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The Ultimate Guide To Online Teaching
What is Online Teaching?
Online teaching typically refers to courses that are delivered completely online, meaning there are no physical or on-campus class sessions. Online courses can be designed for a handful of enrolled students or can be made open and accessible to a wide variety of participants. Instructors may choose to teach an online course because they want to take their teaching beyond the confines of the physical classroom. Other instructors may choose to do so because they want students to benefit from the online environment. Online teaching gives students unlimited access to resources and the ability to collaborate and connect with each other at any time of day. It also gives educators the ability to teach online classes from home.
Contents
1) Developing and Teaching an Online Course
2) Planning and Designing an Online Course
3) Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Online Teaching
4) Online Assessments
5) 7 Best Practices in Online Teaching
6) ConclusionDeveloping and Teaching an Online Course
Preparing for online teaching is not as simple as taking materials from a traditional course and putting them online. Educators engaging in online teaching for the first time will need to plan their approach thoughtfully, even full-time experienced educators. This starts with identifying learning objectives and then building educational activities to support them. Rather than make wholesale use of course content from previous classes, materials should be repurposed or adapted by taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of online learning environments. Organizing course content into units, with submodules, key concept reviews and unit tests—along with a tailored and consistent content release schedule—will help ensure students remain on track to achieve desired learning outcomes.
Online Curriculum Development
In online teaching, curriculum development is defined as the step-by-step process used to create positive improvements in the courses offered by a school, college or university. As new discoveries are made, they have to be incorporated into the online education curricula. Innovative teaching techniques and effective online teaching strategies are constantly being developed and refined in order to improve the student learning experience.
Current online curriculum models can be divided into two broad categories—the product model and the process model. The product model focuses primarily on results. Grades are the primary objective, with more emphasis placed on achieving desired objectives at the summation of the course rather than on the learning process itself. The process model, however, is more open-ended and focuses on how learning progresses over the course of a semester. Both models are important when it comes to developing a holistic and effective curriculum for online teaching.
There are three types of online curriculum design: subject-centered, learner-centered and problem-centered.
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- Subject-centered curriculum design revolves around a particular subject matter or discipline, such as mathematics, literature or biology. This type of curriculum design tends to focus on the subject matter being taught online, rather than the individual student.
Educators create lists of topics and specific examples of how they should be studied, which are then mapped to the most effective online learning activity or method. This approach is most popular in large university or college classes taught online, where teachers focus on a particular subject or discipline in their classes. - Learner-centered curriculum design prioritizes student needs, interests and goals. It acknowledges that students are individuals and have different learning needs and therefore should not, in all cases, be subject to a standardized curriculum. This approach aims to empower learners to shape their education through choices and relies heavily on asynchronous online teaching and learning. This can be complex for large class sizes and is more suitable for smaller, seminar-style courses.
Differentiated instruction and learning plans provide an opportunity to select assignments, teaching and learning experiences or activities online. This form of curriculum design is highly effective at engaging and motivating students, particularly in online teaching and learning environments by providing students with greater choice and flexibility. However, the drawback to this form of curriculum design is that it can create pressure on the educator to source learning materials online that are highly specific to each student’s personal learning needs. This can be challenging due to teaching time constraints. - Problem-centered curriculum design teaches students how to examine and analyze problems and develop solutions, largely using online simulations. This is considered an authentic form of learning because students are exposed to real-life issues, helping students develop skills that are transferable to the real world.
Problem-centered curriculum design has been shown to increase the relevance of the curriculum and encourages creativity, innovation and collaboration in the online classroom. However, one shortcoming of this format is that it does not always consider individual learning styles and requires a great deal of collaboration between students.
- Subject-centered curriculum design revolves around a particular subject matter or discipline, such as mathematics, literature or biology. This type of curriculum design tends to focus on the subject matter being taught online, rather than the individual student.
By considering all three types of curriculum design before you begin planning, instructors can choose the types that are best suited to their students and the learning objectives for their course.
Planning and Designing an Online Course
Planning for Online Teaching
An important step in bringing your online course to life is the actual implementation. This includes aligning course materials to learning goals and in accordance with your online teaching philosophy. There are a number of things to consider during the decision-making process.
First, it is important to understand the audience for your online course and who will be participating in supporting the delivery of modules, labs and other learning activities. Recognizing that learners may vary widely in their background, knowledge and skills is essential in order to accommodate these differences in your course design. Secondly, it is imperative to have specific learning goals in mind. An effective online pedagogy means carefully considering what you expect your students to know and be able to do at the conclusion of your course. Next, consider the different types of content your course requires. Decide how students will engage with that content and with each other. Also consider which assessment types best support the measurement of learning objectives for your students. Here are a number of helpful methods that can be used to guide the planning and development of your online teaching curriculum.
Backward Design
Backward design is often used in online teaching to design learning experiences and instructional techniques to meet specific learning goals. Backward design begins with identifying the objectives of a unit or course—what students are expected to learn and be able to do—and then working “backwards” to create lessons that achieve those desired goals. In online teaching, the educational goals for a course or unit are often closely aligned with a given institution’s learning standards. These are concisely written descriptions of what learners are expected to understand and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. In the context of online teaching, this includes the expectation that students have mastered certain technology tools and platforms to meet these goals.
There are many benefits to backward design. Starting with the end goal in mind helps educators design a sequence of assessments, readings, course materials and group activities that are more likely to result in learners achieving the academic goals of a given course or unit—that is, actually learning what they were expected to learn.
Beginning the planning process with the end goal in mind is often a counterintuitive process. However, backward design gives educators a structure they can follow when creating their curriculum, as well as planning their instructional process. Using a backward design approach also helps educators better align the different elements of their course by methodically integrating learning goals, activities and assessments at every step.
Managing the Logistics of Online Teaching
Even though planning for an online class may start in a similar way as an on-campus or face-to-face course, there are several important differences that those teaching online should keep in mind. First, it is important to consider how technology will influence the way you conduct your online teaching. If you would like to use an interactive lecture format, you will need to find ways to engage students in an online environment. Chat channels, discussion forums, blog postings and online office hours are a few ways for online teachers to connect with learners. Those engaging in online teaching will also need to consider how the use of virtual classroom technology will impact student learning. Do your students require specific technical knowledge or computer functionality such as a webcam? How will they interact in the online environment? What will you do to make your online classroom inclusive to all students?
When transitioning to online teaching, educators also need to address technical issues. It is important to plan all of your components for an online course before the first day of class. Start early and seek collaboration and support from your colleagues, when possible. Many institutions have Centres for Teaching and Learning with experienced instructional designers who are able to help manage the transition for instructors and their students.
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Online Teaching
Synchronous Online Teaching
Synchronous online teaching occurs in real-time through video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Go-to-Meeting and YouTube Live. When used with an online teaching platform or learning management system, synchronous online teaching allows educators to continue many of the same learning activities found in an in-person classroom. Learners can access lecture slides, respond to interactive questions and engage with discussion threads with their peers.
Delivering online teaching information and presentations in real-time creates a sense of speed and intimacy that helps increase student engagement. This allows educators to respond directly to student questions and discussions, provide feedback and adjust online teaching to ensure students are comprehending course material.
To ensure synchronous online teaching is effective, it is important to have the proper technology tools and platforms in place. Ideally, video conferencing solutions should be used for delivering online lecture content, as well as an active learning platform or learning management system to support assessments, readings, live discussions and interactive questions. With large class sizes, having a remote teaching assistant is especially helpful in alerting instructors to any technical or experiential issues that may occur when using technology tools and platforms. Online teaching assistants can also provide support by responding to discussion threads directly or gathering commonly asked questions requiring further review and clarification.
Similar to a physical classroom, it is important to balance content delivery with interactive learning activities, as well as building in time for review into the lecture schedule. A best practice is for course information to be presented in ten-minute chunks, followed by blocks dedicated for reflection exercises and interactive questions and discussions to keep students engaged.
In the same way that the answers to in-class discussion questions inform how comprehensively course material is covered, it is important to be able to understand where students are struggling. This includes using low stakes quizzes and discussion questions to ensure students are able to achieve online teaching objectives. Synchronous online teaching provides opportunities to apply concepts and collaborate, helping to deepen learning. Real-time interaction is also particularly useful when it comes to delivering complex concepts that require immediate feedback or clarification to keep students on track.
Asynchronous Online Teaching
Asynchronous online teaching uses many of the same technology tools and platforms, with the main difference being student learning is self-paced. With asynchronous online teaching, educators deliver course content and assignments remotely using a combination of solutions like Zoom to record and post lectures online as well as learning management platforms to centralize assignments and other learning resources. Learners interact with digital courseware, assignments and their peers through discussion channels. Asynchronous online teaching is more convenient for students who may have children or other dependents as well as inflexible job hours. As well, not every student can afford or has easy access to the internet. The ability to learn on an individual schedule gives learners the flexibility they need to find time where they can engage with online course material. The benefit of this online teaching method is being able to utilize active learning techniques without the need for participants to be active at the same time.
Asynchronous online teaching is particularly useful when it is difficult for your students to maintain a specific schedule. Accessing materials, readings, assignments, quizzes and lecture recordings in a single place allows students to engage with course material at their own pace. There are many simple ways to drive engagement even if much of the learning is self-directed, such as using discussion forums, integrating questions into assigned readings to test comprehension and using multimedia elements like video to dimensionalize learning. Asynchronous online teaching also provides the opportunity to promote peer collaboration, creating specific assignments that require students to work with one another or review others’ work outside the confines of a class schedule.
Asynchronous learning requires online educators to take time to revisit learning objectives for the semester. Identifying whether there are components that can be recorded for students to view on their own schedule versus what information should be delivered live or asynchronously is an integral part of the design process. Giving thought to where students can access readings, lecture materials, assignments and instructions can help develop a more effective learning plan and identify any potential gaps that may exist in course instruction.
Without the benefit of live interaction, it’s especially important to communicate expectations and reminders and address student questions in a timely fashion. Regular, helpful and empathetic communication is an essential tool for reducing the apathy and sense of isolation many students feel when learning remotely.
Online Assessments
When teaching online courses, there are two primary types of assessments: open-book tests and remotely proctored exams. There are a number of benefits to each, but the effectiveness of both is determined by how well they are designed and implemented into online teaching.
Remote Open-Book Exams
Online teaching provides the opportunity to look at different options beyond the traditional summative assessment. Open-book exams offer a great deal of flexibility, making it an ideal option for instructors or institutions that rely on asynchronous learning.
An open-book assessment that is strategically designed provides interesting opportunities to test skills beyond rote memorization, such as problem-solving and critical thinking. Open-book exams are especially effective when they focus on using synthesis, analysis and evaluation to assess what students know, according to the Center for Teaching at Learning at UC Berkeley. The ability to intersperse questions with digital reference materials like images, video and audio clips also allow for more creativity and freedom when constructing an exam in relation to traditional in-class tests.
Developing interactive digital documents with pictures and videos embedded alongside test questions creates a more dynamic assessment experience for students. Using multimedia and other reference content allows learners to discuss and assess opinions given to them within the assessment or analyze a diagram and its findings. Depending on the learning platform, open-book assessments can also include a variety of different question types, including matching, sorting, fill-in-the-blank, long-form answer and click-on-target (with multiple targets) questions.
Proctored Tests and Exams
In many cases, such as courses required for accreditation, open-book assessments are simply not an option. In these instances, there are a number of platforms that offer secure proctored tests and exams. Students can take on their own computers, at a pre-set time and from any location. Advanced ID verification, the ability to secure browser settings and the use of artificial intelligence to monitor students have helped assuage concerns over academic integrity.
Using a variety of question types—multiple choice, word answer, fill in the blank, matching and long answer—instructors can provide students with an assessment that tests their knowledge as well as their analysis and communication skills. For these types of assessments, student performance can be automatically graded upon submission, making the turnaround time for student feedback much faster than manual grading.
7 Best Practices in Online Teaching
1) Bring who you are into the online classroom: One of the key benefits of traditional, face-to-face teaching is being able to share your passion with your students. Many educators use the performative aspect of teaching to their advantage, feeding off the energy in the classroom to deliver their lectures. However, it is easy for unique teaching characteristics—humor, emphasis, body language, facial expressions—to get lost in translation when a student can’t see or hear you. The predominant means of online communication is text, which can quickly become demotivating and uninteresting for students. It is necessary and inevitable that some components of your online course will be delivered through written communications. Assignment instructions, emails to students and weekly course-wide announcements can all be tailored to your unique voice and style:
- Record yourself: audio or video recordings are a great way to bring your whole self to your students in addition to lecture videos (if you choose to use this functionality). Students need to know you in order to engage in learning online and showing them that you are human with a short video greeting at the beginning of your course is a great way to set the right tone.
- Express your support: It’s important to infuse your writing with warmth when teaching online classes. As digital natives, Gen Z students are highly adept at sensing the tone of written digital communications. When reminding students about upcoming assignment deadlines, for example, don’t write, “A number of you have not completed the readings necessary for the assignment due later this week. Please note that the assignment is worth 40% of your grade.” Instead, write “Thanks for your hard work so far this semester. Small reminder to complete the specified readings before you start this week’s assignment. Please let me know what questions you have or if you need any help. Thanks all!”
2) Be present and responsive on your online course site: Your presence is so important in teaching online college courses because it encourages bonding as the class evolves as a group and develops intellectual and personal connections. Thoughtful and consistent daily presence shows the students that the online educator cares about them and their questions and concerns, even if they are a part-time educator and busy with other responsibilities. It also shows that you are generally present for them to do the mentoring, guiding and challenging that online teaching is all about. Schedule a few hours of time each week to be visibly engaged and present in your online class. Here are a few ways to interact with your students:
- Hold online office hours or virtual ‘coffee chats,’ to get to know your students on a more personal level.
- Answer questions regularly in your course’s online discussion forum.
- Post a weekly announcement to recap the previous week’s learnings or introduce the coming week’s content.
3) Use a variety of large-group, small-group and individual learning experiences: Online teaching works best when a variety of learning experiences and activities are offered. Online courses are more enjoyable and effective when learners are given the opportunity to work through course concepts and assignments with their fellow students. However, some students learn and work most effectively on their own. Incorporating options and opportunities for students to work together and individually is beneficial for accommodating different types of learners. Small groups are particularly effective in online teaching when learners are working on complex case studies or scenarios for the first time. It is also important to have activities that involve the whole class such as discussion boards or events with invited experts for creating a sense of community in an online course.
4) Ask for informal feedback on your online teaching: Early surveys or informal discussions are effective in getting students to provide feedback on what is working well in an online course. It is also a chance to solicit suggestions and ideas on what might help learners have a better online course experience. This early feedback should be done in week three or four of a semester so time is available to make corrections and modifications while the course is ongoing. A simple e-mail or discussion thread asking a few of these questions works well:
- What’s working so far?
- How could your online learning experience be improved?
- What would you like help with?
5) Think like a student: Teaching online means that the learning environment loses the built-in sense of community that comes more naturally to a traditional classroom environment. This can lead to feelings of isolation and disengagement and demands a different kind of support than teaching in person.
Envisioning how your students will experience the class, having never learned this content before, helps prepare for these potential challenges. Did you give straightforward instructions for your extension policy? Have you supplied a detailed breakdown of how assignments will be graded? Are learning objectives and curriculum objectives explicitly tied to online teaching and learning activities? Students should ideally understand exactly what you are teaching online and what is expected of them as a result. Being intentional about course design is essential to ensuring students interact with course content the way that instructors intend. Here are a few ways to create a sense of community in the classroom:
- Use a discussion board thread to have students share tidbits about their interests inside and outside of the classroom
- Ask students to post pictures of their pets or what they’ve been watching on television (and be sure to share as well!)
- Play music at the beginning of each lecture video
6) Organize your content logically: When teaching online, the design and sequence of content and learning activities must be methodical, intuitive and systematic. Help students move through content and learning activities easily, so that their attention remains focused on learning the material. If they are required to leave a lecture module and use another drop-down menu or folder to watch a required video, that can be distracting—or frustrating if it’s complicated to find. When students use a lot of cognitive resources just trying to figure out where to go to access resources, they have less mental energy left for learning the content itself. This can be a bigger challenge for students who are already unmotivated in the first place. Instead, try to order materials and activities in a sequence that is straightforward and easy to navigate for students.
7) Ground online teaching in reality: A variety of examples and explanations can help learners grasp course concepts in a way that makes the most sense to them. Examples are perhaps even more crucial in online teaching, since students don’t always have the opportunity to ideate with instructors or peers in the moment to clarify a course concept or missed detail. Online learners benefit from multiple explanations of difficult concepts and being prescriptive when it comes to the kind of work you want to see. Modelling behaviors is a good way to lead by example. For instance, use a friendly yet professional tone when writing discussion posts and assignment instructions. Demonstrate respect for diverse opinions and respect differences in learning. When you show students what you expect, they are likely to be more confident in their ability to make online learning successful. This positively impacts their motivation to engage meaningfully with course concepts, and participate in learning activities.
Conclusion
Online teaching can be quite different than teaching in a classroom. Teaching online requires specific competencies and skills associated with effective online course delivery and facilitation. However, it is clear that the ability to teach effectively in online environments is becoming more of a necessity than a nice-to-have in the higher education space. The good news is that there are many resources available as well as tools and platforms to support educators in making this shift. By combining the power of experience with the right technology, instructors can pivot their teaching practices online, increasing flexibility for students and accommodating the diverse needs of today’s learners.
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Dr. Carlotta Berry on Diversity in STEM and Online Presence
Electrical and Computer Engineering and Robotics Professor, Dr. Carlotta Berry knows her online presence can fit as many of her identities as needed to support her goals to “diversify STEM by being a STEM communicator.” And, to share her black STEM romance books and her children’s book There’s A Robot! Series with the world.
In this featured interview, we talk about what it’s like to be a professor with an extensive online presence with profiles on many platforms and multiple websites. Dr. Berry knows that when she shows up online, when she creates strong black women characters for her books who care about STEM, she helps create “what I really wanted to see when I was an engineering student: was Black women professors in engineering.” We also talk about writing her Black STEM romance books, Elevated Inferno and Breaking Point: Chandler’s Choice and what it’s like to be a professor and an author online. Read her bio.
Meet Dr. Carlotta Berry
Jennifer: Hi everyone, it is Jennifer van Alstyne from The Social Academic podcast where we talk about managing your online presence in academia. Today, I have a featured interview guest I’m so excited about because I’ve been planning this interview for, to be honest, over a year.
Dr. Berry, I’m delighted to have you on The Social Academic podcast. Would you please introduce yourself for people?
Carlotta: Absolutely, my name is Carlotta Berry, PhD and I’m a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Robotics. I’m also the owner of NoireSTEMinist Educational Consulting, a company that I started during the 2020 pandemic. My area of research is robotics and controls. The theme for my company is ‘my STEM is for the streets,’ and my goal is to use robotics to diversify STEM by being a STEM communicator and having a strong presence online and also by doing speaking and writing books and making GIFs and doing lots of things in order to amplify the importance of diversity in STEM and robotics.
Jennifer: The first time I saw you online was a post that you were sharing on Twitter about robotics. It was so visually engaging for me. I was like, “Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to see more from this professor,” even though I don’t know anything about robotics personally. Just having that visual, just seeing who you were as a person made a difference for me.
I’m curious like, what prompted you to get on social media and to create an online presence for yourself?
Carlotta: I’m gonna tell you, the pandemic was a crazy place. So my initial beginning to social media was actually back in 2013. I had gone to a women’s leadership conference and Paul Carrick Brunson spoke. Paul Carrick Brunson was a famous guy who was a matchmaker actually. And he had gotten famous because he was on Oprah Winfrey. And he came and spoke to this room full of women engineering academics who were all professors. And he said, “I went and looked for the clout score for most of you and most of you’re at zero.” And basically what that means is that we did not have any kind of online presence. And he was saying, “If you’re gonna be the thought leaders of tomorrow, you have to understand that your work has to impact people beyond the ivory tower, beyond conferences, beyond paywall journals.” At that time, I started my social media. I think I just started a Twitter account around 2013, but I never really did anything with it.
Then in 2020, thank God, I got approved to go on sabbatical right before the pandemic struck. So I was going on sabbatical anyway. And once we were all home all day and you can only do but so much, I started playing on social media.
What I realized is that every time I was posting something, I think I had maybe like a thousand followers or maybe 2,000 in 2020, even after seven years on social media, and it just started growing and people loved when I put engineering and robotics quizzes. They’d be like, “I don’t know what any of this is, but put another one.” And I thought it was so crazy.
I like to call 2020 my Jerry McGuire moment. It’s like the beginning of Jerry McGuire. He talks about, “I want to be a agent but I want to learn to be a sports agent in a new way.” And my Jerry McGuire moment was, “If I really wanna diversify STEM and the thing I really wanted to see when I was an engineering student was Black women professors in engineering, then how can I increase my visibility for other people and not for me?”
And social media is great. My STEM is for the Streets. Where more are the streets than social media? So I started on Twitter, and the way I ended up other places beyond Twitter, ’cause Twitter really was my pocket because I didn’t really understand social media. I still don’t understand Instagram. No clue how Instagram works.
A parent said to me, “My daughter is a teenager and she is really into STEM. You gotta go where they are. You gotta get over on TikTok.” And I was like, “Ugh.” You know, ’cause TikTok has kind of a bad rap. I went on TikTok and I wanna say within one year, I had gotten the same number of followers that I got on Twitter after 10 years.
Jennifer: Amazing.
Carlotta: TikTok is the jam.
Jennifer: We’re drawn to you. And TikTok allowed more people to see you probably than anything like Twitter or even Instagram with its more limited kind of reach to people. Oh, they were just waiting for you.
Carlotta: They were, I mean, it’s a total different kind of dynamic. So I can truly say that Twitter and TikTok are really where my pocket is. Everyone else is just kind of there. And that all came from, I went to a branding workshop about a year or so ago and I don’t remember her name unfortunately but she said, “You need to make sure that you at least park your name on any platform that you may eventually have some impact on. Because the worst thing you want to happen is that your brand grows and then somebody else takes your username because you never parked it and they do something inappropriate with it.” And so that’s kind of how I ended up with the same username on all these different platforms even if they don’t get as much attention as that one. Because I remember her saying that like, I have a NoireSTEMinist.com website. She’s like, “You need to have a website with your name.” So I now have a pointer from my name to that website, and that just came from that advice from that woman.
Jennifer: Oh, I love that. So it sounds like having an online presence was something that you wanted to be able to reach people in the streets, to be able to reach people. But it was also something that you realized was valuable for yourself as a researcher, as a professor, and just as a person, like a human being. It sounds like that, almost like that comment from the family member of the high school student.
Carlotta: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: How you realize that there were a ton of people waiting to hear from you, that were younger.
Carlotta: If you build it, they will come. But you have to build it in the right place, right? So I had to go where they are, you know. They now think Twitter and Facebook and maybe even Instagram to a certain extent are a little bit, you know, still and crusty. Which is interesting because when I first started teaching my students, Facebook was the place to be. Then probably 2013 or so, it was Twitter. I don’t know when Instagram was hot. Some of my students are on Instagram still, but now some of them are also on TikTok. So it’s just interesting.
I do do a lot of cross-posting and cross-pollinating just so that I can have maximum impact. But like I said, I’m trying to invest mostly in now Instagram and TikTok because we’re just not sure how much longer Twitter’s gonna be here.
Trolling, racism, and responding to hate on social media
Jennifer: I hear that. Now let me ask, it sounds like you’re on a lot of platforms, which one do you like personally enjoy the most?
Carlotta: Crazy as it may sound is still Twitter.
Jennifer: Oh! Okay.
Carlotta: Yeah. Despite the fact that they still have a lot more trolling, a lot more ads, a lot more racist. I actually get the trolling being a Black woman in STEM, having a PhD in my bio, I have probably been trolled on all, actually all of the platforms for someone questioning my credentials, talking about affirmative action, diversity hires and all that. It even happened on LinkedIn as crazy as that may sound.
None of them are safe, but I think Twitter is probably the worst for that. Where you know they just wanna come in and question you, like, are you really a doctor? And I tell them, “Yeah. Maybe I did get my degree from affirmative action, but I have it. Do you have one?” Yeah, because they kind of expect you to get defensive like, “Oh my God, somebody gave you a chance, so you don’t deserve it.” I got a chance and my mama did not have to cut my face on a lacrosse crew captain to do it, you know? So I mean, you know, you just have to get them.
I probably get more of that on Twitter than any other platform. But I like to say I’m a troll take down queen.
My vision for trolls is I’m going to keep going at you until I make you block me. So far I’m batting 1000 and have been since 2020. pic.twitter.com/TTkJIeNBnw
— Dr. Carlotta Berry, PhD #NoireSTEMinist® 👩🏾🎓🤖 (@DrCABerry) August 26, 2022
“I’m a troll take down queen.“
Jennifer: You’re a troll take down queen. I love that. What do you do to take down trolls? What do you do to protect yourself in this situation?
Carlotta: What they want you to do is to get upset, and they also want you to block them and run and hide. And depending on if I have a deadline, like I had one when I’m on deadline, like if I have papers due or I got grading to do, I got to get ready for class, I do block them and move on.
If I have a little bit of time in my day, I will GIF and meme the teeth out of you. And a lot of times they block me first. And at that point I’m like, “Troll 101, baby. You blocked me.” But yeah.
Jennifer: Interesting!
Carlotta: And then I noticed that once I start coming back at them, I’ll start getting comments like, “But you’re a professor. What kind of professor acts like this? How do you think your school would feel? How do you think your boss would feel they knew?”
Okay, first of all, I am tenured, and I am a full professor, but a lot of my colleagues follow me on social media as well as my school follows me. So if you are so concerned, feel free to do that.
I had someone on TikTok also threatened to screenshot a video or something and send it to my school. I don’t believe there’s anything I do that anybody at my university really cares about.
But if you think that that’s going to scare me out of responding to your ignorance, then you got another think coming.
Jennifer: Yeah, professors are reported all the time for things that happen on social media, even in person that are recorded on video and their universities often are like, “Thanks for sending that to us.” And then they don’t really do anything with it the vast majority of the time.
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve gotten so many threats, especially reporting to your employer. I really like your response. It actually sounds like you approach responding to them from a very empowered place of knowing yourself, knowing who your real friends are, and who your real supporters are.
Carlotta: Absolutely.
Jennifer: That is beautiful. Thanks for sharing that with me.
Carlotta: Thank you, I was gonna also say, you know, lemme tell you, when I knew reporting doesn’t do anything: there was a guy at a university and I cannot remember where it was anymore, but he was just tweeting things like, ‘this is why women shouldn’t be in STEM’ and ‘women shouldn’t be in the science classroom because they are not smart enough’ and all of that.
He was saying some horrible misogynistic things about women in STEM and all of these women scientists and engineers like me underneath were tagging the university, reporting him to the university, et cetera.
Eventually the university released a statement, “We are aware of the statements of one of our adjunct or endowed or emeritus professors. We have heard you. We’ve gotten the comments. He’s done this for years. You always report. However, we wanna make it clear he’s emeritus and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
I’m sitting here like, “If this white guy can go on here saying all kind of misogynistic stuff and nothing can happen? Then the fact that me promoting diversity in STEM is bothering somebody, then I know nothing’s gonna happen from that.”
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Prefer to watch videos? Subscribe on YouTube.On having multiple profiles and websites
Jennifer: Hmm. So you have all of these profiles, it sounds like you’ve got trolled on every platform that you’ve been on. What prompted you to have so many profiles for different things? I get that you went to the branding workshop, but you don’t just have your name, you have NoireSTEMinist, and I think you have Carlotta Ardell. Is that right?
Carlotta: I do, I do. Yes, so what happened was also during the pandemic, not only did I launch my company, but I also started writing Black STEM romance novels.
I just started brainstorming all the different ways to normalizing Black, oh, thank you, Black women in STEM, Black women in engineering. And my mentor, my writing mentor, ’cause it was not an easy transition from technical engineering journal type writing to fictional writing, understanding view, understanding visual writing and all of that. And my writing mentor was like, “I think your messages are getting crossed up. I know everything relates back to your primary, but you don’t want your romance books getting mixed up with your technical papers. You don’t want people going to learn about your books and they’re on your professor site.”
That was her recommendation, to disconnect the two. And so that’s why I came up with a pen name Carlotta Ardell, which is my middle name, so that if you search on that, only the romance books come up. But if you search on my surname, then my textbook will come up or my journal papers that come up, et cetera.
Then that just immediately transitioned to, you need to have dedicated websites, channels, et cetera for book stuff. So I’m not always the best at it and I do most of the managing of my stuff, which is why I’m crazy most of the time. But I do try to dedicate, if at all possible, the Carlotta Ardell stuff to the Black STEM romance, NoireSTEMinist to the STEMy stuff, the educator stuff, and then my others like my personal Twitter or my personal Instagram. I’m liable to say anything on that one. But I’m not always best about doing that.
But I also had to at some point realize I can’t do it all. And so I do have a virtual assistant and she does a little bit of the managing for me, not that much, but she helps a little bit with content creation.
“Canva has been a game changer, designing things in Canva and automating posts in Canva.“
But Canva has been a game changer, designing things in Canva and automating posts in Canva. Even though I know it’s frowned upon and a lot of people don’t, I like it. AI art has also been a game changer for me because it’s very, very difficult to find little Black girls building robots, little Black girls doing electronics, Black women in research labs.
I’m able to en mass create the vision for the world that I want to see. And through that media, I was able to get an Afro-futurism talk at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. So because I started generating this content of little Black girls and brown girls being androids and playing with robots, I got the Afro-futurism talk.
Even though I’ve gotten trolled about my AI art as well, it has already led to some opportunities for me.
Making her own GIFS as a professor
Carlotta: But yeah, so the GIFs was the same thing. The GIFS came about also 20, I’m telling you 2020 and 2021, the pandemic sabbatical year was crazy. I hated that whenever I wanted to make a reaction to somebody’s post, I would have to scroll forever to find Black teacher, Black woman engineer, Black STEM, Black professor, Black woman laughing, there were like three or four people.
So that’s why I really started making the GIFs because I could never find GIFs that represented me. And so that’s where that came from. And I don’t do it so much anymore, but I have found that some of them have become relatively popular. Like there’s a frustration one that I made that is like extremely popular. People will sometimes DM me a message if somebody used my meme or my GIF in a response. They’d be like, “Look, this person used one of yours.”
Jennifer: That’s great. When you first created your GIFs, did you have that kind of idea or notion that a lot of people would then be using them? You created them for yourself, it felt like personal, but like now other people are using them. What are your thoughts on that?
Carlotta: A hundred percent I did not. It was completely for me. In fact I was on Twitter venting like, where are the GIFs for people who look like me? Where are the GIFs for people that act like me? Where are my GIFs? And it’s been a few times I’ve tweeted something and somebody reached out to me, and I think GIPHY may have responded or GIPHY identity responded. I think GIPHY identity must be maybe their diverse voices channel. And I think they responded and said something make a GIPHY channel and make your GIFs.
I honestly did not know it was that easy. I mean, I already make videos in Canva. I already make videos for my class in Camtasia. Making a GIF really is as easy as having a picture or a video converting it to a GIF and uploading it to that website. I mean, it’s so easy and I don’t think people realized that. And so once I did it, there were a couple of people who reached out and was like, “Can you make me one?” So if you look at my GIPHY channel, there’s probably about three or four other Black women in STEM on there. ‘Cause I don’t think anybody realized how simple it was. But it was me venting in a tweet where somebody responded and was like, “You know, anybody can do this. You just have to make a Giphy channel and get it approved.” Really? I mean, that easy outta debt that done it years ago. Who knew?
Jennifer: It sounds like a lot. So you’ve made your own GIFs in the past, you have all of these channels, you’ve got the websites, you do have some support with your assistant, which is amazing.
Leaving Spill, and considering other social media platforms
Jennifer: But before we started recording, you actually said like it feels messy. Like it feels like a lot. And so I’m curious, like what’s something like a decision that you’ve made for your online presence that you probably wouldn’t make again, you like, wouldn’t repeat it, or wish you could take it back?
Carlotta: I think when people kept saying Twitter was dying and there was a mad rush to other platforms, I probably would’ve slowed down because now that I’ve opened them up, I probably feel kind of obligated to maintain them even though I don’t post a lot. Like I made a post news site. My post news site may have like five things on it. I made a Bluesky site. My Bluesky may have like five or 10 on it. I got on Mastodon. Mastodon is kind of a different kind of place. The format is kind of different. It’s kind of weird. And I have a Spoutible.
But to be honest, if I would’ve just slowed down and been like, everybody’s making a mad rush for the doors on Twitter, I’m not going, I probably would’ve made them.
One thing I made and I did reverse this decision, I made a Spill. Spill was the one that was invitation only and they sent out the little codes and pretty early on, I got a Spill invitation and I went on there. And what I did not like is Spill is visual. It’s more you post images than words.
I was over there sharing some of the same kind of content that I share everywhere ’cause you know, my brand doesn’t change just because I changed platforms. And I started becoming, they were like, “You’re trolling the timeline. You’re spamming the timeline. You don’t engage right. You’re not doing it right.” And for the first time ever, I deleted myself off of a social media account because I felt Spill was a little bit too judgy.
And I’m like, if I’m gonna be criticized, critiqued, and judged, I can go read my course evaluations at work. And you know, in my time of relaxation, I don’t get on social media to be critiqued and criticized about how I do it.
You know, when a troll does it on Twitter, I just slam ’em down. But when I did it on Spill, you know, this person’s saying stuff like “I’m trying to educate her,” “I’m trying to tell her.” And then other people started popping in like, “Well, she just doesn’t know.”
I said, “Well, I know what I am gonna know. I’m about to delete this. That’s what I am gonna know.” And I actually contacted Spill on Twitter and said, “I don’t think you’re ever gonna be successful because you’re letting the members of your community police the way people engage.” And if you don’t want people here, just say you don’t want people here. I thought the whole goal for a social media community was to build community. And I was just like, it was just so negative.
But similarly with Mastodon, I could post the same engineering professor quizzes and engineering STEM content that I put on Twitter or somewhere else and people will engage or just click on things and be like, “I have no clue.”
On Mastodon, I have people coming underneath and trying to, well, actually this is what your question should say or well, actually this is how we, almost every time, and I’m like. So it’s kind of like, interesting to me how you can post the same thing in multiple places and get completely different reactions. Mastodon is not so negative that I’m going to leave it necessarily.
I just think it’s a little irritating that they have a bunch of elite type of intellectuals over there. Some of them who want to constantly try to tell you how to do things like, “I’m not sure that was the correctly framed question and that your multiple choice options are the best ones.”
This is for fun, honey. And to introduce people to STEM. This ain’t my classroom and you are not a peer reviewer. Get over yourself.
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Jennifer: Tell me a little bit about NoireSTEMinist and who it’s supporting. I’d love to hear more about your business.
Carlotta: The business was started because, also during the pandemic, is once my social media presence exploded, I started getting contacted and pinged a lot for speaking engagements. I didn’t mind doing the first couple of talks, ’cause academics and professors, we speak for free all the time at conferences, on panels.
But I started having people asking me to speak in person and online to events that might be 500+ people. Sometimes at events, they were charging people to attend but had no budget for the speaker. Or, they had money to fly me there, but nothing to pay me for preparing my slides, leaving my classes, and wanted to share the slides and the recording after I left.
Okay, I’m now giving you my pearls. I’m giving you my intellectual labor.
It took me six years to get this PhD. You count that plus the 13 years of K through 12, that is like 19 or 20 years of education that you’re now asking for for free.
That was my original motivation for starting my business. I had to find a way to monetize my intellectual property because people will use you up dry if you let them.
Now, I do most of my free labor through the organizations. I help co-found: Black in Engineering and Black in Robotics. We do robotics workshops for low cost or no cost for people in the community.
I also do STEM workshops and webinars for adults and kids through my business. I do speaking engagements through my business and I’m also currently the visiting scientist at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. So I do STEM activities for them as well.
NoireSTEMinist is now taking her work to the streets. And so I take things that I give my students for their high price tuition and my salary and I scale them down into bite-sized chunks for anybody who wants to get or know a little bit more about STEM.
Jennifer: I love that it’s like your business is enabling you to actually help more people for free by allowing you to produce more content, reach more audiences and having a way to like monetize that so it can continue to do so in the future. I love it.
Carlotta: My business is me, right? So NoireSTEMinist is me. So basically, my business is me doing what I was doing for free and doing what I normally do anyway, but now setting it up into a model where I can ideally start making money in my sleep and leave a legacy for my daughter. And that was the main difference, yes.
Writing Black STEM romance novels
Jennifer: That’s amazing. Oh, that felt really powerful. Thank you for sharing that with me. Oh, okay. So who should definitely be reading these books? Because your books are awesome. When I read this, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this character is just so strong.” And someone who thinks about herself first in a beautiful way because she cares about her education, because she cares about her family, ’cause she values herself.
I’m curious. Tell me more about the books. Tell me about being an author online while having like these multiple identities and multiple hats. Cause it’s all you, right?
Carlotta: Absolutely.
Yeah, the intersectionality, when I became a full professor, I gave a full presentation on the intersectional identities of being a Black woman in STEM, being a mother, being a Black person, being a woman, loving romance novels, loving to cross stitch and saying, “Why can’t these all intersect in that ball of being multidisciplinary, intersectional, interdisciplinary?”
So where this started is that during the pandemic as well, I was chatting with a couple of my colleagues in Black in Engineering, all Black women engineering professors, and we always talk about that MacGyver and Dilbert and Sheldon get all the STEM love online.
“How can we devise a way to start getting more Black women in STEM marketed correctly?“
And so we were like TV shows, comedy series, web series, web comics, and we had just thought maybe we start with books, get those to a certain point and then try to mark it out.
But it was really all about marketing. The romance came later. Originally, and we were called the Catalyst Chronicles Crew. Then the pandemic started to end and we started to go back to work and it became very difficult.
But I didn’t wanna give it up. I now had this social media presence. I had already started honing this fictional writing skill. And the first book, Elevated Inferno was actually birthed out of Instagram of all places. That was a young lady who got stuck in an elevator and it went viral because she was recording her experience. And when the doors opened, there was this gorgeous firefighter there. Of course, everybody’s like, “Ah, love interest. Love interest, love connection!”
And it went viral.
Then, he creates a Instagram account. He didn’t even have one. He said his sister contacted him and said, “do you know you’re going viral on Instagram right now because of you rescuing that young lady in the elevator?”
So he comes on and goes, “I wanted to create an Instagram account and say thank you for everyone and for all the love, and I’m married and have a son.”
I thought it was so hilarious. And so I told my friend, I said, “Okay, I know what my first book’s gonna be. I wanna use this story for my first book except he’s not gonna be married with a child.” And so that was where it was birthed.
I always knew all the women were gonna have some relationship to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). And I want all of them to have some kind of meet cute, kind of crazy way to meet. Because I want it to be romance first, but I want the STEM to be injected in a way so that someone doesn’t feel like they’re being preached to, doesn’t feel so high level, they can’t follow or understand it.
The greatest compliment I have gotten is from people who’ve said, “I don’t read romance, I don’t like romance novels, and I’m not a STEM person, but I liked your book” because that means I hit on the right note.
Because I’m the sneak attack, right? I’m proselytizing the STEM in such a way you don’t even know it hits you. You finish the book and you’re like, “Did they STEM me?”
Jennifer: I love it, well, I’m not in STEM. I’m a poet. I’m not a fiction writer. But I love romance novels and I loved your book. So pick up your copy of Elevated Inferno.
Carlotta: Thank you, and because I’m an engineer and my students have found my books, even with a different name as well as some of my colleagues at engineering conferences, they are appropriate for teenagers.
I’ve had colleagues and students talk about, are they the nasty books? You know, this is not 60 degrees of gray or whatever it’s called. These are your high school run of the mill 16+ romance novels.
We fade to black. We make, you know, we allude to the scenes because I’m an engineer and an academic and a professor and my students have found and do read my books. I can’t be talking to them in front of class if, you know, they just done finished reading steam and steamy.
Jennifer: Oh, I love that. Well, I was a writer and went to school for writing. And so a lot of my professors wrote some steamy scenes in their books and it was always a little awkward. That’s very thoughtful of you.
Carlotta: Right.
Jennifer: Let me ask what should people know about Breaking Point: Chandler’s Choice? I wanna know about this book as well.
Carlotta: Book two is Moses. Moses was actually in book one. He helped Reese connect with Monet on social media in book one. And book two is all about Moses, who’s a womanizer and a player. And Chandler is a nursing student. So she’s serious about her business. She lost her father some years ago and had a little bit of a detour but she’s on the right track. She’s getting her degree. She’s about her business. And Moses gives off straight player vibes when she meets him. And she’s like, “Uh-uh. I’m not even trying to go there with him.”
He’s a player, but he’s persistent. So eventually, she relents, gives him her number and they start dating. And she tells him, I just don’t have time. I don’t have time for any foolishness. So if we’re gonna date, I wanna be in a situationship. You know, I’m not even gonna put myself out there like that. We know from the very beginning, we are just having a summer fling. We’re flinging it. It’s all good. But he’s great, you know. He’s a great guy.
Even though he’s a player, he’s not a dog. So they have a great summer. And at the end of the summer she goes, “I wanna try this for real. I wanna stop playing at dating and I want to date date.”
And he’s just like, “Uh-uh, you knew what this was.” He wasn’t ready. And so they have a horrible, horrible breakup. It gets really, really ugly. And Chandler walks away. And Moses goes, “Wait a minute. I like her, but she’s gone. She’s gone.”
I don’t wanna give the whole book away, but she goes on with her life. She makes some decisions and does some things in her life. And then some years later, he gets in a motorcycle accident. She’s now a visiting nurse. She does like concierge nursing and he ends up being her nurse. He’s bedridden ’cause he’s broken his leg all the way completely. And so that’s how they come back together. That’s where ‘Breaking Point’ comes from. She reached her breaking point when he couldn’t settle down with her. He reaches his breaking point when he breaks his leg and she comes back into his life.
Jennifer: I love it. I mean, I think you gave a little bit away about the book, but the kind of stuff that’s like making everyone gonna wanna read it. I love it.
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Jennifer: Tell me a little bit about the covers. I know, I think I remember that I saw you used AI art for the covers because–
Carlotta: I did not. So that’s one of my challenges. I know you know I do presentations on bias and AI, bias in STEM, bias in robotics. I have one next week. So because of that, I use AI art for marketing, but I don’t use AI, yeah, I don’t use AI art for anything that I want to copyright and sell because you don’t really know what the engine for the AI art is. You don’t really know how it’s being used.
I don’t wanna accidentally ever try to market or sell something that’s somebody else’s work.
So on my website, I think any of the AI art, a lot of it I generate is like 50 cents or a dollar, just whatever the work took for me to put it up. I use real stock photos for the book covers and then I hire somebody to put them together.
The first one my brother did, ’cause he’s a graphic artist. The second one is a stock photos and I just had somebody put it together.
That’s actually one of the challenges I’m currently having ’cause I also have a children’s book series [There’s A Robot! Series] that I’m working on getting out the summer.
And I don’t want AI art for it, but because my stuff is so very specific, it’s very hard to find stock photos of little kids, Black and brown little kids, building robots, playing with robots, et cetera. It’s just not a lot of them.
So I don’t wanna do AI art, but I gotta find an artist who’s reasonably priced ’cause I’m an independent author and publisher. I don’t have an agent who I can pay to bring my visions to life.
I don’t mind using the AI art for stuff on social media and showing it off. But all of my books need to have either real artists or real stock photos and stuff.
Book three is actually written as well. I’m hoping to get it out this summer. I’m just so crazy busy. I need to get it edited right now. But yeah, this book, I’ve now, because I have a writing mentor, I’ve gone from pandemic taking a year to get a book written.
“I can now write a book in about 35 days and then it takes another two or three months to do the editing, which is where I am right now.“
Jennifer: My mind is blown. That is some work, wow.
Carlotta: Yeah, I just, it’s hard work, but because I’m a professor and busy, I have to get the idea and get it out like that or it won’t get done.
It took so long the first time because I just didn’t know the mechanics of writing. I didn’t know how fictional book writing, I didn’t know how to lay a book out. I didn’t know about changing perspective. And if you notice my books have the male, female thing now, the second one, I just didn’t know how to do that. And so learning a lot of those things really helped me go faster. The editing is what’s slowing me down right now ’cause when I go back to work, it’s all about the students, you know.
Wikipedia and how to connect with Dr. Carlotta Berry
Jennifer: What’s it like to talk about your book online? Do people from your university like, know that you write these books? I’m curious about what it’s like to embrace both of those identities at the same time.
Carlotta: They do, and I love it. I actually, because I was on NPR a couple of weeks ago, one of the young ladies at my school, her parents heard my interview, bought her the books, shipped them to her at school, and she came to my office and had me sign them. And I think it’s really an honor. I had some young ladies who asked to borrow and read the book. And because I didn’t want them to keep taking my one copy outta my office, I had talked, my school library has now purchased copies of my books so that if they wanna read the romance novels, they can go check it out at the school library.
Jennifer: I love it.
Carlotta: But yeah, I think it’s really important for them to know that I practice what I preach and that if I say I promote diversity in STEM and all of those things, then your professor has to do more than just spout those things in the classroom.
I tell them all the time, I’m a STEM communicator, I’m a superstar on social media. And then when I’m not here, you know that I’m off doing an interview or I’m off giving a talk or I’m off doing something important. ‘Cause you know, sometimes they’re like, “Where are you going and why are you going all the time?”
The work I do is important. What I do for you is important. What I do when I’m away from you is just as important. And so helping them to understand that it’s important. And that I tell ’em, “I’m not like any of your other professors, you know.” And I think that’s a good thing.
You know, being the only Black woman engineering professor at my university, the things that I do impact a lot of people.
If I keep all of that in my little box, in my little corner of the world, I’m doing it wrong. I like to say to whom it is given much is required. And if I don’t let my blessing bless other people, then why do I have it?
Jennifer: Hmm, hmm, beautiful, beautiful. Okay, my last question.
What do you most want people to know about you or remember about you when they find you online? What’s that thing that you really want them to bring with them to whatever’s next?
Carlotta: I want them to know that my passion for diversifying STEM is infectious. And I want it to be so exciting to them that they wanna join me on the journey. Whether that’s getting some kids excited about STEM, getting themselves excited by STEM, showing some little kid how to program a robot, helping somebody get excited about being creative, being a designer, being innovative, being curious. That’s all there it is.
Jennifer: Beautiful. Dr. Carlotta Berry, it’s been amazing to have you on The Social Academic. Is there anything that you’d like to add before we wrap up?
Carlotta: No, but just go buy Black STEM romance, Monet’s Moment: Elevated Inferno and Breaking Point: Chandler’s Choice. You won’t be disappointed.
Jennifer: Here’s both those books again. Be sure to pick up a copy. I will be linking to those in the interview. How can people find you online after this?
Carlotta: So there’s several ways. Probably the easiest is if you Google me, my Wikipedia is available.
That was something else that happened during the pandemic. There was a Wikiathon to get more Black STEM and Black scientists, engineers and physicians online. And so we did it through the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
One day, we had a Wikiathon and we were all gonna go make Wikipedia pages. I was gonna make a page for somebody. They were gonna make a page for me. Imagine our shock when we went to Wikipedia and somebody had already made me a page. I have no idea who did it. So this was March of 2021 and somebody had made me a page back in September of 2020 and I didn’t even know it. And so I’m going on there.
But I made other people’s Wiki pages ’cause once again, you pay it forward. But I don’t have any idea who made my Wikipedia page. It’s crazy.
But yeah, so really Googling. If you just put in my name, things come up. But probably the easiest is NoireSTEMinist. And I actually purposely selected that word because I wanted it to be something that wasn’t a common term because I was able to trademark it. And also because of that, if you type that in, everything that comes up is me. So NoireSTEMinist.com. And also @DrCABerry on most social social media. NoireSTEMinist is on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. And then there’s author Carlotta Ardell as well as on Facebook and also my website.
Jennifer: Amazing. Well, Dr. Berry, thank you so much for joining me on The Social Academic. And thank you to everyone who’s been listening to this interview.
Go and pick up a copy of Elevated Inferno, or Breaking Point: Chandler’s Choice. And be sure to follow Dr. Berry on social media. Her videos and posts are amazing and you will not regret it.
Carlotta: Thank you for having me, thank you.
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Bio for Carlotta Berry, PhD
Dr. Carlotta Berry is a professor, author, researcher, mentor, role model, and prolific speaker. In her efforts to increase the number of women and historically marginalized and minoritized students earning degrees in computer science, computer, electrical, and software engineering at her university, she co-founded the Rose Building Undergraduate Diversity professional development, networking, and scholarship program.
In 2020, to achieve her mission to diversify STEM by bringing robotics to people and bringing people to robotics, she launched her business, NoireSTEMinist educational consulting. She also co-founded Black In Engineering and Black In Robotics to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in STEM. Her innovative strategies to normalize seeing Black women in STEM including performing robot slam poetry, writing Black STEM Romance novels, conducting robotics workshops, creating open-source robots, and using social media to educate the world about engineering and robotics.
Romance Novels
Children’s Books
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How I Got Started Helping Professors With Their Online Presence
I’m sitting in my office with a cup of tea thinking about how many of the academics I work with experience anxiety when it comes to talking about themselves. When I sat down to write this episode, I realized I was having some of that anxiety myself.
Today’s episode of The Social Academic is all about me, Jennifer van Alstyne. But, it almost didn’t get recorded.
I thought talking about myself and why I started my business, The Academic Designer LLC, was something you wouldn’t want to hear. I don’t know why I felt that way. I’m always asked about my origin story when I go on podcasts as a guest. I tell most of my clients how I got started.
I had a lot of hesitancy when it came publishing on The Social Academic about myself.
You probably noticed that most of my content is focused on educational how-to’s about how to have an online presence as a professor. When I went back to my very 1st blog post, called Welcome to The Social Academic, I realized that I don’t share a lot about myself with you.
When I told a friend I was going to record this episode, she said, “I’ve always been curious about you!” Getting that kind of response made me feel warm, and helped me get ready to record my story for you. My friend is probably excited that this episode will finally come out. Thank you for encouraging me!
Have you ever worried about bragging or self promotion? Professors tell me that it brings them anxiety to talk about themselves. They don’t want other people to feel like they’re bragging. They don’t want to come across as narcissistic.
But telling your story, sharing why you do the research you do, will make a difference to the people in your life. And the people who care about your research. The people you want to help most.
It’s been 5 years since I started my business The Academic Designer LLC working with professors to build personal websites and social media so you have a strong online presence you can feel confident about.
5 years into my business, I realize I am personally struggling with the same thing that stops my clients from talking about themselves online.
It’s a great reminder that our feelings about what we share, how we share it, and why change over time. I knew that it was time for me to push past my comfort zone and share this episode, my story, with you.
I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to The Social Academic blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. Before we dive into today’s episode please subscribe to The Social Academic. Stick around for the whole episode because I’m going to share about my online presence program for professors where we work together 1:1 to create the digital footprint you need. Get support from me on your personal website, social media, and a new bio that shares who you are with the world.
Subscribe to The Social Academic blog.
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I remember the moment I had the idea for my business so clearly. I was sitting in my professor’s office at the university, her desk with an old desktop computer and even older books. My bag on the floor was leaning against my leg. My professor and I finished up a meeting about the online course we designed together. I packed up my things, placing the cap back on my pen. I slipped it into my bag and stood to leave.
My professor asked me, “Do you know anyone who would be great for this role? We really want someone who wants to grow and learn for their future career.”
You see, my academic department was hiring a graduate student assistant to do professional writing and communication. They were putting together a team to handle things like the website and social media.
I sat back down. “You want me for this job. I’m perfect.”
I already knew I wasn’t interested in moving on to a PhD, despite all the encouragement of my mentors and peers. This? This role would give me an opportunity to gain valuable skills and experience. But I only had one semester left before I was done. My professor was looking for a person on behalf of the supervisor of this role. And they had discussed someone who could stay on for a year or more.
So I argued for myself. And told her why I was the best. It was the first time I felt so sure I was the right person for a project.
I pitched myself then because I knew I was the best person to help. My professor’s disappointment that I didn’t want to continue in academia didn’t deter me from sticking up for myself. It didn’t lessen the excitement I felt when talking because I knew in that moment I had a path forward perfect for me.
I didn’t know at the time that my business, The Academic Designer LLC would help professors increase their confidence talking about themselves. That I would love empowering academics to build an online presence so they can help more people with their research and teaching. That specificity about my business came later.
It was in my professor’s office that I discovered that spark, and knew that I would own my own business after graduate school.
Thinking back on it, my professor impacted my feelings about working with academics. You see, she didn’t have a strong online presence. The 1st thing that came up when you Googled my professor’s name was her faculty profile. But her faculty profile hadn’t been updated in years! It didn’t reflect her promotion or current research interests.
You may have noticed that your faculty profile on your university website doesn’t really reflect who you are now. Maybe it hasn’t been updated in a while. Oftentimes it’s limited. Many faculty members, just like my professor, weren’t sure what information made the most sense to include on their faculty profile.
Universities often put the responsibility on professors to write their own faculty profiles. Universities don’t offer the kind of support professors need to keep your profile updated as your research and teaching interests change over time. Universities also don’t offer the kind of staff that is needed to support the technical side of updates, actually making those changes on the website. And if your university does provide staff support, they’re likely overworked and might not get to update your faculty profile because of the many responsibilities they have.
Writing a new faculty profile for my professor was the most impactful thing I could do. Before I graduated, my professor had a new faculty profile that reflected who she was and the research and teaching that were important to her.
I knew then that even small changes to your online presence could make a big impact for professors. A new faculty profile can bring you new opportunities.
Imagine what a personal website could do. A space online that you control. Something separate from the university. A website of your own where you can share your research in creative ways. Where you can invite people around the world at any time to explore what you care about.
A couple weeks after graduating with my 2nd master’s degree, I became a small business owner.
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I’ve been interviewing people here on The Social Academic and talking with them about their online presence. It’s fun because we get to talk about their research and also about social media.
Today I’m going to tell you a bit about my experience with social media. I’m going to talk about some of the things I like to ask my guests.
My name is Jennifer van Alstyne. I am a Latina woman. I’m an immigrant. I’m the owner of The Academic Designer LLC.
I’m also a poet. One of my very 1st interview guests here on The Social Academic asked me how poetry impacted my work today, and I said, “It’s so much like social media.” I told him that I love form and constraint, the kind of rules that help you be more creative. That gives you a box to focus your energy.
Social media is the same way for me. Each platform whether it’s Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube which I’ve been experimenting more with recently, has its own rules. Its own constraints. I love that!
In grad school, my research focused on representations of nature in poetry. When I think about it now…Looking back, I dedicated a lot of my time studying the writing of old white men. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my research. It just didn’t help people the way I wanted. I knew I couldn’t make the kind of impact I wanted for professors if I stayed in the academy. Especially as a woman of color.
I feel much more aligned with the work I do in my company, The Academic Designer LLC, helping professors around the world share their research online. As a latina woman, I love that I get to work with professors who are making massive impact in their respective fields. And that I get to work with professors at all types of universities whether you’re at an ivy league school or a community college. I’m not limited to any single campus, which means I get to help you too!
There is one story about grad school I want to share with you. I wanted to share it with you because it’s about an award I got, one that made me feel seen. It’s something I’m so proud of. The award was from the grad student association for my academic department. 6 years ago they got together and organized personalized awards for each grad student in the program.
What was my award you ask?
I got the award for Person You Most Want To Stick Up For You In A Meeting.
I love that. That’s so meaningful to me. My graduate student association saw me as someone who will support you, stand up for you, protect you if I am able. It makes me smile, because that’s how I see myself too.
Being named Person You Most Want To Stick Up For You In A Meeting by my fellow grad students is more meaningful to me than academic and research awards. It matters more to me now than my publications. My peers saw me as someone who will stick up for you. Someone you want to stick up for you.
I feel like that’s what I do for my clients when we work together 1:1. I know we can build an amazing online presence for you together.
Actually, this was a good story to share with you because some of that anxiety when it comes to talking about yourself? I experienced that then too. And it stopped me from saying anything on social media.
I should have posted about my award then, because it made me smile.
But I was too anxious to post about myself all the time on social media. I didn’t want to come across as narcissistic. I didn’t want to make anyone feel bad.
I remember writing a post and then feeling like I had to apologize, and be like “Don’t worry – EVERYONE got an award.” Which was true. Yes.
But what mattered was how much being a Person You Most Want To Stick Up For You In A Meeting mattered to me. How warm it made me feel to be seen. To want my voice in support of yours. I counted the posts I shared that semester that might seem like bragging…I decided to delete my post.
Don’t do that. If you’re in academia, celebrate the things you care about. Share what you’ve worked hard for. Don’t hit delete like I did.
Be open to sharing on social media.
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Being open to sharing your accomplishments can be easier than being open about your struggles. Or about the things in your life that aren’t so positive. I’ve definitely dealt with that before.
I was sitting in a farm-to-table Italian restaurant in Cold Spring, New York over Thanksgiving with one of my mom’s best friends Barbara and her husband Peter. We spoke about the death of my mom, when I was 13, and her struggle with prescription pill addiction and bi-polar disorder. It had been almost 15 years since I had seen Barbara and Peter.
In that time, my father had died of pneumonia after a long battle with cancer. I had escaped a physically abusive ex-husband. I found myself a young undergraduate student alone in the world struggling to find a reason to live.
Barbara was totally engrossed as I talked about my life over an endive and pomegranate salad. She had questions about what I went through, about how I survived.
She was so curious without judgment, I even told her a dark secret about my mom, Kitty, her close friend. Kitty adopted me from Peru as an infant, told me, “I never should have adopted you. It was a horrible mistake.” Twice. I was 13 when she died.
Barbara leaned in to talk more, but Peter had a solemn look on his face, now well wrinkled in his 80s. He said, “Let’s change the subject. This is the saddest story I’ve ever heard.”
The saddest story he ever heard.
He actually repeated it because Barbara asked, “What?” in surprise. The saddest story he ever heard.
That was a whole new level of seen for me. I’ve heard sadder stories than mine, now. I mean it’s never a competition. But I did often feel like I was carrying around a heavy tapestry of sad. This weight I got used to, that’s become a part of me.
I’m grateful for the therapy that got me to a place where I can talk openly about my past, without overwhelm.
But I don’t want to overwhelm anyone else. It’s probably why I’ve given you a whole lot of sad in just a few sentences. When people ask me why don’t I talk about my past, I often say because it’s too sad. I don’t want to upset people. And that has kept me from opening up with the people I care about.
Yes, there was anxiety about what people would think. Fear of judgment. Fear of what you might say about me.
But that doesn’t change that it happened to me. That it’s my life. And I can’t change it. No amount of “not telling you” will make my sad history disappear.
Not telling you relieves my anxiety. But it doesn’t help me, or you.
What I went through helps me help you better. I’ve had fear about being online. Paralyzing fear. I deleted my social media accounts after leaving a physically abusive marriage. The idea of being seen by the person I feared most kept me awake each night. I was scared to sleep. I jumped every time the phone rang. Eventually, I moved on campus where I could feel safer.
As I began to heal, I started to recognize how small I’d let my world get. I missed the friendships and larger network I’d stopped communicating with. Staying off social media altogether was no longer right for me. So I started a new Facebook account and sent out friend requests one at a time. Baby steps.
I kept being surprised when people connected. I looked deeper into my past, reaching out to childhood friends. Having so many people connect in a short timeframe made me feel good about myself because they were real people that I knew.
I started connecting with my professors, visiting writers, or people I met at events. When I presented at my 1st conference in undergrad, I connected with my fellow panelists. I moved past my fear and allowed myself to be more connected with the world.
Now I help professors build deeper connections with people online in ways that impact their research. I help them feel less isolated in the academy.
Telling my story is powerful. It may help you, or others feel seen too. Even if you judge it. Even if you judge me.
I was adopted by people who regretted adopting me.
I am a survivor of domestic violence.
I am an orphan, who had no family.
Except that I did have family. And social media became so important in connecting with them. That’s what I want to share with you next.
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Having an online presence has impacted my life in many ways. I’ve been invited to speak, publish, lead workshops. My poetry has been read by more people than I’d ever imagined. My blog The Social Academic has reached you in over 191 countries around the world so far in 2023.
What’s the weirdest thing to happen to me? I was invited to audition for a reality tv show!
But the most impactful thing that has happened to me since taking my social media profiles public was being found.
Both my adoptive parents died before I went to college. It was so easy to fall out of touch with friends when you moved around like I had.
I couldn’t even afford a phone in college. Seriously. I signed up for Google Voice because I felt like I was missing out. Each person who said, “Oh, I would have texted you to meet at the dining hall, I didn’t have your number,” weighed on me.
I often feel like people forget about me. Like if I’m not there talking with you, if we haven’t seen each other in a while, I’ve dropped off the face of the earth. Like I don’t exist to you anymore.
Social media was the easiest solution for me to communicate with my friends. To keep in touch with people so they wouldn’t forget about me. So as a person alone in the world, I could still have connection.
I’m someone who needs to remind myself that “people care more about you than you think.”
It was actually through social media that my birth sister, Patssy reached out to me. I have a sister. One who has been missing me and thinking about me much of her life.
I have lots of siblings: Patssy, Veronica, Andrea, Isabella, and Leonardo.
When my sister Patssy found me, I was scared. I was still in that space of fear, with anxiety about being seen. I remember literally saying, “How did you find me?” And not knowing what to say.
Sometimes Patssy sends me videos on Facebook of her with my nieces. I get to see my little brother Leonardo on Instagram stories. And my sister Andrea and I share a love for singing. I got to hear her perform at a concert at her college in Peru when the video was posted online.
What a gift it was to connect with my family. Imagine if I hadn’t had the strength to build my online presence. Imagine if I hadn’t taken the chance to be public again on social media. My family in Peru might not have found me. The feeling Patssy had, the timing of her search for me. I had moved 11 times across 3 states since I’d been adopted as an infant. But Patssy reached out through social media and found me 27 years later.
Social media has changed my life. I know it can change yours too.
OK so maybe a long lost sister isn’t going to reach out to you from across the world. But more people are going to care about you.
When you’re more open about yourself, you invite people to engage with what you care about too (like your teaching and research).
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Having an online presence can help you connect with people around the world. More people care about you and your research than you think.
Help them by having an online presence that invites them to connect with you. When people Google your name, you want them to find a bit about you. Things like your bio, a photo of you. Can they learn about your research? Do you have a website that helps them explore it further?
I’m here to help you with your online presence. I have lots of free resources on The Social Academic blog to help you get started.
For professors who want more support, I offer done-for-you services like VIP Days, website design, and social media training.
Read testimonials from some of my amazing clients.
I’m here to help you, so don’t hesitate to reach out at Jennifer@TheAcademicDesigner.com or on social media @HigherEdPR.
If this episode touched you, send me a direct message. Share The Social Academic on social media with your friends. Getting an email or DM from you just makes my day, so I would absolutely love a message. I’d love to hear from you.
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When you’re a professor, you may feel unsure what path to take for your online presence.
Do you need a website? A LinkedIn profile (even when you’re not job searching)? A new bio for your faculty profile? Maybe you’ve been wanting to build your social media skills. But is that where you should start?
I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. I work with professors on websites, social media, and bio writing. I’m here to support your path to your online presence with done for you services.
Let’s chat on Zoom if a stronger online presence is a goal you in 2024. I’m happy to see how we might work together. Professors, you deserve an online presence you’re confident in.
Schedule a no pressure Zoom call with me to chat about working together.
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Academic Writing and Finding Community Online with Dr. Lisa Munro
Ready to kickstart your next academic journal article?
Dr. Lisa Munro joins me to talk about academic writing. Did you know there’s a writing community online waiting for you? Social media isn’t just for sharing your article once it’s published. Share more of the writing process. Find support to get your writing done. And, meet collaborators online.
Lisa is a historian who leads workshops and writing retreats for academics. Journal article writing doesn’t come naturally to many people. You may feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. People can feel a lot of shame about their writing.
Lisa says, “Academic publishing is like a secret club with weird archaic rules that no one tells you about.” Now she helps people get their journal article written to make progress on their publication goals.
In this featured interview, we talk about finding your writing community online. And, her upcoming journal article writing workshop based on Wendy Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. Psst! Sign up for the workshop before registration closes on September 6, 2022.
We also discuss adoption, a topic Lisa has been talking about on Twitter for years. Adoption is political. And it’s more complicated than people think. Both Lisa and I are adoptees. Talking about the things you’re interested in, what you’re passionate about, is an effective way to find your audience on social media.
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Jennifer: Hi everyone, this is Jennifer van Alstyne, and welcome back to The Social Academic featured interview series. Today, I’m talking with Dr. Lisa Munro. We’re gonna be talking about writing and community online.
Lisa, would you please introduce yourself for everyone?
Lisa: Hello. I’m so excited to be here and thanks so much for inviting me to do this.
I’m Lisa Munro. I am an academic…I’m sort of, well, it’s complicated. You know how Facebook used to have those options? Like it’s complicated.
It’s still complicated, but I am a historian. I have a PhD from University of Arizona. And now I’m doing writing support for people, for other academics. Frequently, they are not getting that kind of help and support through their institutions. So that’s me.
Jennifer: Right.
Lisa: So that has been what I’ve been devoting myself to for the last couple of years.
Before that I was directing study abroad programs and I’m still working with some short term study abroad programs that come to where I live, my part of the world, which is Mérida, Yucatán of Mexico, so I’m still doing a little bit of that work as well.
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Jennifer: Well, I’m delighted that you came on to talk with me today about that work that you’re doing with academics who need to write their articles. Because finding that community online is something that I really encourage people to reach out to for social media.
But I also find that when they’re ready to, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I wanna join Twitter to share my publications.” And I always encourage people to talk about more of that process, to talk about more of the writing process.
And one of the reasons that I really wanted to have you on is because you have a writing community where people are connected online and they’re talking and conversing and cheering each other on. I would love to hear more about your writing community.
Lisa: Yeah. I was doing editing for a while and editing is very solitary. It’s kind of you and somebody’s work and there’s not a whole lot of community engagement there.
But I started shifting towards more towards how do people get writing done? I found that that was really where people needed help.
What I had originally envisioned in my dreams was I thought I would be like giving people advice about like the passive voice and like how to use better verbs. I thought I would be doing that kind of work.
And as it turns out, what people really needed, they needed to feel better about themselves as writers. And as people. That’s what they really needed to do their best work. Frequently, when they didn’t feel very good about themselves as writers and as people, their writing output, their productivity, absolutely ground to a halt.
Jennifer: Hmm.
Lisa: And so when people stop writing, frequently what happens is they start getting caught in these cycles of shame and fear. It’s very hard to get going again because the less you write, the more shame you have about the fact that you’re not writing.
And then you feel horrible and guilty. And then you have a lot of fear about starting writing again. So you don’t do writing. So now you’re just like circling back and forth and back and forth. It’s a really crappy cycle.
People feel a lot of shame around that. And when they start feeling a lot of shame around that, the first thing that usually goes, is they stop talking to people about that struggle.
It’s like, who do you really talk to in your life about your writing struggles? Frequently, people have partners who might not be academics, so maybe they don’t understand. But maybe, you know, your colleagues have their own writing struggles, you know, are they gonna listen to yours? Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. It’s like, there’s very precious few spaces where people can really talk about their writing struggles. And dealing with issues of shame and issues of fear and how those things have impacted the writing processes.
And so, my thing is, well, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about your shame around writing. And let’s talk about my shame around writing. And together, like, it’s kind of okay.
Like if I’m experiencing what you’re experiencing and we can kind of see each other, maybe we’re in different boats, but we can see each other. All of a sudden, like people feel less alone.
Oh, you’re struggling too. I’m struggling. Wow. Like, it seems like this is a common thing. And people start feeling less alone. People start talking more about their experience. And it helps people to get going.
I’m very interested in creating those kinds of spaces where people can talk about their writing. Where they can get out of these shame and fear cycles. And they can start working towards what I would consider sustainable and joyful writing practices.
Join Lisa Munro’s writing community.
Concerns about Facebook
Jennifer: Thank you for sharing that. It sounds like you really wanted to create a kind of safe space where that conversation could be open.
Now, why did you choose to have a private community and not put it on like, Facebook, which is what a lot of people choose?
Lisa: Oh my god, I have complicated feelings about Facebook too.
Jennifer: Good.
Lisa: I don’t love Facebook. I think they’re kind of a terrible company. I don’t trust them at all. I feel like social media has been so… Well, I’m not gonna derail…
Jennifer: Don’t, just say it, say it.
Lisa: …this conversation. But social media has been so instrumental in becoming toxic soup.
Jennifer: Mm.
Lisa: I mean, there’s so much toxicity on social media right now. There is so much disinformation, misinformation.
Jennifer: Yes.
Lisa: And then Facebook has not been a good corporate citizen. Their whole business model is based on selling your data and I really felt uncomfortable with that. That is not what I wanted to do. That doesn’t feel safe to me. That doesn’t feel like a safe space.
I’m in some Facebook groups still. I haven’t quite deleted [Facebook] yet for like the two people I know who just won’t be on any other platform. And I love those people, I really do. But ah, get a different platform.
Even in the Facebook groups I’m in, I always feel like people are watching you, people are spying. And it’s like, is this really private? We’re not, “Oh, crap, my privacy settings were wrong and now it’s all over the internet.” You know, it doesn’t feel safe.
There’s been some recent stories in the news about Facebook selling some very personal information about its users. I think that’s awful.
Jennifer: Facebook has shared some very personal information, including direct messages, like what people think of as private conversations with legal authorities.
Lisa: Yes.
Jennifer: That’s really important to be aware of. If you’re on Facebook, thinking about your privacy and how your comfort level is with that, is super important.
Lisa: Yes. Absolutely.
Jennifer: So I am glad you brought that up, Lisa.
Lisa: Okay, good.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: I was hoping that wasn’t like a total, like, total derailment…
Jennifer: No, no, no.
Lisa: Because I think it’s different, like Twitter, right? Anything you put out there is public, and you know that.
Jennifer: Right.
Lisa: You’re like, okay, I’m gonna put this out to the world. Everybody and their dog can see it. And you know that.
And so like that really, I think, conditions like what you share. Some people are out there pouring their heart out, but most people feel like Facebook is maybe the place to do that because people have these ideas that that is a private space. And it’s not.
Jennifer: That’s right.
Lisa: I have bad feelings about Facebook. So, I decided I didn’t wanna do that. And also advertising which is a part of selling your data. I mean, it’s like you start looking for vacuum cleaners on Amazon and then all of a sudden, like all these vacuum cleaners are in your Facebook feed. And you’re like, wait, what? What just happened there? Oh, right, that works so fast.
Jennifer: It does.
Lisa: Yeah, I mean, tremendous.
I wanted to create a safe space and be like, okay, like look, I don’t want advertising, I want it to be people connecting to people. And without fear that Facebook is going to sell their data.
So I ended up on Mighty Networks. That was the platform I chose to do that. And I’ve been really satisfied with that.
There is no advertising. Why? Because I pay for it like a normal consumer. Right? Like that’s how that’s supposed to work. This whole freemium model that we’ve all gotten used to…I hear, “Okay, I’ll let you sell my data if I get to use your products.” I much prefer sort of traditional consumer models where I pay you money and you sell me a service. I feel like that’s just a better way for these things to work.
So I created a Mighty Networks. And it’s still going. I feel like I did that in 2019 so it’s been going on for almost three years now.
Jennifer: Yeah, that’s a long time.
Lisa: Something like that, yeah. That’s a long time and people come and go. Engagement goes up, engagement goes down.
Like right now people are super burned out. You know I get that. I think eventually engagement’s gonna pick back up again because these things are cyclical. So that’s what I’m doing.
It’s really all about like daily account, for me, it’s about daily accountability because I think it’s important to provide a space for people to check in. What’d you do today? What writing did you do today?
And the only rule is that you can’t talk about the writing that you didn’t do. That you meant to do and didn’t, because that, you know, now you’re back in shame and fear cycles.
Jennifer: Right.
Lisa: That doesn’t help, but talk about what you did do. “Oh my god, I wrote a sentence today.” Fantastic. Like if that’s your writing win, like I am here for that, and I am gonna cheer you on. Wonderful.
You published your book? Fabulous. Likewise, I am here for that. I am gonna cheer you on.
Whatever your accomplishment is, I wanna hear about it.
The more we talk about what feels good in writing, what we have achieved, what we have done, we start getting away from these models of like,
- “Oh my god, you know, have I written enough?”
- “Am I enough?”
- “Is this enough?”
- “Am I good enough?”
We start getting away from those kind of shame based models and closer to writing that does feel good.
When writing feels good, you’re apt to do more of it. Because you’re enjoying the process of doing that. So that’s really my revolution.
Jennifer: So it sounds like the process of talking about writing in that group setting really helps people actually perform the practices that are needed to get the writing done.
Lisa: Yeah, yeah.
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Jennifer: I love that.
It also sounds like people are able to make these kind of lasting relationships with each other, through the group, through your writing retreats and your other offerings.
I think that what you said to me one time is that some of your people were so close that they were sending like cards to each other in the mail.
Lisa: Oh, they totally were.
It was amazing. I mean, there was like one Christmas where like people were sending Christmas cards to each other and it was like, oh my god, like, look at this!
Oh, and the other thing that happened recently, two people I’ve worked with in the past who have both been on my writing retreat, who kind of lived close to each other, they got together and had lunch. I mean, it’s fabulous. I love when that kind of connection happens.
I’ve worked with writers who end up finding mentors. So there’s been some mentoring that have come out of different writing initiatives I’ve done.
Co-authoring! Unlikely people who are like, “Hey, like it would be really fun to write something with you,” and then they do. That’s amazing.
Yeah, so there are actual, genuine connections that come out of this. I don’t know if anything is gonna really replace like face to face interactions with people. But in the meantime, now that we’re sort of a geographically dispersed people…You know, people are all over the world looking for community, looking for connection.
Jennifer: Yes.
Lisa: It’s the magic of the internet that’s going to bring us together and allow us to do that.
You can create meaningful relationships online, even with people you don’t really know.
I open my Twitter in the morning and I’m like, oh, here are all my pocket friends.
Lisa was an early user of Twitter
Jennifer: That was actually my next question. I’m curious, what does your online presence look like? What’s your favorite social media platform? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure it’s not Facebook.
Lisa: It’s not Facebook. Yes, it’s not Facebook. My favorite social media platform is Twitter.
I don’t remember when Twitter started, but I was a fairly early adopter of Twitter.
Jennifer: Okay.
Lisa: Just because it seemed to be like what people were doing. And it seemed like edgy and cool at the time. I think that was in 2009.
Jennifer: Okay. That’s early.
Lisa: It was early. Nobody was talking about anything really interesting.
Now people are using it for all kinds of really interesting purposes. It’s just kind of grown and grown.
My audience has grown. People ask me sometimes about growing a following on Twitter, how do you get followers?
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: And I tell people like, talk about what you care about. Your people will find you. And you’ll find your people. But you have to be willing to talk about what you’re really passionate about, what you’re really interested in.
I hear people be really dismissive of Twitter, “Oh, it’s all about like what people had on their bagels.”
I’m like, well, you know, if you’re not interested in people’s bagels, then
- A, don’t talk about bagels and,
- B, don’t follow people who talk about bagels.
It’s okay if those are not your people, those are not your people. But if you’re interested in talking about bigger things…
If you’re interested in talking about, I don’t know, global politics…
If you’re interested in talking about social movements…
If you’re interested in talking about domestic violence…
If you’re interested in talking about, I mean, just a huge number of topics come out on Twitter.
And you can follow people who are talking about things you care about. And then you get to contribute to those conversations as well.
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Jennifer: You’ve been on Twitter for so long that you’ve really seen that kind of evolution over time. You’ve seen these kind of conversations develop and participated in them yourself.
You also start conversations about somewhat controversial topics. I know adoption is very important to you, something you talk about on Twitter prolifically, and it’s important to me as well. We are both adoptees and so this is one thing that I wanted to talk with you about today.
Why do you choose to talk about adoption on Twitter? What kind of responses have you seen to it?
Lisa: Yeah. Everybody has to have an unpopular opinion, and these are my unpopular opinions.
I was very interested in talking about that more because I didn’t have people in my immediate circles, like my actual physical circles who were talking about that. It was very isolating.
There’s something very powerful about finding people who are having those same conversations. When I started feeling like I was this lone person having these thoughts. “Oh my god, like, who else is having these thoughts? Oh, wow. There’s a bunch of people on Twitter having these thoughts.”
TikTok also is having a moment in terms of adoptees talking about their experiences. I am not a TikTok adopter yet. I feel like I’m too old.
Jennifer: I don’t think that’s true. But I’m not on TikTok either, so.
Lisa: I know. People are like, “Oh my god, but the cat videos are really good.” I’m like, okay, well maybe I’ll be there someday. But yeah.
I talk about adoption a lot because I want people to know that it’s more complicated than people think.
People oftentimes think about adoption as an unqualified social good. People kind of uncritically think, “Oh, well, you know, it’s kind of a win, win, win for everybody.”
I want people to know it’s more complicated than that. That there is some real things that we should think about.
Adoption intersects with everything. Absolutely everything. It intersects with
- Race
- Class
- Gender
- Disabilities
- Sexuality
- Indigenous rights
It intersects with everything.
Just wanted to say that if you’re feeling disoriented because your assumptions about adoption as an unqualified social good have been suddenly disrupted, it’s normal to feel like the rug has been pulled out from under you. Welcome.
— Dr. Lisa Munro (@llmunro) May 7, 2022
There’s a huge case that’s going up to the Supreme Court about whether the Indian Child Welfare Act should still stand. That law gives tribes the ability to control who adopts their children in response to these massive removals of indigenous children in the 60s and 70s.
We’ll see like what our kind of reaction there is Supreme Court has to say about that. I’m not super optimistic, but that’s a really big. We should care about those things. And that really gets to the heart of things like tribal sovereignty.
Also thinking about not just like my own experience as an adopted person…But then also thinking about, there are child removals happening every day in courtrooms all across the nation. They get less press, but they are still happening and they’re happening predominantly to black families. We should care about that.
Adoption to me like has all of these really big social issues that are embedded in it. I feel like I have a really, I don’t wanna say unique perspective ’cause like there’s nothing particularly unique about my perspective. But that I have something to say about that.
Jennifer: You have a platform and an audience who’s also curious about learning more about it too.
I notice that the people who follow you do engage in those conversations and they do engage in the things that you share about it. And oftentimes they’re maybe a little surprised by something, but they’re open to it.
Introducing that kind of conversation now when it’s become so important, because adoption is being touted as this solution to abortion in the United States, bringing up this conversation on social media, in that public space, it’s like activist work.
Lisa: Yes.
Abortion and adoption have very little to do with each other but I’m over here screaming into the void about adoption politics because I want people to understand how utterly inappropriate it is to suggest adoption as a “solution” (as if one were needed) to abortion.
— Dr. Lisa Munro (@llmunro) June 27, 2022
Jennifer was adopted from Peru
Jennifer: I really appreciate it as an adoptee myself. I was adopted from Peru in the 80s, which was before they had regulations. There were over 700 babies adopted from Peru annually. When they put regulations in, that number dropped down to 70 per year. It was a massive difference when governmental agencies do step in and start regulating something. There are lots of issues with adoption.
Lisa: Absolutely.
Jennifer: I did not have the most supportive adoptive parents. I will be honest and say that they both each told me separately that they regretted adopting me.
Lisa: Oh. I’m so sorry.
Lisa: And they both passed away because they were quite a bit older. They both passed away before I went to college. I struggled a lot.
It was actually through social media that my birth family from Peru, contacted me again and found me.
Lisa: Wow.
Jennifer: They reached out to me and they were like, “We wanna talk to you. We want to be your family.”
Lisa: Oh, amazing.
Jennifer: It was lovely. But even that was a little scary for me, it took to getting used to.
Lisa: Yeah.
Jennifer: When I was a kid, if you ask me if I regretted being adopted or anything, there’s no way I would say no.
Lisa: Yes.
Jennifer: There’s no way I would say anything other than, “I’m so happy to be here.”
Lisa: Yes.
Jennifer: But the truth was, it was really hard.
Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. I said something the other day. It’s really weird that we assume that the way we feel about adoption at like age 8 is the way we’re gonna feel about it our whole lives.
Jennifer: Right. Yes.
When I hear adoptive parents tell me their children are FINE and that they don’t care about adoption or their birth families (often expressed with relief), I want to remind them that our feelings about adoption often change over time.
— Dr. Lisa Munro (@llmunro) August 8, 2022
Lisa: People’s feelings change. For me, when I searched and found birth family my perspective changed radically. I was like, “Oh, wow. Like this thing, this thing that we’re all so excited about, has some really dirty history.”
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: It has some really sad history.
Jennifer: Yes.
Lisa: I was a Peace Corps volunteer in 2004 to 2006, and that’s when the Guatemalan Adoption Program was in full swing.
Massive numbers of children were leaving the country. And so whenever I would go to the airport, it was like, there were 3 Guatemalan babies on my flights with their new white adopted parents. Then every time I came back to Guatemala, I made a couple trips home during my service. Yeah, there were like 3 couples at the gate waiting to go to Guatemala and they had all the baby stuff and no baby. And I was like, oh, I know what you’re doing.
It was just the scale of it was so shocking. This is a country, and Peru shares some of this history, that had been absolutely torn apart by war and by genocide and all kinds of really terrible things.
Jennifer: Yes.
Lisa: And who is going to rebuild that? Children are people’s futures. And here was this massive flood of children out of the country. It was just really, really shocking to me.
Jennifer: Hmm. Oef.
That’s why it’s so important to talk about these things online. And I’m really glad that you’re always sharing books and articles where people can learn more.
I know that I’ve learned more myself from it and it’s helped me kind of process my own thoughts and feelings about adoption.
Lisa: Yeah.
Jennifer: I’m in my thirties, like it takes time to sit down and think about these things and kind of go through what we think personally. And then to better understand the cultural, sociological, and all of the implications of it and it lasts for a lifetime.
Lisa: Yeah. It sure does.
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Lisa: So that’s gonna eventually be my book. Because everything I talk about on Twitter, that’s eventually gonna be my book.
Jennifer: Really?
Lisa: It can’t be my book right now.
Jennifer: Okay.
Lisa: But it’s eventually gonna be my book. So yeah, it just really come-
Jennifer: Well, sign me up to be an early reader because I wanna read that book.
Lisa: Thank you. I really wanna write that book. You know, people say, “Write what you wanna read.” That’s what I wanna read.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah.
Jennifer: Now a lot of the professors that I talk to feel really anxious, or scared, or fear about posting about something online that they know that other people might not react to well.
I know that there’s got to be some people out there that are super pro-adoption that don’t like what you say. What kind of reaction have you had to that?
Lisa: Yeah, I get a lot of defensiveness from adoptive parents.
Part of that I think is because nobody wants to think of themselves as complicit in a system that really hurts children. None of us wanna be a part of that. And yet we’re all kind of implicated in that.
I often say we’re all part of that because we’re always creating ideas about families, about children. About who gets to have children. Who doesn’t get to have children. Who should have children. Who shouldn’t. And why, and how.
And so we’re all kind of participating in creating those ideas. It’s not just the idea that adoption somehow just involves like adoptive parents, birth parents, and adoptees. I think is one of the biggest lies out there.
Jennifer: Right.
Lisa: We’re all creating those ideas, because ultimately we’re all collaborating whether it’s conscious or not. We’re all collaborating in the idea that some people shouldn’t have children.
Jennifer: That’s true.
Lisa: And some people are deserving of other people’s children.
Oftentimes adoptive parents will push back on me and they will say, you know, “Adoption is just another way to build a family.”
To which I say, “No, it’s a deeply political decision.”
Jennifer: Hmm.
Lisa: I mean, you are making a choice there, that somebody doesn’t get to have their child. Somebody shouldn’t have their child. That’s essentially what that means.
And that’s an unpopular opinion.
So I do a lot of muting because people, you know, people get nasty.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: I do a lot of muting. “Okay, you can still follow me and learn, but I’m not going to engage with that, I’m not interested in that.”
I do a lot of blocking if people are really obnoxious.
But I hope people keep following and keep thinking. Because a lot of people have told me like, “Wow, I was really kind of resistant to what you said at first. It didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t understand. But you know, I kept engaging with your tweets and kept reading. And I’ve really learned a lot from you.” I’m like, okay, like that seems really great to me.
The ideal would be when people feel kind of defensive that they would ask genuinely curiously. That they would approach with genuine curiosity and not with sort of ‘gotcha’ agendas or with some really toxic stuff that they’re still carrying around.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: A lot of adoptive parents are dealing with their own traumas.
Jennifer: Right.
Lisa: In my circle, we often say, “Adoptions cures childlessness, but it’s not gonna cure infertility.” It’s not the same to have somebody else’s child.
Jennifer: Right, right.
Lisa: It’s not the same to raise somebody else’s child.
That can’t fix that very deep grief when having your own child doesn’t work out for you. And that is very sad.
Jennifer: Right.
Lisa: But having somebody else’s child doesn’t fix that either. I think a lot of adopted people feel like they were adopted to fix those problems.
It never really works for either adoptive parents or adoptees to be emotional airbags.
Jennifer: Okay. It sounds like you do get negative reactions.
For most of them, you mute people because you just don’t wanna see that. But they’re welcome to still follow you and engage in your Tweets.
Lisa: Yup.
Jennifer: For other people, you do block them because it’s a way to protect yourself and your audience.
But you do respond to questions. I love that. You do respond to people who are genuinely curious and wanna engage in a conversation.
Lisa: I do. Yeah. Exactly. Like somebody said to me the other day, “Oh my gosh, but what could be so wrong about giving a child loving home?”
And I was like, okay, well let’s think about this. Let’s start thinking about this a little bit critically. Like,
- Who’s relinquishing children?
- Why are they relinquishing children?
- Who’s adopting those children?
- Why are they adopting those children?
- What’s that process like?
- What’s supposed to be the ultimate outcome?
- Who’s benefiting, and who’s not?
These are sort of basic critical thinking questions I used to teach undergraduates. How to make these same basic critical thinking questions. But somehow adoption has been exempt from critical thinking for a long time.
Jennifer: I agree.
Lisa: And I really aim to change that.
Jennifer: Oh, yay, I’m glad we talked about this. I feel like even though we were here to talk about writing community, talking about the things that you’re interested in, the things that you’re passionate about on Twitter can really make a difference for how connected people feel with you.
Lisa: Yeah.
Jennifer: For how long they stay connected with you and for how much they actually share what you’re saying. So I really appreciate that.
Lisa: Yep.
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Jennifer: Now back to article writing for academics, that’s listening to this, right?
Lisa: Yes.
Jennifer: I really want them to be able to benefit from help from you, from your groups, from your workshops.
What do you have coming up that they can get involved in?
Lisa: I have something great coming up. One of the best things I do is a journal article writing workshop, Kickstart Your Journal Article. I love the metaphor of like kick starting a motorcycle, right?
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: Getting it going.
If you need a little boost to get your journal article finished, I’ve got you covered. Sign up for the next session of Kickstart Your Journal Article! #acrwi #AcademicTwitter #12weekarticle https://t.co/YD0phLMBct pic.twitter.com/zdgSVzZTk4
— Dr. Lisa Munro (@llmunro) August 23, 2022
Because well one, people are not learning how to do this. I mean, imagine in corporate America, if you had something that was like a major part of your job and yet you received no training in it. That just makes no sense.
Frequently, for academics, writing is currency, right? Writing is what gets you citations which gets you jobs, which gets you promotions, etc.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: People don’t learn how to write. I don’t remember ever getting explicit writing instruction in graduate school. I don’t remember. I know we had a Writing Center, but I don’t know that anybody…Not to dis on writing center people because they do an absolute tremendous job. But that wasn’t quite the help I needed at the time I think.
Jennifer: Yeah. You needed a different type of professional development for your writing.
Lisa: Yep. Yep.
Jennifer: Not that kind of one-on-one individuated support, but like: how to write.
Lisa: Yep. Exactly. There’s a lot of grad school that’s like, “Well, you know, you’ll figure it out.” I think that’s a crappy system.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Lisa: I don’t think we should be doing things that way. We should be teaching people how to do things, not assuming they’ll figure it out eventually.
Jennifer: Especially when it’s such a big part of their future career.
Lisa: A huge part, and yet you’re supposed to just figure it out.
A lot of novice authors I know, they’ve tried to figure it out on their own. They’ve written articles that aren’t very good. They get rejected. They aren’t sure how to deal with reviewer comments. So then they like trash the whole article. Or never send it out again.
Jennifer: So there’s issues with the whole process. Not just getting started writing, but when you’re not actually taught how to do the whole process, you can run into problems at every step of the way.
Lisa: Absolutely. Absolutely. And academia is full of secret handshakes. You have to know how to do the thing. There’s a lot of unspoken rules.
Jennifer: Right. That’s true.
Lisa: So, you’re a person who’s like trying to figure out how to write a journal article and you know you need to learn the secret handshake, but you’re not like quite sure what it is. You’re like, does it start like this? Or is it like backwards? Or do we high five first? Like, how do we, what do we do? And no one will tell you.
I will tell you.
That’s my other thing is really come and learn how to do this. A lot of people have told me that this is the best professional development thing they’ve ever done.
Jennifer: Wow.
Lisa: And not only has it allowed them to write articles…Now like I’ve been doing this long enough now I’m starting to kind of hear back on people’s articles and people are like, “Hey, I got an R&R [Revise & Resubmit],” and, “My article got accepted here.”
And I’m like, well of course it did ’cause you’re brilliant.
But that also, what I teach people also trickles down into their teaching. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, you know, you remember that week in which we talked about how to give really good feedback? Well, I used that with my undergraduates and we got fantastic feedback and everybody felt really good about it.” And you’re like, okay, like, fantastic.
Like we just have to learn to do this a little better. When you don’t know how to give feedback, that’s when you become Reviewer #2. And that doesn’t help anyone.
I think we can do a lot better. And so I aim to do a lot better.
So I’m giving a 12 week workshop actually, and there’s a couple other weeks built in there. There’s a break because everybody needs one, and then an introductory session. So it turns out to be 14 weeks, so it’s like a semester.
We meet every single week and talk about your writing. We talk about different aspects of your writing, this is all based on Wendy Belcher’s fantastic workbook, Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks.
A lot of people have told me like, “Oh my gosh, like the thing that was so valuable to me was that I just had a place to come and talk about my writing.” Like, “Oh, I’m really struggling with this,” or “I don’t really understand this part.” Or, “Oh my gosh, like I read this part and suddenly my mind was blown and I made a ton of progress.” Like, fantastic, let’s talk about all of that.
Jennifer: And just for anyone who’s curious, you and Wendy know each other, is that right?
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yep, absolutely. And it’s really fun that she’s on Twitter because you can like tweet her questions about article writing or like, “Oh my gosh, I submitted my article!” And she’s super excited too so.
Jennifer: Yay. Oh, I love that.
Lisa: Yeah.
Jennifer: So there’s writing community on Twitter. There’s writing community on all social media platforms, but if you’re looking for that accountability and that writing community, you can join Lisa’s private Mighty Networks community.
And if you’re looking for the support to actually kickstart your journal article, you should join her workshop .
Lisa: Yeah. It’s a lot of fun. One recent person in my cohort, said you know, “Lisa, I’m never gonna love writing, it’s hard for me, but because of your workshop, I hate writing less.” And I was like, that’s victory!
Jennifer: That’s good. Yeah.
Lisa: I’ll take it. Yep, absolutely. That’s a win. That’s a total win.
Jennifer: I love that. Well, if you’re listening and you wanna win too, be sure to join the Kickstart Your Journal Article writing workshop with Lisa Munro. It’s gonna be amazing and it starts September 6th, that’s when registration closes, so be sure to sign up, I’m gonna drop the link below this video.
Now, Lisa, for people who want to get in touch with you, who would like to follow you on social media, how should they do that?
Lisa: Yeah, I’m kind of email averse. I’m like the adult who doesn’t know how to email. Hit me up on Twitter. That’s the absolute fastest way to get a response from me. If I could just tweet everyone who wants to email me, it would be amazing. So I’m on Twitter, I’m @LLMunro.
Jennifer: Great. And your website address?
Lisa: It’s LisaMunro.net
Jennifer: Perfect. Well, Lisa, it’s been so wonderful to have you on to talk about writing community, to talk about your Mighty Networks, especially how you don’t like Facebook.
And also to get into our conversation about adoption and why talking about it online is so important. And why others should consider talking about the things that they’re passionate about, that they find important online too. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. Is there anything you’d like to add before we wrap up?
Lisa: No, I think that’s it. I’m really excited I got to be here today and talk to you, this has been a real joy.
Jennifer: Oh great. Well, Lisa, thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day.
Lisa: You so welcome.
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Lisa Munro (@LLMunro) is an independent historian who helps fellow scholars create sustainable and joyful writing practices. She supports novice authors and early career researchers to get their ideas out into the world through writing retreats, workshops, and kind, constructive, and actionable feedback. Her own academic work examines informal imperialism in Latin America. She lives and works in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico and also helps faculty plan short-term study abroad trips to Yucatán.
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Professor Chinasa Elue on Grief, Trauma, and Talking About Loss Online
Chinasa Elue, PhD is an Associate Professor at Kennesaw State University where her focus is Educational Leadership and Higher Education. She is also an entrepreneur. Her company, True Titans Consulting is helping leaders and organizations with grief and trauma.
How do you express grief, express loss, online? In this interview, Chinasa gets personal about the loss of her mother. Dr. Elue knows that we’ve been experiencing collective grief.
Welcome to the featured interview series on The Social Academic blog. You can read, watch, or listen to the interviews shared here.
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Jennifer: Hi everyone. My name is Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to the new season of The Social Academic. I’m here with Dr. Chinasa Elue, an associate professor of educational leadership and higher education at Kennesaw State University.
Chinasa, I’m so happy to talk with you today. Would you please introduce yourself? Let everyone know a little bit about you.
Chinasa: Absolutely. And so thank you so much for having me here today, Jennifer, I’m excited to be here and chat with you as well.
My name is Chinasa Elue. As you mentioned, I’m a professor at Kennesaw State University, but I’m also an entrepreneur. I run my own coaching and consulting business where I am supporting organizational leaders lead with more trauma informed practices in the workplace.
A lot of this work stems from our research around grief, leadership and trauma informed practices in organizational settings. I’m excited to be doing this work. It’s truly an honor to be able to leave such important work in this context that we’ve been navigating these past couple of years. Thank you.
Jennifer: Yeah, thank you for introducing that and letting people know about your business. And I think that’s so important. One of the reasons that I want to highlight professors like yourself on the show is to show that people are doing more than just their faculty work. People are helping the world in different ways.
Journey into the professoriate
Having an online presence is something that becomes a part of that system for helping people. That’s one of the things that I wanted to talk with you about today.
Now, since most of the people who are listening to this are professors themselves, can you tell me a little bit more about your higher ed life?
Chinasa: Absolutely. So in terms of my journey into the professoriate is really interesting because in a lot of ways, when I was finishing my graduate program, I thought I was going to go into higher education administration. I thought I was going to work as the Dean of Students or something of that nature.
But as you know, along the way, I had some really amazing mentors who really encouraged me to pursue a faculty life. They talked about the importance of impact in the field more systemic ways. I applied to many jobs and I was able to land my first gig right out of graduate school teaching.
I think being a professor…It’s a journey in and of itself, right?
There are a lot of ins and outs of this thing that I’ve learned over time. I’m getting ready to enter into my 8th year of teaching. I can’t even believe I’m saying that, but yeah, 8 years of teaching as a professor.
It’s been an interesting journey. That’s the best way I can put it, because there are a lot of reasons why I’ve chosen to navigate my career in the ways that I have. Especially with my experiences and academe in general as a woman of color.
That shaped and informed why I chose to not only be a professor, but also be an entrepreneur because I recognize the importance of having more systemic impact outside of my 9-to-5 job.
I think it’s important to think about to what extent can you really enact change or have a more positive force in that context. I realized that for me, it needed to step outside of the ivory tower and look different in a lot of ways.
Finding your voice on social media
Jennifer: It sounds like you realize that you could help more, that you have that ability and that you knew that you needed to do something. Like you needed to give more of yourself into a different area.
That’s something that an online presence is so helpful for, because we can’t always communicate with everyone all the time. Right? There’s not people around like introducing themselves, “Hi, let me learn more about you.” But there are online. There are people who are looking for help in different areas.
There are also professors who are looking to connect with other professors, you know, working in higher education. And I think that that online presence can be really beneficial in that, in that kind of system of communication.
So what does your online presence look like? What are some of the things that you do to have an online presence?
Chinasa: You know, it’s so interesting when we talk about online presence as a professor, right? In a lot of ways, I see a lot of faculty on Twitter. I think that’s the place of choice in a lot of ways where we’re able to share ideas more broadly.
But I also know at the same time, one of my own pieces with building my online presence is also honing in on my voice and how I wanted to communicate information and in what ways I wanted to share that. And also letting my personality shine. Right?
I think in a lot of ways, it’s very easy to be kind of cut and dry. Being very professional, which I am, but I’m also in a lot of ways, I bring in a lot of humor.
And so what I like to do online, I don’t mind sharing. If it’s Twitter is more professional or whatnot, sharing
- Research updates
- Recent awards
- Accolades
- Conversations that are going on locally and in the world at large
But Instagram is kind of where I have a little bit more fun. I share a little bit more personally in that space.
I also have my own YouTube channel where I’ve done videos and those kinds of have a humorous bent to them as well. Humorous but also informative at the same time. I’ve done a lot of work around career coaching and supporting professionals in various spaces professionally. I wanted to bring some humor into a space of times that can be very dry.
And oftentimes where we also have a lot of traumatic experiences in our respective industries that we may not talk about, but I want it to highlight it and make it a little bit more light and palatable so that we can have more systemic conversations.
My preference just looks different depending on the platform, to be honest.
Jennifer: I really like that. I think that it makes a lot of sense to have different audiences, but also different types of content that you share on each platform. And it really is based on your goals.
Free online presence workshop
Get started for in this virtual choose your own adventure workshop for professors, researchers, and graduate students.
It sounds like you have fun on Instagram. You share those kinds of motivational and short videos on YouTube. That can really help people connect with you. And then the more professional side is on Twitter. Is that right?
Chinasa: Yes. Correct.
How much do you share about yourself online?
Jennifer: Well, I think that it’s really important for people to recognize what they’re interested in in terms of
- where they want to share
- what they want to share
- how much they want to share
So that’s my next question. How much do you share online about yourself?
Chinasa: I think I share what I feel comfortable sharing. Right? I don’t use online as my journal entry point.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Chinasa: I don’t come in there to narrate my initial reactions to anything.
I talk about this often when I’m talking to friends or colleagues that whenever there’s a hot button topic, where there is a decision or a case or an event that’s happened…
A lot of times, people will flock online to share their initial reactions or emotions.
Jennifer: They love to do that. It’s like a gut reaction to go and talk about your feelings about something. For sure.
Chinasa: Yeah! But I realized that that in a lot of ways it doesn’t serve me well, personally. That I need time to be in community with people that I talked to more systemically and consistently to really process the events.
Because a lot of times it’s something that’s near and dear to your heart, right? These are some really hot topics that are going to impact me, my children, my family for generations to come.
I realized in a lot of ways, I don’t want to just contribute a hot bite and not then take action.
My reaction is just to not necessarily go online, but to pick up a phone and get in touch with someone where I can process more systemically. And then, make a post that I think could contribute in a more meaningful way.
It just serves me better. And I think in a lot of ways, I don’t want people to come to me and try and take a sound bite without knowing the true impact that this is going to have long-term. So I process, and then I share within reason in terms of what I feel comfortable sharing.
Sometimes I don’t [post]. Sometimes I write a blog. Sometimes it drives me to do research, or to do an article, or something else. Right? But I am more intentional about not emoting outwardly first, but being more reflective in nature.
Jennifer: Oooh, I really like what you said about how that time to reflect and to actually talk with people who you’re close with about the experiences and the things that are happening. It really allows you to focus your energy in your reaction to that. Either, either it goes into social media, but it has all these other options too, which a lot of people don’t consider when they have a gut reaction to something that they’ve experienced.
I like that, you know, that could be channeled into research or into a blog post, like into these different forms of reaction. So I really like that. Thank you for sharing that.
Chinasa: Absolutely.
We are walking through collective trauma
Jennifer: Now, one of the things that you talked about is that you share things that you feel comfortable with online.
And I know that grief is something that we’ve all been dealing with collectively recently, but you yourself have lost your mother. That’s something that you’ve been able to talk about online and even connect with people about. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Chinasa: You know, I never thought that I would be doing research on grief. That wasn’t my initial mo (modus operandi) when I came into the professoriate at all. I was initially studying issues of access and equity to higher ed.
I lost my mom in may of 2019. And when I lost her, that was the first time I’ve lost someone so close in proximity to me. The loss in and of itself was so debilitating in ways I can’t even describe to be honest.
So when I think about being in that space a year before we knew a pandemic was looming ahead. Right? Losing my mom, and having young children at the same time and figuring out how to navigate being a faculty member and being all the other things that I do on a daily basis…It was a really trying time to be frank.
Coming into the pandemic it was almost like I had an awakening of sorts. Right? We started to see loss on a massive scale in the midst of our racial reckoning in this country that’s still ongoing [United States], the social political climate that has continued to traverse even until now.
I recognized that what we’re walking through at the time was collective trauma and collective grief.
I felt a prompting to begin to ask some deeper questions. As a higher ed researcher, I wanted to know how are institutional leaders responding to loss right now? Because I know how debilitating the was for me before a pandemic, before all of the other factors were there, to navigate that.
But let’s say you lost someone due to COVID. Right? And maybe, perhaps you’re a person of color or any other dimension of your identity that’s been impacted by any number of it. You name the headline, it’s present today. Okay?
Based on where you’re socialized in this world and in this country specifically, it really impacts how you’re able to show up every day.
People are quick to move back to a normal or ‘a new normal,’ which is what we keep hearing now that the pandemic is over, which I beg to differ, honestly, but we’re here.
In a lot of ways, if you lost someone during these past 2.5 to 3 years, and then have to face any number of events…The ways in which you’ve had to navigate and cope have had to vary based on who you are in this country.
How are organizational leaders responding to grief?
Chinasa: I wanted to know how leaders, especially as a higher ed scholar, how are leaders responding?
How are you providing space to
with your faculty, staff and students who have experienced traumatic loss? Who are showing up on your campus and they’re not the same person they were before the pandemic, right?
These are not the same people that are returning back to us. And so when I think about grief now in this context, I think we’ve been in prolonged grief. There’s been just so much that has gone on, and it’s been such a trying season to be in right now where we are trying to figure out how to pick up our feet and move forward. But at the same time, we keep getting knocked down every step that we take. Right?
And so in this context, it’s more so okay, how do we continue to create spaces that allow us the opportunities to process the ongoing traumatic onslaught of grief that we’re seeing unfold day in and day out. There is no reprieve right now.
The conversations have to look different.
The events that we’re hosting the organizations that we’re building have to look different because we have to be more intentional about how we are creating spaces for people to show up in their true authenticity, but still be able to thrive.
And to not care about the bottom line, but to honestly care about the individual 1st –before you care about the deadline, the project, the goal at hand. But to know that these are real people that need a real leader to recognize them for the totality of their humanity. They want you to see them.
I think one big piece about The Great Resignation that we’re noticing right now is that people are leaving because they want more, they desire more. They realize that they’re worthy of more.
If leaders wake up to the fact that your employees, your colleagues don’t want to be seen as a bottom line item, they want to be seen as a human being who has been experiencing trauma and loss. Then you have to respond differently. Because if you don’t, this is going to be an ongoing situation that we see for many years to come.
Jennifer: Hm. That was a lot. What it sounds like is that your own grief helped prompt this research that is hopefully going to make this bigger impact on universities around the world and on organizations too. I mean, trauma is something that every company and every organization is dealing with because people are collectively grieving. You’re right.
Talking about the loss of her mom on social media
Jennifer: Now what does that look like with social media for you? Like, you’ve been able to talk about some of your grief on social media. And I’m curious how that’s been. What have people’s reactions been? Have you been able to make connections based on that shared grief?
Chinasa: Absolutely. I think social media, you know, it’s the catch 22 with it, right? It’s a great connector in a lot of ways. You’re able to build a community and networks in that vein. It could be a big detractor at the same time with differing opinions. And then the armchair bullies that show up every now and then, right?
Jennifer: Oh, yeah.
Chinasa: Yeah. For me, personally, I’ve been able to talk about grief in a very authentic and raw way.
I don’t shy away from it because grief is, in my opinion, the final act of love. We’ve loved people deeply. And so we’re going to grieve them deeply. And grieving looks different for any person. For me, I’ve chosen to be more public and sharing my emotions and how I’ve been processing things.
don’t run to Instagram or Twitter as my journal to share. But I share things that I’ve processed through
- Events
- Milestones
- Holidays (i.e. Mother’s Day)
- Cooking my mom’s favorite recipe
I’m just remembering those times. I have no issue sharing a picture of her because she’s so near and dear to me, I think about her every day. I think in a lot of ways, I also use social media as a way to memorialize her. To let people know that she was here because it’s very easy to want to power ahead, but that person still lives in a very present part in my heart. My mom does for me, right?
And I think for those who are experiencing loss and being able to share my experiences online and saying that it’s okay. That it is three years later and I’m still grieving. Right? That there’s no timeframe here that you have to give yourself the grace and the space you’d need to
- Process
- Emote
- Take your time
- Slow down as needed
And I think it’s a space to gain encouragement when you’re walking through something similar and to connect with others who are on the same path.
Because I’ve been able to make those connections with others who have lost parents, who’ve lost, loved ones who understand and who send me messages, or we connect offline and are able to talk more systemically.
I think that’s a big piece there with leveraging social media when you have different events happen. You can use your online presence to have more personal conversations that are meaningful to you. And also, still have impact by providing encouragement and space to have dialogue that may not exist outside of those online virtual walls. And so I appreciate that about social media for that, for sure.
Jennifer: Chinasa I really appreciate that. And for anyone who’s listening, who is experiencing grief right now, but maybe you’re not so sure how much you want to post about it online, or if you want to reach out to people that way. Remember that you can also use direct messages and actually have those kinds of private conversations about this through social media as well.
So there are many options for talking about grief, but it sounds like Chinasa has gotten a pretty positive response from being able to open up about her mom and the grief that she’s felt online.
Chinasa: Absolutely. And I think in a lot of ways, people are like, well, nobody wants to hear about this anymore. She’s been gone for some while. Right? Like we sometimes get in our own heads and feel like we need to emote or share for other people.
But I put that to the shelf. I think you have to just come out. A big piece of me sharing is also me being honest and authentic. I don’t show up every day just smiling, like the world is glorious and good.
Like it is, right? Some days.
But there are days where I’m really in the pits with grief. And I might feel that to share so that people understand that this is a process. You don’t have to beat yourself up if you don’t feel like you are where you thought you would be a year from now, two years from now.
I think in a lot of ways, it’s great to serve as a possibility model for others who are probably in the beginning stages or midway through who are wondering, will it get better again? Or what does this look like?
You know, we all grieve differently. Right? All I can do is model my process.
I may share more than another person, but I think in a lot of ways that sharing does open up the doors for more prolonged conversations that I think honestly needs to happen more, especially when we think about people die every day. Every day.
And if we can’t talk about death, which is a natural part of life, then when will the conversation ever happen? If we can’t talk about it at work, we can’t talk about it at home, or with our friends or loved ones. Like we have to talk about it because we will all unfortunately experience this.
I think the online community provides a great outlet to have a space to do it.
Jennifer: I’ve lost both my parents. I think the grief has been a long journey. My mom died about 20 years ago and my dad 15 years ago. And I’m still processing it.
Chinasa: Yes.
Jennifer: It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t stop. And being able to talk about it has been something that has been so healing for me.
I think the only reason I haven’t done it online is because so many of the people who knew them have also passed. They were quite a bit older when they adopted me.
And so I think that kind of like public remembrance, that public memorial that you say is part of some of the posts that you do, it’s just so beautiful. I love that. I’ve seen that before, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about what that feels like for them. And what posting about, you know, your mom’s cookies makes it feel like when you post. And so I really liked that. Thank you.
Chinasa helps people who are experiencing grief
Jennifer: Now, tell me a little bit more about your business because your business is now helping some people who are experiencing trauma. Both individuals and organizations, is that right?
Chinasa: Yes. I’m so excited about the work that I’m doing right now with organizations. I’ve had the opportunity to be able to talk more in detail with leaders who are looking for ways to perhaps set the stage for these conversations that I’m talking about right now.
I think if I were to say the most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur in this space, academic entrepreneur of this kind, I think in a lot of ways is being able to leverage your research to do the work. But then also to realize that there are more practical ways to implement it across different organizations and systems. The entrepreneurial route has been very affirming in a lot of ways and very encouraging to me to be able to step out and do this more systemically.
I offer talks to different organizations based on what their needs are, how they want to engage in the conversation.
I’m open and transparent. I bring the research with me. I’m sharing with them real time data because I think at times people need to know. They need to know the statistics. They need to know the experiences of others.
And then they also need to provide the space for those within their organizations to now begin to talk about, well, how do we perhaps cultivate something like this for ourselves? I appreciate that space to be able to do this work in this context.
In the same vein, I also offer grief coaching and grief circles. [Laughs]. I’m laughing because I never thought I would offer that. I never thought that I would be in the space or the head space to do it.
But it was so ironic. At the height of the pandemic, a good friend of mine asked me to start leading grief circles for her organization.
I hesitated at first because you know, in a lot of ways, as an academic, you feel like you need to have all the certifications and credentials under your belt.
In order to step out and do it, but I’ll be frank and say, I started to do it and engage in the work and it has been some of the most eyeopening and rewarding components of what I’ve been able to do since.
To be frank, it’s an absolute honor to be able to support people in this capacity. It’s a tough space to be in. It is a hard place to, you know, step outside of oneself and make yourself available to support others in their journey. But at the same time, it has been absolutely rewarding to see people find what they need in that space at the same time.
I don’t come to it as the guru or the person that’s bringing everything. I come to it as a supportive guide to help people, as they’re thinking through and navigating their own loss. And to think about perhaps how they may begin to forge a path way forward.
A lot of times we just feel stuck. We feel stuck. We don’t think we are going to ever be able to pick up our feet and move one in front of the other.
But when you’re in spaces, when you choose to not isolate, and you get into community with people, I think that is where we’re able to begin to make some semblance of meaning from the gravity of it all.
It’s a lot, but we have to find ways to just think about how may I perhaps begin to move forward. Not necessarily leaving the person in the past by carrying them with you in your heart. And doing things that are intentionally honoring them in yourself along the way.
Jennifer: Oh, that’s beautiful.
I’m so glad that we talked about this because so many people are grieving right now and holding it in. And just trying to stay strong for themselves, for their families to keep moving forward.
And sometimes you just can’t. Sometimes moving forward is just not something you can do on your own. And it’s not something that your family can help you do. Sometimes they don’t have that capacity. Sometimes you don’t have that capacity. But there is help out there. There are ways that you can move forward by working with other people by finding that community. And maybe by hiring Dr. Chinasa Elue as your trauma coach.
I know that I would need something like that. Now that I know that it exists, I wish I had that when I was younger. And I think other people will be glad to have heard you talk about it as well.
Chinasa: Thank you.
Be yourself online
Jennifer: Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. Is there anything else you’d like to add about online presence, about your work, before we wrap up?
Chinasa: I would just say for those who are kind of on the edge of finding their voice online or putting themselves out there. I would just say it’s trial and error. Right? Don’t make it such a high stakes thing.
In a lot of ways, it does take time to find your voice. You’re going to mess up. You might say things…We always worried about getting canceled and the whole nine.
We have to think about perhaps how we might engage in conversations. Like I mentioned beforehand, when there’s a hot button issue that is on the docket for the day. Pick any day, there’s always something new, right? Thinking about our online behaviors is key before we begin to engage in those conversations.
What might we say that contributes in a meaningful way? I don’t like to fan the flame perhaps, but I do like to contribute in ways that provide solutions in a more sustainable way towards action. I think thinking about how you want to engage is key.
And then we think about who you are as a person. We’re not static people, right? There’s depth and range to who we are individually. Let your personality shine forth. That’s the secret sauce. Be yourself.
I think I’ve gotten really comfortable in my skin. I share what I share because it’s who I am, right? And it may not be everybody’s jam, but for me, my jam is just fine. And that’s just the way I choose to present myself.
So if someone is thinking about perhaps ways to express themselves online. I would just say lean into you. Do you. Okay? They can’t go wrong.
Jennifer: Oh, I love that.
Chinasa: Yeah, you can’t go wrong.
Jennifer: Just be you.
Well thank you so much! Be sure to share this interview with your friends.
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Dr. Chinasa Elue is a professor, speaker, coach, and the CEO and Founder of True Titans Consulting Group. She is an expert on grief leadership in higher education and trauma-informed practices in organizational settings. She supports leaders in moving forward to make impactful change in the midst of uncertainty with empathy and care. She provides strategic coaching and consulting that opens the doors to transformation through policy and practice. She hosts Grieving in Color, a podcast that explores the various ways we navigate our experiences with grief and loss and a place where we find the courage to intentionally heal in our daily lives.
Dr. Elue is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Higher Education at Kennesaw State University. She leads the Research Lab for the Study of Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Effectiveness, and Well-Being of Educational Leaders.
Connect with Chinasa on social media @DrChinasaElue.
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Graphical Abstracts and Animations To Share Your Science Online with Dr. Tullio Rossi
Tullio Rossi, PhD helps scientists share their research with visuals
Dr. Tullio Rossi is a marine biologist turned entrepreneur helping scientists around the world share their research. Tullio found that video animations and graphical abstracts increase the impact of your science.
And, they’re great for sharing your research with the media. Now as Director of Animate Your Science, Tullio and his team are changing the way scientists communicate with visuals.
I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to my blog, The Social Academic. It’s all about your online presence in Higher Education. Whether you’re a graduate student, professor, scientist, researcher, or independent scholar, The Social Academic is here to help you communicate online.
In this featured interview, Tullio and I talk about
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Jennifer: Hi everyone, it’s Jennifer van Alstyne here on The Social Academic blog, YouTube channel, and podcast. We’re here talking with Dr. Tullio Rossi, Director of Animate Your Science.
I’m so excited to have this conversation today because having some kind of
can make a really big difference for sharing your research.
Tullio, welcome to The Social Academic. Would you mind starting us off by introducing yourself?
Tullio: Hi, Jennifer. Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here. So I’ll give you a bit of a background about myself.
Everything’s started when I was still a teenager and I started playing around with graphic design. For years I made flyers and posters for events because my best friend organized events. So one day we thought, why don’t we make a flyer for the next event? It was a lot of fun.
I always considered [graphic design] as a bit of a plan B career, if you like. Because then I went on and pursued a career in marine biology. That was back in Italy, in my home country I did undergrad, master’s degree and then a PhD, which brought me here in Australia, where I currently live.
I was doing that PhD when I realized that actually science really needs some help from the world of graphic design and communication in general.
Because there’s so much great research published in these peer-reviewed articles, which nobody gets to hear about. Often not even the researchers themselves. So that pushed me to try things that not many others were even considering to figure out a way on how we can make sure that this research we publish is noticed. That it’s not just lost in this giant online repository of papers.
The question is how do we make sure that our research stands out?
That led me on a new journey. I experimented with
- scientific posters
- graphical abstracts
- video animations
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Prefer to watch videos? Subscribe on YouTube.Watch Tullio’s 1st video about his research
Jennifer: That’s amazing. And I actually watched one of your early videos about your own research. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Tullio: Sure. My research was about the effect of climate change on fish and the ocean in general. It’s a kind of research that has absolutely no commercial application whatsoever.
The only point of that research is to let the public know what we risk if we don’t address our climate change problem.
I concluded that I really needed to get these results out in some way. So I read a lot about storytelling.
I found that whiteboard animations are actually within reach to everyone. I’m not trained as an animator. I used to be a graphic designer. Yes, but I’m not an animator. But anybody can actually make a whiteboard animation. Because there are a number of fairly user-friendly software out there that have very extensive libraries of drawings and assets that you can just use.
I figured out, okay, I actually can put together an animation myself with…my budget was what? $30 [laughs], which was like a one month license to this software I used. And so I decided to try it.
What really made the difference is that I told about the research in a way that didn’t feel like lecture, but in a way that felt like the story. And that makes all the difference, really.
So I started the video, “Imagine to be a baby fish,” you know, and that really drew people in.
I had the opportunity to observe people watch my video. I could see emotions on their faces. And I was like, yes, that’s the holy grail of communication is when you make people feel something.
That video worked really well. It was seen by thousands of people around the world. It won prizes in science communication. And even got me an email from a stranger saying, “Oh, I finally understand what the problem is with this thing called ocean acidification. Thank you for making the video.”
I was like, all right, I think nobody has ever told me thank you before for doing the work I was doing. That feels good.
The world is not just made of angry planet climate change deniers. Now, also nice people out there will show signs of gratitude if us researchers do the little extra effort to break it down in a simple and accessible way for everyone. That was really a great experience.
Then, I presented this work at a scientific conference and the feedback from other researchers was really good. A lot of them came after my talk and said, “Oh, I love what you did. I wish I could do the same. I just don’t know how to do it.” Or, “I don’t have the time.” And so that turned on a light bulb in my head thinking, I should take these more seriously and perhaps I can even make a career out of this.
And so that’s started a new part of my life of my career into science communication and led to where I am today, leading Animate Your Science, a science communication agency that is privileged to help researchers and institutions from all around the world, literally all continents to communicate science using tools like
- Animation videos
- Graphical abstracts
- Posters
- Infographics
- Training
So either we do it for you if you’re busy, but if you have the time we can also teach you some skills.
Jennifer: I think that’s amazing. And that really helps anyone who needs this kind of skill in their life, whether it’s having it done for you or getting help to learn how to do it yourself.
What you were talking about in terms of being able to see the emotions of people who watched your video, the very first video you created about this. I wish you would see me watching it. I was like crying by the end. And I remember going to my fiancé and being like, you know, how much we care about sustainable fishing? Let me tell you about this video that I just watched and how important it is for us to understand our oceans, understand what climate change is affecting, and what we can start to share about it.
This video affected me so much that I was already telling people about it within just a few minutes of having watched it myself. And I just think that that kind of excitement, that kind of emotional impact that that video had on me, just goes to show how important a company like yours is, how important the work that you’re doing to help other researchers and scientists communicate their work to the general public, but also to other researchers who can benefit from it. It’s amazing.
Tullio: Thank you, Jennifer, I’m very happy to hear that it touched you. That’s always the deck part of communication is reaching people not just at the brain level, but way deeper down here in the heart.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Tullio: And when that happens, which is not easy, you really hit the jackpot in communication.
Jennifer: For sure.
Free online presence workshop
Get started for in this virtual choose your own adventure workshop for professors, researchers, and graduate students.
What is a graphical abstract to share your research?
Jennifer: We’ve been talking about a little bit about video, but they’re also amazing at graphical abstracts and that’s something that you’ve helped scientists with. What is a graphical abstract?
Tullio: Sure.
When I started this new part of my career in business, I looked around or what was out there in terms of graphical abstracts. And I realized that pretty much none of what was out there was actually suitable if you wanted to communicate your research to a non-expert audience. So if you want to reach the general public with your graphical abstract, none of what was out there would work.
All the graphical abstracts we used to see are very technical. They are straight to the key process, let’s say molecule A meets molecule B, they have a reaction to create this new molecule. That’s pretty much what they look like. Some in the medical field even go as far as having p-values, which definitely will mean nothing to a non-expert.
My interests and vision was really to bring science to society, not just to other experts. I wanted to create something that will go beyond the expert sphere.
I created the new format, the graphical abstract, which is a little bit more wordy, I limit it to 80 words. But it has the advantage that it gives some context. It tells the story of that research.
In 80 words, I figured it was enough to just touch on
- A little bit of background highlighting what the knowledge gap or the question that the research is asking.
- Providing the key results and why that matters. Can it be done in 80 words? I’m not saying it’s easy, but it can be done.
- And the rest are visuals relevant to the research.
The reality is that people process images way, way faster than the process text. That’s why we have street signs that are not worthy. Yeah, they don’t explain things with words. They explain with iconography.
Same applies to your graphical abstract. The more visual it is, the more rapidly the viewer will be able to understand it.
Jennifer: So by limiting the words you’re really able to communicate through both words and visuals, what the story is in that graphical abstract it sounds like.
Tullio: Yeah. With this balance between words and visuals, you can really reach anybody. Then you’ve got a much wider audience. Then at the end of reading [the graphical abstract], they’ll be able to decide whether they want to go and read the actual paper. Great. That might be your goal.
Or, just to understand what the key message is, and then move on.
But they can still then share it on social media with friends, which is still a very important thing. It really extends the potential impact of the research passively.
Jennifer: That’s great. So it sounds like once you have this graphical abstract, it’s something that you can share on social media. That must really help scientists to reach more people.
Tullio: Absolutely. So we’re seeing a great use case for graphical abstracts is social media. I will say Twitter above all.
The wrong approach, which I still see very often is to say, “Hey, I published a new paper.” And you pop the link to the paper and that’s it. Well, that’s a tweet that goes unnoticed because it’s not visual. It’s just a string of text.
Some researchers then screenshot one of the figures, maybe the previous figure and they pop it in there. That’s a little bit better, but still people don’t want to see charts on Twitter.
Jennifer: That’s kind of a figure out of context too. You don’t necessarily have access to that paper right away.
Tullio: Yes, it’s often out of context, so people will struggle to make sense of it.
Here is where the graphical abstract really helps. In one panel where you can flesh out that key story and attract people with visuals.
Jennifer: That’s amazing. A thing I really like about it is that it can be shared on its own and in conjunction with the paper.
It’s okay if people are only connecting with the graphical part of it, they don’t necessarily need to read the paper to be able to share it.
That just really increases the impact.
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Jennifer: Do you have any stats about that in terms of how much impact it can make for a paper?
Tullio: Sure.
So there’s actually really interesting research from the field of surgery which I’m going to read out to you. This is a study published in the Annals of Surgery in 2017, [Visual Abstracts to Disseminate Research on Social Media: A Prospective, Case-control Crossover Study]. The authors are Andrew M. Ibrahim, MD, MSc, Keith D. Lillemoe, MD, Mary E. Klingensmith, MD, and Justin B. Dimick, MD, MPH.
They compare how effective it is to tweet about your research with, or without a graphical abstracts. Still consider that these are fairly technical graphical abstracts. So not those I was describing. Even with the technical [graphical abstract], here’s what they found:
The reach (how many people will see it on Twitter) is almost 8x as high.
The number of retweets (how many times people will share it) is more than 8x as high.
Article visits (how many people click and actually read your paper) is almost 3x as high.
Jennifer: Wow.
Tullio: This is pretty amazing. Isn’t it like day and night?
Jennifer: Yeah.
Tullio: I think it should become the standard that when you publish your paper and you want to share it on Twitter or any other social media it needs to have a graphical abstract.
It will be a massive lost opportunity if you don’t. It might be.
Jennifer: Yeah, it sounds like if we’re seeing those kinds of numbers with the kind of really technical graphical abstract, having something from you or something that really just communicates more effectively to the general public can even increase that potential reach even more.
That potential for retreating, if you don’t understand what is going on in the abstract, it’s going to go down. Once you have that connection, that connection that helps you not only understand, but know why it might be helpful for other people to see it too. That’s what increases that potential for sharing. So I just love that.
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Jennifer: Now what’s the difference between a graphical abstract and a scientific poster? In the humanities. I think I’ve done one poster about my research and it wasn’t very good.
What is a scientific poster versus a graphical abstract?
Tullio: Sure. In my view, they are actually very similar. The key difference is the size.
Jennifer: Okay.
Tullio: Graphical abstract is typically something that needs to fit in a tweet on social media.
As I said, I would not write more than 80 words and have one or two key visuals.
On a poster, you have much more real estate. Typically it’s printed on an eight zero format, which is very large. Yeah, plenty more real estate.
But having all that real estate often leads these researchers to make the most common mistake, which is to dump everything they’ve got on it. So they dump a couple thousand words. They dump not one chart, maybe eight. And then a couple of tables too.
Then the whole thing becomes this wall of text and chart that is just overwhelming for the audience. That’s the key problem of posters.
One of my battles is to change that. Because if we designed posters this way, we’re creating a disservice to ourselves and our audience.
These posters are ineffective because they put people off. Literally. If something looks overwhelming, you don’t want to look at it.
Think about the typical poster session, pre-corona. You know, it’s the end of the day, you get your first glass of wine. You’re starting to relax. And you go around and look at posters.
Do you really want to read for half an hour 2,000 words and processes, and eight complicated charts? I don’t think so.
What you want is to have a conversation with the person presenting that poster. Right?
The poster should, first thing, attract attention. Because, you know, it’s a room full of posters. There’s probably maybe some conferences, hundreds of posters.
Jennifer: Right.
Tullio: The first thing is that you need to stand out. The way you achieve that is by having one key large visual that is related to your research. Let’s say if your research is on let’s say the bone structure chemistry, have a large bone. Something that is recognizable from that other side of the room.
Jennifer: Ahh, so a big visual.
Tullio: One key, big visual that will make your poster stand out from the other side of the room. People will notice it, get curious, walk towards you and then start the conversation.
The goal is not to watch people read your poster. The goal is to quickly walk them through the story in a one minute spiel. And then ask a question and start conversation which is supposed to go two ways. Right? And that’s how good networking is supposed to be.
Bottom line is that a poster is an eye-catcher first, and a conversation-starter second. That’s what it’s supposed to be.
To achieve that we need to slash the amount of content we put on our posters. That’s the key thing that will dramatically improve. Even without getting into graphic design principles. If you just cut the content in half, you improve your poster massively.
Because everyone is making the same mistake, having way too much on it.
Jennifer: I definitely made that mistake. Yeah.
Tullio: Yeah, look, we are all guilty, but in a way, we’re not because we don’t know any better. Researchers don’t get any training on this. And that’s why I want to change this.
Jennifer: That’s great!
Tullio: That’s why I am providing training on scientific posters in the form of workshops and online courses. Because literally I couldn’t find any training on this. I was lucky to have this background in graphic design. But 99.9% of researchers, don’t.
Jennifer: Right.
Tullio: We need to at least spend a couple of hours learning how we should design an effective poster before we go to the first conference and then get disappointed because,
- Oh, nobody came to talk to me.
- People were not really interested in my poster.
- Nobody really noticed it.
- I don’t have any contacts from this conference.
- I think it was a waste of time and money.
That’s not the kind of experience you want. It should be the opposite!
You should be full of people that want to talk to you, having lots of new contacts. To thrive in your career. That’s the whole goal of a poster session.
Jennifer: I guess that’s why your course is called How To Design An Award Winning Poster. So this isn’t just a poster that’s going to do well for your research. It’s a poster. That’s going to capture that attention so you can really meet people who are interested in it, interested in what you’re doing. I just love that.
Tullio: Yes. And ideally your poster should work for a broad audience, not just technical audience, you know? It depends on where you set the bar, but let’s say for most scientific conferences, it’s a technical audience and that’s fine.
When designing a research poster for a general audience
Jennifer: We were talking about different uses for posters. What is a good poster that you could make for a general audience?
Tullio: For a general audience, the key thing is keeping jargon in check. Because if you’re not an expert and you’re not familiar with the jargon on something.
One jargony word. Okay. Two? On the third one, you’re like, this is not for me. I feel stupid. And you switch off. And you stopped reading.
And you lost the person. It’s just how it goes.
If you want to reach a broader audience with your poster, definitely keep the drive in and check. It’s better to have a few extra words, but to explain a concept, rather than just relying on jargon.
Other than that, you cannot assume people will be able to understand complex charts. Like 3D plots? Forget about it. Like, bar charts? Fine. Most people can understand a bar chart, but forget about all the more complex things like 3D plots, which is very common in some disciplines. Or, some crazy charts like in evolutionary biology or genetics which look so complicated.
If those are your visuals, you should really rethink how you present your data visually for a broader audience.
But if you go to a genetics conference and there’s just hundreds of geneticists around you, then go for it and that’s fine.
Jennifer: [Laughs.] Then the jargon will make sense to them.
Tullio: Then the jargon will make sense. Then the complex genetics chart will make sense too. And then it’s fine.
The first thing is always to ask yourself
- Who am I talking to?
- Who am I presenting to?
Once we’ve got clarity on that, then that sets the bar for your communication.
Jennifer: I think that’s wonderful. I really enjoy talking to you about this because I think that visuals are so important for researchers in all fields, not just scientists, but everyone who’s working on something that maybe a limited audience is going to be able to read that kind of final product.
It can really help to talk about it online, whether you’re embedding a video on your website or sharing it on social media. There’s potential to reach way more people than most researchers expect with that kind of visual. So I just have enjoyed this conversation so much.
Is there anything else you’d like to add before we wrap up?
Tullio: Oh, look I could talk about this stuff for hours.
Resources on the Animate Your Science website
Tullio: Something I wanted to add is that yes, we have this online course on our website called How To Design An Award Winning Scientific Poster. But we also have plenty of free resources on our blog including some poster templates, which many researchers find really handy. So feel free to visit our website. If you can dig into the resources section on the blog. There’s plenty of very well-written valuable materials for free.
But then if you’re interested in really going deep, I recommend our online course. That would be the right way to go.
Jennifer: [Laughs]. Well I am so excited to share your course with people. I hope that if you’re working on a scientific poster you check it out. Having that ability to reach more people can really affect how you feel about your research.
Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
Tullio: Thank you for having me, Jennifer.
Jennifer: Check out Tullio on social media @Tullio_Rossi and @Animate_Science.
Thank you so much for reading The Social Academic.
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Prefer to watch videos? Subscribe on YouTube.Bio for Tullio Rossi, PhD
Dr. Tullio Rossi is an award-winning science communicator, marine biologist and graphic designer.
As founder of the science communication agency Animate Your Science, he helps researchers tell their story to the world.
His engaging video animations and eye-catching graphics make science understandable for everyone, reaching millions of people around the world, thereby creating a real-life impact.
Visit Tullio’s personal website.
Connect with Tullio on social media @Tullio_Rossi and @Animate_Science.
Virtual. Self-paced. Choose your own adventure.
Free online presence workshop
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Engaging Online Students Though a Zoom-Based Journal Club Experience
This year has been an exceptional year for teaching. We are just transitioning out of a COVID19 time period and our students are ready and eager to engage with faculty!
Before the semester began, I made the decision to travel to a Texas State Park. I realized that I write best papers when I am sitting outside in camping chair, cooking lunch with a foldable cookstove, and surrounding myself with the most amazing bug spray ever.
So, while I was “in nature”, I thought about some out of the box strategies that I could use for the upcoming semester. One of these strategies was centered around one of my husband’s experiences during his graduate program at Texas A&M University – The Journal Club. Now, keep in mind – I teaching in the Communication Department and journal clubs are primarily held in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields (STEM).
So, I jumped into the Journal Club game HEAD FIRST and I decided to integrate the experience on my syllabus. My graduate students did not have any experience with a journal club and I had to demonstrate and explain the purpose of the activity. ALL of my students are online and this meant that the best way to explain the journal club was to demonstrate how it works. So, here’s my demonstration video…
After the students viewed the video, they were able to select the days and the associated articles that they wanted to highlight in the journal club. The students had to present two times and they had to attend at least one session. Each session has two facilitators and they basically divide the article in half. Many of the students have attended more than three sessions. Here are the articles we reviewed this semester…
Overall, it is a great learning experience for them and I will definitely integrate it next year. The students are reflecting about the articles and are highlighting how the articles have implications for many fields.
In fact, the Rural Communication and the Texas Social Media Research Institutes are hosting Texas Social Media Conference MONTH in November. You are welcome to attend our Journal Club sessions via Zoom, chat and network with others through our Thursday night Twitter chats, and hear some AMAZING presentations! I will post registration soon. In the meantime, check out the month-long schedule.
Texas Social Media Month – November 2021 (Draft) by jennifertedwards
Have any questions? Contact me.
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Enjoy!
Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.
Remember to order copies for your team as well!
Thanks for visiting!
Sincerely,
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of CommunicationExecutive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute
& Rural Communication Institute
