Academic Freedom

Geremy Grant, Alfred University

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) purports that academic freedom is integral to the autonomy faculty need to develop their pedagogy and produce meaningful scholarship. The AAUP further acknowledges that academic freedom is an essential safeguard for faculty against unjustified institutional censorship or discipline, should they choose to share perspectives regarding practices, operations, or decisions made by their employer. Academic freedom is particularly relevant to the work of school psychology faculty, who are charged with designing and delivering programming that centers human diversity and social justice (e.g., Standard 1.5 for the Graduate Preparation of School Psychologists), topics which are currently under scrutiny in educational legislation (e.g., Pedota et al., 2026; Index of Educational Gag Orders, 2026).

To meet the expectations of the profession, school psychology faculty must be knowledgeable of threats to academic freedom and devise strategies to maintain their professional and personal well-being while navigating these challenges. Three school psychology faculty were interviewed to learn the importance academic freedom has in their roles and how they maintain their wellness: Dr. Kamontá Heidelburg (KH) from The Ohio State University, Dr. Rachel Stein (RS) from the University of Colorado Denver, and Dr. Caitlyn Weaver from Alfred University (CW).

How do you define “academic freedom" in your role as a school psychology faculty member? What importance do you believe academic freedom has for our field and the youth and families we serve? ‍ ‍

KH: My ability to teach critical topics that impact children's well-being. This includes centering topics related to equity, liberation, social justice, and culturally responsive practices to ensure that all students have the supports they need in schools to succeed.

RS: My interpretation of academic freedom is that it means that I can follow the science and best practices of school psychology in my teaching and research, without repercussion. Within school psychology, this is important because it allows us to implement best practices for the youth and families we serve. While the science, and thus recommended practices, may change over time, this is driven by the science and discipline of school psychology.

CW: In my role, academic freedom means that I have the autonomy to teach and research topics that serve the best interest of children, regardless of the socio-political climate. Academic freedom critical in our field, especially as the current political administration has worked to scale back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, because we are ethically obligated to provide high-quality services to our students.

How do you make decisions about course content and research topics, particularly when those areas may be considered “controversial" or "socially sensitive"?

KH: We must move at the pace our children need. With that in mind, I make decisions about course content and research to honor my professional commitment and legal obligation as a school psychologist. To successfully train the next generation of school psychologists and provide students with the psychological supports and services they need to succeed in school, I must address factors that impede student outcomes, regardless of whether they are deemed "controversial" or "socially sensitive."

RS: My teaching and research are guided by best practices and the research in school psychology. While I don’t think that is a controversial stance, I do believe in taking steps to create inclusive communities and classrooms where students can express diverse viewpoints without fear of retaliation. Creating environments where this is possible includes setting group norms, reminding students of why disagreement and discourse are important, and moderating the conversation as appropriate.

CW: Both local and national professional organizations release guidance on best practice for school psychologists. When I am unsure if course content relates to a necessary competency or if it should be covered in a certain manner, I consult the National Association of School Psychologists (2020) practice model. Furthermore, NASP has released position statements related to best practice for many vulnerable populations. I aim to choose course material and research topics that fit within the scope of expected school psychology practice, even if potentially controversial.

How do you maintain your personal and professional well-being when facing challenges to academic freedom? ‍ ‍

KH: Maintaining a work-life balance. Refilling my cup with things that are important to me, such as staying in community with people who uplift, celebrate, and hold me accountable for the work I do around equity and inclusion for Black youth.

RS: We are living in a fear-based environment. Yet, I do not think that the science or best practices in support of children and families’ well-being has a role in controversy. I strive to be thoughtful about my research and teaching and ground my ideas in the available evidence. I also think that it is very important to have colleagues and individuals in my life whom I can talk to openly and honestly. There are also times when self-care means taking a break and stepping back for a few hours or perhaps a few days in order to care for my own well-being.

CW: Thus far, I have been fortunate to work for organizations that support my academic freedom. I have not felt that my research areas or ability to teach ethical practice have been limited. Should this come up, I would attempt to prioritize my well-being by making professional decisions that are rooted within my ethics.

What kinds of supports, policies, or professional norms have helped sustain your academic freedom, especially during in times of broader societal challenges?‍ ‍

KH: Professional organizations and accrediting bodies have been instrumental in ensuring that the profession's integrity is not undermined by policies that minimize psychologists' professional obligations.

RS: Over time I have come to realize how accreditation and policies can serve a protective function, in terms of upholding best practices within school psychology and academia. I also think that much of our training as school psychologists (such as legal and ethical considerations and having difficult conversations) make us well poised to navigate environments that may be tricky or contentious.

CW: My academic institution has an academic freedom policy, indicating that faculty have the right to discuss information so long that it is related to the subject matter and respectfully communicated. Further, the NASP position statements related to social justice issues provide strong professional backing in times of uncertainty. Specifically, policies related to safe and supportive schools for racial, ethnic, and gender-diverse populations continue to set the expectation that school psychologists will hold a social justice framework.

What advice do you have for new faculty navigating challenges related to academic freedom at the institutional, community, and/or broader societal levels?‍ ‍

RS: Find your supportive people! Know who you can turn to with questions, concerns, or for support.

CW: My advice to others would be to seek social support related to academic freedom. Colleagues and professional organizations can be a huge asset during times of turbulence. When in doubt, refer back to both your professional and personal ethics to ensure that decisions you make are a product of your values, rather than the current climate.

Concluding Thoughts and Related Resources‍ ‍

There are several takeaways from the meaningful insights shared by the interviewees. I summarize a few of these points below:

1) School psychology faculty are obligated to teach best practices and produce scholarship based on the most rigorous research available, regardless of the institutional or sociopolitical climate. Barriers to engaging in such work must be viewed as targets for advocacy, rather than as reasons to avoid discussions or course content, given the significant benefits DEI initiatives have for children, families, schools, and the communities we serve.

A) Awareness is the first step in identifying threats to academic freedom. This requires faculty to understand how academic freedom is conceptualized. It is important to note that the specific definition of academic freedom may vary by institution; as such, faculty should first consult their respective institution’s faculty handbook and other relevant documentation.

■ The AAUP also offers several resources to orient faculty more broadly to the topic of academic freedom, and the scope of the threats faculty may face. See their frequently asked questions, policy statements, and reports.

B) It is important to acknowledge that scholars may be working in localities where legal restrictions impede their ability to explicitly center DEI in their courses and research.

■ If you are serving as faculty in a locality that prohibits DEI in curricula or scholarship, work with your co-faculty, departmental administration, and institutional leadership to thoroughly investigate ways you can continue to train students and conduct scholarship in accordance with the standards of the profession.

■ Engage with state and national organizations that govern our profession to advocate for changes to legislation. NASP offers several resources and professional development opportunities to further school psychologists’ development of ethical knowledge and advocacy skills, including the NASP Public Policy Institute and NASP Policy Matters Blog. NASP also has several position statements, which are official policy documents approved by the organization’s leadership. These documents can be used to advocate for evidence-based practices across institutional, community, state, and federal levels, and can also be used to facilitate trainees’ understanding of NASP’s policies by integrating them into coursework.

■ Given the ever-changing nature of the sociopolitical landscape, faculty must commit themselves to remaining knowledgeable regarding laws and regulations to ensure their actions remain legally compliant. As part of a plan to stay up to date on these matters, faculty can consider reviewing material published by higher education media outlets, civil rights advocacy organizations, and professional education organizations. Examples of relevant resources include:

● The Chronicle of Higher Education: Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI
● The Education Trust (EdTrust): Protecting Students Amid Federal Attacks on Higher Education Opportunities
● American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education
● National Education Association (NEA): Promoting Inclusive Education‍ ‍

2. Navigating threats to academic freedom can impact a faculty member’s well-being. It is important to identify personal and professional sources of social support, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and commit to holistic self-care.

A) An earlier SSSP ECF blog post, “What is Work-Life Balance in Academia?” provides guidance on creating a healthy work-life balance. Additional tips specifically for parents are shared in this post, “Academic Parenthood: How Family Life Has Shaped Our Professional Life”.

B) The SSSP ECF also provides various outlets for social support, including regularly scheduled writing groups and an annual social hour scheduled during the NASP convention.

3. School psychology faculty must devise strategies to create inclusive learning communities to promote constructive conversations, especially related to content that may be deemed “controversial” in mainstream contexts. Some considerations are as follows:

A) Faculty must engage in critical self-reflection, which is crucial to developing and maintaining inclusive learning spaces:

■ Commit to ongoing and honest examination of personal factors (e.g., biases, discomfort, and/or level of expertise and competence related to cultural diversity and social justice) that may impact your ability to serve as an effective role model for trainees.

■ Analyze your power and privilege (including benefits from being a faculty member, and those derived from other social identities) with the goal of disrupting perceived hierarchies which may impact marginalized colleagues and students’ feelings of being valued and respected.

■ Reflect on how you demonstrate cultural humility in your relationships with students, staff, and colleagues.

How does academic freedom relate to the work you do as a school psychology faculty member? What resources do you find most useful in navigating challenges to academic freedom? Comment below!

Academic Summer: Making Progress on Your Research and Writing While Still Having Fun

Jacqueline Caemmerer, University of Connecticut

Crystal Taylor, Appalachian State University

The academic summer is an amazing gift. Most faculty have more time available, as they likely have lower teaching and service demands than in the fall and spring semesters. The promise of this increase in unstructured time can feel a bit daunting. Faculty may feel pressure to make up for a decrease in their research productivity that may have occurred during the academic year. The academic summer is not necessarily a time of unlimited productivity, though. We tend to overestimate what we can do during the summer, because not all of our typical job responsibilities disappear. We are still likely supervising graduate students; we may have summer grant deadlines; we may be recovering mentally and emotionally from the academic year; and we may be addressing areas of our lives that we paid less attention to during it. For parents, a decrease in childcare availability can also be a barrier to productivity at work. 

With all the unstructured time in the summer, setting goals and creating a plan can be especially helpful to realize what you were hoping to achieve while also making time for a much-needed break. While we are not claiming to be experts on this as we’re still trying to figure out how to do this ourselves, we wanted to share good advice we have learned from mentors, past ECF blog posts, and lessons imparted in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity curriculum (check if your institution is a member of NCFDD for access to resources or use start-up funds to access this amazing experience). Many of these techniques can be useful throughout the year, not just during the summer, but we approach this blog through a summer lens. 

Tip #1. Create a realistic, achievable plan for the summer weeks. 

• First, set SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. We encourage you to prioritize your goals. Select your top 1 or 2 research/scholarly goals that require a lot of time, effort, and focus. Select another 1 or 2 goals that require less effort or time and involve maintenance-type work, such as revising papers and collaborating on research projects where your role is more secondary or supportive. 

  • Bonus Tip: Consider expectations. Is the goal to make progress or complete the task? What does making progress look like?  For example, is your goal to move a paper from an idea to an outline or to revise a paper? Maybe your goal is to clean data, but you will analyze those data in the fall when colleagues return. When expectations are clear, your goal becomes more attainable. 

• After you have identified your top-priority goals, break each goal down into the small steps required to meet it. 

• Map your goals onto your summer calendar. You might find it helpful to backward plan. Identify the goal completion date, then work backward to determine when you will complete each step required to reach the goal. 

• For collaborative projects, connect with your colleagues and collaboratively decide on completion dates for tasks that account for each person’s summer goals and plans. You may need to adjust your timeline to match your colleagues’ summer travel plans, their priorities, etc.

Tip #2. Align professional goals with personal goals. 

• When mapping your goals to your calendar, don’t forget to include vacation time, and, for parents, consider weeks when you have more or less childcare. Update your calendar to reflect all your summer non-negotiable time commitments, such as research and grant meetings, summer classes you are teaching, and personal commitments like vacations, time with family, hobbies, and exercise.

• To align your goals with your calendar, you will need to estimate the amount of time required to complete each task. Be realistic about these estimations. We have found we tend to underestimate how long tasks will take, and some guidance suggests doubling your estimates.

  • Bonus Tip: Dedicate a few days at the beginning of summer to monitoring your time. Write down your whole routine as you go with timestamps. 7:00 am wake up; 7:05 brush teeth; 7:10 get dressed; 7:15 workout … etc. This will allow you a realistic idea of how long tasks take. 

• Color code your calendar if you wish. You can assign colors to categories such as research/writing, teaching and/or advising, service, etc. The color-coding allows you to easily evaluate how you spend your time each week and how it aligns with your priorities.

  • Bonus Tip: If you use Google Calendar, take a peek at your time insights; if you color-code your work, it will break down how much time you spend with each category.

Tip #3. Schedule writing as if it were a meeting you cannot cancel.

• Block out writing time in your calendar. Identify the time of day that you feel is your most productive writing time and schedule that time as a writing block. Many sources recommend daily writing time, even for small blocks such as 30 minutes a day. Some people, however, prefer large blocks of time referred to as writing hunkers. 

• Limit distractions during your writing time, and experiment with different techniques to increase your productivity while developing strategies to minimize distractions. 

  • If email is a major distraction, make yourself a rule that you must write for “10” minutes, or write “2” pages, or write  “100” words before you can check email. Or select days to put an out-of-office message on and work on tasks that are important to you instead of checking email.

  • If procrastination or fatigue is hard, try the Pomodoro Technique. Set a timer for 25 minutes (or longer if you prefer) and work solely on that task during that time. At the end of the timer, take a short break and then repeat. 

  • Build support and accountability into your writing time. Join writing groups or identify accountability partners. These can be in person or virtual and can involve spending time writing together, sharing goals, and providing updates on your progress. Shameless plug: the SSSP-ECF hosts monthly writing retreats; join us! 

Tip #4. Mid-summer check-in. 

• Now that you have a solid productivity plan, it is time to get to work. We encourage you to pause midway through the summer to monitor your own progress. Determine what is working, what needs to change, and update your calendar and priorities. 

• Be kind to yourself, just as we would tell a special education teacher monitoring a student’s goal: a little progress is still progress. Maybe you need to request an extension on that R&R; that is okay, most editors are flexible. Perhaps your goals were too lofty; consider the progress you’ve made and set realistic goals moving forward.

Tip #5. Preventing burnout and setting boundaries. Give yourself a 90s summer! 

• During your “off” days, plan activities that fill your cup. Summertime is supposed to be rejuvenating, and we are lucky to have this time free. Say yes to the trip. Go to lunch with friends. Sleep in. Start a new hobby. Do what makes you happy. 

• For those of us on 9-month contracts, teaching and service responsibilities are typically expected to end when the contract ends, though in practice that boundary can sometimes be less clear. We recognize that not everyone is in a position to decline additional service requests, but when possible, especially early in your career, it can be helpful to be selective about taking on commitments that fall outside your contract period. As best you can, prioritize activities that support your research productivity or other professional goals. 

Tip #6. Reentry Planning for Fall

• As the summer winds down, begin to transition into fall semester mode. Consider your fall teaching load and how much time you need to prep your classes–recall the tip from above; you may need to double your time estimates. Prioritize finalizing syllabi and organizing course materials during the remaining weeks of summer in August.

  • If this is your 1st semester teaching, you moved to a new institution, or you are prepping classes you’ve never taught before, allocate more time in August to course prep activities. 

• Early August may be a good time for an end-of-summer check-in. Revisit the goals you set at the beginning of the summer. How much progress did you make on each goal? Readjust timelines as needed for the remaining summer weeks.

• Finally, start the planning and goal-setting process for the fall semester and begin again with tip #1 and work through the other steps. Make a plan for your writing and research productivity in the fall that accounts for the additional time demands of increased teaching and service activities. Reflect on the personal goals you hoped to achieve over the summer and determine how those best fit within the fall semester.

See our previous ECF posts related to summer specifically:

• https://www.sssp-research.org/summertime-and-the-workin-is-easy-the-five-ps-of-a-productive-summer/

• https://www.sssp-research.org/how-do-you-prepare-for-the-new-academic-year/

See our previous ECF posts related to scholarly productivity specifically:

• https://www.sssp-research.org/setting-boundaries-to-promote-your-research-productivity/

• https://www.sssp-research.org/managing-your-time-during-your-first-year-of-academia/

Handling Tricky Situations as an Early Career Faculty

June L. Preast, The University of Alabama

MacKenzie Sidwell, Mississippi State University

Within our academic positions, we encounter a range of experiences that seem to go beyond the typical Research, Teaching, and Service loads. While research productivity is often the focus in earning tenure and promotions, especially at research-intensive institutions, it is the unexpected situations that impede time spent on scholarship. As an early-career faculty member, tricky situations, especially those involving students, can be stressful, tough to navigate, and take up more time and energy than imagined. Below, we provide some guidance for handling tricky student situations and ensuring you and your scholarship feel supported. 

Courses

A common setting for tricky situations with students is our classes, where disagreements arise over grades and/or assignments. When developing (or updating) your syllabi, provide explicit instructions and clear explanations for all course expectations. Consider having detailed rubrics for each assignment and providing those at the beginning of the semester. While time-consuming, the more structure you provide students before they even begin assignments, the harder it will be for them to dispute the grades you assign. Clearly outlining procedures, resources, and expectations is just one of the ways you can maintain inclusive syllabi for your courses. This is not to say that flexibility cannot be provided to your students and for your courses based on a variety of needs and situations. If changes are made during the semester, take note of all changes and rationales, and clearly document your communication of those changes to students in case there are any questions later. Given the impact of AI on instruction, it is helpful to include an AI policy in your syllabus, with clear language about its use in coursework. Faculty will likely need to confer with colleagues, institutional policies, guidance from the field, and recommendations in the literature when crafting this language. Clear communication, whether through grading with comments or responses to student inquiries, is key to lessening disagreements within courses. If you are unsure how to handle a dispute about course grades or assignments, review your institution’s faculty handbook for guidance. 

Field Experiences

For some of our students, participating in field experiences may be the first time they have had to show up to a “job,” where they might not be getting paid directly but have important responsibilities. It’s important to set expectations for students' field experiences from both the university program and site perspectives. Students may not know that they are expected to show up on time or early for their placements, that business casual is the dress code, or that it is unprofessional to be on your phone during an IEP meeting. Our site supervisors may have different expectations of our students than we, as faculty, do. It’s also important for site supervisors and university supervisors to communicate early and often, especially if there are any concerns or skills of the student(s) that require more training. If a tricky situation arises involving a student and their field experience placement, make sure any conversations with the student and the placement site have been documented. Review the memorandum of agreement (or memorandum of understanding) between the placement site and the program/institution to ensure that no breach of contract has occurred. If your program has procedures for issues with field placement sites, review them and ensure the student has received adequate and appropriate support.

Research 

Mentoring students in research can be a fulfilling aspect of our jobs in academia. With mentoring also comes providing advice, coaching, and teaching to support the mentee's professional development. Regarding research with students, it is important for us to encourage growth in their research skills while also providing instruction. When working with student researchers, whether in research teams or one-to-one, set clear expectations and boundaries. Creating a formal agreement at the beginning of a project or semester may help prevent future disputes. If students are not completing assigned tasks or engaging in potentially unethical behavior (e.g., plagiarism, inappropriate AI use), have a conversation with them to remind them of the stated expectations and next steps for their participation in research. As such, dissertation contracts can be particularly helpful tools to delineate the dissertation-related tasks to be completed by the student that both you and the student agree represent satisfactory progress each semester.  

General Issues

Sometimes, students forget that program colleagues communicate with each other, especially about how best to support students. With that, students sometimes attempt to triangulate, or ask multiple faculty for the same thing in an effort to get their desired outcome, similar to asking dad for something after mom refused. Students sometimes also go to female faculty with questions or requests for help more than to male faculty. And early-career faculty can also be targets, typically being closer in age to the students or being seen as more of a pushover than more seasoned faculty. Certainly, not all students are out to get faculty, and some who engage in this behavior do so because they struggle to communicate their needs to faculty due to insecurity or unclear boundaries and expectations. It is helpful to be mindful that this might happen, and take note if a student comes to you for something that feels a bit off, or is related to a program or course expectation that is not solely under your purview. At the beginning of the semester, remind students of the different options for seeking support within your program and at your institution, and when these situations do arise, don’t feel like you have to answer all student questions right away. Take time to find the correct answers, consult with your colleagues, or point them to a colleague who is better suited to answer their question. 

Finding Support

Hopefully, issues related to students are few and far between in your career, and taking proactive steps may help to prevent issues down the line. Setting boundaries can be helpful not only for promoting your research productivity but also for your well-being. Clear communication and expectations at the beginning of each course, supervision experience, or research project will help to lay a solid foundation for positive interactions with students. Mentors at your institution and external to your institution (e.g., NASP, APA Division 2, state school psychology organizations) may provide pertinent perspectives and guidance on navigating situations that may arise that align with university policy and norms. In addition to the multitude of blog posts from the Early Career Forum, both the Trainers of School Psychologists and the Council of Directors of School Psychology Programs provide resources for graduate training, including supporting students. Finally, the Early Career Forum also hosts a happy hour during the NASP Annual Convention, offering early career faculty a chance to connect around research and collaboration, while also building community and finding peers who understand the challenges of navigating tricky situations, and who can remind you that you’re not alone.

Responding to Reviewer Comments: It Gets Only a Little Easier

Rachel T. Santiago, PhD, University of Missouri, and Garret J. Hall, PhD, Florida State University 

Academia’s running joke about the hypercritical Reviewer 2 is somewhat exaggerated, but it has a grain of truth. Publishing your scholarship is, at best, a difficult process that often results in negative feedback, rejection, and a potential existential crisis.  Yet you are committed to your work because the (highly) variable reinforcement schedule of publishing is enough to keep you going, including the payoff of that first job or faculty promotion.  

As early-career scholars and associate editors at different journals in the field (RS: Journal of School Psychology; GH: Assessment for Effective Intervention), we experience the joy and exasperation of publishing our own work while devoting substantial effort to making recommendations on others’ work. The peer-review process has its flaws, and manuscript decisions are often very nuanced. It isn’t easy to find an effective way to respond to feedback (especially when your indignation spikes after reading your feedback for the first time), even when the feedback is constructive (and sometimes it’s very unconstructive). Your reviewer response approach depends largely on the specific feedback you receive and the nature of your paper. Unfortunately, this is often not something graduate students or early career professionals are formally taught; much of the learning comes from personal experience and consultation with colleagues and mentors. In 2019, the ECF offered step-by-step guidance to navigating Revise and Resubmit decisions (see here: https://www.sssp-research.org/revise-and-resubmit-now-what/). The current post builds on that prior work by highlighting some of the review response processes to help develop an effective response strategy.

General Tips 

Read, Process, then Read Again 

A Revise and Resubmit (R&R) or Major Revision is still a type of rejection. They’re willing to see a revision, but it is a rejection nonetheless, and it is perfectly normal to have feelings about that and to feel frustrated about the feedback you received. Therefore, it can be helpful to give yourself some breathing space in between your first read-through of the decision letter and your second planning-oriented read-through. (And if you want to print out a particularly rude review and throw it into a fireplace, no judgment here.)  

Importantly, you don't want to get in your own way—don’t count your work out before receiving a final decision. On the flipside, don’t be overconfident that they will accept the revision. Read the review, sort out your reactions to it, then read it again so you can make a plan for submitting the best possible revision and maximizing your chances of acceptance. 

Make a Plan 

Your review timeline is a difficult part of the process to manage, especially when working with multiple co-authors. It is important to develop a plan to finalize your reviewer responses and manuscript edits with your co-authors as soon as possible after initially receiving a manuscript decision. There is no one way to do this, and it depends on the dynamics of the authorship team, but it’s best to have clear author roles at the revision stage. In our experience, manuscript revision timelines have ranged from a couple of weeks to several months. Journals have default timelines that are communicated within manuscript decision letters. Completing a revision within the standard timeline is ideal, and your initial revision plan should be based on that. However, it’s acceptable to ask the AE or editor assigned to your paper for an extension, if needed.  

When you develop a revision plan, you should prioritize how each piece of feedback will be addressed, especially if it is not clear how to address highly variable (or outright discrepant) comments from reviewers. AEs will often provide guidance on which revisions to prioritize. Feedback about core assumptions of your paper, like your theoretical framework or statistical modeling choices, will probably take more time to both revise in the paper and develop a persuasive reviewer response. Communication and collaboration with co-authors are essential for articulating a cohesive response to complex feedback.  

Also, find the big picture of the feedback you received, in addition to paying attention to small details. Often, the whole response is greater than the sum of the individual responses to comments. Give yourself time to evaluate both the finished reviewer response and your revised manuscript before you resubmit. 

Documenting Your Responses 

There are different ways to document your responses to reviewer feedback. A good first step is to read the decision letter carefully to see if the editor or AE specifies how they want you to do this, because there can be variability in what a journal expects. Sometimes an editor will ask for a document with your response to each comment, in addition to highlighting changes (or using tracked changes) in the resubmitted manuscript; sometimes they ask for your responses to each comment without specifying whether you should indicate changes in the revised manuscript; and sometimes they request something else. If the letter or the author guidelines on the journal website do not give specific instructions, you can safely assume that you should include a deidentified document with a response to each editorial and reviewer comment. There are different ways to format this document (e.g., a table or a list). Just know that you may be asked to enter it into a text box in the submission portal or to upload it as an attachment (or both!). You can also ask co-authors or colleagues if they are willing to share an example of how they have formatted their responses to reviewers in the past. 

Regardless of the approach you use, aim to be detailed and clear to make it as easy as possible for the editor, AE, and reviewers to find the changes you made. The easier they can find the changes, the clearer it will be that you were thoughtful and comprehensive in the revision process. 

Handling Tricky Situations 

Sometimes reviewers say or suggest things that are hard to navigate, and there isn’t a handbook for what to do about them. Below, we offer some tips for handling more difficult situations. 

Rude, Harsh, or Unnecessarily Critical Reviewers 

Reviewers are only able to give constructive feedback to the extent that their own characteristics, egos, and biases allow. It doesn’t make it okay, but it means that sometimes reviewers give problematic feedback. In general, AEs are required not to redact or edit a reviewer’s comments; sometimes an AE explicitly states in their decision letter that a piece of feedback is not necessary to consider; sometimes they do not. In general, it is a good practice to respond to ideas, not tone (even if it is tempting to tell them exactly what you think of their review). However, sometimes reviewers’ comments can be bigoted, racist, xenophobic, or prejudiced (e.g., uncalled-for comments about authors’ language proficiency, unsubstantiated assumptions about culturally relevant practices). In these situations, a good first step is to consult with your co-authors or with other colleagues you trust to identify how to best move forward in a way that protects both your scholarship and your well-being. 

You Already Did What They Asked You to Do 

A reviewer asks, “Why didn’t you do XYZ?” even when you clearly stated you did on page 15 of your manuscript. Don’t be snarky in your response, even if you think that detail was impossible to miss. Acknowledge the concern the reviewer is raising and respectfully note the location of the detail in question (page number, specific sentence, etc.). At some point, as a reviewer, you will also miss an obvious detail.  

Sometimes a reviewer may question something you already did because they didn’t understand it in the first place. In this case, first reflect on whether your initial explanation adequately communicated the detail the reviewer misunderstood. After you do that, determine whether you need to revise the manuscript itself as well as provide further explanation in the response letter. You may only need to do one or the other, but we advise that you revise the manuscript for clarity AND provide more context in the reviewer response.  

Misalignment Between Feedback and Methodology 

There might be multiple valid ways to conduct a specific method (assessment strategy, data analysis, research design, etc.), and reviewers may offer legitimate criticism and alternatives/improvements to your methods. Sometimes, however, the reviewers are plain wrong. Sometimes, you and your coauthors are too. It’s important to recognize when your methods demonstrate legitimate flaws and assess whether this can be improved upon in revision, either through changes to the methods or revisions to the explanation. However, it’s also important to be able to identify when a reviewer’s methodological suggestion is incorrect or unhelpful to the goals of your study. When a review recommends something that you believe is incorrect, it’s important to communicate a respectful and thorough response to reviewers that demonstrates you have a clear methodological justification for your design or analytic choices and why their recommendation may be inappropriate for your study. It may also help to discuss with the AE what changes are necessary. For example, feedback that criticizes the methods of single-case designs or qualitative studies by comparing them to group design standards of statistical power or sample size is often invalid. This could come from a place of reviewers’ unfamiliarity with the designs/methods or just a bias against them (or both). Either way, providing a clear and thorough justification will demonstrate that you have a strong theoretical, methodological, and/or practical basis for your choices. At the same time, it’s not your job to teach reviewers a method they are unfamiliar with; they need to recognize the limits of their own knowledge before offering constructive feedback. 

When You Aren’t Going to Implement a Suggestion 

Like the last section, when you decide that you won’t make recommended changes to your study or manuscript, it’s important to provide a clear rationale, especially if the suggestion you are not implementing is a key part of their review. Logically justified responses can provide a compelling basis for saying “We ignored this.” Even when reviewer feedback is clearly not possible to implement (e.g., a reviewer asks why you didn’t collect measures on something when you are using secondary data), remain collegial in your response and just note that the change is not possible for a clear reason. As noted earlier, this also depends on the scope of the changes. A major change you decide against will require more explanation and more nuance. A small change may require only a brief response, like, “We appreciate the attention to detail. We have decided to do XYZ because of XYZ” (i.e., “thanks but no thanks”).  

Thoughts from an Associate Editor's Perspective 

As early-career researchers who also serve in reviewing and AE capacities, we currently navigate the review process from the author, reviewer, and AE perspectives. Based on our experience, we recommend asking the AE assigned to your manuscript any questions or clarifications you may have. Personally, we would rather an author ask us to clarify something than have them experience difficulties in the revising process. 

It’s important to recognize that different AEs take different approaches, and it can be hard to reach an editorial decision. We are balancing methodological expertise and content knowledge across reviewers, and sometimes reviewers’ recommendations don’t neatly align. Some AEs treat the decision as a vote among reviewers (e.g., two recommend R&R and one recommends Reject, so the AE decides R&R), while others base their decision on the overall picture of the reviews. In addition, some AEs need approval from the journal’s editor-in-chief before finalizing a decision, whereas others do not; this varies by journal policy and editors’ styles. Overall, there will be variability across journals and AEs, and multiple factors go into the decision-making process. In short, it is helpful to be informed about the process while recognizing what is within your control: doing the best work you can and communicating clearly with your AE and in your response to reviewers. 

Final Thoughts 

Getting reviews on a piece of writing can be hard, both logistically and emotionally. It is even harder when you are an early-career scholar, when your scholarship is underrepresented in school psychology, or if your work challenges preconceived notions of what scholarship should look like. And if you hold marginalized identities, receiving a difficult review could also activate feelings of impostor syndrome or contribute to your mental and emotional labor. Systems-level problems in peer review will require systems-level solutions, but we feel the impacts at the individual level and don’t often get clear guidance on how to address them. Our goal with this post is to offer general guidance that can supplement the support and advice you get from mentors and colleagues. Ultimately, keeping your focus on the scholarship will mean your work has the best possible chance of finding its home. 

Cultivating Growth and Balance: Strategies for Supervising Graduate Assistants Effectively

Kai Zhuang Shum, Ph.D., University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and Hailey Ripple, Ph.D., Mississippi State University

Graduate assistants (GAs) are the lifeblood of many university programs, particularly in applied settings such as school psychology clinics, research labs, and community partnerships. When managed thoughtfully, GAs not only help sustain program operations but also develop professional competencies, leadership skills, and a stronger sense of belonging in their training environment. Drawing on our experiences mentoring graduate assistants across a variety of settings, including research, teaching, and clinical settings, we compiled a list of practical strategies to promote GAs’ productivity and growth. 

Understanding Different Types of GAs

Not all GA positions are alike. Within most programs, GAs may serve in several distinct capacities—each with unique expectations and learning opportunities.

Teaching Assistants (TAs)

• Support instruction in undergraduate or graduate courses. 
• Responsibilities often include grading, holding office hours, lecturing, and leading student activities. 
• TAs benefit from mentorship in pedagogy, classroom management, and professional communication with students.

Research Assistants (RAs)

• Contribute to ongoing faculty or grant-funded projects.
• Tasks may include conducting literature reviews, collecting and coding data, analyzing data, and preparing manuscripts.
• Internal department awards fund some RAs, while others are supported through external grants. This distinction can affect expectations and funding structures.

Clinical GAs

• Typically, advanced students (third- or fourth-year students) who carry a clinical caseload manage specialized administrative tasks, such as scheduling, supervising undergraduate volunteers, or maintaining waitlists.

Administrative GAs

• Provide essential operational support to programs or clinics.
• Typical responsibilities include answering phones, managing intake processes, assisting with communications, and coordinating logistics.

Mentoring, Not Just Managing

Supervision shouldn’t be limited to task oversight. A good relationship with your GAs helps them build confidence, independence, and professional identity.

Develop a mentoring plan that includes both professional development and job expectations. Encourage GAs to identify learning goals and revisit them throughout the semester. If you are supervising online GAs, here is a remote mentoring plan.

You can also use tools such as the Mentoring Competency Assessment to self-assess your ability to communicate effectively, align expectations, assess understanding, address diversity, and foster independence. 

Consider meta-supervision models, such as having a lead GA or structured peer supervision. If a student holds relevant licensure or certification (e.g., BCBA, educator license), involve them in training peers—with appropriate faculty oversight. This not only lightens your load but builds leadership capacity among advanced trainees.

Clinical Setting Example: 

• As faculty, assign a 4th-year doctoral student who currently holds a BCBA credential to supervise one or two 2nd- or 3rd-year students.
  • Be mindful of the students you assign to the 4th year student and potentially cater to the 4th year student’s strengths (e.g., if the 4th year student has ample experience in providing academic interventions, assign them students with similar caseloads). 
  • The peer-to-peer supervisory activities can vary (e.g., completing direct observations of sessions, meeting for individual supervision, training them on new intervention procedures, editing treatment plans, etc.). 
• Meet weekly with the 4th-year student to discuss the supervisory relationship, explore various supervision methods, and address any challenges. 
• Meet weekly with a 2nd- or 3rd-year student for supplemental supervision and check-in. 
• Ultimately, through this model, the workload associated with the faculty member's direct supervision of practicum activities is reduced, while providing meaningful supervisory experiences for the advanced student. 

Setting Clear Expectations and Boundaries

Transparency at the beginning prevents misunderstandings later.

• Outline roles and responsibilities clearly, acknowledging that tasks may ebb and flow during the semester.
• Discuss workload expectations, including how you expect students to juggle assistantship tasks, practicum, and coursework.
• Clarify time-off policies and expectations during university breaks, which can vary by supervisor or department/college/university. 
• When possible, put these expectations in writing—a formal agreement can go a long way.

Creating Structure: Systemic GA Management

A consistent system helps maintain fairness, accountability, and efficiency.

• Manualize operations. Create a GA handbook for each position type. Include step-by-step task analyses for everyday duties.
• Define mastery. Clearly state when GAs can complete tasks independently (e.g., after meeting mastery upon observation or treatment integrity checks).
• Track progress. Use tools like Notion, Teams, or Gantt charts to document task completion and progress toward goals.

Promoting Fairness and Preventing Burnout

Even the most motivated GAs can overextend themselves—especially when balancing coursework, practicum, and personal responsibilities.

• Check in regularly about workload and boundaries. 
• Request brief documentation of hours or activities throughout the semester. 
• If a GA seems overwhelmed, advocate for them and connect with administrators to recalibrate expectations.

Be mindful of perceived inequities among GA roles. Some positions, like grant-funded or research-based GAs, naturally offer greater visibility and professional opportunities (e.g., the chance to present at conferences or publish). 

• Address these differences openly and affirm that all roles contribute meaningfully to the program’s mission. 
• Use program-wide spaces, such as group supervision or colloquia, to highlight different GA roles. Encourage GAs to present case examples or research updates to showcase their work. 

Building a Sense of Community

A culture of shared learning helps everyone feel connected and appreciated.

• Facilitate cross-role collaboration, such as pairing research and clinical GAs to co-create materials or troubleshoot systems issues. These connections help students see their role within a larger ecosystem.

Final Reflections

Managing GAs is one of the most rewarding aspects of faculty life. Done thoughtfully, it’s not just about getting work done; it’s about mentoring emerging professionals, strengthening program culture, and creating systems that make everyone’s work more sustainable. 

Faculty Job Search Reboot 2.0: Updated Resources

By Jackie Caemmerer, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, and Kai Zhuang Shum, Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Welcome to the 2025 job application season! Some of our most popular blog posts are related to faculty job search guidance. For that reason, we wanted to bring some of those posts to the top of our blog list during the fall job announcement season. Below, we have linked job-related blog posts by the SSSP ECF. These links align closely with a past blog, Faculty Job Search Resource Reboot, written 4 years ago. 

Previous ECF Blogs: Application Guidance 

• Fall is in the air: It’s hiring season for academic positions 
• The job search - what not to do
• Archived webinar - Demystifying academia: Faculty roles and opportunities
• Making the most of your CV: Talking about yourself in bullet points
• Tips for writing an academic cover letter
• Faculty job search resource re-boot

Previous ECF Blogs: Interview Guidance

• Virtual first round interviews: What to expect and how to shine
• So you have been offered a virtual interview! Now what?
• Congratulations, you’ve been invited to campus! Now what?
• Preparing a job talk: Maximizing your impact during campus visits

Previous ECF Blogs: After the Interview – Negotiation Guidance

• Starting off on the right track: Negotiating a faculty job offer

Previous ECF Blogs: Switching Institutions Guidance

• Should I stay or should I go?

Book Chapter: A Comprehensive and Cohesive Resource

Sullivan, A.L., Ardoin, S.P., Maki, K.E., Harper, E.A., Kulkarni, T. (2021). Obtaining your first academic job. In R.G. Floyd & T.L. Eckert (Eds.), Handbook of University and Professional Careers in School Psychology. Routledge.

Virtual First-Round Interviews: What to Expect and How to Shine

By Jackie Caemmerer, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, and Kai Zhuang Shum, Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Contributors: Melissa Bray, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, Sandy Chafouleas, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, and Randy Floyd, Ph.D., University of Memphis

After you submit your faculty job application (read some of the posts linked below for advice in that process), there is often a pause, and the waiting begins. After the search committee has reviewed all the applications, they typically invite a short list of candidates to a first-round interview, which more recently has become a brief virtual interview. After the committee completes all their first-round virtual interviews, they will make decisions about which candidates they will invite to a full 1–2-day campus interview (or perhaps a much longer full-day virtual interview).

We provide some suggestions below to help you prepare for your first-round virtual interview (congrats on making it to the short-list!). These suggestions are an amalgamation of our experiences and suggestions from 3 senior faculty with a lot of experience leading search committees: Drs. Melissa Bray, Sandy Chafouleas, and Randy Floyd.

Preparation Before the Interview

• Know the Department and Program and Prepare to Make Yourself Useful: Read faculty bios, recent publications, and program initiatives. Pay close attention to how school psychology fits within the department (e.g., connections to counseling, special education, or clinical psychology). Be prepared to clearly explain how your skills and interests align with current faculty and how you could contribute right away by easing the workload or adding value to ongoing work. Candidates who enter the interview thinking,  “I will just be myself” and “They will either like me or not, and I have no control over that,” are not likely to be successful. Instead, saying, “I think that there are a lot of ways I could fit in and contribute to your strong program” is much more likely to yield positive outcomes. 
• Highlight How You Fit the Call: Review the job announcement once again (pay special attention to the required and preferred qualifications) and all of your application materials. Prepare examples that directly address the position’s listed needs (e.g., practicum coordination, licensure, research, or teaching needs) and what you can contribute to their program, college, or university.
• Prepare Your Responses: Be ready to briefly explain your research trajectory, teaching philosophy, mentorship experience and style, and your current licensure status or eligibility for licensure in the state in which you are applying. Questions often begin with the directive of “Tell us about yourself,” and often include a question about why the candidate is interested in the specific institution and program. Practice a clear and brief introduction and prepare your best “canned” answers to common questions. Practice, practice, and practice providing very concise answers!
• Prepare Questions for the Committee: Show genuine interest in the position with a list of thoughtful questions (e.g., collaboration opportunities, practicum sites, support for research, or how the program engages with local schools and communities, and their timeline for the next steps in their job search).
• Set Up Your Tech & Space: Test your internet connection, camera, mic, and sound quality. Find a quiet location where you can complete the interview (in your home or otherwise). Choose a neutral background with good lighting (there are plenty of guides out there on how to present yourself favorably in an online presence, so at this point, become an expert!). Develop a backup plan in case your first choice of technology does not work (desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone). Have a copy of your CV, the job ad, and your list of questions for them nearby.
• Check your Time Zones and Sign on Early: If you applied broadly to jobs in different parts of the country, the search committee may be in a different time zone than you. Double and triple-check the time zone for the interview time slot, so you show up at the right time. Be prepared to sign on a few minutes early so you are ready when the committee wants to admit you into the virtual meeting.

During the Virtual Interview

• Pay Attention to Virtual Etiquette: Greet the committee, maintain eye contact (look at the camera, not the screen), make sure your background is clear of distractions, mute when not speaking (if it’s a panel), and pause before answering in case of a lag.
• “Embrace the Awkward” – Online interviews can feel scripted and unnatural. The committee may have a standard set of identical questions that they must ask everyone. Accept the discomfort, do not forget to smile, and avoid rushing. Use the time to elaborate with examples and anecdotes that show your strengths. If you can, enter the interview anticipating that you will need to show ample flexibility and patience because there may be technical problems that you cannot prevent.
• It’s Time to Shine: You’ve prepared for the typical questions. Make sure to highlight your fit, share your “academic story”, and ask your questions with confidence! Remember that time is limited, so you want to be concise in your responses while leaving the committee with 3-5 takeaways that will make you stand out.
• Express Enthusiasm: Thank the committee for their time and reiterate one or two reasons you’re excited about the role.

After the Virtual Interview

• Follow Up Immediately: Send a concise thank-you email highlighting a specific part of the conversation that stood out to you. Keep the message brief, express appreciation for the opportunity, and email each person who participated.

Our senior contributors, Drs. Bray, Chafouleas, and Floyd also shared some helpful general suggestions for those applying to school psychology faculty positions in the current academic context.

General Advice for Success in the Job Search

• Be Open and Apply Broadly: If your situation allows, apply to positions broadly to increase your chances of success. Avoid limiting yourself geographically (if possible) and consider post-doctoral positions as well. Be open to a variety of possible positions, even if they do not match your ideal position exactly. Your first job is not always your last, so get the experience in creative ways.
• Tailor Your Job Materials to Match their Criteria: Very carefully attend to the position criteria in the job announcement, both the required and preferred qualifications, and align your materials with what the committee is looking for. The committee members may be reviewing many applications with limited available time, so make your job materials easy to follow. Clearly explain and showcase your research, teaching and mentorship, and service accomplishments thus far.
• Demonstrate Your Future Potential: Make sure your materials reflect a strong trajectory - it's not just what you have already done but the promise that you hold for long-term success.
• Prepare for Uncertainty and Some Disappointment: Many of us who have spent most of our careers as university professors can attest to this period being one of unprecedented changes and uncertainty. Job applicants should consider that university leaders may be feeling something akin to inverted reality right now. Our standard scripts for communicating with applicants and our expectations for new faculty when they join us may have recently been revised—or we have yet to articulate those revisions because we don’t know what is ahead for us. Furthermore, some standard interview questions that we have asked for years (e.g., “What are some of your contributions to DEI efforts?”) may now be prohibited by state laws and federal guidelines. Faculty members may appear evasive in answering candidates’ questions about their institutions because they truly do not know what those answers are currently or what they are likely to be in the near future. 
• Be Optimistic and Trust that You (and Higher Education) Have Versatility: The key question when deciding on the next phase of your career is to ask what priorities are most important to you at this time. The act of securing the job, committing, and settling into some new roles is the key feature of an early career. Then, you can determine if you have the well-balanced life you want, and you can potentially re-prioritize and shift to a new setting and some new roles at a later point. Your broad school psychology skill set will allow for that. Universities certainly provide numerous opportunities for career growth and for changing one’s focus within that setting across time. Even during this challenging period for higher education, it is important to remember that universities are highly malleable and adaptive institutions. With time, they will adjust to changing conditions. We feel confident that university faculty positions will continue to offer rewarding careers for many future generations of scholars in school psychology.

Sustaining Your Writing Pipeline When Research Funding is Scarce

Sally L. Grapin, Montclair State University

For many scholars, grant funding is an important component of maintaining an active research program. Cuts in federal funding for research in the social sciences, education, and other disciplines have been sweeping, stalling important projects and ultimately threatening school psychologists’ ability to provide a range of academic, behavioral and mental health services in schools. For faculty charged with maintaining active research agendas, this may also mean a significant interruption to publication pipelines, which can be problematic for junior faculty who must demonstrate productivity in order to obtain tenure.

Given that grant funding from major federal agencies likely will continue to be limited under the current federal administration, junior faculty may need to find ways to maintain their publication pipelines until they are able to resume their planned research activities. Below we offer some suggestions for maintaining an active writing pipeline in the absence of critical grant funding.

Support community partners.

First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge the tremendous impact that cuts to federal funding have had on children, families and school communities. Many of the grant dollars that were terminated had been allocated to provide much needed mental and behavioral health services to school-age youth; as such, schools are coping with a significant loss of resources. This is an important time to support communities that have experienced these losses, and attending carefully to their needs will be important. While some school districts may wish to pause their relations with research teams, others may still be seeking support. Consider some ways that you can support these districts in light of funding cuts. For instance, providing consultation, professional development, or other resources (support through practicum student placements) may be helpful to schools as they navigate these difficult times.

Initiate writing projects that require minimal funding.

There are many types of research and scholarship that require minimal funding. These projects can be helpful in preparing for future, larger-scale projects if and when funding returns. Some examples are as follows:

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses may be particularly helpful for taking stock of existing work in a given research area. They can also be helpful for reconciling similar studies with conflicting results. While meta-analyses can be time-consuming and require considerable labor on the part of research teams, data collection is often done through online databases typically accessible through university libraries. These types of research projects can be very helpful in summarizing existing work and helping scholars consider future directions for their work.
• Conceptual or other non-empirical articles, or articles focused on advancing new frameworks, perspectives, ideas, or theories, also require minimal financial resources. These articles are important forms of scholarship that can set the stage for subsequent empirical work. Some recent prominent examples include Malone (2024), Sabnis and Proctor (2022), and Fallon et al. (2023).
• Secondary data analysis involves conducting analyses on existing large-scale data sets. Large-scale secondary data analysis can allow researchers with minimal research support to engage in potentially rigorous studies that would not otherwise be possible without substantial research funding (Sullivan et al., 2020). A three-part primer on secondary data analysis that addresses considerations for researchers, practitioners, and dissemination and consumption of research findings in popular media can be found in the NASP Communiqué.Books and book chapters can also be good prospects for projects when funding is limited. Given their time-intensive nature, book projects may be ideal when there are long-term lulls in research funding. A recent ECF blog post described considerations for developing edited books.
• Guest editing a special issue is an important form of service and scholarship. These types of projects allow scholars to integrate emerging scholarship from a range of authors along a particular theme. A recent ECF blog post offered some tips for serving as an action editor. Additional guidance on guest editing special issues has also been published in the NASP Communiqué.

Find creative ways to secure resources, engage participants, and build research teams.

Although federal funding may be limited, there may be other outlets for securing research funds. For example, although likely to become competitive in this climate, foundation funding as well as university seed funding may be available. Notably, several years ago the ECF published a blog post on working with university giving to secure funding, which early career faculty may find particularly helpful in this climate.

When funding is unavailable to engage participants and/or research team members, scholars may find other ways to ensure that these individuals are appropriately and fairly compensated. For example, undergraduate and graduate student workers who need course credit (e.g., free electives) toward their respective degrees may be interested in completing independent studies in research labs. Similarly, research participants may be interested in other forms of compensation (e.g., professional development for participants who are school personnel; graduate school consultation sessions for undergraduate student participants).

General tips for maintaining research productivity.

The ECF has developed several blog posts with tips for staying productive, including tips related to developing productive research partnerships, planning research activities for the first year of academia, and structuring writing time. We encourage you to explore these posts. In general, staying connected with colleagues is also important. Although resources may be constrained for everyone, groups of faculty members may be able to pool resources to accomplish certain projects. Additionally, staying connected through activities such as writing accountability groups can help you feel grounded and keep your research agenda moving forward during uncertain times. Finally, talking with others about how they are handling the situation can be helpful, as it may give you some ideas about to how to move forward yourself.

How have you maintained your productivity in light of cuts to grant funding? Please comment below!

Academic Parenthood: How Family Life Has Shaped Our Professional Life

Crystal Taylor, Ph.D., Appalachian State University; MacKenzie Sidwell, Ph.D., Mississippi State University

The integration of family and work can be complex for early-career faculty. The pull of tenure, while trying to be a good partner, parent, caregiver (and so on) can create feelings of guilt, burnout, and isolation. We are both in early stages of our academic careers while also managing the complexities of parenthood. While neither of us has perfected it, we strive to create a sustainable and effective work-life integration system.

We recognize that there likely is not anything we will cover here that is revolutionary or something we all haven’t considered related to our careers and lives, as each of the skills we plan to outline encompassing self-compassion, time management, collaborative relationship building, and communication are not exclusive to academic parents. Yet, we find that parenthood has provided us with boundless opportunities to practice these skills with newfound meaning that is quite likely unique to academia or other knowledge-work related professions. This post outlines the professional behaviors and skill sets we have gained while experiencing competing demands of parenthood and career, and how we have leveraged our positions as school psychology tenure-track faculty and mothers to find balance.

Self-compassion

Becoming a parent while navigating the tenure track has reshaped our understanding and recognition of our need for self-compassion. We find that parenthood illuminates the reality that practicing self-compassion need not compete with our career, but rather serve as fuel for persistence when we don’t get the grant, the paper got rejected - again, or despite the hours we spent in our office with the door open, students all seem to agree that we were not available enough outside of class. To us, self-compassion is meeting ourselves with the same level of empathy we award to others. This requires non-judgmental evaluation of our capabilities, which allows for acceptance of what we can and can’t control, recognition of our strengths and weaknesses, and adjusting our expectations to reflect these realities. As early career academics, this practice does not come easily nor naturally. Most of us find ourselves in this line of work because of a commitment to continual improvement of ourselves and the field, and desire for achievement, either driven internally or externally (e.g., family, mentors; certainly we can’t be in this gig for the money). Self-compassion permits us to approach academe like any other skill or set of behaviors in that they are malleable and can be changed rather than predetermined.

We have found that self-compassion allows us to find a greater appreciation for being a professor at this stage in our lives, as I (MacKenzie) write this piece with my daughter on a playmat behind me in my office at work. By no means is it easy, nor do we seek to diminish the challenges we experience, but we would be hard-pressed to find many other career options that allow for the flexibility and autonomy provided by academia. Further, the self-compassion required to be a parent also enables us to find levity amid the stress. Learning to laugh at ourselves in parenting and at work can help to shift our perspective and prevent feeling overwhelmed - it is our first time being human, after all.    

Strategies we recommend:

1. Use what you already know from psychology to abandon the “p-word” (a.k.a. perfect)

   1. Engage in positive self-talk or self-compassion mantras (Neff, 2015).

   2. Identify and reframe irrational or unhelpful thoughts (e.g., “I must always do things right or I’ve failed” becomes “I did my best and now I know what I’ll do differently next time”).

   3. Defuse perfectionistic thinking by recognizing the thought and reminding yourself it does not control you, or, as ACT practitioners may say, “Write it on a leaf” (Hayes & Smith, 2025).

   4. Use the Premack Principle to combat perfection-driven avoidance by structuring tasks so that low-preferred activities are followed by highly preferred activities (e.g., “Once I free-write for 20 minutes, no matter how messy, I can walk to get coffee with a colleague”).

2. Practice self-care with a focus on restorative rather than self-indulgent activities (but treat yourself every once in a while, too!)

   1. Instead of scrolling between tasks, practice deep breathing or take a quick lap around your department.

   2. Find ways to move and engage in physical activity that you enjoy and scrap the “all or nothing” mindset (e.g., a short and slow walk with the dog is better than nothing).

   3. Develop rituals that protect boundaries and reinforce limits between work, parenting, and personal time (e.g., change clothes when shifting from work to home mode or a wind-down ritual before bed with journaling, tea, and tech-free time).

   4. Say “no”- protect your time and energy by setting boundaries with others to preserve your capacity for your intentional “yeses”. Consider using a script or leaning on mentors or an accountability colleague.

Time Management

Before parenthood, time management meant fitting it all in efficiently for maximum productivity; now, time management means using systems and values to guide and prioritize our activities, recognizing that there will be trade-offs and not everything that could be done will be done. That is okay (thanks to self-compassion, see above). Parenthood forces us to consider what is truly essential so that we can focus our efforts intentionally across the competing demands of scholarship, teaching, service, and now responsibility for the physical, emotional, educational, and developmental nurturing of another human- not to mention the other obligations to primary relationships we juggle with partners, family, community, and ourselves. In our pre-motherhood lives, fewer life-sustaining commitments meant we had the freedom and fuel of an uninterrupted night’s sleep to power through and take on other people’s priorities as our own for the sake of not missing out on a single opportunity. Now, freedom comes from taking action aligned with our values and priorities within time-based structures we built to balance focus with flexibility when life calls for it.

We have learned that time management only works when it is rooted in clarity about what matters, what can wait, and what simply does not belong. We also recognize that in the urgency of academic and parenting demands, it can be difficult to slow down enough to evaluate our priorities, but when our priorities and values are clear, it becomes easier to say no, delegate, and invest our precious energy where it has the most meaning. Once values are defined, reliable systems for deciding, planning, and executing tasks make it possible to focus our efforts and give space for a little wiggle room when it is needed.

Strategies we recommend:

1. Use your values to prioritize and set boundaries

   1. Clarify your core professional and personal values by starting with a list of your top 3-5 values (e.g., mentorship, travel with your family, service to the field, rest, etc.).

   2. Use values as a filter to critically evaluate opportunities. When a new task or invitation comes up, ask:

      1. “Does this align with my current values?”

      2. “Does it support a long-term goal or meaningful relationship?”

      3. “What would I have to trade off to say yes?”

   3. Balance a worm’s and bird’s eye view of your deadlines, plans, and predictable activities. Based on your commitments in the short term and long term, determine what is even feasible based on time available and alignment with values.

   4. Consult with mentors and trusted colleagues who respect and understand your values when you need a sounding board, especially if you are someone who struggles with setting realistic expectations for yourself.

2. Developing systems for planning and executing tasks

   1. Write it down. This strategy seems incredibly simple, but it was the first system we both identified in the development of this post. Start with a reliable system for capturing all of your projects, tasks, ideas, and responsibilities. This will likely need to be updated weekly or even daily, but if you haven’t captured everything, something will get missed. Use what feels best to you and whatever you will use consistently, i.e., paper, digital, or a combination of both.

   2. Create repeatable weekly planning rituals. Schedule time to audit your calendar and reflect on how time was spent the previous week, and identify tasks that remain. Then, clarify projects, tasks, and ideas for the upcoming week. Ask yourself what absolutely must get done, and what would be nice to do, but is not urgent. Tip: We both like to do this in the early afternoon on Fridays, so we still have time to schedule meetings next week, and Monday morning is a bit smoother.

   3. Try low and high-tech task management tools to offload the mental load.

      1. Low-tech ideas: Pomodoro technique, time-blocking, paper planners, the Ivy Lee Method

      2. High-tech ideas: Todoist; Trello; Toggl; notes apps; your university’s email/calendar system; etc

   4. When in doubt, schedule it. Schedule everything - writing time, teaching time, planning, meetings, time to eat lunch/take a break, etc.

3. Use your systems to adapt to changes

   1. Schedule in “slack” time. In times of transition or uncertainty, I (MacKenzie) will schedule time to panic in my calendar. If there is a chance, I’m going to get stuck or if I have a moment of clairvoyance and can anticipate things will not go as expected, having this “time to panic” allows me the flexibility to waste a little time without it thwarting the rest of my day. 

   2. Automate what you can (e.g., meal prepping, schedule send, use AI).

   3. Create “minimum viable” versions of your routine (i.e., what is the least I can do to stay on track).

   4. Be willing to revise the system itself. While we do not recommend changing your system as frequently as your child will be home from daycare sick with the latest viral infection going around, it is good practice to check in with your system regularly. Do you notice you are not using a tool as reliably as you once were, or are you missing appointments because the sticky notes are no longer cutting it? Adjust your system to meet your current professional and personal needs.

Relationships and Collaboration

If parenthood has taught us anything, it’s that we truly cannot do this alone. Asking for help is okay, and often necessary. Before growing our own families, we believed the old saying, “Publish or perish." Maybe that is true; we all know that publications are important but doing it alone may lead to unnecessary burnout and stress.

Perhaps it is time to reimagine this phrase to instead be “Collaborate, publish, or perish.” We’ve found that collaborating with other academics helps build a community and helps us navigate family and personal life more easily. For us, community is sometimes a venting session in a group chat on a day with no childcare, when you’re teaching on Zoom with a three-year-old in your lap. Other times, it is sharing a syllabus and rubrics with a colleague to reduce the teaching load and increase time for writing and research. 

When you build your community, it is important to remember to be gentle with yourself and your partners. We’ve realized much like in a marriage, it is not always a 50/50 split. Sometimes one person gives 90% while the other person gives 10%, and other times it is 20/80. The balance shifts depending on the needs of each individual. Perhaps you can only give 20% on a manuscript because you are on week 2 of snow days. Working with others makes it okay to give what you can; the manuscript gets submitted, and next time, you give 80%. Maybe your teaching load is overwhelming, but a graduate student can take the lead on data collection. When it is time to write, you step back in. Asking for help when you need it is the only way to sustain a long and meaningful career in academia.

Strategies we recommend:

1. Find colleagues in similar life stages

   1. Attend networking events. SSSP-ECF hosts a NASP social each year where you can connect with other school psychologists at various stages in their careers.

   2. Start a group chat with other early-career scholars.

   3. Host a brown bag, check-in meetings, or writing retreat in your department or with other early career scholars in school psychology to build community.

2. Find research collaborators

   1. Send that email! If you consistently cite someone or admire their work, send an email requesting a meeting to connect and discuss ideas.

3. Don’t recreate the wheel: Share and borrow teaching materials

   1. Crowdsource syllabi, rubrics, slide decks, etc., on NASP listservs, SPTRAIN, and other forums. Or ask folks in your department for their materials and offer to share your own.

4. Plug into existing support networks

   1. SSSP-ECF hosts monthly writing retreats, socials, and webinars. These events are low-pressure and a great way to build relationships.

   2. Sign up for the NASP mentoring program to connect with and learn from advanced scholars.

   3. Attend local, state, and national conferences and prioritize networking.

Communication and Setting Boundaries

Clear, effective communication is the foundational skill required for executing most of the aforementioned strategies. Communication is important for all relationships. When children are involved, clear communication is not only necessary, it is required. Since becoming parents in academia, we have learned to be more direct and transparent with our partners and family, but we’ve also learned that we need to be direct and transparent with our students, collaborators, and colleagues too.

Setting boundaries is instrumental in our ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance. For example, I (Crystal) set firm boundaries with students and colleagues by limiting my availability to 8-5 Monday through Friday. That doesn’t mean I never work outside those hours, but it does mean I prioritize family time in the evenings and on weekends. Emails, papers, and class prep can wait. These expectations are communicated with students at the beginning of each semester and are brought up as needed when communicating with colleagues. So far, communicating this boundary has been well received and respected.

This circles back to time management: setting clear boundaries allows you to protect your time and focus on the tasks that move you towards tenure, on a schedule that works best for you. When you communicate your limits upfront, others know what to expect, and you are less likely to feel guilty. By communicating your boundaries, you permit yourself to have self-compassion. You are literally giving yourself permission to say no, and all early career scholars need to say no eventually.

Overall, you don’t owe anyone 24/7 access to your time. Boundaries allow you to prioritize what is important to you while staying focused and making progress toward your personal and professional goals. We were both under the impression that having a career and family would be difficult, almost aversive. However, in working on this blog post and reflecting on our experiences as parents and early career scholars, we realized that having a family and a personal life outside of work has given us the skills to set boundaries, build community, manage our time, and overall, give ourselves grace.

What are your recommendations for work-life integration? Comment below!

ChatGPT was used to help refine and identify action items under each recommended strategy. The final content is written in the authors’ own words.

References & Resources

Allen, D. (2015). Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. Penguin Books.

Burkeman, O. (2021). Four thousand weeks: Time management for mortals. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. Avery.

Clear, J. (N.d.). The Ivy Lee Method: The daily routine experts recommend for peak productivity. ​​https://jamesclear.com/ivy-lee

Hayes, S. C. & Smith, S. X. (2025). Get out of your mind and into your life: The new acceptance and commitment therapy. New Harbinger Publications.

Neff, K. (2015). Self-Compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself. William Morrow Paperbacks.

Newport, C. (2024). Slow productivity: The lost art of accomplishment without burnout. Portfolio.

Recruiting and Retaining Racially and Ethnically Minoritized School Psychology Scholars

Geremy Grant, Ph.D., Taylor Martin del Campo, Ed.S., Aleah Hayes M.S., and Lindsay Fallon, Ph.D.

School psychology scholarship has long-been a predominantly white space (Malone, 2024) with limited research centering the strengths, ideas, lived experiences, cultures, traditions, and values of individuals holding racially and ethnically minoritized identities. With much of school psychology research grounded in positivist principles (Sabnis & Proctor, 2022), there has been little valuing (and subsequently opportunities to publish) research centering epistemologies and methods that veer from this tradition. This has implications for the ability of school psychology scholarship to advance the practice of school psychology meaningfully; put simply, the field’s scholarship represents some but certainly not all.

Creating a more inclusive and welcoming profession for school psychology scientists and practitioners must first come with naming barriers that researchers and trainees with minoritized identities experience in school psychology training programs. Leveraging this knowledge to then implement strategies to support recruiting and retaining racially and ethnically minoritized scholars can promote a stronger, more vibrant workforce. Much of this work starts within training programs and practica sites, and may include actively dismantling long-standing barriers to access and reimagining training spaces to center the needs and experiences of minoritized individuals.

Recently, the Early Career Forum co-hosted a virtual panel on this topic with APA’s Division 16. The authors herein participated on the panel (Panel: Grant, Martin del Campo, Hayes; Moderator: Fallon), and below, challenges and opportunities discussed in this session are presented below.

Challenges

The panelists discussed several challenges, many of which highlight systemic issues in training programs and higher education.

1. Lack of Visibility: The underrepresentation of minoritized school psychologists leads to a general lack of awareness regarding their role and impact, making it difficult for potential students of color to see themselves in the profession. This disconnect can discourage interested individuals from pursuing a career in school psychology.
2. Imposter Syndrome: Minoritized students may struggle with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, questioning whether they truly belong in the field. This can be triggered by negative experiences in predominantly white spaces or a lack of representation in fieldwork and academia.
3. Limited Access to Resources: Financial barriers often restrict access to current research and professional development opportunities, making it challenging for individuals to access training in school psychology. This lack of access can hinder their ability to provide effective support to students, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds.
4. Tokenism: In efforts to increase diversity, minoritized individuals may find themselves only being recognized superficially, without being given real or meaningful opportunities to highlight their individual strengths. This can create frustration and a sense of being exploited instead of being genuinely valued within their institution.
5. Professional Development Gaps: Professional development offerings may not adequately address the unique challenges faced by minoritized school psychologists, leaving them along with other staff members without the tools necessary to navigate their environments effectively. This gap can lead to feelings of disconnect and inadequacy in their roles.
6. Disproportionate Workloads: School psychologists of color may be tasked with additional responsibilities related to diversity initiatives or disciplinary actions, often without proper training, recognition, or compensation. This can create a sense of imbalance and unfairness in the workplace, contributing to burnout.
7. Limited Mentorship: The absence of mentors from similar cultural backgrounds can result in a lack of guidance and support for minoritized students. This can impede their professional growth and decrease their confidence in navigating academic and career pathways.
8. Systemic Barriers: Institutional policies and practices may not consider or support the specific needs of minoritized students, leading to environments that can be unwelcoming or hostile. These systemic barriers may hinder students’ academic success and overall well-being.

Opportunities

The panelists also described opportunities, naming specific action steps to take to address the aforementioned challenges.

1. Enhance Visibility: Programs should actively promote the successes and contributions of minoritized school psychologists through outreach initiatives, social media,  community engagement, and inclusion of their work in coursework/curricula. Highlighting diverse role models in educational settings can inspire prospective students of color to consider a career in school psychology.
2. Mentorship Programs: Establishing formal mentorship programs pairing experienced school psychology researchers and practitioners with students of color can provide valuable support. These programs can help mentees navigate academic challenges, build confidence, and develop a professional network that fosters growth. It is of the utmost importance that all mentors embody the principles of social justice, adopt a stance of cultural humility, and engage in lifelong intentional efforts towards cultural competence.
3. Resource Centers: Campus cultural resource centers should be leveraged to provide tailored support, mentorship, and resources specifically for students of color. Often, these centers facilitate workshops, networking events, and social gatherings to create a sense of community and belonging. School psychology faculty should learn about these opportunities and share resources with prospective and incoming students.
4. Climate Surveys: Regularly conducting climate surveys and facilitating town hall meetings allows institutions to gather feedback from the experiences of program members. This input can help identify areas for improvement, promote transparent discussions between faculty and students, and ensure that the environment of academia is supportive and inclusive for all students. 
5. Community Building: Institutions should prioritize creating safe spaces and forums where students of color can connect with each other. These spaces may include support groups, social events, and online platforms to facilitate ongoing dialogue and relationship-building among peers. Programs should also utilize existing organizations to broaden students’ support networks beyond the institution they are enrolled in (e.g., the Black School Psychologists Network; APA Division 45- Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race; NASP’s Multicultural Affairs Committee and Diversity Communities; Association of Black Psychologists; Society of Indian Psychologists; National Latinx Psychological Association; Asian American Psychological Association; AMENA Psychological Association)
6. Intentional Marketing: Graduate programs must clearly articulate their commitment to belonging and justice in their marketing materials. This includes showcasing faculty work on these topics and actively promoting the program’s inclusive values and action-oriented work to attract prospective students.
7. Celebrate Achievements: Institutions and programs should create celebratory events to acknowledge student and faculty accomplishments, big and small. Recognizing milestones fosters a sense of value and belonging, motivating individuals to continue striving for success.
8. Open Access Resources: Advocacy for open access journals is essential to ensure that all school psychologists, regardless of funding, can access current research. Encouraging institutions to support this model can help bridge the gap in resources available to practitioners.
9. Training and Professional Development: All faculty and staff should receive training in cultural competence and inclusivity to better support minoritized students. This approach ensures that the entire academic community is equipped to create an inclusive environment that recognizes and values diversity.
10. Collaborative Initiatives: Institutions should focus on building coalitions with other organizations to share resources, exchange best practices, and develop unified initiatives aimed at supporting diversity.

Enhancing the field’s scholarship begins with active, meaningful efforts to redesign training environments to welcome and value individuals with racially and ethnically minoritized  identities. Below we share additional resources to continue engaging with this topic and taking action to create such professional spaces.

References and Additional Scholarly Resources

Aguilar, L. N., Mojica, K., Lim, H. S., Ruiz-Montoya, M. D., Palmer, J. T. S., Serratos, C. B., & Soto, J. M. (2024). Surviving and thriving in school psychology through community building and storytelling: A collaborative autoethnography. School Psychology International, 45(3), 280-318.

Graves, S. L., Newell, M., Harrell, F., & Wells, T. (2021). A mixed data analysis of graduate student mentoring for faculty careers in school psychology. Contemporary School Psychology, 25(1), 99-108.

Kim, E. K., Jackson, K., Han, K., & Cummings-Barkley, B. (2024). Recruitment and retention strategies to diversify school psychology graduate programs: A systematic review. School Psychology Review, https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2024.2391731

Malone, C. M. (2024). Moving School Psychology Beyond the Clouds of Injustice: A Blue Sky Discussion. School Psychology Review, 53(3), 324-340.

Parker, J. S., Haskins, N., Coleman-Chatman, T., Duru, C., Ramirez, D., Chae, N., … Nortey, A. (2023). Dismantling the imposter syndrome: A case study of early career women of color in school mental health fields. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 49(1), 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/01933922.2023.2281670

Proctor, S. L., & Romano, M. (2016). School psychology recruitment research characteristics and implications for increasing racial and ethnic diversity. School Psychology Quarterly, 31(3), 311-326.

Sabnis, S. V., & Proctor, S. L. (2022). Use of critical theory to develop a conceptual framework for critical school psychology. School Psychology Review, 51(6), 661-675.

Sabnis, S. V., Tanaka, M. L., Beard, K., & Proctor, S. L. (2023). Women of color and the hidden curriculum of school psychology doctoral programs. Journal of School Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2023.02.004