Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Writer + Guide for Life's Messes

Category: academic life/work

  • Embracing Mediocrity

    I usually aim to do the best I can but that does not mean I aim to be the best. Often the best I can do is mediocre, perhaps a C or C+, if anyone is grading. I am a good enough employee, a good enough researcher, a good enough neighbor, a good enough mother.…

  • Befriending Overwhelm

    I spend a good part of my time at the intersection of Depression, Anxiety, and Grief. When overwhelm hits, which it often does, and a wave of panic rises up in my chest, I take a deep breath. I find my Buddhist practice very helpful when I feel that panic. Panic makes me feel like…

  • Specific Actions to Change the Way Caregiving is Understood in (Academic) Workplaces

    I was both heartened and saddened by the responses I received to my last post on being a caregiver in academia. Many fellow academics and plenty of folks in other fields reached out to me to say that they, too, are caregivers and they wish that part of themselves didn’t have to be so compartmentalized.…

  • Being a Caregiver in Academia: Stigma, Loneliness, & Silence

    The Caregiver Action Network estimates that 29% of the U.S. population fulfil caregiver roles, spending about 20 hours/week taking care of a chronically ill, disabled, or aging person. That care can include bathing and grooming, dressing, toileting, preparing meals, feeding, housekeeping, managing medications, transporting, accompanying to appointments, functioning as a de facto physical/occupational/speech therapist, advocating,…

  • Taking (or Not Taking) Leave in Academia

    I want to start with a few stories about taking leave in academia: Story #1: When I was an adjunct instructor, teaching 6-8 composition courses a semester at two different community colleges to make a living, I had a stroke. My doctors told me to take six weeks off and that I would probably recover…

  • Privilege and Saying No

    I want to continue my series on saying no in academia by addressing the role that privilege plays in saying no and supporting others who say no. I have a ton of privilege in academia: I’m white, which means I am never asked, by virtue of my skin color, to represent an entire race of…

  • Support Others in Protecting Their Time

    At the end of my last post, “The Lie of the Great Service Opportunity,” I listed a few things folks with tenure (or in other positions of relative privilege) can do to push back on the culture of defaulting to yes when it comes to service work. In this post, I want to expand on…

  • On Having to Say No Over and Over

    I talk to students, colleagues, employees in the Writing Center, and others in academia constantly about the importance of saying no. Just like in other realms, women in academia are regularly asked to take on more service work than men and more work that isn’t even recognized as work, like organizing a potluck or cleaning…

  • The Naylor Report on Undergraduate Research in Writing Studies is here!

    I got my copy of The Naylor Report on Undergraduate Research in Writing Studies last week. A group of 43 UR mentors authored the text in less than a year and the resulting book is, I think, simultaneously visionary and pragmatic. I hope WPAs, writing center directors, English and writing department chairs, UR directors, and…

  • “storing my grain in the belly of my neighbor” as citizen, tenured faculty, & writing center director

    I watched Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk, “It’s OK to Feel Overwhelmed. Here’s What to Do Next” this past weekend and found many useful reframings of the current situation and inspiring thoughts and advice. At the same time, I was troubled by how white it was, by virtue of it being the thoughts of a wealthy…