Life Of E's

Toxic academic work environments are defined by many attributes including the following: The length of time it’s been continuing Length of time The first attribute to consider is ‘length of time’ that the unpleasantness has been going on. When you experience a day where it just seems like everybody is just biting each other’s heads [...]

Tags: Academic Ladder, Gina Hiatt, toxic, work environment

Toxic academic work environments are defined by many attributes including the following: Loss of good people Loss of good people In a toxic environment, you also start to notice that you’re losing good people. Either you lose them altogether or you keep them physically but you lose them mentally and emotionally. Administrators must pay attention [...]

Tags: academic bullying, Professors, stress, toxic work environment

Toxic academic work environments are defined by many attributes including the following: Effect on employees, students, public, &/or shareholders Effect on employees, students, public, &/or shareholders Another defining aspect is the effect that the rudeness, fear, or negativity is having. When it has a deleterious effect on the people who work in a department, in [...]

Tags: academic bullying, Professors, stress, toxic work environment

Based on my experience (and thinking about it A LOT!) there are five phases to helping yourself get things under control: capturing, collecting, culling, consciously ordering, and then carrying out. This post focuses on phase 3, culling. During this phase you make decisions on the items that you have – and it’s the decision-making process that’s [...]

Tags: captured, capturing, clutter, culling, educators, reference

The May ‘Third Thursday Productivity Time focused on ‘Decluttering and De-stressing.’  One of the participants who is a university professor (and who also manages a lab) sent this to me after she downloaded the free Special Report “Rid Your Workspace of Clutter.”  Meggin, My 15 and 19 year-old daughters made labels for my boxes and I [...]

In preparing for a workshop I was doing recently entitled “Input, Throughput, Output,” where I used the metaphor of a conveyor belt, I found the greatest clipart!  It showed a guy sitting at his desk and the desk was a conveyor belt.  I want you to get that picture in your mind…and then ask yourself whether [...]

Tags: clutter, desk, educate, eliminate, organize, prepare, Productivity, Professors, reduce, teachers

A question that came in from someone who downloaded the “Antioxidants for a Toxic Academic Work Environment” teleseminar sent in this question: I enjoyed your workshop, and felt validated in my approach when I heard your examples of assertiveness. I’d like to ask if I should use the “When you do X, I feel Y” [...]

Tags: assertive, communication, toxic work environment

Thanks to Gina Hiatt of  The Academic Ladder for letting me include these tips:  I don’t know about you, but most academics find that they are simply exhausted at this time of year. It’s not just near the end of the semester, but the end of a long academic year. All you want to do [...]

Tags: Academic Ladder, academics, block, Gina Hiatt, Professors, writing

Recently, a Life of E’s member sent in this question: I am interested in developing a line of teaching tools that come from my experience teaching graduate students and faculty. In developing teaching tools or publications that grow out of a university career, how do you carefully separate your business self from your faculty self? Can [...]

Tags: academics, business, teaching tools, university

Ten Ways to Grow a Backbone (by Gina Hiatt of The Academic Ladder; shared with permission) “Oh, good,” I said to myself, “Here are some of the books I ordered.  I hope these are the ones about dealing with back pain.”  The first book on the pile in the box was How to Grow a [...]

Tags: assertiveness, backbone, Gina Hiatt, graduate students, higher education, Meggin McIntosh, Professors, Susan Marshall, toxic