How to make sure your impact counts?
I started writing this post last week thinking that I was going share some ideas on how to make your work indispensable as we in the academic world continue to grapple with federal funding uncertainty. I found some interesting pieces here, here, and here if you want to look. But as I was reading those something felt off. Are people losing their jobs right now across the country? Yes. Do we all need to do our jobs well? Sure, without question. The problem was that the recommendations from the articles felt incomplete.
This may be the biggest “no duh” sentence written in a long time, but here it goes…Academic success is based on papers published, presentations given, classes taught, and committees served on. More specifically, success is based largely on the counts of these items. However, there is a smaller less discussed part of this formula that also matters. Reputation.
Now you might be thinking, if I publish more than everyone else, get good teaching evaluations, and do my obligatory service surely that’s enough. It is not. Despite the stereotype of the lone brilliant scientist toiling away in the lab, or in front of the computer working through reams of secondary data saving the world with their discoveries, science is and always has been a team sport. If you want to be promoted you need the approval and support of the senior faculty in your department, your department chair, and your dean. You also need people outside of your school of know about you and your work. In most of our departments and respective areas of work the list of people who are also experts is small. We know, or know of, everyone in our fields. What people think of you, matters. And if you want to add impact, I mean real impact outside of the academy to your CV, reputation matters even more.
Why? Well because we have yet to figure out a straightforward way to count impact. Publications can be counted, teaching can be evaluated and quantified, committee memberships can be listed. Impact is squishy, takes time to happen, and can’t often be attributed to a single intervention. So, as you start your impactful work you will need to rely on your reputation to carry you through the building phase.
How do you build your reputation?
1. Do what you say you’re going to do. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. All of us like consistency so build that into your work life. The people around you will appreciate and recognize the value of being able to rely on you to do what you said you’re going to do.
This feels simple (and maybe obvious), but in practice it is hard. In practice this means getting the marking done for your co-taught course because you said you would, even when you have a revise and resubmit (R&R) that you’d rather be working on. In practice this means communicating with your co-authors about that R&R even when it would be faster to just submit it, because that’s what good team members do. In practice this means mentoring graduating students through a chaotic job market because they asked and you said “yes”, even when you’re worried about your own future.
2. Get good and comfortable talking about you and your work. Being able to quantify our productivity gives us a false sense of security that the numbers matter all by themselves. They do not. As our respective disciplines have become more specialized and fragmented, it is very possible that even people in your own department have no idea about your research or impact. So, you will have to tell them about it.
For me this is VERY uncomfortable, and frankly something I still struggle with to this day. But here a few questions that I’ve learned help me feel prepared to start that discussion:
a. What am I doing? Why does it matter to my partners?
b. How does my work help current students? (gain specific skills and experiences that will help them in the future)
c. How does my work help my department? (gain reputation on campus or in the community, recruit students, change policy)
d. How does my work help my school or college? (gain reputation on campus or in the community, recruit students, change policy)
Writing out my answers to these questions helps me feel ready when I must share my thoughts with my department colleagues, my department chair, or my dean.
3. Realize that this is going to take time and there will be mountain sized bumps. When we land on what our impact is and put plans in place to make that impact real it is hard to understand that not everyone will immediately “get” what we’re doing. Large systems like universities get big because they are good at reinforcing themselves. How do they do this? Well, they do it by incentivizing and rewarding behaviours that reinforce the status quo (read: getting publications, teaching and mentoring students, and sitting on committees that seem to exist to file paperwork).
The impact I want to have, and I think if you made it this far, the impact you want does not fit this model. You will run into resistance from colleagues in and outside of your department, and maybe your department chair and dean. It will be tempting to tell everyone off and scream, “WHY DON’T YOU GET THIS!!” It will be tempting to put your impact off until you’ve gotten tenure. It will be tempting to just give up and leave impact for people outside the academy.
There are moments when I’ve thought and done each of those things. There are times when a setback has left me reeling and paralyzed for weeks. But every time I am on the verge of giving up, the professional reputation I’ve built reminds me I can’t. This reminder usually comes in the form of comments on the value of the mission of my research center (from a post-doc candidate), acknowledgement of my mentoring efforts from students (being called a favorite professor), or citations of my papers.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my time as an academic is that like it or not we have created and continue to reinforce the system we live within. Since we’ve built it, we also have the power to change it. Now do not read this and think it will be easy, straightforward, or fast. But I know finding ways for more faculty to make an impact within and outside of the academy will begin to solve so many issues we face in the world right now. We need to build the critical mase of academics who want to do more than just publish one more dusty paper for no one to read. Together we can begin to shift the narrative, and it starts with building a reputation for impact.
Let me help you ensure your impact counts. Click here to find out more.
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