developing a Sustainable Scholarly Life

Advice from colleagues:

• Collaborate with other colleagues

• Engage in projects that sustain you as a human being

• Find your scholarly/intellectual/creative community beyond Macalester

• Break big projects down into small parts/pieces

• Consider (carefully!) collaborative projects with students

  • Summer research

  • Independent study

  • Senior capstones

  • Honors projects

  • Student research lab members/assistants/collaborators

• Be transparent about “failure” and other challenges

• Close your door as needed! (communicate about it… make a “do not disturb, I’m working on research right now” sign…)

• Write 30 minutes every day

• Develop goal setting strategies (backward design/map from end product)

• Track the CVs of accomplished people in your field (not to feel bad, but to learn their process)

• Make strategic use of conference papers (or anything else with a deadline!!)

• Get feedback from trusted colleagues

Resources:

• Faculty Travel and Research (FTR)

• Wallace Funds

• Your professional societies

• (rare!) departmental funds

• Grants office (list of grant opportunities regularly sent through faculty listserv, office in Weyerhauser)

• Student-faculty summer research grants

• National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (you have an account as a faculty member at Macalester! Instructions for how to access your account are on this page of the Serie Center website)

• Michelle Boyd (great blog, great conference)

• Serie Center for Scholarship and Teaching

• Project management tools for deadline tracking (ask Aisling Quigley (aquigley@macalester.edu) for advice!)