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Journey to the emotional floor of A Whole New Engineer

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Mark Somerville and I are wrapping up production on our book A Whole New Engineer: A Surprising Emotional Journey (see more here), and I was reflecting on large writing projects such as books and how easy it is to underestimate the amount of work required and the amount of learning that goes on in writing one.  The tendency is to think, “This will be easy. I’ll just write down what I know about subject X and it will be good.”  Of course, you start the project, and find that (a) you didn’t know as much as you thought you did, and (b) you had a lot of learning and figuring out to get to the end.  Of course, some of this is the human tendency to underestimate difficulty and overestimate capacity as pointed out in The Invisible Gorilla and related research.  If we were more realistic about the scope of such projects, few would start them.

This time, however, with A Whole New Engineer, the misestimation took on an a different flavor.  Yes, I both underestimated the task complexity and learning required, but this time I also missed the deeper nature of the task.  In the past, what started as largely a textbook or monograph project turned out that way.  This time, I thought Mark and I were writing a how-to manual on engineering education reform with some personal anecdotes, but the deeper nature of the project didn’t reveal itself until we were well into the project.

And the subtitle, A Surprising Emotional Journey, starts to characterize the book we found inside of us.  As we started to tell the stories of what happened at Olin (www.olin.edu) and iFoundry (www.ifoundry.illinois.edu), we started to recognize that the usual rational code words used to describe educational reform (content, curriculum, pedagogy, learning outcomes, active learning, project-based learning, etc., etc.) were inadequate to describe the underlying experience of authentic reform.

Instead, we needed to admit that the secret sauce to both efforts was profoundly emotional in nature and that words like “trust,” “courage,” “joy,” “connection,” and “openness” (the pillars of Chapter 5) were necessary to convey and understand the experience.  And this was excruciatingly hard for a couple of engineers to grok, but once we did, we knew there was no going back.  Those distinctions sounded like were talking about the underlying essence of authentic reform in foundational terms in a way that previous descriptions lacked.

And once we reached the emotional floor of the enterprise, we recognized that many of our colleagues would have the same difficulty we originally had in accepting and understanding this emotional language, that the natural tendency would be to reject these terms as “too soft” or “insufficiently rigorous” and to retreat to easy and safe words like “content,” “pedagogy,” “X learning (where X = active, experiential, project-based, etc.).  Nevertheless, once the journey had come to this place, we knew that our job was to tell the travelogue as we had experienced it, as we had felt it.

And we hope that this is one of the lasting contributions of the book: to shift a discussion that continues to be held in largely rational terms to one that can unapologetically use the language of emotion in ways that contribute to a more effective and holistic educational system.

A Whole New Engineer: A Surprising Emotional Journey will be ready in Fall 2014.  Keep an eye on www.bigbeacon.org/book on twitter @deg511, @threejoy, and @bigbeacon, or write to me at deg@threejoy.com or deg@bigbeacon.org about hosting book-related talks, workshops, and events. 

Radio Show: Emotional Rescue of Engineering Education

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I was a guest on Kate Ebner’s radio show Visionary Leader, Extraordinary Life, on Monday, and my Georgetown University coaching cohort colleague Nancy Lamberton was the guest host. The topic for the show was The Emotional Rescue of Engineering Education and the show abstract is reprinted below:

Humans, with a population of 7 billion people and growing, increasingly depend on engineers for our survival and quality of life. Yet the engineering pipeline is threatened as fewer students choose the profession, in part because they must survive a math-science death march and in part because the journey is viewed as a lonely survival of the fittest. Dr. Dave Goldberg wants to change that. Drawing on a 34-year career as engineer, educator and coach, Dave seeks to rewire engineering education so that it entices young people and motivates them to become whole-brained, -bodied and -hearted engineers. This show explores the surprising path to a whole new engineer that runs through emotional variables such as trust, courage, connection and vulnerability. The result of this shift is a generation of engineers unleashed to face the biggest challenges of our times. Join guest host Nancy Lamberton on July 22 to hear the vision of one of the most cutting-edge innovators in education. 

You can listen to the program by accessing the show page and listening at the link here or on iTunes here. 

4 Reasons Universities Don’t Invest in Organizational Development & Why They Now Should

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An Engineer in OD/HR Wonderland

When I took training as a leadership coach at Georgetown University, many of my colleagues in cohort 30 were in human resources (HR) or organizational development (OD).  As I had just resigned my tenure as an engineering professor at the University of Illinois, learning amidst these people was disorienting on at least two fronts.  First, engineering is more technology and thing oriented and HR/OD is more people and organization oriented, and routine discussion of social, emotional, and personal matters in a classroom setting seemed a bit weird.  Second, my colleagues all belonged to organizations that believed in the importance of investment, staff, and concerted effort to improve their organizations & I had belonged to an organization that invested almost nothing in its improvement as an organization.  I had expected the first of these going in, but the starkness of the significant investment that many if not most organizations make in themselves as organizations was bracing when compared to the almost non-existent expenditure of universities in this area.

And as I have continued to reflect on this contrast, I remain more than a bit puzzled.  Organizations in the private sector understandably grasp the importance of organizational excellence and think of it as an investment that delivers a reasonable return, and expenditures are calibrated accordingly on such things as leadership development, teamwork training and facilitation, executive coaching, and so forth.  Many of my Georgetown colleagues were attached to or consultants to organizations in the Federal government, and even there, substantial sums were expended to improve organizational effectiveness in the alphabet soup of Washington, DC.  Why was it that my university–for that matter, almost all universities–spend so little on developing their organizations qua organizations? 

4 Reasons Universities Don’t Invest in OD

As I thought about this point, I was puzzled, but in thinking about it, there are a number of reasons why universities have not invested in organizational development to this point:

University life has been stable for a long time. Universities go back to the University of Bologna founded in 1088.  Although universities have changed over the years, they have been quite stable, and traditional governance and structure have appeared to serve the institutions for a quite a long time.

The university has been viewed as an assembly of experts. Over that period of time, the university has been viewed largely as a loose assembly of  quasi-independent experts.  Yes, departmental specialization was a relatively recent invention of the 19th century, and specialization intensified around the time of World War 2, but professors have been hired for their academic excellence and expertise for nearly 10 centuries.  The primary tool of “development” of the university is sabbatical, and each of the experts is supposed to renew him or herself professional several times over the course of their academic career, but no team or institutional development takes place among faculty, by and large.

Faculty members would resist OD methods if they were introduced.  Elsewhere (here), I have written about how universities may actually retard faculty development, and if this is so, fairly early stage faculty would tend to resist OD methods if they were introduced.  In engineering, for example, hard-core “rigorous” engineering professors would reject methods coming from less technical fields as being too soft or “not rigorous” regardless how much they were needed or useful.  It is reasonable to imagine that other disciplinary experts would reject out-of-discipline expertise out of hand (except for HR/OD faculty members perhaps).  

Universities are not led and managed, they are administered and governed.  And the language that we use surrounding the university is interesting. Professors and the university require governance and administration, not management and leadership.  In coaching, we distinguish between administration, management, and leadership as a distinction between past, present, and future.  Those selected to take a place in the university hierarchy are called “administrators” and their job is to bring forth a somewhat smoother version of the past going forward. Faculty members expect to be involved in “governing” the university through committee work and quasi-democratic process.  To accept OD methods in the university is tacit admission that the university needs leadership and management and to risk diminishing faculty voice in governance. 

This helps us understand why organizational development is not being used in universities, and interestingly, the list also helps us understand why OD is needed, badly and now.

The Times They Are a Changin’

bob_dylan_by_daniel_kramer1Although universities have not used organizational development methods because of their stability, their nature as an assembly of experts, resistance from faculty members in early stages of adult development, and because of their leadership structure and culture, universities now face exogenous forces that flips the logic of previous times.  This blog has written about each of the matters, and so we simply summarize the counterpoint to each of the 4 points of the previous section:

  1. MOOCs & the democratization of research are destabilizing a 10-century consensus of the nature of the university.
  2. The notion of expertise is under attack in the classroom and the laboratory. Returns to expertise are diminishing rapidly.
  3. Faculty members need exactly the kinds of deep development and coaching that OD methods can bring to the organization and to individuals within it.
  4. If the notion of a residential university is to survive, it needs more leadership and management, less administration, and reforms to permit innovation and maintain faculty governance, both.

As such, I predict that organizational development methods and coaching will increase in usage as these forces are faced.  Bringing OD to the university without provoking a faculty reaction requires sensitivity to the culture of the university, an understanding of the importance of faculty governance, and a respect for the traditions of the faculty and the university.  ThreeJoy Associates brings those things to its work.  Write me at deg@threejoy.com to understand ways in which these methods may be helpful in promoting innovation and effective change in your organization.  

5 Times in a Career When Academics Should Hire a Coach

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The use of executive or leadership coaches has become an accepted and widespread practice in private corporations, non-profits, and government, and the reasons are becoming clearer (here). When individuals are coached, they become more effective at work and at home with notable improvements in both their task & relationship orientation; organizations become more productive with coaching returning $5-$7 for every $1 spent.  

By counter distinction, the use of coaches in academic life–for that matter, the use of any kind of systematic organizational development (OD)–is virtually unknown inside the university.  With the many pressures for change that universities are now facing, both economically and technologically, there are good reasons to believe that this is about to change.  While universities and colleges come to grips with changes enveloping them, individual staff, professors, and administrators may want to consider the why and when of hiring a personal coach to help advance their careers and their lives.

Coaching, It’s Not What You Think

Those unfamiliar with coaching sometimes think that coaching is a form of consulting, mentoring, or advice giving, but at it’s best, coaching is a form of one-on-one inquiry and reflection in which the client is aided by the coaches listening and asking questions in ways that help the client find and overcome obstacles and then identify and realize possibilities.  

The coach works to support only the client’s agenda, starting wherever he or she is; the coach comes to the engagement without judgment or any ideal sense of what the client should or should not be doing. In this way, the client can safely explore his or her own authentic path, style, and career in a safe, supportive environment.  

Compared to other kinds of OD interventions such as training and group facilitation, coaching is especially well suited to the highly competitive and  individualistic nature of the academy.  The confidentiality of the coaching relationship creates a safe haven for sharing hopes and concerns, successes and breakdowns, and possibilities and aspirations.

5 Times Coaching May Be Helpful in an Academic Career

There are at least five times in an academic career, when hiring a coach might be beneficial to an academic:

You’re thinking about becoming an academic.  Getting a PhD or other terminal graduate degree is a major commitment, and academic life is not for everyone. Consulting a career coach at the onset of the academic journey can both avoid a potentially costly and emotionally devastating decision and set sail with clear, aligned, and realistic expectations, intentions, and aspirations.

You’ve taken your first academic job.  Congratulations, you’re a newly minted assistant prof and you’re eager to get started on your teaching and research, but the road to tenure is filled with many difficulty decisions. Moreover, your dean, department head, and colleagues will offer you much well intentioned advice, but how do you maximize your chances of succeeding and still stay true to your original aspirations and intentions?  Consulting a coach at this stage in your career gives you a safe means of exploring your challenges and opportunities with someone who has only your interest at heart. 

You’ve been promoted or received tenure (or denied promotion or tenure).  The career ladder as a professor only has three rungs, and each promotion can be a major life transition.  The transition from assistant to associate prof is usually accompanied by tenure, and the moment of getting to tenure can be disorienting.  Should you continue on the same trajectory?  Is it time to think about an adminstrative role?  What’s next?  These are some of the questions that beg answers upon receiving tenure, and a coach can be helpful to asking those pertinent to your circumstances and to finding your own answers.  Denial of tenure is a difficult transition, and universities and colleagues provide little or no support.  A coach can help you put the event in proper perspective and find a path aligned with where you now are.  Denial of promotion to full professor is another difficult case, and a coach can be especially helpful in finding perspective and next steps.

You’ve taken a new administrative post. Transitioning into administration can be quite a shock to the system, and even transitioning up the ranks from head or chair, to dean, to provost, and president can be challenging as each new post is quite different from the one vacated.  Administrative postings and promotions are opportune times to hire a coach to help with the challenges of the new position and to prepare for subsequent advancement by building skill and developing in ways that align with the new post and the next.

You’re preparing to leave the university.  Perhaps you’ve decided that it’s time to move on, start a company, become a consultant, take a position in the private sector, or retire.  These transitions are to get the good questions and listening of a coach to help draw out the best in what comes next.

These five times are good ones to think about finding and using the services of a coach.  The next section puts forward a number of open-ended questions to help in your quest for your coach.

Finding Your Coach

So perhaps you’re at an academic transition when a coach might be useful to you.  How do you find one aligned with your needs?  Here are some questions to consider in hiring a coach:

  1. What training and qualifications does the person bring to their coaching?
  2. To what extent does the person have academic experience and understand academic culture?
  3. To what extent is the potential coach curious about you, your obstacles, your opportunities & to what extent do they seem to have a method or an answer?
  4. To what extend do you feel comfortable with the potential coach, and to what extent is it easy or hard to share private information with him or her?
  5. To what extent does the coach ask questions that engage your reflection and are both hard and interesting to answer?
  6. To what extent does the coach seem to listen to you and “get you” through that listening?
  7. Given that universities do not yet pay for coaching, to what extent does the coach accommodate those who are paying out of their own pockets?

A good source of information about coaching and coaches is International Coach Federation, and these days there is much other information online.  If you’d like to learn more about coaching with ThreeJoy, write to Dave Goldberg at deg@threejoy.com. 

Acting “As If” and Speaking “As If” Helps Make It Happen

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My Georgetown colleague Ann Oliveri (here) posted this lovely short video the other day.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBRUBrWR2ZE

The philosopher and early psychologist William James said that if we act as if something were already true that doing so immediately has an effect in reality.  The video says this quite nicely with a number of different examples.

I believe an important corollary to the examples given in the video is in the special case of speech acts.  Speaking about things as though they have come to pass also has this kind of magic.  In iFoundry we talked to students about the 3 joys, the joy of engineering, the joy of community, and the joy of learning, and the cohort was more joyful, more interested in engineering, a tighter knit community of engaged learners than they otherwise would have been.  

When clients change their story (and believe the new story), the feel better, act better, and get better results almost immediately.

This sounds too good to be true, but it is a part of a number of ancient traditions. The Buddhist practice of samma vaca or right speech points in this direction as well as the Toltec practice of impeccability with your word.    To engineering ears, it sounds like a violation of some unstated law of nature, conservation of hardship, or some such thing, but I bear witness as a hard-nosed engineer who has seen it in action to often to doubt it any longer.

Try it.  You’ll like it.  Act as if and speak as if, and immediately start reaping the benefits of the way you would like things to be.

Don’t Cry for Me Argentinian Engineering Education

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María Teresa Morresi from AGIBTA Magazine (here) sent me a list of interview questions regarding engineering education.  I shot back a quick reply, and I thought the spontaneity of my answers gave them a force that was worth sharing.  Here is a somewhat edited version of her questions and what I wrote:

AGIBTA: I became aware of your work in engineering education through the 2nd Engineer of the Future meeting (EotF2.0) at Olin College in 2009 (here). Tell me a little more about your involvement in engineering ed transformation before and since that time. 

Dave G: Prior to my work on EotF2.o I was involved in starting and running the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (here) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The success of the work on iFoundry and with my colleagues at Olin College on Engineer of the Future and other activities led me to resign my tenure from the University of Illinois to (1) take training as a leadership coach, (2) start ThreeJoy Associates, Inc. as a coaching, training, and consulting/facilitating firm to transform engineering education and (3) to start the Big Beacon, a global movement to transform engineering education as a non-profit corporation.  For more information on these and other things, see the website, manifesto, and blog (www.bigbeacon.org), the ThreeJoy blog (www.threejoy.com), and an informative series of Huffington Post articles  (here).

AGIBTA: Which are the innovations to improve engineering education and transform classrooms? 

Dave G: Most change programs concentrate on curriculum and content.  This is largely misplaced emphasis, in my view. The key innovations are emotional and cultural.  We have a culture of distrust.  We need a culture of trust.  We have a culture of individual effort.  We need a culture of connection and openness.  We need a culture of courage.  We have a culture of fear
 
AGIBTA: Could you please let as know a bit more about the relationship between self-efficacy and project-based learning among engineering students?
 
Dave G: The question assumes that project-based learning is a solution to achieve self-efficacy, but I remember going to a school in Brazil once and being shown a project-based course as an exemplar of “new pedagogy.”  I went to class and the students were presenting a project, and the prof was correcting each and every sentence that came out of the students’ mouths.  
 
We need self-efficacy, and to achieve it we need what I call unleashing experiences.  Unleashing experiences begin where a faculty member (or the student themselves) trusts the student.  The student believes they are trusted.  Finally, the student has the courage to take a risk and do something that leads to their mastery of something new.  Diagrammatically this is shown below:
 
UNLEASHED STUDENT =  TRUSTED –> BELIEVES TRUSTED –> COURAGE TO TRY SOMETHING NEW
 
This unleashing is the key.  I think we need to stop speaking in code words like “project-based learning” or “active learning” and starting getting at root emotional and cultural variables that really unleash our kids.

AGIBTA: Which are the best e-learning strategies?

Dave G: E-learning properly conceived, supports emotionally and cutlurally engaged education.  Unfortunately, the current excitement about MOOCs puts the cart before the horse.  Once we get our heads straight about what’s important in the class and why, we can adopt effective E-learning techniques.  Until then, we are mistaking tools for solutions.
 
AGIBTA: Students are a powerful force in transforming engineering education. How to include them in new educational strategies implementation?
 
Dave G: I love this question.  Students are the only powerful force in transforming engineering education.  Unfortunately, they are rarely consulted in change efforts and usually only subjected to whatever the administration and faculty think is necessary after the design is in place.  Then we wonder how to get student “buy-in” which suggests our wonder about why they don’t think much of the new design.
 
How do we include them?  We start by noticing them.  We continue by listening to them deeply with empathy.  We continue by asking them open ended questions and listening some more.  We also trust them to be full members of the redesign effort.  
 
If we could do one thing that would transform our schools, it would be to create a culture of listening. 
 
AGIBTA: How you prepare students to become innovative?
 
Dave G: You challenge them, trust them, let them fail. coach them to success, and repeat.
 
AGIBTA: Which are the current challenges for Engineering Universities?
 
Dave G:  The problem is that universities are victims of their success. Universities are ancient institutions. The University of Bologna was founded in 1088.  Since then, there has been a 10-century consensus about the role of professors as experts. Unfortunately, since World War 2, the quality revolution, entrepreneurial revolution, and the information technology revolution, what I have called the missed revolutions–missed in the sense that universities teach but don’t practice their lessons–have changed the world we live in.
 
As a result, returns to expertise are diminished.  In turn, this diminuition of expertise challenges the role of the professor in both the lab and the classroom. Unfortunately, professors are one trick ponies. They only know how to be experts. The brave new world of the 21st century and our creative era demands a combination of expertise with an ability to trust and develop others. In other words, the world today requires an academy full of Experts/Coaches, not just pure experts. 
 
This is a terrific challenge, one that can be overcome, but most of the noises coming from our research universities suggest business as usual, a doubling down on WW2-based strategies of research and expertise, and a lack of recognition how a 9 or 10 century consensus toward the role of the university and the role of the professor is being undermined before our very eyes.  
 
Given the very slow decision making apparatus of a university, it is not clear whether these ancient and venerable institutions have what it takes to transform themselves. The current fumbling is sad to watch. It is also exciting to be a part of a growing number of efforts to try to change it, and I think there are effective tactics and strategies to follow in those institutions that are aware of the challenges they face.
 
AGIBTA: What conclusions can be drawn from the Summits on the Engineer of the Future?
 
Dave G: The first engineer of the future event was held in 2007 at the University of Illinois. The one in 2009 was the 2nd. There was a 3rd and we are hoping for a fourth. These events set into motion a number of activities at Olin, at Illinois, and elsewhere to practically address many of the questions and answers presented here. There is still much to learn, but it is clear that by (1)  focusing on change management itself, (2) by viewing change as a cultural and emotional process, and (3) by working to inject a new kind of actor, an actor with both expertise and an ability to listen and coach, that real change can be made.  How quickly this can work and whether it can work quickly and broadly enough remain open questions.
 
AGIBTA: Thank you for your thoughtful responses.
 
Dave G: Thank you for your thoughtful questions, and I wish all my colleagues in Argentina and elsewhere in South America the space and openness to reflect on these challenges and the wisdom and courage to move ahead with effective, in-context solutions.

Are You Ready to Flip?

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I gave a talk at NUS on Thursday entitled Are You Ready to Flip? Responding to Deep Faculty Challenges in an Era of MOOCs & Pervasive Online Expertise. Here’s the abstract:

The blogosphere is abuzz with MOOCs, massive, open, online courses, in which lectures are conveyed to thousands or tens of thousands of students around the globe, and the possibility of the flipped classroom, where such widely available online content is assigned outside the classroom, and classroom time is used for active learning and reflective activity.   These most recent changes come at a time when the role of the professor as research authority is challenged 24/7 by ubiquitous online resources and expertise available to graduate students at the push of an internet button

Though much has been written about the technological side of these changes, the human challenges these developments pose for successful professors and lecturers are less frequently addressed.  This talk begins by considering how all these challenges stem from a reduction in information asymmetry and how this reduction challenges the very notion of the faculty member’s privileged position as expert.  

The talk then turns to work in deep faculty development (DFD) pioneered at NUS over the last 2 and a half years.  Since its inception, this approach has spread to the US through work at iFoundry & Olin College (i2e2.olin.edu) to South America at UFMG and with the aid of Harvard-affiliated LASPAU (www.laspau.havard.edu) and to Europe through work at TUDelft and Politecnico Milano.  Using an amalgam of results from leadership studies, executive coaching, neuroscience, and mindfulness research, the approach helps faculty members develop deep noticing, listening, questioning (NLQ), and narrative design skills necessary in these fluid and creative times.  

The talk highlights the concrete benefits of this approach to faculty career development, success, and happiness and concludes with an invitation to attend a short series of deep faculty development workshops open to NUS faculty this semester (semester 2).

I have written and spoken about the need for engineering education change, but this is the first time I directed similar arguments at an individual faculty member’s expertise in teaching and research.  

The powerpoint slides from the talk are available in the viewer below:

[slideshare id=16414270&doc=ready-to-flip-2-7-2013-v2-130207225809-phpapp02]

Those interested in workshops like those described should consider the I2E2 workshop, Change that Sticks, this summer (here) or write to me at deg@threejoy.com. 

 

Getting to Tenure and Having a Life?

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I subscribe to a number of LinkedIn groups, and one of them is the group Higher Education Teaching and Learning (here).  The other day, I noticed an inquiry from a consultant and coach named Meggin McIntosh (here) in which she inquired as follows:

Is it possible to balance teaching, research, service AND a relationship while on the way to tenure? If so, how (real answers wanted).

As might be imagined, the answers were quite various ranging from “no” to “yes” with “maybe” in between.  I weighed in in the affirmative as follows.  In doing so, I imagined addressing the tenure seeker directly one on one:

I think the answer is “yes” and I think there is a threefold success formula: (1) form habitual practices around those things and people that are important to you (2) do a minimally acceptable job preparing for teaching first time through, thereby giving you maximum probability of satisfying your institution’s research requirements to tenure, and (3) do your research and writing to please yourself, not for the approval of others..

The fundamental problem is that any one of the Big 3–research, teaching, and service–can consume all available time in your life. Stephen Covey made the distinction between urgent things, things important to others, and important things, things important to you. The Big 3, particularly research is urgent, important to the university, but in the pressure cooker of pretenure university life, make things important to you, spending time with a partner, kids, and friends, a habit. Make other important-to-you non-work related activities–sports, exercise, eating right, music, hobbies–habitual, and sacrifice your habits only upon rare occasion. Charles Duhigg’s, The Power of Habit, is a nice reference for the value, formation, and maintenance of habitual practices.

Second, when it comes to teaching, first time through a course, give yourself enough time to prepare, but make it a fixed amount of time (x hours per class period, for example). Don’t allow your perfectionist tendencies to take over. Stick to your fixed time allocation. Also, capture and reuse your notes next time through. If you follow this prescription, most days, you will do fine. Some days, you will be underprepared, but second time through you will probably be peak and do well if you haven’t overdone it.

Finally, do your research and writing to make yourself happy. A lot of heads and profs tell you otherwise: do this, and don’t do that, but my experience has been that most of that advice is well intentioned and not tailored to you. Do your research for yourself and your interests with gusto and enthusiasm. View it as “publish and flourish” not “publish or perish” and follow your heart.

Two things can happen if you do this. You will get tenure on your own terms and you will be a happy, confident camper, ready to continue on your own terms. If you don’t get tenure, you will have been true to yourself and perhaps the academy really wasn’t where you were meant to be. You can then move on to something else with integrity knowing that you’ve learned something about yourself.

To do otherwise is to risk unhappiness in two different ways. If you do your research to please others, you might get tenure, but you risk diminished confidence in your own judgment to the possible detriment of your future courage and boldness.  If you don’t get tenure, you’ll always wonder what might have been had you remained true to your own vision, and you may regret not having found out.

Of course, my advice risks not being tailored to you, as I suggested other well-intentioned advice might be, and if that is the case, only use those portions of what’s being suggested here that seem reasonable to you, your aspirations, and your context.

Best wishes in navigating the tricky thicket of getting to tenure.

I don’t think this is a unique “correct” answer, of course, and one’s perspective might vary depending on one’s gender, responsibility at home, desire to pursue a program of research consonant with an institution’s values, and other factors, but to the degree that someone can be disciplined about keeping up habits that maintain strong relationships and the other items mentioned, I do believe one can have a life and get to tenure, both. If you agree or disagree, share your views at deg@threejoy.com.

5 Smooches of MOOCs

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I just posted a piece (here) about massive open online courses or MOOCs on www.bigbeacon.org.  The piece is entitled MOOCs, Moola, and Love: 5 Smooches of MOOCs, and in it I consider why students are signing up in droves for these courses and how these ideas connect to the emotional/cultural emphasis of the Big Beacon and ThreeJoy.  I identified the central question as follows:

Why are hundreds of thousands or millions of students signing up for “bad” old boring lectures taught to thousands or tens of thousands simultaneously when the future of education supposedly lies elsewhere?

The 5 answers to the questions I call MOOC smooches.  In short, students love MOOCs because they love (1) good lectures, (2) high status lecturers, (3) choice, (4) novelty, and (5) community.  The article connects these things to the pillars of the Big Beacon: joy, trust, courage, openness, and connection.

Read the full post here.