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Federal officials have scrutinized Columbia following a series of on-campus protests in 2024. In August of that year, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and former chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, issued several subpoenas to Columbia leaders as part of an investigation into antisemitism at the university and whether the protests had created a hostile environment in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Last month, EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas issued a statement in which she pledged to hold universities and colleges accountable for workplace antisemitism. Lucas’ statement did not name any specific institutions, but it did cite “disruptive and violent protests in violation of campus policies” as an example of severe or pervasive antisemitic conduct that could violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“Under the guise of promoting free speech, many universities have actually become a haven for antisemitic conduct, often in violation of the universities’ own time, place, and manner policies, as well as civil rights law,” Lucas said in the March 5 statement.
EEOC did not confirm whether messages sent to Columbia and Barnard faculty were part of an ongoing investigation into either institution. “Per federal law, we cannot comment on investigations, nor can we confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” the agency said.
Similarly, Columbia declined to comment on a pending investigation, but a university official said Columbia had told staff that it gave “affected employees notice that the University was required to provide certain information in compliance with a subpoena. The University did not provide the information voluntarily.”
Columbia did not respond to a request for comment on whether it had advised staff not to respond to EEOC’s messages.
News of the inquiry drew criticism from one of EEOC’s administrative judges, Karen Ortiz, who sent an all-staff email directed to EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas.
Ortiz wrote that Lucas should consider resigning; in an interview with HR Dive, she said the email was in response to news of the text messages and other recent agency actions, including its decision to abandon gender-identity discrimination litigation and halting some claims processing. She said the survey arguably was not within Lucas’ authority to send and could be understood as an attempt to intimidate Columbia and Barnard.
“It’s a complete overreach,” Ortiz said of the survey.
Federal investigators spent hours last Friday raiding two homes belonging to a cybersecurity professor at Indiana University at Bloomington, multiple local news outlets reported.
It’s unclear what investigators were looking for, but Chris Bavender, an FBI spokesperson, confirmed to The Herald-Times that the raid was “court authorized law enforcement activity,” and that the agency had “no further comment.”
Xiaofeng Wang, a tenured computer science professor and director of IU’s Center for Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, has worked at the university for more than 20 years. But after numerous government agents began removing boxes from the Bloomington home Wang shares with his wife, Nianli Ma—who also worked for IU’s library as a systems analyst and programmer—neighbors told The Herald-Times they knew little about the couple, including their names.
Law enforcement also arrived Friday morning at a home belonging to the couple in Carmel, about an hour and 15 minutes north of Bloomington. A video taken by a neighbor and published by local NBC affiliate, WTHR, shows FBI agents shouting, “FBI, come out!” through a megaphone pointed toward the residence.
An unidentified woman then exits the home holding a phone, which agents confiscated before questioning her and later removing evidence from the home. The woman left the scene and returned hours later with her lawyer, who later told WTHR “they’re not sure yet what the investigation is about.”
According to The Bloomingtonian, Wang was fired from IU in early March. Both his and Ma’s employee profiles have been scrubbed from the university’s websites.
When the Trump administration announced Friday it was cutting about $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University, it didn’t specify what exactly it was slashing. But news of the scope of the cuts has begun trickling out of the institution over the past couple of days.
So far, much of the information about the canceled grants has come via social media, as neither the Trump administration nor the university have provided a comprehensive accounting of what’s being cut. The National Institutes of Health did say earlier this week that it was pulling more than $250 million in grants from Columbia, though the agency wouldn’t share more details. And it’s hard to tell whether specific cuts are part of the $400 million or a continuation of the Trump administration’s general national reduction of federal funding to universities, such as axing grants it deems related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
On Tuesday, Joshua A. Gordon, chair of the university’s psychiatry department, emailed colleagues to tell them the National Institutes of Health had terminated nearly 30 percent of grants to Columbia’s medical school—including many within his own department.
“All of our training grants and many fellowships have been terminated,” Gordon wrote in the email, which a postdoctoral research fellow provided Inside Higher Ed.
Gordon wrote that he’s still working with university administrators “to find out the full extent of these terminations” and that “the institution is committed to identifying the resources that can be brought to bear to support the people and projects affected by the terminations.” He added, “We remain dedicated to ensuring that our trainees and early-career scientists have the support needed to continue their work and achieve their career goals.”
The Trump administration said this unprecedented $400 million cut was due to Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” More cuts at Columbia and other universities could follow as Trump follows through on his pledge to crack down on alleged antisemitism and punish elite universities. Columbia has more than $5 billion in federal grants and contracts.
Columbia postdocs and faculty have taken to social media to announce canceled grants, fellowships and funding for Ph.D. students, showing some of the individual impacts on people and research wrought by the Trump administration’s actions. They include nixed training for researchers of depression and schizophrenia and a grant that would’ve provided free mental health resources to K-12 students.
Sam Seidman, a postdoc and a steward for the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers union, told Inside Higher Ed that, “as a Jew,” it’s “particularly outrageous” to hear the Trump administration justifying the cuts by saying it’s fighting antisemitism.
Seidman said he found out Monday that his T32 grant, an NIH training fellowship for new scientists, had been canceled. “I certainly don’t feel protected,” he said.
He said it’s clear the Trump administration doesn’t have an issue with antisemitism or even with Columbia specifically. Its issue, Seidman said, is with “public funding of science and it’s with public funding, period,” adding that “Columbia makes a convenient scapegoat.”
In an emailed statement, a Columbia Irving Medical Center spokesperson said, “Columbia is in the process of reviewing notices and cannot confirm how many grant cancellations have been received from federal agencies” since Friday.
The spokesperson said, “We remain dedicated to our mission to advance lifesaving research and pledge to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding.”
In a separate statement Wednesday, interim president Katrina Armstrong, herself a medical doctor, didn’t mention the cuts and instead said she stands by broad principles such as “intellectual freedom” and “personal responsibility.”
“I have no doubt that the days and weeks ahead are going to be extremely difficult,” Armstrong said. “The best I can promise is that I will never stray from these principles and that I will work tirelessly to defend our remarkable, singular institution.”
Marcel Agüeros, secretary of Columbia’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said, “It’s already looking very grim.”
Agüeros said it’s a slow process to try to understand how the cuts are affecting such a large and decentralized university. But he said he has learned “it’s not just the kind of classic lab-based biomedical research that’s being impacted.”
Like Seidman, he said the cuts don’t seem to be about the grants themselves or Columbia. Instead, Agüeros said, it’s “an assault on universities in general” and the concept of peer review that the grants went through.
“It’s coming for you; it doesn’t really matter where you are or what you research,” Agüeros said
In its Wednesday statement, the university medical center said that “from pioneering cancer treatments to innovative heart disease interventions and cutting-edge gene and cell therapies, research conducted by Columbia faculty has helped countless people live healthier, longer and more productive lives.”
Seidman said his NIH grant was for research on family and biological risk factors that predispose kids to develop eating disorders, depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. He thinks university higher-ups are trying to find alternative funding but “haven’t been any more specific than ‘we’re looking.’”
“It’s tragic, I mean these are lifesaving, potentially, interventions,” Seidman said. Yet the researchers developing them have been “cut off at the knees,” he said.
Gordon Petty, a postdoc in Columbia’s psychiatry department, said his T32 training grant, which has also been canceled, was to study schizophrenia. He said he heard that the department is still dedicated to supporting him, “but it’s unclear where that money’s coming from.”
Trump’s cuts appear to have also hit Teachers College of Columbia University, which is a separate higher education institution from Columbia with its own board. But it’s unclear if that’s part of the $400 million cut for allegedly not properly addressing antisemitism or part of nationwide cuts to grants perceived as being related to diversity, equity and inclusion. A Teachers College spokesperson said, “We are still sorting through the full impact on the college and will be in touch when we have more to say.”
Prerna Arora, an associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, said she got an email Friday from a deputy assistant U.S. education secretary announcing the cancellation of a five-year Education Department grant. Arora said most of the funds went directly to graduate students training to become K-12 school psychologists serving children in New York City.
The email, according to Arora, alleged that the grant funded “programs that promote or take part in initiatives that unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or another protected characteristic” or that “violate either the letter or purpose of federal civil rights law” or “conflict with the department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness and excellence in education.”
“We already have students that are funded under this, and they are at the university and we are in the middle of our admissions cycle for next year,” Arora said. She said, “I’ve spoken to very scared and tearful students” who are afraid of what this means for their training and “for their future.”
And, beyond the impact on college students, Arora lamented the loss of the grant’s free help to K-12 students and families. “We could’ve helped many children who need this,” she said.
It’s unclear whether the Trump administration will restore the grants. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said after the announcement Friday that she had a “productive” meeting with Armstrong. Meanwhile, Columbia said in a statement that it’s “committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns.”
Agüeros, with the AAUP, said Columbia has already “gone overboard in an attempt to silence any kind of dissent.” Its previous president called in the New York Police Department to remove a pro-Palestinian protest encampment last spring and publicly criticized and revealed investigations into her own faculty in front of Congress.
“There’s this assumption that if we just go along with things we’ll escape somehow unscathed,” Agüeros said. But he noted the cuts still arrived.
“What did all of that get us—all of the sort of compliance that was put in place? It got us nothing.”
In a Jan. 14 lecture, Ken Levy, Holt B. Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law at Louisiana State University, dropped f-bombs against then–president-elect Donald Trump and Louisiana governor Jeff Landry and told students who like Trump that they need his “political commentary.”
Some students found the apparent attempt at political humor funny, according to an audio recording of the class obtained by Inside Higher Ed from a student who supports Levy.
But at least one student in the administration of criminal justice class who subsequently complained, according to LSU, wasn’t amused—and neither were the university and the governor. An LSU spokesperson said the institution “took immediate action to remove Professor Levy from the classroom after complaints about the professor’s remarks.”
Levy got a lawyer and took immediate action himself, pulling LSU into court instead of waiting for the university to take further steps internally regarding his job.
In the month since that lecture, state district court judges have twice ruled that Levy should return to the classroom, only for a state appeals court to twice overrule that. The back-and-forth nature of the case has attracted attention in Louisiana and in law circles, including via headlines such as “The LSU Law School Professor Free Speech Hot Potato Saga Continues.”
Landry also continues to discuss the case. A Republican governor who’s repeatedly inserted himself in LSU affairs, Landry used social media in the fall to call on the university to punish one of Levy’s law school colleagues for alleged in-class comments about Trump-supporting students. Landry has now repeatedly posted about Levy, recently saying an alleged exam he gave was incendiary and suggesting that “maybe it’s time to abolish tenure.”
In the lecture in question, Levy referenced Landry’s previous criticism of his LSU colleague Nick Bryner, adding that he “would love to become a national celebrity [student laughter drowns out a moment of the recording] based on what I said in this class, like, ‘Fuck the governor!’”
Levy also referenced Trump. “You probably heard I’m a big lefty, I’m a big Democrat, I was devastated by— I couldn’t believe that fucker won, and those of you who like him, I don’t give a shit, you’re already getting ready to say in your evaluations, ‘I don’t need his political commentary,’” Levy told students. “No, you need my political commentary, you above all others.”
A few days after that lecture, LSU notified Levy he was suspended from teaching pending an investigation into student complaints, according to a letter from the university provided by Levy’s attorney, Jill Craft.
On Jan. 28, Craft filed a request for a temporary restraining order against LSU to get Levy back in the classroom. The filing alleged that a student complained to the governor, not LSU, and calls were then made to LSU. A state district court judge granted the restraining order Jan. 30 without a hearing.
In the first reversal, a panel of appellate judges wrote Feb. 4 that the lower court shouldn’t have approved the return-to-teaching part of the temporary restraining order without a full evidentiary hearing. But after the lower court held a two-day hearing last week, a different group of appellate judges overruled Levy’s return to teaching again—without explaining why.
Local journalists who covered last week’s hearing reported that district court judge Tarvald Anthony Smith kicked an LSU deputy general counsel out of the courtroom because the lawyer told the law school dean, who was a scheduled and sequestered witness, about a student witness’s earlier testimony. The testimony was reportedly that the student had recorded a conversation with the dean.
Smith ruled Feb. 11 that LSU policy required the university to keep Levy in class during the investigation of his comments, WBRZ reported. But a Feb. 4 statement from university spokesman Todd Woodward to Inside Higher Ed suggested the investigation was already over: “Our investigation found that Professor Levy created a classroom environment that was demeaning to students who do not hold his political view, threatening in terms of their grades and profane.” The university didn’t make anyone available for an interview about the case.
Amid this legal back-and-forth, Landry continues to denounce Levy on social media. Last week, Landry posted on X an alleged exam from Levy that included potential sexual and other crimes committed by various fictitious individuals and asked students at the end to “discuss all potential crimes and defenses.” The narrative included a teen who put his penis into pumpkins on Halloween and was seen by trick-or-treating children, and a powerful Republican and suspected pedophile who invited the children inside to dance for him.
“Disgusting and inexcusable behavior from Ken Levy,” Landry wrote on X regarding what he claimed was Levy’s test. “Deranged behavior like this has no place in our classrooms! If tenure protects a professor from this type of conduct, then maybe it’s time to abolish tenure.” Asked about this document, Craft said she believes the assignment was part of the sex crimes portion of Levy’s criminal law exam years ago, but she did not confirm it.
After the latest appellate ruling in LSU’s favor, Landry wrote on X that “Levy should stay far, far away from any classroom in Louisiana!”
Craft said Levy has received death threats on X due to Landry’s comments there. “This seems to be a situation entirely of the governor’s making,” she said. “He has been active on social media, trying to accuse my client of all kinds of bad things. He’s a lawyer himself. He attacked the courts and the judge.”
Landry’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Craft also said Levy’s roughly 80 students remain with another 80 in another professor’s classroom.
“I’m not sure how he can handle office hours for 160 law students,” Craft said of that second professor. The university says it’s doubled the number of student tutors for the course.
Craft said Levy was set to return to the classroom Feb. 13, but Louisiana’s First Circuit Court of Appeal issued its two-sentence order around 9:30 a.m. that appeared to stay the part of the lower court’s order that returned Levy to teaching.
LSU again kept Levy out of the classroom Tuesday, Craft said. But she said the rest of the lower court order remains in place, at least for now, and that prevents LSU from taking further employment action against Levy due to his expression.
“This is a critical issue, and I feel like we have got to, as a nation, understand that there has to be academic freedom, there has to be free speech in this country, and there have to be protections against governmental intrusions without due process,” she said. “We take all that away and we are no longer the United States of America.”
“Censorship” built into rapidly growing generative artificial intelligence tool DeepSeek could lead to misinformation seeping into students’ work, scholars fear.
The Chinese-developed chat bot has soared to the top of the download charts, upsetting global financial markets by appearing to rival the performance of ChatGPT and other U.S.-designed tools, at a much lower cost.
But with students likely to start using the tool for research and help with assignments, concerns have been raised that it is censoring details about topics that are sensitive in China and pushing Communist Party propaganda.
When asked questions centering on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, reports claim that the chat bot replies that it is “not sure how to approach this type of question yet,” before adding, “Let’s chat about math, coding and logic problems instead!”
When asked about the status of Taiwan, it replies, “The Chinese government adheres to the One China principle, and any attempts to split the country are doomed to fail.”
Shushma Patel, pro vice chancellor for artificial intelligence at De Montfort University—said to be the first role of its kind in the U.K.—described DeepSeek as a “black box” that could “significantly” complicate universities’ efforts to tackle misinformation spread by AI.
“DeepSeek is probably very good at some facts—science, mathematics, etc.—but it’s that other element, the human judgment element and the tacit aspect, where it isn’t. And that’s where the key difference is,” she said.
Patel said that students need to have “access to factual information, rather than the politicized, censored propaganda information that may exist with DeepSeek versus other tools,” and said that the development heightens the need for universities to ensure AI literacy among their students.
Thomas Lancaster, principal teaching fellow of computing at Imperial College London, said, “From the universities’ side of things, I think we will be very concerned if potentially biased viewpoints were coming through to students and being treated as facts without any alternative sources or critique or knowledge being there to help the student understand why this is presented in this way.
“It may be that instructors start seeing these controversial ideas—from a U.K. or Western viewpoint—appearing in student essays and student work. And in that situation, I think they have to settle this directly with the student to try and find out what’s going on.”
However, Lancaster said, “All AI chat bots are censored in some way,” which can be for “quite legitimate reasons.” This can include censoring material relating to criminal activity, terrorism or self-harm, or even avoiding offensive language.
He agreed that “the bigger concern” highlighted by DeepSeek was “helping students understand how to use these tools productively and in a way that isn’t considered unfair or academic misconduct.”
This has potential wider ramifications outside of higher education, he added. “It doesn’t only mean that students could hand in work that is incorrect, but it also has a knock-on effect on society if biased information gets out there. It’s similar to the concerns we have about things like fake news or deepfake videos,” he said.
Questions have also been raised over the use of data relating to the tool, since China’s national intelligence laws require enterprises to “support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.” The chat bot is not available on some app stores in Italy due to data-related concerns.
While Patel conceded there were concerns over DeepSeek and “how that data may be manipulated,” she added, “We don’t know how ChatGPT manipulates that data, either.”
LinkedIn is one of my favorite social media platforms for academics. It’s become more popular in the last year, especially since things have changed at Twitter. So I wanted to chat with you about LinkedIn today.
I’m Jennifer van Alstyne of The Social Academic. Today we’re going to be talking about LinkedIn.
So first, the state of social media has changed. I would say since things changed at Twitter, people have been asking me where should I go next?
The answer is that academics are on every social media platform. If you don’t want to use threads or Mastodon or Blue Sky or any of these kind of new platforms that are popping up where you hear academics are spending time, that’s totally okay. They’re still on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, like TikTok, all the major platforms. I promise that you are going to find an academic audience wherever you feel like spending time.
That being said, LinkedIn is my number one recommendation for professors and researchers. LinkedIn is not just for business people. Professors are finding that their audiences are already there. People like their colleagues, administrators at their university, people that they might be talking with, offices on campus, they know that their collaborators are probably on LinkedIn. Even if they don’t have a profile that they use often, that’s somewhere, that they have potential to connect. Who else? Your research funders, editors, publishers, members of the media like journalists, scientific community, policymakers, all sorts of people who might care about your research in particular are already on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn used to be a social media platform that was really specifically for professionals, especially when they were on the job market when career searching. But academics find that LinkedIn is effective and a good use of their time even when they’re not job searching, and that’s kind of my specialty.
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I mostly work with professors who want to have a stronger social media and online presence, but they’re not actually looking for jobs. They just want to be better connected with people in their community.
So first, LinkedIn is not just for business people.
Second, your LinkedIn profile shows up in Google search results. This means that it does have a strong impact on your online presence, and LinkedIn profiles tend to show up at the top of those search results.
So not only does it impact your online presence, it can be a really good answer for people when they know that there’s potential to find what they’re looking for. Oftentimes, people might be looking for contact information. They might be looking for what your current research is about. They might be looking for a photo of you because they’re going to meet you at a conference next month. So I want to let you know there’s many reasons why people might be looking for you online, and your LinkedIn profile might be the answer that they can be looking for.
LinkedIn is free, so there are many social media platforms that are free. Some of them, they have an option for premium, including LinkedIn. But to be honest, you do not need to be spending money on social media platforms to have a strong online presence.
I don’t spend any money on social media platforms, and even though I have friends that have upgraded to say the premium version of Twitter, like it hasn’t really paid off for them in a way that makes it super effective.
I’m just saying that I don’t actually recommend paying for social media even if you have the budget for it. So LinkedIn is a great free way to build your online presence.
I love that LinkedIn has a powerful search. So number three is that LinkedIn profiles really do show up in Google search results, but they also show up when people are searching for your name or something that is on your profile on LinkedIn. So for instance, let’s see, what can I use as an example?
Let’s say an English professor who has a specific focus in American literature has a profile on LinkedIn because they have professor of American literature in their profile, both in their headline and in their about section, that profile will show up on Google search results potentially, but also within LinkedIn search results.
So if I’m looking for professors of English, especially people who focus on American literature, I can type that into the LinkedIn search bar and find all the people that are in, say, the United States. You can even narrow it by specific region or location. So I could find American literature professors in Oklahoma, for instance.
There are so many opportunities to find more people who care about the things that you do, who care about the research that you’re working on within a specific location using that search. So LinkedIn search is really powerful. It’s helpful for finding people within your research interest. It’s also helpful for people finding people at your university or who are alumni of the same programs that you are.
Other professors are on LinkedIn. Number four is that you can find the people that you want to connect with there.
Now, I’m not saying that everyone you know is on LinkedIn, but the chances are at some point in the last decade or so, they’ve created a profile. They’ve created a LinkedIn profile, whether they use it or not, and they have some kind of presence on LinkedIn. This isn’t true for everyone.
I mean, for so long, LinkedIn was known as a platform that is not really for academics. It was kind of so business-y and there wasn’t a lot of conversation that was outside of job searching, and so it wasn’t a place where academics were spending time.
I have seen so many more academics who want to post and share their thought leadership and research on LinkedIn. But there’s also thousands and thousands and thousands of professors who are on LinkedIn and never post at all.
The people that you want to connect with are probably there, and if they’re not there yet, they probably will be soon because like I said, it is a growing platform for professors and researchers.
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Number five is that the other people that are there are people that you probably care about, whether they’re research funders, publishers, editors, members of the community or policymakers, the people outside of the ivory tower who need to find what you’re working on, who can be impacted by it and put it into practice.
There is potential to reach those people on LinkedIn, and I’m saying that there’s potential to do that even if you never post.
I want you to be more open-minded about what LinkedIn could do for you as a professor. It’s not just about job searching. It’s not just about talking about your research or kind of showcasing who you are.
It’s kind of an invitation. I like that LinkedIn profiles when they’re filled out are, it’s like you being open to having people find you and connect with you and reach out to you if it’s relevant to them, even if you never post at all. Having an awesome LinkedIn profile is great for professors.
One question I wanted to be sure to answer today is how long does it typically take to do a LinkedIn profile? That’s a really good question because it really depends.
If you are starting from scratch and all you have is an hour or two to put into your LinkedIn profile, please do it.
Any small change that you can make to your online presence for your LinkedIn profile makes a difference. I encourage you to spend any amount of time that you have in your schedule on making an improved LinkedIn presence for yourself as a professor. It can really help people better connect with you.
How long does it take me to do a LinkedIn profile? Well, it’s taken, kind of different amounts of time for different people, and when I’m doing a done for you profile, it typically takes upwards of 7 hours.
I would say 7-9 hours total is about how long it takes for me to do a LinkedIn profile.
That, to be honest, I could probably spend another 5-7 hours on it and to find even more ways to improve it because that’s how my brain works. The more I understand a platform, the more I understand the person that I’m writing for, the better I can make the profile.
So there’s always opportunity, I think to make a difference with our LinkedIn profiles, but typically the amount of time that I spend for what I would say is a really great LinkedIn profile that meets all of my professor clients’ needs, it’s about 7-9 hours. And that includes a planning meeting, includes everything done for you and a review meeting to make sure that we can make any tweaks or changes in real time.
So it takes quite a bit of time, and that’s why when professors come to me and they’re like, I want a stronger LinkedIn presence, but I know I don’t have time to fit into my calendar. I know, I mean 7-9 of your time is like that’s not only a full day away from your research and the things that matter to you. It’s like time away from your family and the people who you care about. It’s a big commitment, and so I would never, I would never say you have to make this commitment for yourself.
If you don’t have 7-9 hours in your time to work on your LinkedIn profile, I absolutely understand. Please don’t push yourself to do something that is beyond your capacity, especially if this is your first time really being intentional about your online presence on LinkedIn.
There are so many ways that we can have a stronger online presence, but really any small change that you make makes a difference. So let me tell you the sections of your LinkedIn profile I recommend that you update first because these are the places where people are really looking to know a little bit more about your story and the things that matter to you.
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On your LinkedIn profile, the thing that people most often see is your LinkedIn headline. It is a specific number of characters (220), and it’s that little kind of section that goes right next to your profile photo right under your name that people will see when they come across your profile on LinkedIn.
They’ll also see it if they’re already connected with you and they’re seeing you post. So your LinkedIn headline shows up in a lot of places.
When I see professors on LinkedIn, what I most often see is associate professor at university name. That’s actually not enough information for people to know whether they should even click on your profile to learn more about you. They need a little bit more information about your field of research, the area that you teach or the values that you really care about, the change that you want to see in the world. And so if you can fit a little bit more about you, a little bit more detail, a little bit more invitation, that will make a huge difference for your LinkedIn headline.
You’re going to want to have a profile photo that looks like you. On LinkedIn, there is I would say a tendency to use your traditional business headshot, but I wouldn’t feel pressured that you have to use that. If you have a selfie, if you have a friend of you take a photo or a family member.
Let’s see. I have had clients who go out and do professional photo shoots, so there’s lots of options to get new photos that you can use on social media.
But for your LinkedIn profile photo, I really encourage you to have something that is more focused on your face, and that’s because when people are on mobile screens and they’re scrolling it’s kind of small. It’s small enough that if it was more of a upper body shot, I might not recognize you from the photo because your head is then so small that it’s hard to recognize features. So if you can have a little bit of a closer shot for your LinkedIn profile photo, that makes a difference.
Ooh, your cover photo. So one of the first things that people see if they’re seeing the entry for your LinkedIn profile in search results is if you have a cover photo, which is a background photo on other social media platforms.
It’s like a horizontal photo that goes on the top of your profile and gives you opportunity to share a little bit more about yourself through that image. Now, some people prefer something simple like just a solid rectangle of a specific color. So you could just choose your favorite color and use that as your cover photo.
But if you have photos that you’ve taken, photos that you care about or even searching stock images on something like Unsplash or Pexels, in order to find photos that feel like you or maybe remind people of your research, this is a great opportunity to add a touch of personality to your profile.
Now in my LinkedIn for Profiles Course, people do learn how to create a simple cover photo using the design platform Canva, and there are templates already in Canva that you can use to create something that is a little bit more custom. So I want you to know that that’s an option. It’s actually pretty easy to learn. There’s YouTube videos about it.
I want you to know that you have the capability to do fun, custom visual things for your LinkedIn profile, but don’t feel pressured. Again, like I said, if you just choose your favorite color and set that, it will make a difference.
Faculty often overlook the about section of your LinkedIn profile. This is a section where you can provide your bio or a little welcome note that says, “Hi, I’m Jennifer, welcome to my profile,” and a little bit about you. So some people write this in the first person, some people write this in the third person, whichever feels more comfortable to you is what I would go with. But this is the number one place people will go to learn more about you.
I don’t recommend just copy and pasting your academic bio. A more general audience is going to be visiting your LinkedIn profile than say, your faculty profile or your Academia.edu.
I want to make sure that one, any jargon is explained, any words that people don’t understand could use a phrase or a sentence of definition.
I want people to know what you do, but I also want them to know what you value, what you care about, why you do what you do. That’s what’s going to help them be curious to explore the rest of your profile or to reach out and connect with you.
I also want people to know how to get in touch with you. So don’t forget to include, say your email address or an invitation to maybe send you a LinkedIn message if you would like people to be able to take that next step and get in touch. Let them know what the best way or preferred method of doing that is.
The next section the academics should definitely fill out is the Experience section. This is where you can add your work experience entries. This is a good opportunity to talk about your teaching, to talk about your research. You can even share links to your program so people can learn more about the specific courses that you’re taking or the kind of environment that you’re in.
There’s lots of opportunity to give people more information in the LinkedIn experience section, but if you don’t have a lot of time just filling out the entry with the title of your role, the location of your employer and the time span of which you’ve worked there is enough. If you don’t have time to add details, if you don’t have time to add media links like PDFs or links to maybe the website of the program, I want you to know you don’t have to fill all of that out. The more information that you can give people that is curiosity provoking, that is memorable will help make a difference.
The Education section is the next place that I know academics typically fill out. In your education section, you have opportunity to include a little bit more information. Some things that academics consider including is if they had fellowships during that time, if they had publications that they were particularly proud of, or if they have maybe an event that they organized and wanted to share a little bit more about.
People also use the detail section of the entry in order to include information that may still help people feel better connected to you. Maybe it’s a description of the type of research that you were working on then, the lab that you were working in, any collaborators that you worked with. It’s a great place to add activities or awards, and I’ve also seen people include information like ‘I’m a first generation student,’ or ‘I had a full fellowship for being a minority STEM student and this is something that I’m really proud of because it made an impact on my education.’
You don’t have to just list things there. This is your space to tell more of your story. Those are the sections that I think matter most. I know there’s so many sections on LinkedIn. The more you fill out, I would say the better.
One thing to avoid is in the publications section, even if you have a lot of publications, it ends up being just a really long list on your LinkedIn profile. So go ahead and pick maybe four to six publications. I wouldn’t say more than that is particularly helpful, but there’s a great opportunity to share . . . things that you don’t have room for on your LinkedIn profile or you’re not quite sure where it fits in.
LinkedIn has a featured section. It’s something that goes at the top of your profile, and you can add media like your CV. You could add links. You can add links actually to posts that you’ve shared on LinkedIn or articles. It gives you lots of opportunity to be creative.
If you have a link on a personal website or you want to upload your CV for that full list of publications, please do that. There are opportunities to share more, but on your LinkedIn profile, it is better to be a bit selective with the project section and the publication section because those end up being really long lists on a one page profile.
A nice thing about LinkedIn profiles is that even though there can be a lot of information, people aren’t necessarily shown all of that information at once. Typically, they’re just shown your first few experience entries, and then the more you add, there’s a little show more button that you can click to be able to view that information.
So you can add more information, even if it feels a little bit overwhelming for you, and just know that on the other end when people are experiencing your profile, they’re having the opportunity to choose to see that information and are not forced to or anything. It’s a choice. It’s an exploration, an invitation for people to keep reading.
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One question I’ve gotten is about a newer feature on LinkedIn profiles. It’s called Creator Mode, and this is an opportunity for people to have the things that they create, like social media posts on LinkedIn be highlighted on their profile. It has a couple other features, like it switches your connect button over to a follow button.
I have creator mode turned on my profile because I do share posts on LinkedIn.
Creator mode is not right for you if you’re probably not going to post on LinkedIn very often. It’s also probably not right for you if you want people to be able to connect with you easily.
A reason why I have creator mode on is because I post a lot and because of that, people have opportunity to follow me and be able to see my posts. Not all of those people are quite right connections for me. Maybe they’re in another field, but they really care about what I’m saying. I want them to still be able to see my posts.
But in a sense, I also want to protect my audience. I want to protect my connections from any business-y things or sales-y things. I don’t want someone just connecting with me and then spam messaging all of the people that I know, and so I am quite protective over who I connect with and who I don’t. Sometimes business people connect with me. Sometimes coaches connect with me, and I really want to protect the academics that are part of my network from any kind of unwanted messaging.
If you have time to kind of go through connection requests and check out your followers list to see if there’s anyone who didn’t know how to connect with you, but wanted to and you want to connect with them, then turning Creator Mode on makes sense.
Like, you want to have that attention and focus to be able to do those steps because otherwise people are going to not know how to connect with you, and it just changes the profile setup to feature those posts.
If you’re not posting and you don’t have time to do the admin side of being in creator mode, which involves checking those things that I just mentioned, it just doesn’t make sense for you.
Actually for each of my clients, we’ve really talked about what is your professor life? Are you someone who is going to be posting often? Because if you’re not, that’s okay.
If you have a filled out LinkedIn profile and it’s inviting people to connect with you in the ways that make sense for you, then you don’t need to post. Posting is a plus, but it’s not a requirement by any means on LinkedIn or frankly on any other social media platform.
I used to have courses that taught people how to post across platforms. Then I realized that what people need is the ability to post when they want to, how they want to, and they don’t need to, to post everywhere. You don’t need to be everywhere. You don’t need to be consistent even if you can show up intentionally when you do.
When you are posting, if you’re thinking about the people you want to reach and you’re providing them with the information that they need to connect, yay! And if it’s not all the time, that’s totally fine. So posting on social media is great when you have time to do it. It’s great when you want to do it. It’s great skill when you want to get better at it, it can reach so many people. But having a filled out LinkedIn profile I would say is more of an important thing. It’s a better use of your time first.
If you’re someone who’s new to social media or you don’t really post on social media, I still recommend a professor LinkedIn profile for you. So Creator Mode, not recommended for most professors. If you’re going to be posting, and you have time to do some admin checking to see about connections versus followers, then you’re good. Turn it on, it’ll help you reach more people. But if you’re not going to post, don’t bother.
Next, ooh, sending connection requests. Once you have a filled out profile, connecting with people is the next step, and that can feel scary to some professors. Even reaching out to people and care about can still feel a little bit worrying, like a little bit like a task that would be easy to avoid. That’s totally okay. I get it. I get it.
Connecting with people can feel awkward. One thing that people worry about is like, “Oh my gosh, it’s going to take me so much time to write messages to each of those people, and I don’t know. What if they don’t even read it?” But I would say if you have a filled out LinkedIn profile, there’s not really a need to send personalized notes to people. If they are visiting your profile and they’re like, “I don’t know what I would ever talk about this person with. I have no idea who they are, and I can’t see myself even having a conversation with them because their profile and what I do and what I think about isn’t really aligned.” I mean, that happens and that’s okay.
Your profile can be kind of that invitation. Your profile when you put thought and intention into it can really help people know whether you’re a good person to connect with or not. And if you are reaching out and connecting with them, my guess is that you probably know them. So all they need to see is your filled out profile.
You may get some messages from people who you’ve reached out to connect with that are like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so excited you’re on LinkedIn!” That’s what happened to my recent professor client once he joined after many years of people telling him he should and not having the time to do it. I mean, it’s understandable. He has children, he has a family, he has research, he has priorities.
You’re a professor with priorities too. It’s okay if your LinkedIn profile isn’t one of them.
There are different ways to have a stronger social media presence on LinkedIn.
You can totally do this yourself, even if you only have an hour today to set up your LinkedIn profile, and all you do are your headline, your profile photo, and your bio, I will be so proud of you.
That will be a huge plus for you. So please know that any amount of time that you spend on your own LinkedIn profile is great.
If you are a professor who’s super busy like my clients and you want your LinkedIn profile done for you, that is an option. We can work together 1-on-1 to get you the LinkedIn profile that you deserve.
All you have to do is a planning meeting with me. We’ll talk about your CV. We’ll talk about the people that you want to reach. We’ll talk about your goals, and if you have things to share with me, if you have projects that you care about and you want me to make sure to include that report that made a difference in people’s lives, we’ll gather all those materials first.
Then on your VIP day, it’s all about your LinkedIn profile. We’ll meet in the morning to get me set up so I have access to your profile. I’ll do the whole profile for you. It’s like a process that you really, you can focus on the things you need to that day.
I might email you a question, but for the most part, I’m doing all of the work for you so you can relax and have the weekend to focus on your family, to have that date focus on your teaching and your research and the things that you care about most.
Once the day is over, we typically meet the next morning, the next day to make sure that we can look at your LinkedIn profile together, make any needed changes in real time so that your profile looks and feels like you.
We always actually have some changes to the cover photo. So cover photos are something that people often are like, “oh, I don’t really have any ideas.” But once we get talking about it, we’re like, “oh, how can we connect this to the places that I love or the research that I care about?” Or people actually find sometimes they have photos of them with their students or photos of them on campus. That is something that we can use for that space.
There’s a lot of opportunity for us to be creative together about how to make your LinkedIn profile more personal, more colorful, more you.
After we review your profile, there’s always time for training on how to use LinkedIn because most of the faculty that come to me, they don’t know how to use LinkedIn at all. They don’t necessarily want to post. Some professors tell me straight up, “I’m probably not ever going to post,” and I say, “That’s okay.”
That’s okay because this work on your profile is still going to help people connect with you. It’s still going to help people be able to find you, share your research, and do these things that you care about, these goals that we’ve talked about.
Happy with your profile but want to make the best of your LinkedIn presence? Book your 1-on-1 LinkedIn consultation with Jennifer.
Now, when you don’t post on LinkedIn, that’s great. You don’t have to, but LinkedIn you should know is a place that you can post. You can post sporadically, you can post longer things like articles. You can have live events, you can share videos. You can share photos and PDFs and reports.
There’s lots of opportunities to share things on LinkedIn if that’s something that you are curious about. So we do personalized training at the end of your LinkedIn, VIP day, at the end of that profile review meeting to make sure that you know how to do the things on LinkedIn that’s going to make sense for your life, for your goals, and for the things that you actually want to accomplish with LinkedIn.
If that’s really networking and connecting with the people, the people that you care about most, we can actually start doing that process together. That’s what my last client and I did, and we had so much fun reaching out to some past students and making sure that we were connecting with people in his life that mattered and making sure that we were connecting with people at the university.
There’s lots of opportunity for us to move your LinkedIn presence and your social media profiles together. Really a full transformation, not only on what goes on the profile, but how you use the platform during that LinkedIn VIP day.
If you’re someone who’s like, wow, that sounds amazing, but I think that that’s more than I even want to do. Just start. I have free resources to share with you on The Social Academic that help you update different sections of your profile.
I have one that’s specifically for graduate students, so I’m going to share all of these resources with this podcast episode.
I want you to know that any small change that you do for your LinkedIn profile makes a difference. You do not need to work with me in order to have a great LinkedIn profile.
I work with, I would say, mid-career academics, senior career academics, higher education administrators, principal investigators, people who really have a lot on their plate. They know that this is going to make a difference for the people that they support, the communities that they want to reach and the communities that they care about, but they’re just not going to have the time.
So if that’s you, if you’re someone who knows that you’re not going to have the time, but that this is something that you need, I’m here to help you.
My name is Jennifer van Alstyne. Thank you so much for listening to this episode all about LinkedIn profiles and why LinkedIn is amazing for academics.
If you have questions after listening to this, I hope you’ll schedule that time to meet together on Zoom. We can talk about working together for a 1 hour consultation or during a LinkedIn profile VIP day. Explore my services for academics.
Thank you very much for listening. You can find me on social media @HigherEdPR.
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Guides and Advice Articles LinkedIn Online Presence How To’s Social Media How To’s The Social Academic
If you’re writing a book and you want people to read it, watch this. Dr. Jane Jones invited me to talk about how to share your book on social media for academic authors.
Who is your reader? Who’s interested in reading your monograph, edited collection, or academic book? How do you get a bigger audience for your book as an academic? You deserve a stronger online presence for your book. Let’s talk about finding your book’s audience on social media.
This interview is about how to spread word about your book and attract readers. Watch the replay on Instagram.
Jane Jones, PhD is a book coach. Here’s her featured interview on writing your book for minoritized women academis.
Find articles and interviews about books and authors on The Social Academic.
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.
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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.
What are the best gifts for academics in 2023?
Here are my top picks for professors, researchers, and grad students like you. I hope these gift ideas inspire you.
Get my top recommendations for professional development and wellbeing.
Thanks so much for visiting The Social Academic blog. People from 175 countries around the world took time to read this year. I am so grateful for you.
-Jennifer van Alstyne
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Echo Rivera, PhD brings you a 2 hour masterclass that helps you take your presentation slides from mediocre to memorable. I’ve benefited from Echo’s training myself. I highly recommend it.
I got to chat with Tullio Rossi, PhD of Animate Your Science last month about his scientific poster course. I knew I just had to share it with you. Have an engaging poster for your next conference.
Neil Thompson knows public speaking is hard. If you’re in STEM, you need to know how to communicate effectively about your research. Get the Teach the Geek to Speak course program with live monthly coaching calls.
Lisa Munro, PhD says, “How would you like to have the community support, structure, accountability, and actual writing instruction you need to get your article written and published so you can start helping us think about the world in new ways even if you’re full of crippling self-doubt about your writing and ideas?” Join the Scholarship Success Collective. This workshop runs January 16/17-April 16/17.
Anna Clemens, PhD has a course to help you write clear scientific papers for high-ranking STEM journals. If you’re in the physical, health, life, and earth sciences, this step-by-step system is the only course in scientific writing you’ll ever need.
A program for women in academia to write your book. Stop staring at a blank page wondering what you’re supposed to write. Build your writing skills and practice with support. Dr. Jane Jones of Up In Consulting is here to help you push through the doubt and uncertainty so you get your book written. Join Elevate because you don’t have to write your book alone.
Get Norman Eng, EdD’s top resources for engaging students online and offline. This bundle pack of shows you the step-by-step methods you need.
Do you want major media coverage? Sheena Howard, PhD shares proven strategies to land features in the L.A. Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and more. Get more visibility for your research.
I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Join professors around the world in my training to Update Your LinkedIn Profile for Professors and Researchers.
This training helps you have an amazing LinkedIn profile!
Prefer a done-for-you LinkedIn profile with me? Let’s chat about working together 1-on-1.
Josie Ahlquist, PhD brings you a self-paced course on digital leadership for Higher Education executives. Learn social media strategy to connect with your campus community online.
Are you applying for academic jobs? Learn how to write a cover letter for your academic job application. Showcase your record and stand out in the academic job market with this course from Karen Kelsky, PhD. If you don’t already have it, The Professor Is In book is a must read. You’ll need it for the course.
Confidently market yourself for the jobs you actually want with Jennifer Polk, PhD’s PhD Career Clarity Program. Dr. Polk has been a career coach for PhDs since 2013.
If you need help getting clarity on your post academic career, this is the program for you. My fiancé loved this program. It may be great for you too!
There are live Q&A Zoom meetings. You can add on 1:1 coaching calls when you need personalized support. I hope you’ll check it out. Here’s Jen’s free training for people thinking about leaving academia.
I’ve met so many professors and graduate students running a business. If you want to build a business on part-time hours Cheryl Lau has 1:1 and Group Coaching programs for you. Psst! Cheryl has been my business coach since December 2022.
Are you in graduate school? Do you know someone heading to grad school in the new year? This virtual summit has great sessions on school-life balance, wellness, and more. Get ready with a boost of motivation brought to you by Allanté Whitmore of the Blk + In Grad School podcast. You’ll get free access to the replays (including my session on How to Manage Your Online Presence in Grad School).
Having a difficult time saying ‘no’ in the workplace? Here’s how to communicate in a professional and confident way.
This digital download is from Dr. Monica Cox.
Whether you’re in grad school, teaching, or in the lab, relationships can be hard. Appreciate the love you have, or find the one you want and deserve. Dr. Gary Lewandowski Jr. is an expert on relationships. This is a book I read last year I think is great for academics. I learned a lot, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Dr. Devon Price used to believe that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Now they dive into the history and origins of the ‘laziness lie.’ It goes back to the Puritans! Most of us feel like we’re not doing enough even though people today do more work than other humans in history. My friends recommended this to me and now I’m sharing it with you!
WATCH: YOUTUBE LIVE WITH THE AUTHOR
Cate Adamson is working on her doctorate in New York under an impossible, sexist advisor. She struggles until she discovers a hidden painting. Is it a masterpiece? Join Cate’s journey to Spain as she uncovers an art mystery.
A novel from Linda Moore.
Watch our book talk, live on YouTube on The Social Academic.
PhD Balance is a community creating space for graduate students to openly discuss mental health. Join the community for access to webinars, challenges, and conversation.
Emily Roberts, PhD sets you up for success with your personal finances. From paying down debt to taxes, this community helps PhDs make the most of your money.
A satirical card game for philosophers and aspiring academics for 2-4 players.
Support the academic in your life with an annual membership to a professional organization or association in their field. For graduate students especially, this is a valuable line on their CV that opens their world to new conferences and networking opportunities.
Help a professor, researcher, or graduate student gain professional development with money for
Give the gift of relaxation with a day at the spa. A hot stone massage can help relieve those post-semester grading muscle aches.
Sometimes the best gift is a night away. Take a trip and leave the work behind for the ultimate weekend getaway.
Subscribe to The Social Academic blog.
The form above subscribes you to new posts published on The Social Academic blog.
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Looking for the podcast? Subscribe on Spotify.
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