Welcome to Intentional Academia

A brief intro to what this blog is about and where we're going

Photo by Corryne Wooten on Unsplash

Welcome to Intentional Academia. I’m Robert, and I’m thrilled you’re here.

To say that the last few years have been hard for people in academia is putting it mildly. The tectonic shifts in higher education wrought by the pandemic have totally upended our institutions and changed the way we work — often for the worse. Go on social media or talk to faculty or staff at any point since March 2020 and you will see a second pandemic, of burnout and exhaustion. It’s hollowing out the very core of our institutions and is arguably a bigger existential threat than finances, the demographic cliff, or anything else.

Something needs to change, and fast. And since institutions are glacially slow to change, the immediate remedy falls to individuals — to you and me, fair or otherwise — to take matters into our own hands, to whatever extent is possible, and start approaching academic life with intention, rather than mindless doing or “getting more things done”.

This blog is about how we in academia might do this: How we might regain some control over our work, our commitments, and our attention in order to have time and energy to get what we want out of both work and life. It’s not easy, but I’ve been living this process since the mid-00’s as a faculty member, and I want to share what I’ve learned to help others live it too.

The first “real” post for this blog will be on Monday, January 9 where I’ll be saying a little more about my motivations for this blog, what I hope to accomplish, and what you can expect. From there, I plan to post new content every other Monday.

I invite you to be part of a community of academics rebelling against the “get more things done” culture in higher ed and recapturing some of the magic that drew us into this profession. Thanks again for reading.