Working well in challenging times

The COVID-19 syndemic added more stress, fear, uncertainty, and labor to already taxed faculty, staff, and administrators. Questions abound: How will I get any work done in this environment? How do I balance competing professional, personal, and community demands? How can I manage all that is in front of me when I'm feeling emotionally depleted?​

This workshop takes up these questions by providing a framework for healthy coping and decision making in these challenging times. Using this framework, participants are guided in the development of a personalized plan they can immediately implement for better wellness, productivity, and balance.

Addressing stress in higher education

Stress is detrimental to productivity, well-being, and relationships. Many academics, however, underestimate their stress levels and overestimate the effectiveness of their coping mechanisms.

This interactive workshop addresses these issues by helping participants:

• ​Understand the causes and consequences of stress.
• Assess personal stress levels and coping styles.
• Examine empirically sound ways to manage stress.
• Develop a stress-reduction plan that can be implemented immediately​.

Sustaining Ourselves (exclusively for women of color)

Isolation, service overload, and experiences of gendered-racism are just some of the impediments to advancement and optimal health women of color (WOC) face in academe.

 To address these challenges, the WOC in this workshop:

• Learn and practice culturally sensitive techniques that enhance health, increase productivity, and improve work-life harmony.
• Explore healthy ways to deal with experiences of discrimination and tokenism.
• ​​Foster connections with other women of color.

5 Secrets to thriving on the tenure track

Surviving the semester is the norm among tenure-track faculty stretched thin balancing the competing demands of teaching, scholarship, and service, alongside personal priorities. When every semester is a repeat of the same, morale, productivity, and health suffer.

This workshop helps tenure-track faculty envision and enact a different, healthier possibility through:

• The sharing of five practices shown to bring achievement, vitality, and joy to faculty life; and
• The exploration of ways to sustain these practices.

Workshop can be designed specifically for assistant, associate, or full faculty members.