Take care. Be kind to yourself. And don’t be an a**hole.
For those academics who are first-generation, who are racialized, who are women, and who inhabit social locations that are traditionally unrepresented in this exclusionary space, academia is full of landmines. This is why we need academic aunties. Every month, we hear stories and advice from those who have survived and even thrived while navigating this treacherous world. And while we’re at it, we try and plant the seeds for structural transformation.
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Latest Episodes
Season finale!The past year, we’ve talked a lot about just how much we’ve had to fight for the university. From authoritarian leaders who wish to suppress dissent and protests in universities, particularly protests in support of Palestine, to rudderless senior administrators who suspend programs, fire long-term staff, and hire expensive and useless consultancy firms, there’s...
The need for care – for radical care, for decolonial care, for accountable and reciprocal and emancipatory care – has never been more obvious. In a world where it is clear that institutions don’t care for us and that many of our elected political leaders just want to amass power and wealth, it is clear...
We are living in an age of fascism where you have political leaders who disregard democratic process and are going full steam ahead in shaping the world the way they want it to look like. And this world includes a depleted higher education sector that they see as enemy number one. All over, we are...
Higher education is under attack. You’ve probably heard about the cases of Mahmoud Kahlil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Alireza Doroudi. Students, studying in American universities being arrested and disappeared for their political stances. And our academic institutions are all too willing to capitulate in the face of the fascist, anti-education turn of our leaders. On this...
There is a backlash to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. All around us, we see the dismantlement of various DEI initiatives including in academia. Institutions and corporations that once rushed to put out statements in support of Black Lives Matter, Landback, and other social movements for justice, now seem all too ready to abandon their initiatives...
(This is a reissue of the episode with audio issues corrected) Last week, at the end of the day on a Friday, York University announced the suspension of program admissions for 19 undergraduate programs, including Indigenous Studies, Gender Sexuality Women’s studies programs. These cuts occurred against established procedures for collegial governance, and is part of...
In academia, we assume that our value rests solely with our brains. The smarter we are, the more grants and publications we have, the more value we give to our institutions, to our fields, to our professions. What this means is that anything that gets in the way of our ability to produce is seen...
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the passage of time, about priorities, about health, about our larger purpose. I’ve been thinking, too, about intentionality. What is it that I want to do with my career? Am I doing the work that feeds me and my community? Or am I pursuing projects not because they...
If you have had to write or request an academic reference letter, which is probably all of you, then you know that there is a whole, mysterious hidden curriculum behind them. On this episode, Ethel and Nisha talk about what it’s like to write reference letters, how letter readers react to different kinds of letters,...
What is it like to go into the holiday season when grieving the loss of a loved one? How do we honour and remember people who are no longer with us? In this episode, I remember my dad, Leonides Tungohan – or Boyet – for short. With special guests, Winifred and Georgina, we talk about...