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Confessions of a Storyteller: Hunting for Truth in History
My blog post is a couple of days late this week. It’s been a whirlwind. I’m writing from the airport at one of those weird tables with outlets and chairs with no backs. I guess it’s so you don’t get too comfortable! Rather than writing my paper, which I will present in two days, I’m… →
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How to Find a Good Mentor
What Good Mentorship Actually Looks Like Everyone needs a good mentor at some point in their lives; undergraduates often find themselves in the mentee role, seeking guidance from a professor, advisor, alum, or upper-level undergrads. A good mentor offers sound guidance, support, access, and help. Mentors are not task managers or problem solvers. It’s important… →
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What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before I Taught My First University Class
The internet is full of “What I wish I knew before starting college,” but almost nothing about what I wish I knew before teaching college. Teaching isn’t an easy craft, unless maybe you majored in education and took courses on how to teach. Most of us walk in with content expertise, but not the teaching… →
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Dressing for Academic Approachability or Authority
Earlier this month, I wrote about how academic style is political and about the differences in academic attire. Today, I want to examine how clothing choices in academia shape perceptions and professional interactions, and I will share additional resources I found. As in any walk of life, what you wear matters. In academia, it is… →
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Conference Reflections
A Personal Update from SECOLAS In Fall 2018, I took a course called World War II: Germans/Lat Amer in Texas. In that small seminar, we built a series of interconnected papers and eventually submitted them to SECOLAS, where we presented them the following March in Oaxaca, Mexico. I’ve attended SECOLAS every year since—except for… →
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No Post this Week
I had planned to post today about “The Power of Small Wins” and how tiny steps help me gain momentum in my research and work. However, this week brought a different kind of small win: allowing myself to pause. I’m traveling to the Grand Canyon tomorrow and then attending a conference for the rest of… →
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What to Expect in 2026 on the Blog
A Guided Year of Scholarship and Creativity I wanted to keep my welcome post separate from my “What to Expect in 2026” post. I believe introducing the blog and outlining what to expect are two distinct topics. Typically, the “What to Expect in 20xx” would be announced at the end of December or early January.… →
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Why I’m Starting This Blog
Connecting Research, Reading, and Exploration After finishing my PhD and trying to figure out where I fit in the postdoc world, I kept coming back to the small, everyday pieces of academic life that never make it into a dissertation. I have notebooks, digital and paper, crammed with meeting notes, colleagues’ recommendations, reading lists, and… →
