Pulling Back the Curtain
Exploring the possibilities outside of academia
You can listen to an audio version of this newsletter above. Please note that this is unedited, there are some natural stumbles, and I’m recording in my home office. I’m currently dog sitting, so you may hear the pup make some noise, too.
Co-working for October, November, December
One of the perks for paid subscription to Tending is monthly co-working sessions, and the last three of the year will take place on the following days (all are in Eastern Time).
12-3pm ET Friday October 27
10am-1pm ET Monday November 6
12-3pm ET Friday December 8
I’ll send out a separate email later this week with the Zoom link to paid subscribers and I’ll send a reminder about co-working in future letters, too.
Last week I talked about satisfaction. It’s easy for me to find pleasure in food, entertainment, and relationships, but I struggle to savor my work accomplishments and feel like I’ve done “enough” with my productivity.
When I started drafting this post, I reflected on places where my satisfaction faltered. The more I considered why accolades and publications failed to sustain my joy in grad school, the more I discovered that there are clear markers of satisfaction in my self-employed work.
I am immensely proud of my contributions to supporting folks who live with chronic health conditions, making a lot of my content free or low cost, and challenging problematic aspects of productivity culture in knowledge work. I’m quite satisfied that I can use my academic training to help create alternative approaches to productivity so more folks can thrive as grad students or professors while we also fight for systemic changes within institutions like academia.
That’s not to suggest that I’ve got it all figured out: my satisfaction with my own output still has its ebbs and flows.
My complicated relationship with productivity is not unique. I grew up syncing my value as a person to the excellence of my output and the praise teachers paid me. I expected myself to succeed, so I had trouble seeing my accomplishments as true wins. As much as I craved external validation, the feeling of worth dissolved in my hands soon after I earned it.
When I developed chronic illness in 2017, the glamour of overachieving revealed itself to be severe workaholism. My previous “do all the things” way of living was yanked away from me, thus exposing a conundrum: I didn’t know how to value myself if I wasn’t being productive.
Six years later, part of my journey with researching and writing about productivity is a commitment to “walk my talk” with my own slow productivity practices. This looks like setting and holding boundaries around my availability, taking breaks, valuing my behind-the-scenes labor as real work, and making my goals more achievable and accessible to me.
While I coach professors in bringing slow productivity to their careers in academia, my own practices were made possible by my decision to pursue an alt-ac path of self-employment and independent scholarship.
I’m not alone in my desire to work with but not in the university system. Many people take an alt-ac route and choose to work at nonprofits, startups, for the government, or for themselves. Some folks choose part-time, full-time, and freelance work as contractors, subject matter experts, or consultants. Here are a few pathways people take and some resources that might be of interest to you if you’re considering them for yourself.
Independent Scholarship
An independent scholar is someone who uses their skills with research and writing to publish in popular and/or scholarly spaces. I’m personally not interested in publishing in peer-reviewed academic publications right now, but if you are, I encourage you to check out these resources:
National Coalition of Independent Scholars for scholars outside of tenured academia
If your research is in the Humanities, the University of Pennsylvania maintains a great list of Calls for Papers
If you’d like to start or already have a Substack, check out author Sarah Fay’s Writers at Work and the “Is Substack right for me and my business?” episode from Letters from a Hopeful Creative by Jen Carrington and Sara Tasker
Marlee Grace (author of How to Not Always Be Working) has a newsletter course. I haven’t taken it, but I like their approach to productivity
Self-Employment
There are many paths to self-employment as an academic. While some people elect to start one-person businesses offering a service based in their training or specialization, other folks might develop products or software or apps.
Some academics turn to entrepreneurship related to their field of study and skillset. Most of the research I read on academic entrepreneurship focused on folks in science, technology, and public policy fields who elect to develop a business based on their inventions or research, but that doesn’t mean folks from the Humanities aren’t striking out on their own, too. Letitia Henville’s “The PhD Entrepreneur” for Inside Higher Ed shares a success story of a PhD who started a consulting business and encourages universities to put more funding into training and supporting PhD students in consulting and entrepreneurship.
Other resources that may be of help:
Tamara Palmer’s Creative Jobs
Your school might have an Office of Professional Development (if you work for one, consider hiring me to run a workshop!)
Brenda Bethman and C. Shaun Longstreet’s Inside Higher Ed piece about telling your advisor you want to pursue an alt-ac path.
There is a LOT of advice out there on running a business. It’s easy to get bogged down and to feel like if you just do the right thing that you’ll wake up and make 6 figures and your life will be perfect. That experience is the exception, not the rule, and in general folks who are building a business tend to work part-time to supplement their income. I supplement my business income with part-time work with individuals and universities as a tutor, subject matter expert, managing Student Learning Outcomes Assessment projects, and developing faculty trainings at universities.
As a first step: You might want to decide whether to move forward as a sole proprietor or a limited liability company (LLC) for your one-person business. Duquesne’ University's Small Business Development Center has a good breakdown of the pros and cons of each option.
If you have questions about my experience or would like to share your own experience as an independent scholar, someone who took an alt-ac path, or with academic entrepreneurship, please share in the comments!
Curiosities
This section of my letters is for things that made me say “hmmm” or “wow!” recently.
Kris and I are continuing to enjoy the video game Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s funny, the animals are adorable (you can talk to them!), and the storyline is suspenseful. I won’t be surprised if it wins Game of The Year.
Thanks to Johanna for recommending Saara El-Arifi’s The Final Strife when I asked for book recommendations! I am so happy this is part of a trilogy because I devoured all 600+ pages in a week and already started the second book of the trilogy.
I found two nice Slow Jazz playlists on Youtube that have cute videos: “Rainy Jazz Cafe” and “Crackling Fireplace & Smooth Jazz Instrumental.” They’re perfect for the shift to fall here in Boston.
See you next week! Take care.
xo,
Dr. Kate
