Category: #MPSAchat

To Networking & Beyond: Strategies for Successful Networking

By James Steur, a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Networking

As MPSA 2020 fast approaches, my colleagues have talked to me about the part of conferences they dread more than their presentations: networking. Someone I know remarked, “I feel like an inauthentic version of myself networking, and the person I’m speaking with also feels like an inauthentic version of themselves.” Although networking can feel uncomfortable—especially for highly introverted people—there are ways to make the process more comfortable and authentic.

Scheduling a Meeting
The first step to make networking more comfortable is scheduling your meeting in advance: I suggest six to eight weeks of notice. One advantage of scheduling a meeting in advance is that you’re more likely to successfully meet busy scholars with full schedules. More importantly, more notice means more time to prepare what you’d like to talk about, which can help make the meeting feel less uncomfortable. That said, there are multiple ways to schedule a meeting with different people at MPSA.

1). Email
Email is a simple and powerful tool to connect with scholars. If you want to meet with a faculty member or graduate student whose work you admire, check to see if they are on the MPSA program and email them. When you send the email, introduce yourself, provide some context about why you’re reaching out (e.g., similar research interests), and see if they’d be open to meeting for 15–30 minutes at MPSA. If you don’t get a response within a week, send a reminder email to check-in with them: people can get busy. If you don’t feel comfortable cold emailing someone, ask around your department and see if there’s a common connection to the person you’re emailing. Perhaps a faculty member or graduate student in your department went to the same school—establishing a common connection helps build rapport.

2). Twitter 
Twitter is a great (and often underutilized) way to meet with folks. Currently, there is a “take jr folks to lunch MPSA” Twitter thread with many senior and junior faculty members offering to take groups of graduate students to coffee or lunch to discuss the profession. Other faculty members and graduate students are tweeting outside the thread to meet with people and discuss topics like publishing, teaching, imposter syndrome, and other important topics. Keep your eyes peeled on Twitter before the conference, and reach out to meet with someone if a particular topic interests you. Last year, I reached out to a faculty member, got lunch with him and another grad student, and had a great time chatting. Alternatively, you can post your own tweet asking if anybody would like to meet for coffee or lunch at the conference and see who responds.

3). MPSA Networking Opportunities and Mentoring Panels
Beyond scheduling your own meetings, MPSA offers mentoring opportunities. You can attend the MPSA Mentoring Reception (held on Friday, April 17, from 6:30–7:30PM at the Palmer House) to meet with different scholars whose research interests align with yours. You need to sign up as a mentee to participate in the Mentoring Reception by March 16, so look at the mentor bios and sign up sooner rather than later. Another option is participating in the Academic Year Mentorship program. Both are excellent options for graduate students who feel less comfortable reaching out to network, and are great opportunities for faculty members to connect with younger scholars.

If this is your first time attending MPSA, I highly encourage you to attend the First Time Attendee Reception and Tour on Thursday, April 16, from 4:45–6:15PM. You can make great connections with others who are also new to the conference by signing up here.

The Meeting
Your meeting is scheduled: now what do I do at the meeting? How should I act? There are a few easy things you can do during the meeting to make a good impression: be on time, thank the person for meeting, ask how they’re doing, and bring a notepad to take notes if it seems appropriate. If you’re meeting in a group with multiple people, be respectful and let everyone speak. Domineering a group conversation can be disrespectful to others who may want to speak or ask questions. Relatedly, many people make a common mistake and act like they are meeting with old friends—remember you’re establishing a professional relationship. Perhaps the relationship can become a friendship, but the context of the meeting is at a professional conference to discuss research and other professional topics.

But how do I make this meeting less uncomfortable? My personal strategy is to ask myself, “Why was I interested in reaching out to this person?” The answers vary depending on the person: some people have written academic articles that shift how I think about the world, and I want to talk about how they come up with their ideas. I may be interested in a new method they used, or I’d like to learn more about how to engage in public scholarship. The bottom line is that I respect some aspect of their work, and I’m interested in learning more about them. Once I express my genuine interest in them and their work, the conversation and relationship feels more authentic and less uncomfortable.

After The Meeting
Like I mentioned in a post at last year’s MPSA, it is easy to lose touch after meeting. My strategy is to keep a professional network spreadsheet that reminds me who I have met, what we talked about, and their contact information. If you want to follow-up on something you discussed with them, you should feel comfortable sending an email or reaching out. That said, I would also be aware of how busy they are and not send too many emails.

In the end, networking doesn’t have to feel uneasy or uncomfortable. People are usually more than happy to meet with you and discuss professional topics like research if you reach out. The more you put yourself out there, the easier it becomes to network. So take the first step and reach out to chat with somebody at this year’s MPSA to establish an authentic connection and build your network.

 

James Steur

About the Author: James Steur is a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include political psychology, political behavior, and the role of emotions in citizen decision-making. He is a first-generation student, passionate coffee drinker, and excited to be blogging (for a second time!) at MPSA. You can find James on Twitter at @JamesSteur 

Study the Humanities: Articulating Career Pathways

By Scott Muir, Study the Humanities Project Director, National Humanities Alliance

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Commentators have offered a variety of explanations for the widely observed decline in humanities majors and enrollments. Evidence suggests the primary cause is a dramatic reordering of student priorities away from existential educational aims toward pragmatic financial goals, beginning around 1970 and accelerating after the financial crisis of 2008.

Herein lies the greatest opportunity for reversing the decline, for the problem is with students’ perceptions more than reality. It’s not that the humanities don’t prepare students for career success; humanities majors’ career outcomes are in fact quite strong. But in the absence of clear pathways to a sustainable career, students and parents whose confidence has been shaken by the Great Recession and rising student debt fill the void with their fears. To restore confidence in the humanities, we must replace a cloudy picture of uncertain outcomes with a brighter vision of expansive possibilities. But how?

At the National Humanities Alliance (NHA), we have gained a unique perspective on this challenge and the opportunity it presents. Over the past two years, we’ve assessed the field of undergraduate humanities recruitment efforts, including a recent survey of more than 390 faculty and administrators at nearly 300 institutions. We’ve collected a wide variety of promising strategies for recruiting students with the goal of sharing these strategies to benefit the whole community. Many involve clarifying career pathways for humanities majors, ranging from efforts aimed at persuading prospective students to those that help graduating majors successfully navigate the job market.

For prospective students and their parents, many faculty and administrators have reported that presenting the national employment data featured in our Study the Humanities toolkit helps confront widespread misconceptions concerning career prospects. Additionally, data and success stories drawn from one’s own institution provide a more concrete and accessible picture of the possibilities. For example, at Brandeis University, the School of Arts and Sciences has partnered with the Hiatt Career Center to present outcome data by major, which Dean Dorothy Hodgson reports “shows the tremendous placement success—and overcomes parental and student anxieties.” At Lebanon Valley College, the English Department researched their graduates’ career outcomes and created a brief video that presents the actual job titles of alumni to prospective students and their parents.

Once on campus, general education courses provide crucial opportunities to demonstrate the practical value of humanities skills to broad populations of students. At the University of Missouri, the College of Arts and Sciences appointed a Career Readiness Faculty Fellow to help faculty across the college incorporate modules explaining how the liberal arts equip students for long-term career success into their gen ed courses. And at the University of Minnesota, the College of Liberal Arts developed a pedagogical tool to help students identify the skills developed through their assignments and translate them to non-academic settings. Importantly, they also implemented incentives to encourage faculty to incorporate the tool in their courses, as well as identify transferable skills on their syllabi. As a result, more than 10,000 students completed the translation assignment last semester.

Other initiatives help ensure humanities majors preparing to graduate are equipped to transition to the workforce. For example, the English Department at West Chester University created a poster series and annual event entitled “What can you do with an English major?” to help students explore a variety of career pathways. Furthermore, the department created an internship course and a series of six workshops that help majors translate academic accomplishments for job application materials. At Hendrix College, John Sanders redesigned the Religious Studies Department’s capstone course to help students articulate transferable skills gained through previous courses and capstone projects. Meanwhile, students work with career center staff to hone their resumes and interview skills.

Finally, humanities faculty and administrators are developing new ways to engage alumni and employers to identify opportunities for their students and increase demand for their skills. For the past decade, Duke University has hosted an annual weekend of programming that brings together arts and humanities majors interested in working in a wide variety of media-related fields with alumni who have found success there. And at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, the Humanities Network and Consortium has partnered with career center staff to bring employers and recruiters to campus for regular events that highlight the professional advantages provided by the humanities.

Together, these initiatives present models for identifying transferable humanities skills and illuminating career pathways, helping to correct misconceptions and provide a clearer, more accurate picture of humanities majors’ career prospects. Of course, there are many other benefits to studying the humanities and strategies for highlighting them. Several campuses are experimenting with cohort programs to help students forge deep connections. Others are developing or revising courses to demonstrate how the humanities can help address a wide variety of contemporary challenges.

In the coming year, we will be working to ensure the lessons learned on individual campuses benefit the whole humanities community. To better understand which recruitment strategies are most effective, we have developed survey instruments to measure their impact on students’ perceptions and behaviors. We are partnering with directors of compelling initiatives to implement customized surveys. And we will distribute resources that provide an overview of various strategies faculty and administrators across the country are employing and highlight particularly promising models. We invite you to partner with us in these efforts by sharing your strategies via our survey.

Scott Muir leads Study the Humanities, an initiative that provides humanities faculty, administrators, and advocates with evidence-based resources and strategies to make the case for studying the humanities as an undergraduate. Prior to joining NHA, Scott pursued training at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences, earning a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Duke University, an M.T.S. from Emory University, and a B.A. from Dartmouth College. He has taught at Duke, Emory, and Western Carolina University, and his work has appeared in Sacred Matters Magazine and the Journal of Religion and Society. He can be reached at smuir@nhalliance.org.

Beyond the Hat: Will the Trump Coalition Hold in 2020?

by Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science, Emporia State University 

2020 Election

Will President Trump’s Coalition hold in 2020? Hardly anyone seems to be asking this question, at least in public these days.  It is up to us political scientists to remind voters that some of the conventional wisdom still holds, when analyzing elections.  Trump’s voters are not a monolith but a coalition, and his key to re-election rests upon his ability to hold together that coalition.  Like any motley crew, Trump’s coalition includes a range of supporters, from rock-solid to undecided to those who decided, early on, that they made a mistake.  He must hold his coalition together to win four more years in office, just like a more conventional President seeking a second term.

These insights are not mine—or rather, they are not mine alone.  I found this conclusion to be the emerging sense of the meeting a few months ago, when serving on a roundtable on the 2020 Presidential election, at the Great Plains Political Science Association annual meetings.  Colleagues Kim Casey and Bronson Herrera of Northwest Missouri State, Nicholas Nicholetti of Missouri Southern, and I bounced around numerous ideas, from rigorous and research based to purely impressionistic, during our lively exchange.  Ultimately, one thing we could all agree upon is this:  President Trump’s supporters are not a single, monolithic group.  Many do not wear “MAGA” hats or visit alt-right websites.  They run the gamut from evangelical Christians to hardcore religious skeptics, war hawks to isolationists, traditional Republicans to independents and ex-Democrats.

In popular culture, the focus is generally placed upon the ways in which Trump’s coalition does not appear to be diverse.  They tend to be white and non-Hispanic, middle-aged or older men and married women, heterosexual, and reside in suburban and rural areas.  The vast majority identify as Christian.  Yet even this conceals some diversity.  Twenty-eight percent of Hispanic voters, for example, supported Trump in 2016—about the same percentage that backed Mitt Romney.  The conservative news/editorial media is abuzz with early reports that African American voters support Trump at higher rates than previous Republican candidates—though they still prefer the Democrats by a substantial margin.

Trump’s continuous stream of Tweets, outrageous quotes, and confrontational behavior can easily confound observers into thinking that the old political campaign playbook has to be discarded this term.  Add in the fact that some in academia—and many more in the news media– blew the call for the 2016 election.  Yet we political scientists are notorious debunkers of the conventional wisdom—and that includes the so-called insight that Trump completely rewrote the way we view campaigns.

One group that already knows this, is Trump’s campaign staff.  Trump brought a lot more to the table than MAGA hats and campaign rallies in 2016.  His staff developed a sophisticated microtargeting operation, much more advanced than Hillary Clinton’s.  Expect this to be back for 2020.

Microtargeting—a concept popularized by journalist Sasha Issenberg in his 2012 book The Victory Lab—is a powerful reminder that Trump’s campaign has to do a lot more than hats and rallies.  Just as would a more conventional politician, Trump must hold together key blocs of supporters to stay in office.  Otherwise, his razor-thin margins in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin may disappear.

The value placed upon “swing” votes may be overestimated.  A recent Politico article featured a rather overhyped synapsis of Dr. Rachel Bitecofer’s research.  Bitecofer made dead-on predictions of the 2018 midterm elections, which featured a dramatic turnout surge compared to 2014.  Democrats will undoubtedly seek to capitalize on this, particularly among young voters.  Bitecofer argues that elections today are turnout battles with heavy emphasis on negative partisanship—that is, voting against, as opposed to voting for.  Other analysists agree that swing voters are diminishing.

Still, a presidential election is not a midterm, and Democrats will be looking for whatever cracks they can find in the Trump coalition.  These will be more apparent in some constituencies than others.  Again it must be borne in mind that even slight shifts in states such as Wisconsin can shift their electoral votes, since the vote there was incredibly close in 2016.

The Trump coalition includes the following:

1. The alt-right

This group dominates perceptions about Trump, particularly by his opponents.  With their MAGA hats and boisterous rallies, Trump’s so-called “alt-right” supporters cut quite a figure.  Trump’s early decision to appoint Steve Bannon of the alt-right online publication Breitbart.com to a key White House position further energized this group, as do his staunch opposition to illegal immigration, his attempted (and partly successful) “Muslim ban,” and of course his speeches and tweets.

Yet just as most Democrats are not yoga-posing, Prius-driving vegans, the stereotypes of Trump supporters as being exclusively made up of these vocal and visible alt-right voters are highly misleading.  Most voters for Trump—as for nearly all candidates—have never been to a political rally and have no desire to go to one.  This is why turnout tends to be dramatically lower in caucus states than in primary states, for example—most voters don’t want to invest the time, nor publically disclose who they are backing.  While alt-right voters are active on social media, the bombast of their words may cause us to overestimate their numbers.  These voters aren’t going anywhere, but good political analysis requires us to push past this group and look at the rest of the President’s coalition.

2. Evangelical Christians

Trump does not speak for all Christians, as many passionate dissenters have made clear.  Critics of faith object to Trump’s treatment of immigrants, hawkish stance on Iran, environmental policies, cuts to social programs, and non-cooperation with Congressional investigations into his own behavior—including the impeachment trial.  Yet among the rank and file, most evangelicals remain fiercely loyal to the President.  Supreme Court appointments and the possibility of overturning the Roe v Wade court decision are of course front and center, but there is more. Trump’s recent authorization to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani is widely supported by evangelicals, and it reinforces a narrative that Islamic extremists are a danger to the western world, and to Christianity in particular.  Trump’s hawkish stand on Israel is also much more popular with evangelicals than it is with most Jewish Americans, the latter of whom still overwhelmingly back Democrats, and play a key role in battleground Florida.  Progressive Christians like Jim Wallis cite anecdotal evidence that Trump’s evangelical supporters are having doubts, but it is unlikely that Democrats can peel away more than a small number of them, particularly when they are re-energized by actions such as Soleimani’s assassination.

3. Regular Republicans

I was one of the analysts who blew the call in 2016.  My prediction of a Clinton victory was based largely on my assumption that many traditional Republicans—of the sort who backed John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012—would defect from the party over Trump’s nomination.  Not only were Trump’s comments often shocking, he also defected from longstanding Republican precedent by advocating for tariffs—which had not been discussed openly in American politics for about a century—in place of the party’s longtime support for free markets and free trade.  I thought many Romney supporters would switch to Clinton this time.

What happened, was that I forgot about the fundamentals that my mentors taught me in grad school.  As documented in John Sides and Henry Farrell’s excellent ebook The Science of Trump, these fundamentals apply just as much to Trump, as to more conventional candidates. Most voters simply are not ideological—not liberal, not conservative, not even moderate.  Their attachment to parties and candidates comes from other sources like family, race, and religion.  Trump shifted the Republican Party on some key policy issues, but many of their voters did not care.  If these voters did not leave the party in 2016, it is highly unlikely they will do so in 2020.

And as for my own mistake in predicting the 2016 election:  fool me once…

4. Obama-Trump voters in general

Yes, they are a thing.  Estimated at about six million nationwide, they are particularly concentrated in the Great Lakes “firewall” states that flipped in 2016 and put Trump in the White House.  These voters have policy views remarkably similar to other Democrats on issues like abortion rights, health care, and the DACA program for undocumented immigrants brought here as children.  Yet, these voters are notably more conservative on other immigration issues, including Trump’s border wall, and are more likely than other Democrats to believe that people of color and feminists are making too many demands of white men.  These issues will be tricky for the Democrats to negotiate and have received a lot of coverage in the press, but in the end showing some empathy for their belief that working-class whites are being left behind may prove to be pivotal for Democrats seeking to win back some of this group.

5. Auto industry voters

The data presented in last article hyperlinked above also shows something not discussed by the article’s own authors—a huge gap between Obama-Trump voters and other Democrats on the Paris Climate Agreement.  The former group is much less supportive, and I have a pet hypothesis as to why.  These voters are heavily concentrated in states where the auto industry has a large presence:  Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and to a lesser extent, Iowa.  Two more auto industry states, Missouri and Indiana, shifted over just 8 years from a near-tie between Obama and McCain back in 2008—Obama actually won Indiana the first time—to double-digit Trump victories in 2020.  Why?

The American auto industry today includes many factories run by overseas-based companies like Toyota, Nissan, and Volkswagen.  Most of these are non-unionized, and many are in the South.  Yet the traditional “Big Three,” UAW-organized auto industry remains a strong presence in the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley states, and two of these three companies—and an estimated 1.5 million jobs– were rescued from bankruptcy by Obama Administration policies.  Obama’s advertising from 2012 highlighted Mitt Romney’s notorious “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” editorial headline, while another commercial featured a cartoon Romney putting company logos into a wood chipper.

If Democrats seek to renew their support for the workers and retirees of U.S. auto industry, they are going to have to confront a big problem:  fuel economy.  Environmental advocates, who overwhelmingly favor Democrats, want more of it, for example hailing California’s strict new gas mileage standards and support for electric cars.  Yet the traditional U.S. auto industry does not excel in the market for these cars.  Instead, they dominate the market in larger SUVs and pickup trucks, which tend to be gas guzzlers.

Many of these auto industry voters are members of the United Auto Workers, which traditionally supports Democrats, and they agree with their old party on issues like health care.  Yet in order to win them back, the Democrats will have to convince them—as did Obama—that their jobs, and their pensions, are not at stake, without losing the staunch pro-environmentalism supporters to nonvoting or to third-party candidates.

Donald Trump’s behavior as candidate and President is anything but conventional.  For one thing, he just became the first President in U.S. history to seek re-election while being impeached.  Yet it is incumbent on us political scientists to cool the hype—in this case, the overblown case that traditional approaches to political analysis are no longer relevant.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and operatives working quietly but effectively in the campaign organizations of both parties already know this.  Now it is time for the rest of us to realize it, too.  In order to get re-elected, the President must hold together his coalition.  In order to defeat him, Democrats will have to simultaneously turn out new voters, and cut into Trump’s coalition, targeting those who are most cross-pressured.  Neither job will be easy, and it would be very premature for either side to throw out all those old campaign playbooks.

Michael Smith

Michael A. Smith is Professor of Political Science and Chair of Social Sciences at Emporia State University.  He has authored or co-authored three books, the most recent of which is co-authored with two Emporia State colleagues, Drs. Bob Grover and Rob Catlett.  It is entitled Low Taxes and Small Government: The Brownback Experiment in Kansas and was released by Lexington in 2019.  He has other academic publications as well, and also writes newspaper columns carried throughout Kansas as part of the Insight Kansas group and blogs for the MPSA. Michael appears occasionally on television and radio in Kansas and western Missouri to discuss state and national politics.  He was an expert witness for the plantiff in the Bednasek v Kobach case, decided together with Fish v Kobach by the federal district court for Kansas in 2018.  Michael teaches courses in American politics, state and local government, and political philosophy. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 2000. Follow Michael on Twitter. 

MPSA in 2017 – Accomplishments Worth Celebrating (video)

 

This year was confusing at times and exhausting at others, but it also had its high points. As we say goodbye to 2017, we welcome you to join us for the MPSA highlight reel. Our thanks to everyone who played a part in making these projects a reality, including our program chairs, council members, committee chairs, program partners, donors, volunteers, and members. May the new year welcome only the best to you both personally and professionally! – MPSA Staff

Recap of Tuesday’s #PSBeWell End-of-Semester/Holiday Edition

PSBeWell-EndOfSemester

This month’s MPSA Twitter Chat featured a conversation about creating a less stressful end-of-semester experience for those on both sides of the syllabus, ways to balance work and personal time during the busy holiday season, and a few resolutions for the upcoming semester. Many thanks to our co-hosts for the discussion: Todd Curry, Assistant Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas at El Paso, Jacqueline Sievert, Research Fellow with YWCA Niagara, and Adnan Rasool, Doctoral Candidate at Georgia State University.

Read the recap below or look for the extended conversation on Twitter using #PSBeWell. 

Please share your ideas for upcoming #MPSAchat sessions at https://mpsa.typeform.com/to/tuWRlM.

Save the Date for the Next #MPSAchat: January 28, 2018 (2pm Eastern)

#MPSAchat with AJPS Editor William G. Jacoby (10/24)

Fourth Tuesdays at 2pm EDT #MPSAchat1On Tuesday, October 24 (2pm Eastern), please join us for a Twitter chat with American Journal of Political Science editor William G. Jacoby. We’ll chat with Jacoby on trends he has identified during his time as editor, peer review, and tips for avoiding a “technical reject”, among other topics.

If you haven’t participated in a live Twitter chat before, here are a few tips:

  • A moderator from MPSA will post a series of numbered questions over the course of the hour to help prompt response from Jacoby and participants.
  • To share your comments to a specific question, just begin your response with “A1” and include the hashtag(s) designated for the chat. In this case, that’s #MPSAchat.
  • The live chat will last approximately an hour, and you are welcome to participate in some or all of it. We hope that the conversation continues using the hashtag so others can catch up on it later.
  • You may choose to use your regular Twitter account to follow along or you may opt to use online tools created specifically for Twitter chats. Here are three examples and instructions for each.

Future MPSA Twitter chats will be on the fourth Tuesday of each month with a focus on topics including professional development, public engagement, advocacy, research, publishing, teaching/learning, and work-life balance. Our next #MPSAchat will be November 28, 2017, when we discuss Work-Life Balance #PSBeWell. 

Missed the Twitter chat? Read the recap here. 

#MPSAchat – Teaching Political Science in a Politicized Environment

MPSAchatOn Tuesday, September 26 at 2:00 PM (Eastern), please join us for a Twitter chat on Teaching Political Science in a Politicized Environment. This month’s chat topic has been inspired by “Frequently Asked Questions for Faculty in the Wake of the 2016 Election” from American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, Amanda Rosen’s Active Learning in Political Science post of compiled resources on “Teaching Trump“, Dean of UW-Madison’s School of Education Diana E. Hess’ AERA Ed Talk “Political Education in Polarized Times”, Jeffrey L. Bernstein’s MPSA blog post “I’m Not a Disgrace, I’m Just Wrong”, and multiple politically-charged conversations that have entered daily American life on and off campus.

We look forward to discussing the following topics:

Q1: How do you attempt to maintain political neutrality in your classroom?

Q2: What steps have you taken in your classes to DIRECTLY address political polarization?

Q3: Alternately, what steps have you taken in your classes to AVOID addressing political polarization?

Q4: How do you respond to students who make controversial statements in the classroom?

Q5: How have your syllabi changed since this time last year?

Q6: Do you share any (non-syllabus) course materials with students specific to maintaining a neutral classroom?

Q7: Experienced instructors: What is your best advice for those new to teaching this semester?

If you haven’t participated in a live Twitter chat before, here are a few tips:

  • A moderator from MPSA will post a series of numbered questions over the course of the hour to help prompt response from participants. (How do you attempt to maintain political neutrality in your classroom? #MPSAchat)
  • To share your answer to a specific question, just begin your response with “A1” and include the hashtag(s) designated for the chat.
  • The live chat will last approximately an hour, and you are welcome to participate for some or all of it. We hope that the conversation continues using the hashtag so others can catch up on it later.
  • You may choose to use your regular Twitter account to follow along or you may opt to use online tools created specifically for Twitter chats. Here are three examples and instructions for each.

Future MPSA Twitter chats will be on the fourth Tuesday of each month with a focus on topics including professional development, public engagement, advocacy, research, publishing, teaching/learning, and work-life balance.

Upcoming chat sessions:

  • October 24, 2017 – Q&A with AJPS Editor William G. Jacoby
  • November 28, 2017 – Work-Life Balance #PSBeWell

Not able to participate in the September chat session? See the conversation here. 

Recap of MPSA Chat (Work-Life Balance #PSBeWell)

Many thanks to our co-hosts for the discussion:  Todd Curry, Assistant Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas at El Paso, Jacqueline Sievert, Research Fellow with YWCA Niagara, and Adnan Rasool, Doctoral Candidate at Georgia State University.

Look for the extended conversation on Twitter using #PSBeWell and please share your ideas for upcoming #MPSAchat sessions at https://mpsa.typeform.com/to/tuWRlM.

 

An Invitation to Participate: MPSA’s Inaugural Twitter Chat #PSBeWell

A healthy work-life balance is important regardless of where you are in your academic career.

  • Every PhD has the first-hand experience with Grad School struggles.
  • Every tenured professor can remember the feeling of going on the job market.
  • PhDs in non-academic careers know how difficult the decision was to choose a non-academic career path.

Outlets like the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed often share perspectives and advice on combatting challenges we all face throughout our academic careers. For example, challenges like imposter syndrome are no longer hidden but are now acknowledged and widely discussed.

One of the biggest challenges we still face is asking for that initial help from our seniors, mentors and even colleagues. More often than not, most of us choose to not seek help when we are going through these challenges for fear of being judged or having it held against us.

Recent losses in the discipline and subsequent conversations in person and on Twitter have encouraged us to open the door for further discussion about managing the unique brand of stress that accompanies academic life and fostering a work-life balance.

While a Twitter chat won’t provide a quick fix, we hope that this conversation will reveal resources and help strengthen support networks that will prove beneficial to our friends and colleagues.

On Tuesday, August 22 at 2:00 PM (Eastern), please join us for MPSA’s first Twitter chat on this subject. Co-hosts for the inaugural discussion are Todd Curry, Assistant Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas at El Paso, Jacqueline Sievert, Research Fellow with YWCA Niagara, and Adnan Rasool, Doctoral Candidate at Georgia State University.

If you haven’t participated in a live Twitter chat before, here are a few tips:

  • A moderator from MPSA will post a series of numbered questions over the course of the hour to help prompt response from participants. (Q1: What is your ideal “work-life balance” for the new academic year?)
  • To share your answer to a specific question, just begin your response with “A1” and include the hashtag(s) designated for the chat.
  • The live chat will last approximately an hour, and you are welcome to participate for some or all of it. We hope that the conversation continues using the hashtag so others can catch up on it later.
  • You may choose to use your regular Twitter account to follow along or you may opt to use online tools created specifically for Twitter chats. Here are three examples and instructions for each.

We will be using two hashtags for the inaugural Twitter Chat (#MPSAchat and #PSBeWell). #MPSAchat will be carried forward for each monthly chat and we hope that #PSBeWell will be used exclusively when work-life balance topics are in focus.

Future MPSA Twitter chats will be on the fourth Tuesday of each month with a focus on topics including professional development, public engagement, advocacy, research, publishing, teaching/learning, and work-life balance.