Questions I Get about Running an Academic Business
Dear Real Academics,
Pic of the Week
In April 2023, I was walking Rocky, my puppy, around the Florida International University (FIU) campus. I had to catch my breath as we turned a new corner and saw this majestic purple-dotted vine draped over the concrete structure. I hope you enjoy the view as much as I did.
Writing News
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Food for Thought
Since starting Real Academics in 2021, I’ll get curious colleagues asking questions about running a business such as the following:
How many clients do you have?
How many people show up to your events?
How much do you charge for your services? (even though they are openly posted online - kind of like a syllabus that students don’t read - lol).
At first, the questions surprised me — especially because they came from academics. Why? Well, they are so numbers driven. So concrete.
When I stopped to process the questions, though, I realize that this is exactly what I should expect academics to be asking! Why?
As academics, success is usually measured by numbers.
How many articles did you publish?
How many conference papers did you present?
How many grants did you submit/win?
What was your teaching evaluation rating?
Here is the obvious conclusion:
As academics we may think we are idealistic in the sense of “not caring about numbers or about the money,” but let’s be honest, we DO care.
And we should. We should care about our teaching evaluations. We should care about our research and writing productivity (if that is how we are being measured). We should care about having a fair salary for our work. We need to be able to keep up with basic bills and food and taxes (which, by the way, is increasingly becoming harder to do!!!).
But we should also temper our care for these measures with our ideal of influence based on the work we do. This is when we ask ourselves:
What impact did I have on my students this year?
What did I learn from writing and presenting my research?
Most importantly: How much progress did I make towards my academic goals/purpose/aspirations? (If you don’t know what these are, I suggest taking some time to draft these out - why do you do what you do?).
In the “Member Space”, I share more insights, some answers to the questions I get asked about running an academic business, and some behind-the-scenes information.
CLOSING
Until next time, happy writing, productivity, and truth-seeking,
Maggie
P.S. Tiberio and I thank all of you for subscribing and reading!