why do you like working with people on their books?
Jane: Oh my goodness, there are a lot of reasons actually. I really do love coaching.
One thing that stands out with the coaching side is how much academics already know, but have been socialized to believe they don’t know. Especially women.
Jennifer: Ooh. Especially women. Okay.
Jane: Especially women. Especially Black women, other women of color, They’ve been taught not to trust their own knowledge.
Jennifer: Mm.
Jane: And through coaching, a lot of what I focus on, is helping people realize that you already know a lot about your topic. You already have a lot of expertise. You don’t always have to defer to other scholars, to your dissertation advisor, especially when you’re writing your book. You no longer have to answer to your dissertation advisor. And that you have a lot of the skills already.
To be sure, there are a lot of things that we aren’t taught about publishing. There is a big hidden curriculum around book writing. And exposing that hidden curriculum is very important, while also reinforcing people’s trust in their own knowledge. Being able to do both of those two things at the same time, I think is the most important part of the coaching relationship for me.
What are universities not teaching you about book writing?
Jennifer: I love that because my next question was what are universities kind of not teaching you, right? What are universities not teaching, especially minoritized faculty, about writing books?
It sounds like people do have more knowledge than they’re able to process, maybe admit, or accept of themselves. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Where is that difference between how much we know and how much we really need support?
Jane: I always joke that there’s no Publishing 101. There’s no Book Writing 101.That course is not taught in grad school. I mean, for that matter, Article Writing 101 isn’t either. Those aren’t taught in grad school.
Where people have a lot of knowledge is in their subject matter. In the data you have collected, all of the literature, you’ve read, how you make sense of the literature. People are experts there. You’ve spent your whole graduate career…Because I work with people at all stages of their career from Assistant Professor to Full Professor. You’ve accumulated so much data, number one. And you have so much knowledge. Right? So that is there.
But in terms of questions like, “Well, how is a book different than a dissertation?”
You know, “Structurally, what do I put in my book that wasn’t in the dissertation?”
Or, you know, “How do I create the through line in my book?”
You know, these really, kind of tactical questions about how do I actually do the writing of this type of manuscript? Which is different than an article, and is different than a grant proposal. They’ve never been taught that.
Even though they have all of the information, they don’t know how to get it on paper in a way that is going to be legible for our reader. That’s where the work happens. That’s what we do, and that’s what universities don’t teach people how to do.
Sometimes it’s because people just don’t know how to teach it. It’s kind of like, you write your book for yourself. For many people who write their first book, and if you’re a first book author watching this, if someone comes and asks you what you did, you might be like, “I don’t remember. I just got that done. I was on a tenure timeline, and I put my head down, and I wrote.” And maybe I had a book manuscript workshop. Or, you know, like, I had good friends, or a supportive mentor who read it and gave me feedback. And I wrote, got feedback, wrote, got feedback, and that was it. And then the book was done, right? That doesn’t mean you can then teach that process to somebody else.
So being able to be a little bit on the outside of the process as developmental editor, and with the other developmental editors, you know, who work in the program with me, being on the outside of that process and saying, you know, there are some common things. There are some things that all books have in common. And we’re gonna teach you how to implement and how to learn that craft, the things that are common about the craft of book writing.
We work with people across disciplines. We’re ‘discipline agnostic’ as we like to say. You know, from art historians to people who are more on the side of doing quantitative, big survey research, but writing books. We run the gamut. But even within that, there are things people have in common in their books and in their trials of writing, you know? The experiences they’re having, trying to make enough time to write the book, feeling imposter syndrome, not knowing what to do with feedback, being worried about approaching an acquisitions editor. You know, going back to the hidden curriculum, not knowing how to talk to an acquisitions editor and feeling very intimidated. Those are all things that we help them with that I think aren’t really being talked to them in other places.
People might be exchanging information informally. They’re like, “Oh, my friend published here. They said the editor is really nice.” Or, “They said the editor is really hands-on or not hands-on. So I have this informal knowledge, but I don’t know how to craft an email to an acquisitions editor. Or, strike up a conversation with them at a conference. And I feel very worried to do that.” You know, “I don’t know how to describe my book in one or two sentences so that I could talk to somebody about it at a conference and not spend 10 minutes talking about my book. Which, ultimately I will be, but I don’t have that sharp, quick summary.” Those are things that we help them with, because it could feel very disempowering when you don’t know how to do that.
Again, you have all this great information, but, if you don’t know how to talk to an acquisitions editor, how are you gonna have a book? If you don’t know how to craft a chapter, how are you gonna have a book.
Minoritized women in the academy do more service and mentoring
Jennifer: These are skills that professors can learn. These are skills that are learnable and that you can develop, but because they’re not taught by universities and the people who have experience in them maybe don’t know how to teach these skills, it is amazing that you and your team are there to support them. I’m so happy about that.
And I’m also happy that you work with minoritized faculty, with women. Why is that important to you?
Jane: It’s really important! I just want to go back to one thing, the people who have written books and don’t necessarily know how to teach it. I would add additionally, and kind of looping this into working with women and minoritized faculty is, like, they don’t often have the time to teach somebody elsehow to write a book.
It’s a time consuming process. A book is a multi-year process and people add mentoring like, “I’ll read a chapter for you and give you feedback.” But for someone to give them that structured support over time, faculty are having to publish themselves. They have to do their own service committees, they have their own families. Again, that doesn’t mean that they don’t offer help, but it means that they may not have the time or capacity to give that systematic type of help we do.
I think that’s especially pronounced for women and minoritized faculty because they often have an extra service load. They do more service. We know that statistically. They do more service. They’re doing more care-taking outside of work. Right?
There isn’t always that easy transmission of knowledge from a senior faculty member to a junior faculty member because they’re just as pressed as anybody else. And so are the junior faculty! And we don’t only work with junior faculty, but the majority of our clients are.
They have the same issues like extra service, students who want their mentorship because they’re the only Black person in the department. They’re only person who studies race. They’re the only person who does X research. So they have students who want their mentoring. And all of this creates extra commitments for them.
One thing that we focus on in coaching is helping people prioritize their books when there’s a lot of other things going on. Teaching that craft of writing, but also saying, like, “Hey, this book is really important to you for a lot of reasons. Like, professionally take a tenure promotion. But also because you’ve done this research, it’s really meaningful to you, and you wanna see it out in the world. How do we help you make sure that it stays top of mind?” What do we do to support people so that the book can stay top of mind.
Jennifer: I love that. I feel like my work is really aligned with that actually, because I’m really helping professors and researchers talk about the research and the teaching that they do on online. That way more people can have conversations, so that they can have more collaboration, so that they can get more research funding.
But most of the people that I work with have a lot of anxiety talking about themselves. Do you find that your authors have anxiety talking about their books?
Jane: Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. Definitely. And I think that the work you’re doing is so important, ’cause, in my opinion, if you write a book, don’t you want people to read it?
Like, you want it out in the world. Like, you wanna be in conversation with other people. You want people to read it, but you also want to talk to people about it.
Jennifer: Right, yeah. Yeah. Even, the ability to have someone on your team, be that kind of support, not just when you start writing the book, but through the whole process. That’s such an amazing idea that we can’t necessarily get through a mentorship position at your university. Especially if no one is in your field. I love that that support system is there.
It also gives authors an opportunity to have someone that they can talk with about their book. Some of the authors that I work with, I ask, “Who do you talk about your book with?”
And their answer is, “No one. Once I stopped working with my editor, I don’t talk with my colleagues. I don’t talk with my family. I don’t talk with my friends. My book came out seven years ago and I never talk about it.”
That really strikes me as something that I think that, people who work with you, they’re talking about their book. And thinking about it in much larger ways. Because it’s really introspective, and being introspective is hard. I love that you help people with that process and actually understand their motivations for why they’re doing it, who they’re helping. It’s amazing.
Jane: Yeah. Thank you. I think that another part that’s really important is that my programs are group programs.
Jennifer: Ooh.
Jane: And that’s on purpose. Because like you said, it is very introspective. For some people, the solitude, the solitary work, they like it. They’re like, “I like writing solitary. I like being alone with my thoughts.” And that’s great.
Some people are like, “It’s isolating, and I don’t like it, and I feel very alone in the process.” Being with people who are at a similar stage as them, and when I say stage, I don’t mean career-wise, I mean stage of the book. Because people come in, and they’re all at a similar stage of writing, so they’re all kind of going through it together.
“I’m trying to figure out the overarching argument of this book,” or, “I’m writing two of my empirical chapters, the two of my body chapters.” There’s a feeling of, “We’re in it together.”
I spoke to a former client the other day, and she was in Elevate a year ago maybe, and she said, “Our Elevate group still meets on Mondays and Thursdays on Zoom, and we still write together.”
Jennifer: I love that.
Jane: I was like, “Oh, my goodness.” I didn’t even know that they did that. And she’s like, “We kept the time and whoever can make it comes on Mondays and Thursdays and we meet.” Just having that community of people who are in it with you and are like, “I’ve seen you from when you started this book and you weren’t sure what it was about. And now you’re here and we’re just seeing each other’s process and giving each other support that way.”
It’s just awesome because we don’t get a lot of that in academia. We have to be very intentional about cultivating it. It doesn’t just show up for us.
Being able to provide that space where you have peers so you can be like, “I tried that too, and this is what happened when I tried it. “You know, or, “I went through that experience and I came out and I was, like, ‘I did it, and you could do it too.’”
Jennifer: I did it and you can do it too. Just hearing those two sentences, they’re so short. But, it just makes such a difference, especially to the women and minoritized faculty that you most want to help.
Jane: Yeah. I mean just seeing that. ‘Cause you get into it and you’re like, “I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be done with this book.” (Jane laughs). People definitely have that thought,
“I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to finish this.”
“I’ve been avoiding it.”
“I haven’t been working on my book, because I’ve been scared.”
“I got some feedback that put me into a tailspin.”
“I became overwhelmed with other commitments and I feel some shame about it.
“I feel so embarrassed.”
Jennifer: Hmm.
Jane: And reminding them that it happens. It’s disappointing that it happens, but it doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you. I was normalizing it and seeing when I did one-on-one, one thing that always happened was people would tell me something, I’d be like, “Oh, that’s really common.”
And they’d be like, “It is?”
And I’d be like, “Yeah, I have other clients who have experienced that.”
And they’re like, “They have?”
Jennifer: (Laughs). Yeah
Jane: So being able to put everyone in the group and be like, “Look, you’re all having this experience.” You are not uniquely incompetent in some way. This is something that happens to a lot of people. Just because we aren’t talking about it on Twitter, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Jennifer: You know, I like when it is talked about on Twitter. I like when people talk about their struggles with writing on Twitter. Because I cheer them on. I’m like, “If you struggle with your writing, you get back to it, even if it’s a year later, two years later, 10 years later, I don’t care. Because I will remember that you were vulnerable and open about something you were going through. And I wanna cheer you on and I wanna hear about things when they’re not so good too.” So I really like vulnerability.
I love that people have a safe space to do that in your program. But I also encourage people, if you’re struggling with something, being open about it on social media can help spark new ideas, tools, and resources that you can use. But also new collaborations and ideas that could help spurn your research in another way. I mean, there’s just so much possibility besides hearing from other people, “Yes. I went through that too.” So yeah, I like that idea of being open about it.
Jane: Yeah, to be open about it! You know, it’s interesting. We gravitate to what is other people’s achievements and our failures, right? So, you finish a chapter and you’re like, “Yeah, but it’s not as good as I thought it would be.” Or, “Yeah, but it took me two months longer than I thought it would.” There’s always a diminishing.
Jennifer: Mm.
Jane: And convert on the flip side, they talk about other people who are like, “Well, that person finished their chapter so much faster than I did.” Or, “That person, you know, did this.” And it’s like, well, maybe they did. Maybe you don’t know the whole story. But it’s interesting, in our brains we kind of put everyone else as, “Well, they did it better or faster than I did. And when I did it, it was a mess.” And to coach around that and be like what is the story you are telling about your progress? And, is that story serving you? Because often it’s not. Saying, “I wrote my chapter, but…” And then using some type of diminishing, diminishing it in some way, how is that helping you?
Jennifer: Hmm.
Jane: Why would we emphasize that part of the story? What does it accomplish? It doesn’t accomplish anything besides making you feel like crap. It doesn’t accomplish anything. It doesn’t make you write faster. You can’t go back in time.(Jennifer laughs) You can’t go back in time and write the chapter faster.
Jennifer: Yeah, yeah.
Jane: So why would we talk about it so much? But we do, because sometimes we’re like, “Well, I don’t wanna seem arrogant.” Or, “It’s because I don’t believe that this is worthy of celebrating because it didn’t happen the exact way I wanted it to.” So where are the opportunities to kind of neutralize some of that language, so that people aren’t…
Jennifer: But you can find positives in it, right? Like, maybe that extra time gave you opportunity to realize something new. Maybe it was good that you didn’t write it as fast as you thought you might have been able to. There’s so much self-talk that can be negative that can be harmful for ourselves.
Jane: Yeah, there’s a lot of negative self-talk. Yeah.
Jennifer: Yeah. – I’ve definitely done that. I’m a creative writer and I’ve totally done that to my own. I didn’t write that fast enough or I didn’t write as much as so-and-so, yeah. It’s never helpful. It’s never helpful.
Jane: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like our running critic. And sometimes, it’s something my coach always says, “We can’t always get the critic to completely go away. We can put them in the backseat of the car, and be like, ‘You go back there. You’re not driving this car anymore. You’re not even in the back seat, but, like, the third row.’” (Jennifer laughs) You know, “We’re putting you back there. Like, I recognize that I may not be at a point where I can get rid of you, but I’m not going to give you authority over this ride. You don’t have the wheel. You’re back there.”
Jennifer: Still in the car, right? Can’t kick it out entirely. I mean, sometimes we can’t get control over it.
Jane: Still in the car. Like, you realize, you’re not wrong for having these thoughts. Like, they’re natural. And we’ve also been socialized to believe it’s not rigorous enough. It’s not fast enough. Publish or perish. There’s a lot of socialization at hand that is part of the reason why people have these thoughts.
As a coach it would be irresponsible for me to go in and just be like, “Oh no, you shouldn’t think any of this ever again.” Because as a sociologist, I know how strong the socialization is. As a coach I know that just makes you feel bad about having the thought. Then you feel bad because you didn’t write fast enough according to your standard. Then you feel bad that you’re judging yourself. And then you just feel doubly bad. So it’s like, “Okay, let’s just, like, take it back.”
Jennifer: Get out of that spiral.
Jane: Yeah. Let’s get out of the spiral. And, it’s okay that you had that thought. It’s okay that you feel bad. We don’t want you to feel bad indefinitely.
Jennifer: Hmm. I like that. We don’t want you to feel bad indefinitely.
Jennifer: Tell me more about Elevate. Who should join?
Jane: Everyone. I’m just kidding. (Jane and Jennifer laugh).
Jennifer: You said that people in the cohort are all in a similar place writing their book. When is it right to join your program Elevate?
Jane: Okay, so Elevate is a group editing and coaching program. We have a curriculum that we walk you through the
craft of writing a book
project management behind writing a book
mindset issues behind writing a book.
So much of what slows us down is our own thoughts. Like, “I’m not ready to write this.” “I don’t know what decision to make.” “So and so said this about my chapter, so I’m going to feel bad about it and just ignore it.” “I’m gonna avoid. I don’t wanna look at the feedback, so I’m just gonna avoid it.”
Those are the three domains we work in the craft of writing, project management, and mindset. We do that through a curriculum. We have lessons the same way you would in any course. We have editorial feedback, so you submit your writing for feedback twice a month.
And we have a lot of mindset coaching that I coach people hard, (Jennifer laughs) which I think is what most Elevate alumni would say. Like, “Jane really coaches us. Like, she really pushes us.”
Jennifer: Right.
Jane: I push you in a way that not like, “Write your book faster, write your book faster,” but rather, “Let’s get to the bottom of why you’re having these feelings about your book. Let’s get to it and figure it out,” type of coaching.
Because we’re academics, we’re in our brains so much. When it gets into having emotions, we’re, like, “Oh, no, we’re rational. We can’t really think about that.”
I used to be that person too. Oh, no.(Jennifer laughs) I hate that, all that emotion stuff. That’s not gonna work for me. Well, I kind of need to confront it, because you and your book are gonna be together for a very long time.
Like you were saying, like, as you write it and then after you write it, it’s not going anywhere. You should figure out how to enjoy it. To find pleasure in the process of writing it and be excited about it.
It’s just like any other thing. You’re not gonna be excited about your book 24 hours a day, but you wanna get to a point where you’re more excited and motivated than you are demoralized and stressed.
Jennifer: Hmm, mm-hm.
Jane: In the program, we go 24 weeks. We go through those three themes one by one. People who join, all women, they’re normally at a stage in their book where they are figuring out the big overarching picture of the book and the structure of the book.
Some people come in and they haven’t written a lot yet. They have all of their data collected, most of their literature read. You might need to go back and collect a little bit more data, but, we want you to really be past that stage. Some people come in and they haven’t written a lot.
Some people come in and they’ve written a lot and they’re just like, “I’ve been writing and writing, but I still don’t have a really clear through line,” or, “I still don’t know my argument.” And that’s fine, because people’s processes are different. Some people like to get a lot of words on paper and then go back and kind of orient themselves.
We advocate you creating the foundation first and then building your house. (Jennifer laughs) So people normally come in when they want that support. What we do first is teach people how to write your book overview, how to write your book’s framework and then create an outline for the entire book. And then they start writing chapters.
Normally within the program you can come out with a couple of chapter drafts if you have the time to commit, and you will know what your book is about, how you’re going to write it. You know how it’s going to unfold over time. And then you get to work.
Jennifer: You have a plan in place. You have the mindset that you need to make that plan actually done, like, to get your book done. I love that.
Jane: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: Oh, if people want more support, you help them with that too. Like, beyond writing their book, is that correct?
Jane: We focus on books, but we have an alumni program for Elevate. We don’t expect anyone to write a book in six months. (Jennifer and Jane laugh). That is not what we do. We do not make pie in the sky promises.
We have an alumni program and people often come back and do the alumni program, which is another six months. There we really focus on more now you’ve done a lot of the deep work, the deep thinking in Elevate. Now we are helping you get a lot of words on paper. People are doing the writing and getting the body chapters, I call them ‘the empirical chapters.’ But I know people also have ‘theory chapters,’ so I don’t want anyone to be like, “What about the theory chapter?”
We focus on getting chapters done or revising because some people will take Elevate, go off for a little while and work independently, and then come back and be like, “I have a couple of chapters done.” And we’re like, “Great, let’s start revising them.”
Jennifer: I’m glad I asked you about that because I felt like there might be some people who are like, “Oh, I need a little bit more help than that. Is there an option?” I’m glad that there’s an alumni program that supports you with continuing that process. That’s amazing.
What else should people know or consider about Elevate? Because your new cohort is opening up again soon.
Jane: Yeah, so we accept people who are writing first, second, third books. I think initially when we ran the program, it was very much for people who were transforming dissertations into books. And we have gotten a substantial number of people who are writing second books, which are a different challenge because you don’t have that scaffolding of the dissertation. Even if your first book is dramatically different from the dissertation, which many are, the book is not a revised dissertation. It is like a caterpillar to butterfly.
But the second book just poses different challenges, and we support people who are writing their second book, their third book, because that foundational work of creating the overview, the framework, the outline, you need to do that every time. It’s not like you write the first book and you’re like, “Well I’m an expert on book writing now, so I don’t need any help.” That’s not how it works. (Jennifer laughs). And even experts get support.
So it’s not a matter that it’s a remedial type of program. That’s not what it is. It’s not, for, “Oh the people who don’t know how to write books.” No, it’s for people who wanna write books with supportive community, expert editorial feedback and coaching to help them write the book with less stress, a better support system, a clear foundation for the book. So that they can make progress with more ease.
Writing a book is a complicated thing. It should be because you’re dealing with complicated ideas and all sorts of interesting data. And it’s not easy. But there can be more clarity and momentum in the process than what there currently is for a lot of people.
Jennifer: I think that this is such a wonderful gift that you can give to yourself, especially if this is, like, your second, third, or fourth book. Like, why not make this time easier and better?
Jane: The majority of the people who work with us pay through their universities. We have a significant number of people, and some people pay out of pocket. We have people who are like, “I wanna make this investment because my book’s important to me and I don’t wanna twiddle my thumbs…”
Jennifer: (Laughs). Good. So if you are listening to this, if you’re watching us on YouTube or reading the blog, know that this is a program that’s there to support you and that you can pay for it out of pocket or you can request funds from your university. I hope that you sign up for the wait list.
Jane: You can apply for Elevate. The application is just an application. It’s not a commitment to join the program. We look at your application, because one thing about the program is that we wanna make sure that you’re a good fit for the program.
We also wanna make sure the program’s a good fit for you. If we think that you’re not at the right stage, if there’s something about your research that we feel that we can’t support you…For instance, we had someone who’s writing a memoir and we’re like, “We don’t really edit a lot of memoirs.” If we feel like the program is not a good fit for you, we will tell you because we only want people in it who can commit and who we can help.
That is the point of going in and applying and possibly talking to me about the process if you have a lot of questions, that we wanna make sure that it works for everyone. Because it’s a big commitment. And also, a book is a big deal. If you’re gonna get support, you wanna make sure you’re getting the right support at the right time.
Instagram Live about finding your book audience on social media
Jennifer: I love that. Thank you so much for joining me for this interview, and for everyone listening, I do wanna let you know that Jane and I did an Instagram Live where we talked about your book audience versus platform.
Thank you so much for watching this episode of The Social Academic! And thank you so much, Dr. Jane Jones, for joining me.
Jane Joann Jones is an academic book coach who helps minoritized scholars get the feedback & support they need to confidently write their books. Jane strives to be the coach she wished for when she was on the tenure track.
In her eight years as an editor and coach, Jane has successfully helped dozens of academic authors create and execute a writing plan and ultimately write their books, confidently. Her clients have published with presses including Oxford, Princeton, Bloomsbury, University of Chicago, Stanford, Duke, and UNC. Through her work, Jane has restored minoritized academics’ faith in their writing abilities and their place in the academic world.
When she’s not challenging the status quo in academia, you can find Jane sipping a craft bourbon, on the rocks, while experimenting with a new cooking recipe. She also enjoys visiting museums for only one hour, devouring cooking shows, and impromptu dance parties to the tunes of Lizzo and Queen Bey. If you happen to be strolling through her New York neighborhood, you might see her at Lucille’s, her local café, drinking an oat milk latté with a raspberry donut and a good book.
If you’re writing a book and you want people to read it, watch this. Dr. Jane Jones invited me to talk about how to share your book on social media for academic authors.
Who is your reader? Who’s interested in reading your monograph, edited collection, or academic book? How do you get a bigger audience for your book as an academic? You deserve a stronger online presence for your book. Let’s talk about finding your book’s audience on social media.
