Archived Webinar - Demystifying Academia: Faculty Roles and Opportunities

September 30, 2016

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Division 16 webinar, Demystifying Academia: Faculty Roles and Opportunities. Bryn and I were very pleased to join Prerna Arora and Jacquie Brown in talking about how to prepare for faculty positions in school psychology. If you have any questions that weren't answered during the webinar, feel free to post them in the comment section here, and we'll respond soon. Listen to the full webinar here.

You've Got Mail...Now What?

September 25, 2016

By Bryn Harris, PhD, University of Colorado DenverAs the semester kicks off, many of us have goals to be better about managing our email this academic year. This can be a challenging task, because each aspect of our work (research, teaching, and service) has email components. However, there are many strategies for managing email and some may work for you! Below, I list some of the techniques that have worked for me.Reduce email as a distraction. I don’t know about you, but I could probably spend days of my week just on email. No one has that kind of time, especially if you are on the tenure clock. Find ways to reduce email as a distraction. Turn off your email alerts. Close your inbox during certain times of the day. Remove email from your smartphone. Figure out the ways in which email is making you less productive and problem solve solutions.Check email at certain times during the day. Some people benefit from blocking off time on their schedule to respond to email. Picking one or two times during the day makes you more efficient as you have slotted a specific time period for email. If email requires less energy than other tasks you are working on, you may consider responding during a specific time of day. In Dr. Randy Floyd’s insightful post, he mentions that responding to emails in the evening is the most efficient use of time for him (http://www.ssspresearch.org/earlycareerforum/foundations-successful-scho...).Don’t check email as your first task of the day. One of the top New York Times bestselling authors and motivational speakers, Brendan Burchard, writes that what is in your inbox is “someone else’s agenda.” When you open up your email first thing in the morning, your to-do list then becomes someone else’s to-do list. Some people find that if they spend a certain number of hours on research or teaching tasks first thing in the morning (without email!), they are more efficient the rest of the day.Forget about having an empty inbox (also called “inbox zero”). I know many people who get stressed by how many emails they have. I will go ahead and say that it is impossible for me to have an empty inbox and I am okay with that. Know that having an empty inbox likely is an unrealistic expectation. Come up with realistic expectations for email (e.g. respond within a certain number of days, put appointments on my calendar at first email read, respond to crisis emails quickly).Know when to respond and when to file. Someone suggested to me that if I receive an email that I can respond to in 2 minutes or less, I should do it at that time. If it will take longer, then I need to file it and put it on my to-do list or in my calendar. This advice has helped me feel more productive managing my time. Some people file emails by project name, class, or such categories as “crucial”, “action”, “side burner” etc. to indicate the importance.Use boiler plate responses when possible. I receive many of the same emails from students over the years. I have created responses that I can use for these common questions. In addition, know when to delegate. Is the question something a student advisor could respond to? Or could the student find that information in the student handbook? Lastly, if you find yourself a writing long email, that likely means that this communication would be better in person (or on the phone).Reframe the growing inbox. Often, when my inbox is at its largest it is when I am working on a large project, an article that must be submitted, or other significant program responsibilities. Try to minimize the stress of a growing inbox but reminding yourself of the work you are completing. Last I checked, no one evaluated my email abilities in my tenure dossier!Create a program philosophy regarding email communication. Many programs have documented in their program handbooks the agreed upon time that professors will respond to email (i.e., three business days).  The students will benefit from understanding expectations surrounding email and will be less likely to send last minute emails that potentially disrupt your tasks.The power of the out of office! Pick one day during the week (or on a schedule you desire) where you put your out of office on. Use this day to unapologetically work on tasks that are important to you and not feel the need to check your email.What strategies do you use to manage your email? Did you try one of these strategies? How did it go?

Battling Imposter Syndrome in Academia

June 16, 2016

By guest blogger, Ima Syke Many months ago, following a reader request, I was tapped to guest blog on the topic of Imposter Syndrome (cue internal voice asking, “Am I worthy of writing this post? Did they ask me to write it because they know I don’t belong here? How did they figure me out?”). I’ve been assured the invitation had nothing to do with anyone’s perceptions of my inadequacy but rather a belief that I could do a great job and hopefully help many others similarly plagued by this type of pesky internal monologue. So here goes…Imposter Syndrome is generally defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that are prevalent despite success. Researchers have found this is more prevalent among women, graduate students, academics and interestingly, among those with evident success. This topic interested me for personal reasons; I have battled with aspects of Imposter Syndrome for years. While this is not a DSM diagnosis, it has impacted my career in academia in various ways. Let me give you a few examples from my professional life, hopefully others can relate.Recently, I sat in a meeting with a group of fellow academics as we prepare to write a large-scale collaborative grant. As I hear what other people can contribute to the data collection, writing the grant and other key aspects of this work, I wonder, “What can I contribute that others can’t?” and “My section will not be nearly as strong as theirs” and countless other comments revolving around self-doubt that ran through my mind. In other situations, I have remained silent during conversations that directly relate to my teaching or research for fear of “intellectual fraudulence.” And don’t even get me started regarding reading vitas! Others with Imposter Syndrome may feel like “luck” has more to do with their success than ability, or they may downplay their success. While I logically know that these behaviors hinder my productivity, collaborative relationships, and ultimately my perception in academia, I also never knew how to change these feelings until working on this blog post.Like any good academic, I started my assignment by doing research (i.e., investigating what has already been written on this topic). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Imposter Syndrome has been addressed in numerous academic magazines and blogs because it is all too common. Below are some strategies I have found in the literature for battling Imposter Syndrome.Recognize it within yourself and in others. Imposter Syndrome does not necessarily relate to low self-esteem or confidence; these are two different issues. If you suffer from chronic self-doubt and feelings of intellectual fraudulence, these are signs that you are battling Imposter Syndrome. If you see these traits in others, acknowledge what you see and allow for conversation on this topic.Regularly remind yourself of your accomplishments. Create lists or email folders of accomplishments and refer to them when these feelings of inadequacy strike. Part of Imposter Syndrome is the inability to internalize accomplishments, even when highly successful.Become keenly aware of your strengths. Learn what you excel in and utilize these abilities often, especially in collaborative relationships. This will heighten feelings related to your usefulness and contribution. Utilize others to help you with this task as it may be challenging for some to identify personal accomplishments.Discuss Imposter Syndrome with your students. Recognize patterns within the classroom (such as comments from students that may indicate these feelings) and have open discussions about this topic. Furthermore, talk with your students about how you overcame your own doubts or how you are still working to overcome them.Seek support. People who have Imposter Syndrome may find benefit in seeking therapy to improve their coping mechanisms. Group therapy might be particularly beneficial as relating to others and their experiences and coping strategies can be powerful.If you are interested in learning more about how to overcome this problem, Academic Coaching and Writingis offering a free webinar, Managing Imposter Syndrome in Academia, on June 30th, 2016.Additional resources on this topic:Feel Like a Fraud by Kirsten Weir in APA’s gradPSYCH MagazineFaking It: Women, Academic, and Impostor Syndrome by Kate Bahn in VitaeThe Imposter Syndrome, or, as my Mother told me: “Just Because Everyone Else is an Asshole, it Doesn’t Make you a Fraud” by Phyllis Rippeyoung for The Professor Is In‘I’m not worthy!’ – Imposter Syndrome in Academia by Jay Daniel Thompson for The Research WhispererAn Academic With Imposter Syndrome by Joseph Kasper in the Chronicle of Higher EducationDo you have any further coping strategies for imposter syndrome? What works – and doesn’t work – for you? Don’t be afraid to share. You are not alone.

Forming a Healthy & Productive Relationship with Your Office of Research Compliance

April 18, 2016

By Dan Gadke & Kasee Stratton, Mississippi State UniversityAs a researcher, there is a strong likelihood that you are familiar with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and your University’s Office of Research Compliance (ORC). There is no doubt you are up to date on your institutional training requirements, whether they be from the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI; www.citiprogram.org) or a program your university has put together. And, you are well versed in the importance of the IRB for the protection of potential participants. Each time you design a study, you make sure to follow the appropriate IRB submission protocols and wait for approval prior to beginning the project, which is exactly what you are supposed to do—at least in most cases.That being said, many folks are unaware or unfamiliar with other IRB options outside this most common submission procedure; however, there are two other options that are of particular use to school psychology faculty: (1) the use of archival data sets and (2) the development of a memorandum of research understanding with your ORC. While both of these may look slightly different at your respective institutions, we provide our experience as an example. The ORC at Mississippi State University has full accreditation by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP; http://www.aahrpp.org), following the most rigorous of standards for ethics, quality, and protection of human subjects.

Archival Data

From a bare bones perspective, archival data is exactly what it sounds like, existing data. These data may have originally been collected with no intention what so ever of being used for research purposes. Given our field is driven on data-based decision making and treatment questions are often analogous to research questions (e.g., which intervention is most effective for this child?), it is no surprise we might have data lying around that was not originally intended for research. We have found valuable use of archival data sets in school and clinic settings.Schools. Often we have graduate students out in the school setting for practicum and other field-based experiences conducting evidenced-based assessments and interventions. At our institution, when students are on practicum they are required to complete what we refer to as a data-based project in either academic or behavioral intervention, assessment, or consultation. Students are expected to provide services under a best practice model, which often involves measuring treatment integrity, interobserver agreement, comparing interventions to choose the most effective and efficient one (e.g., experimental analyses), and so on. In some cases, these projects, which were originally designed for training purposes related to service delivery, yield novel and unique data that are dissemination-worthy, particularly when we think about presenting (i.e., poster or paper) or publishing in the world of research-to-practice.When data are generated in the school setting during routine practicum training requirements that you decide you would like to use for dissemination, it is time to prepare an IRB application for the use of archival data. At Mississippi State University, we have an approved “data agreement form” we worked to create with our ORC for these specific instances. In short, the data agreement form is used to obtain parent or administrator consent for data collected on-site might be used for scholarly dissemination. If it is used for these purposes, the data are di-identified (i.e., stripped of any direct identifiers) and the university ORC reviews the use of the dataset prior to dissemination. When our students are working with a child in the schools, we often send the form to their parents/guardians to sign in the event that their child’s data are ever pursued for research use. Additionally, a school administrator signs the form and agrees to release a de-identified (i.e., no direct identifiers) version of the dataset to us. After supplying the ORC with the IRB write-up, the data agreement form(s), and evidence of de-identified data, we are often then able to use those data for presentations or publicationsClinic. Like many other programs, at Mississippi State University we have our School Psychology Services Clinic (SPSC), to provide our students with additional training opportunities. At the SPSC we provide supervised intervention (i.e., academic and behavioral) and assessment services. These include individual services, groups, and summer camps. Similar to what was outlined in the school setting section above, the data collected during treatment may be dissemination worthy. In these cases, we follow the same protocol mentioned before, without an administrator. Parents are asked to sign a data agreement form during the intake appointment. That being said, our MOU (described below) provides an exception for data collected from 3 or fewer participants in our clinic.Other. There are large existing data sets available through different organizations (e.g. NCES) or even your university that may be of interest to you. For example, we wanted to evaluate college satisfaction differences between college students who had a registered disability on campus to those who did not. Many university exit surveys conducted through the Office of University Effectiveness (or a similar entity) ask students these varied questions (i.e., do you have a register disability with the university and satisfaction related questions). Many of these surveys also have a question(s) indicating if their data can be used for research purposes in the future. In this situation, we had university administrators sign the data agreement form and we completed an IRB application. After receiving approval, we requested the de-identified data sets be sent to us. In a single day, we had approximately 14,000 data-points from the previous five years to analyze.Key points on use of school-based archival data:

• Great option for data collected in schools and clinic but not originally intended as a research project.
• Great option for large existing data sets.
• Make sure to have a data agreement form providing permission for data to potentially be used in the future.
• Make sure to complete an IRB application as soon as you decide to use data for dissemination purposes.
• Meet with your ORC representative to discuss how to best use archival data sets from your institution.

Memorandum of Understanding

A memorandum of understand (MOU), which may be called something entirely different by your ORC, is essentially an agreement that outlines the parameters of research activities allowed in the absence of an IRB application submission. MOUs are particularly useful for individuals conducting single-subject, clinic-based research. We modeled our MOU after Johns Hopkins Medicine IRB policy and their Behavioral Psychology Department (for their full policies, see here).Our MOU has several key features, including:

• Clear overview and break down of the services provided at our clinic (i.e., School Psychology Service Center; SPSC).
• Clear policy on research and publication of data
  • All research requires Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) approval
  • Boundaries between research and practice
• Guidelines for use and publication of clinical data
  • Defining “clinical data”
  • Defining “single case report” (i.e., clinical data collected from 3 or fewer participants)
  • Defining “case series” (i.e., clinical data from more than 3 participants)
• Reporting requirements to the HRPP

Essentially, our MOU states that as long as we follow all procedures as outlined in the MOU, when using data from 3 or fewer participants, we do not need to submit for HRPP review; however, bi-annually, we need to report all projects disseminated this way. If a project has more than three participants, than we have two options: (a) if it was a pre-planned research project, submit IRB first as you typically would; (b) if it is archival clinical data, submit an archival data IRB request. In all instances, regardless of the number of participants, data need to be consented for use using the approved data agreement form mentioned under archival data.While the MOU is particularly handy for disseminating single-subject design data involving 3 or fewer participants, it also makes all other IRB (i.e., traditional and archival) applications easier because the ORC had a clear understanding of your procedures.

MOU Use Examples

Single Case Report – 3 or fewer participants not requiring HRPP review. You have 3 children come to your clinic, all needing reading interventions. You have parents/guardians complete the data agreement form prior to beginning treatment.  You conduct a brief experimental analysis comparing the effectiveness and efficiency of a non-electronic intervention to an iPad app. You find the non-electronic intervention is more useful than the iPad app. You deliver the non-electronic intervention across several weeks, alternating its use with a control to ensure long-term effectiveness. In the end, you realize you have interesting data that are unlike anything currently in the literature. As long as all procedures were followed as outlined in the MOU, you have consent to use the data, and you report this project in the bi-annual report to the ORC, you can disseminate the data without HRPP review.Case Series – more than three participants. You do the same intervention outlined in the single case report above, but it turns out you have 5 clients the intervention worked for. You decide after finishing the intervention that the data are worthy of dissemination, you must submit for IRB review of archival data.Thus, with some advanced planning, researchers can put into place procedures that allow for efficient segueing class, fieldwork, and clinic activities into research publications and presentations (see a list of the scholarship that has resulted from these efforts). This is particularly valuable where practices are implemented systematically as part of training and lend themselves to analysis of effectiveness. This also presents an ongoing opportunity to integrate teaching and research activities and model a scientist-practitioner orientation to professional development and teaching for our students. We hope that you find this information useful when working with your ORC and IRB.  If you are interested in seeing an example of our MOU, please email us and we would be happy to share.

Remembering Ed Shapiro

March 29, 2016

Our community is reeling from the loss of school psychology legend, Ed Shapiro. To learn more about Ed’s life and legacy, see articles here and here, as well as his CV and Rob Volpe’s slideshow. Though Ed spent much of his career at Lehigh University, through his scholarship, mentoring, leadership, and sheer presence, his influence reached far beyond the institution. The ECF is grateful to be part of that legacy due his strong support of this initiative and our activities to support early career development and advance the field of school psychology.As so many of us struggle to envision school psychology without Ed, we invite you to share your most special experiences or lessons here.

Resources from NASP Funding Symposium and EC Meeting

February 29, 2016

It was wonderful seeing so many early career faculty at NASP! Thank you to Ed Shapiro, Rob Volpe, Erin Dowdy, and Katie Eklund for presenting in the ECF’s NASP Symposium, Strategies for Securing Funding as an Early Career Scholar! And thanks to all of the early career scholars who attended. Below are several useful websites and resources mentioned during the session. If you know of other great resources, please feel free to share via the comments. Websites to Explore for Funding Opportunities

1. Your university – Take advantage of internal grant opportunities to support pilot projects and develop your research program in order to increase your competitiveness for external funding.
2. General sites for both pre-doctoral and post-doctoral scholar

• gov
• Community of Scholars
• APA Awards, Grants, and Scholarships
• AERA Fellowships and Research Grants
• Science’s Where to Search for Grant Funding(also includes advice on grant writing)
• SocialPsychology Network’s Sources for Research Funding

3. For Graduate Students

• NASP Awards, Grants, and Scholarships
• UCLAGrad Student Funding Search Engine

4. Select Non-Profits That Administer Research Grants and Fellowships

• MacArthur Foundation
• The Spencer Foundation
• William T. Grant Foundation
• Lumina Foundation
• Ford Foundation
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Joyce Foundation
• The Teagle Foundation
• The Chicago Community Trust
• The Foundation Center

5. Other Resources on Grant Writing

• Nancy Guerra’s Preparing Research Proposals in Psychology: The Graduate Student Guide to Funding
• The Chronicle of Higher Education: Debunking Some Myths about Grant Writing
• UW-Madison’s List of Grant Proposal Writing Resources
• TAMIU’s Grant Writing Resources

Thank you to all the new faculty who participated in the Early Career Faculty meeting at NASP on Thursday, February 11. Below is the resource list discussed during the meeting. We look forward to seeing you all—and many new faces—next year!General Early Career Scholar Resources

• Akin-Little, A., Bray, M., Eckert, T. L, & Kehle, T.J. (2004). The perceptions of academic women in school psychology: A national survey. School Psychology Quarterly,19, 327-341. doi: 10.1521/scpq.19.4.327.53404
• Ammerman, C. & Tseng, V. (2011). Maximizing mentoring: A guide for building strong relationships.New York, NY: William T. Grant.
• Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Berstein, D. A. & Lucas, S. G. (2004). Tips for effective teaching. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna & H. L. Roediger (Eds.), The complete academic: A career guide 2^ndedition (pp. 79-115). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Boice, R. (2000). Advice for new faculty members. New York: Pearson.
• Darley, J. M., Zanna, M. P. & Roediger, H. L. (Eds.). (2004) The complete academic: A career guide2nd edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Grapin, S. L., Kranzler, J. H., & Daley, M. L. (2012). Scholarly productivity and impact of school psychology faculty in APA-accredited programs. Psychology in the Schools, 50,87-101. doi: 10.1002/pits.21658
• Harris, B., & Sullivan, A. L. (2012). Faculty roles: A primer for students and professionals interested in careers in academia.NASP Communiqué, 41(2), 20-21.
• Harris, B., & Sullivan, A. L. (2013). Work-life balance in academic careers. The School Psychologist, 67(2), 23-26.
• Lucas, C. J., & Murry, J. W. (2002). New faculty: A practical guide for academic beginners. New York: Palgrave.
• Martínez, R. S., Floyd, R. G., & Erichsen, L .W. (2011). Strategies and attributes of highly productive scholars and contributors to the school psychology literature: Recommendations for increasing scholarly productivity. Journal of School Psychology, 49,691–720.  doi: 10.1016/j.jsp.2011.10.003
• McKeachie, W. (Ed.). (2003). Teaching tips(10th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin.
• Schoenfeld, A. C., & Magnan, R. (1994). Mentor in a manual: Climbing the academic ladder to tenure. Madison, WI: Magna Publications.
• Silva, P. (2007). How to write a lot. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Ward, L. & Wolf-Wendel, L. (2012). Academic motherhood: How faculty manage work and family. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Give Yourself the Gift of No

December 14, 2015As an early career scholar, you have a finite amount of time so there reaches a point where saying yes to one thing means saying no to another—or where you risk overburdening yourself to the point where your performance in many or all areas of work suffers.  Saying yes to x often means less time for y. This becomes problematic when x is a nonessential, unwanted task and y is a highly valued or necessary task (e.g., writing).  Ideally, such decisions are driven by your professional and personal goals in conjunction with institutional expectations, especially if you are concerned about promotion and tenure. Maintaining any sense of balance in one’s professional roles and with one’s personal life will likely require accepting that we cannot and do not have to do everything. Often, this requires releasing ourselves of unrealistic expectations of personal perfection and pleasing everyone around us. Further, protecting the time needed to do well the things you need and want to do will require learning to say no to other nonessential opportunities and tasks.Learning to say no first requires identifying your priorities so that you can easily identify requests and opportunities inconsistent with those priorities. After identifying priorities it can be helpful to build time for necessary and desired tasks into you schedule and calendar. Just as you block out time for commitments to others (e.g., class, advising appointments, committee meetings), you should schedule time for commitments to yourself to better account for your time and to ensure necessary or desired tasks do not fall by the wayside. This is especially important with research and writing time since these are often the first to be sacrificed when faced with competing demands. For many scholars, these are also the highest priority. I routinely schedule writing time on my calendar. Treating these times as nonnegotiable helps to ensure you don't abandon this priority. Few of us would accept competing appointments when we are scheduled to teach, but it is not uncommon to accept competing appointments when we plan to write even though it is counterproductive in both the short and long term.For those who have difficulty saying no, I have a colleague who admitted she notates writing time on her calendar as meetings with administrators so that others who view her calendar won't consider infringing on the time and to remind herself of the importance of these appointments. A similar strategy may work for you if you are concerned that your commitment to research time won't be accepted or respected by colleagues. The important thing is to carefully guard your time so that other activities don't crowd out your priorities and prevent you from being productive and efficient.Another strategy that can make it easier to say no is giving yourself a minimum amount of time to consider any request or invitation. For instances, I know other EC scholars who wait at least 24 hours before responding to invitation or request for time or involvement. This disrupts an otherwise automatic tendency to say yes to everything and provides the time needed to reflect on whether an opportunity or request is consistent with one’s priorities and availability. Rather than blindly saying yes to everything, consider the potential benefits and costs, including the impact on your other work. Mentors and more senior scholars can provide valuable guidance in this decision process.You will also have to accept the need to practice pleasantly and unapologetically saying no. Some people are incredibly uncomfortable with the possibility of disappointing others or are so conflict-avoidant they would rather say yes to everything than risk that discomfort, only to fall short on their own goals. Still others are motivated by some mistaken belief that they are so important that others need them to the point that they cannot say no. This is very rarely the case. Once you've accepted that there are times when you can and should say no, do so simply and unapologetically. It's okay to say no without offering any more justification than you are simply unavailable. That is generally all the requester needs or is entitled to know. Practice saying, "Thank you for the invitation, but I am not available at this time." Or "Thank you for this opportunity, but I'm unavailable." When justification is needed, it can be helpful to link you refusal to you job duties or tenure expectations, or to have a senior colleague--generally your program or area coordinator-- back up your decision (e.g., "My program coordinator advised me against taking on additional service activities at this time."). Certainly some individuals may make requests that you shouldn't refuse, but don't assume every request they make is one of those. Instead, ask for time to consult with your colleagues and verify your availability and then speak with more senior colleagues and/or you program/area coordinator who can help you evaluate the request, and, when appropriate, plan your refusal. At times, your coordinator may want to say no on your behalf depending on who the requester is in order to more convincingly state your need to focus on your priorities.Another helpful strategy for people who tend to reflexively say yes is to remind yourself that no is the default decision unless you can identify sufficient professional or personal benefits to saying yes. For a few years, I posted a small note on my computer that read, "Just say no." For me this visual reminder was needed to counter my knee jerk reaction to accept every research and service opportunity that came my way. In the end, it saved me a lot of unwanted stress and time.In the end, learning and practicing saying no is necessary to bring strategic in managing your time and commitments.  Time management is key to being efficient and productive and avoiding overextension and burnout.  Chances are you'll enjoy your work more when you are judicious with your time. Be kind to yourself by giving the gift of allowing yourself to say no when appropriate.

Introduction to Early Career Profiles

November 5, 2015

By Bryn Harris and David ShribergECF strives to provide readers with diverse types of support as they navigate their first years as faculty members. This month, we are pleased to debut a new series featuring profiles of early faculty members. First, Assistant Professor Anisa Goforth of the University of Montana will discuss her experiences as the newest faculty member of this series. Next, Assistant Professor Julia Ogg, from Northern Illinois University, will discuss her path toward tenure. Finally, Erin Dowdy of the University of California-Santa Barbara will provide prospective as a recently tenured Associate Professor. We have asked each spotlighted scholar to respond to the same questions in an effort to learn more about their successes and challenges as they navigated their academic careers. While there are some behaviors—e.g., overextending oneself in voluntary university service responsibilities, not leaving oneself enough time to write—that are common pitfalls for pre-tenured faculty regardless of where you work, we recognize that there are a variety of pathways to academic success. As school psychologists we know that we all have our own learning and interpersonal styles, strengths, and limitations. Thus, as amazing and inspiring as these guest bloggers are, the goal is not to say that any one of them has all of the answers—no one does—but rather offer varied examples we can learn as we evaluate and assess our own professional practices.As such, readers will see that the contributors have diverse experiences prior to entering academia, varied roles and expectations at their respective universities, and each offer unique perspectives on strategies for success. Lastly, we highlight that one of the common factors for these contributors is that they all attended the School Psychology Research Collaboration Conference (SPRCC; www.sprcc.net). Indeed, while the intended outcome of this conference is collaborative research endeavors, one of the secondary benefits is that you get to meet and connect with others in the field, including people with very different research interests. This conference is held on a biannual basis and aims to connect early career scholars with mentorship and resources for advancing their research trajectories. The next SPRCC will be held August 1-2, 2017 prior to the APA convention in Washington DC. We strongly encourage pre-tenure scholars to apply for this highly beneficial experience.While reading these posts, we encourage you to engage in similar self-reflection. To facilitate this process, consider the questions below.How is your position similar or discrepant to theirs? In what way is this difference beneficial or challenging to your success?

• Think about your own primary research interests and activities, how would you describe them in 4-5 sentences?
• How did your training/prior experiences prepare you for your current position? Were you mentored for an academic career?
• Are you currently mentored? If not, what are the barriers? What benefits might you receive from mentorship?
• How do you balance your teaching, research and service responsibilities?
• Where do you hope your research trajectory will be in 5 years, 10 years?
• When do you feel the most successful in your academic position?
• What have you learned from the contributors that you can apply within your own position?

Additionally, we encourage you to ask the authors questions about their experiences in an effort to continue this important conversation. We hope you enjoy these profiles!Read Julia Ogg's profile.Read Erin Dowdy's profile.Read Anisa Goforth's profile.

Early Career Profile: Julia Ogg

November 5, 2015

What are your current position and responsibilities?I am an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida, which is a Research One University.  I have a 2-2 teaching load, but have been fortunate to typically teach one didactic course per semester and one practicum supervision course. I occasionally have two didactic courses and a practicum course.  In my second and third year at USF, I also had a course release to complete 2000 postdoctoral clinical hours through USF Pediatrics where I provided direct clinical services to children and families. A majority of my service thus far has been within my program (e.g., admissions, portfolio review, etc.) or within the profession (primarily through editorial boards).  The senior colleagues in my program have been very helpful in protecting me from department, college, and university service during my tenure-earning years.What are your primary research interests and activities?My research interests focus on children at-risk for school failure, particularly those who exhibit problematic externalizing behaviors, including children diagnosed with ADHD, ODD, as well as children without a diagnosis, but who present with challenging behaviors. Children with ADHD and externalizing or challenging behaviors are at risk for a host of negative academic and social outcomes and untreated these disorders can result in significant societal costs such as early school dropout, juvenile delinquency, and family dysfunction. My goal as a researcher is to better understand the needs of this population especially within educational settings, to identify malleable targets of intervention that can be focused in on in order to prevent more serious and long-term outcomes from occurring, and ultimately to develop an intervention program that can best meet the needs of this population and promote positive outcomes and resiliency. These goals align directly with my research activities which can be organized into three inter-related strands: a.) ADHD in the schools, b.) prevention and early identification of challenging externalizing behaviors, and c.) development and implementation of parent training interventions to address challenging behaviors in at-risk students. Since starting at USF, I have been involved in a number of data collection efforts to advance my research.  At this point, I have focused primarily on my first two goals, and much of my work has been survey research with students, their teachers, and their parents.How did your training/prior experiences prepare you for your current position? Were you mentored for an academic career?I did not decide to go into academia until my internship year of graduate school.  I believe if I had known sooner, I could have prepared better.  As far as experiences that helped prepare me for my current position, there were several that I would identify as the most important:

• First, attending a university that was similar in terms of having an Ed.S. and Ph.D. program, being APA accredited, being a Research One university, etc. was helpful in understanding the role and having a vision of what the day-to-day activities may look like.
• All of the research experiences I had, both volunteer and paid positions, were critical.  In particular, having opportunities to be involved in research in a leadership capacity (e.g., being a point person for data collection, etc.), as well as having opportunities to write and present at conferences were very beneficial. In addition, I had several opportunities to write small grants, which was very helpful in understanding how to secure funding to advance your research.
• Having opportunities to be exposed to faculty life was useful.  This came in a several ways for me.  First, having the opportunity to see the faculty in my graduate program going through the tenure process was very helpful, and helped demystify the process. Second, getting opportunities to meet faculty at other universities while I was in graduate school was very helpful.  My advisor was very proactive in introducing me to faculty from other institutions and this really helped humanize academia for me and also provided me with several lasting contacts.
• For me, having an advisor who allowed me to have independence was really helpful. This forced me to develop self-discipline and good habits around writing early on, and allowed me to have more of an idea of what an academic position would be like.
• Although each of these opportunities helped prepare me for an academic career, I would also point out that I did not start the job fully prepared.  My evolution has continued and has been shaped by additional opportunities and mentorship. Being willing to continue to grow has been a healthy way for me to look at my career versus being discouraged that I am not an expert at all things academia-related as an assistant professor.

Are there any training or mentoring experiences you wish you had early in your career?I wish I had pursued more opportunities to write while in graduate school. I would recommend to students pursuing academic positions to get as many opportunities to practice writing and engaging in research activities as they can so they have models to draw from.  For those of you in academia who have not had as many experiences as you like, I would recommend learning from your colleagues and asking to work with them. In general, I recommend taking any opportunity to learn and further develop your skills to help you develop into the scholar that you aspire to be.How do you balance your teaching, research and service responsibilities?I have found that achieving a balance takes time and practice.  Generally, teaching and service have had deadlines that keep me focused. I have to frequently check to make sure that I am not overdoing it in terms of time spent on these activities.  As I have gained confidence teaching, I often notice that when I over prepare for class, I tend to not give students as much time to think and process. I personally like to spend time at the beginning of the semester plotting out what we are going to do and developing all of my materials and rubrics and then trying to limit how much time I spend preparing once the semester starts.  I also block of periods of time where I focus on completing all of my grading and preparation for the week and I try not to exceed that time. Research is the more difficult area as most deadlines have to be self-imposed.  For this reason, I have found it effective to build in structure in a variety of ways.  I set goals and make myself accountable to them.  Specifically, I have my entire research team set research goals for the period between each of our meetings (approximately 2 weeks) and then we have to announce at our meeting whether we met our goal.  I also do goal setting on a shorter term basis by setting goals like writing for X number of hours for the day.  This helps me get started. I like to plan for my week on Sunday or Monday.  I find that there are so many things competing for my attention that if I don’t take the time to plan ahead, it is easy for me to get off track for hours at a time. I also try to work with collaborators, which helps to build accountability into projects.  Letting my partners know when to expect products or scheduling meetings that I need to be prepared for help with this too.How has mentoring or collaboration advanced your research? Mentoring and collaboration have been critical to all areas of my academic career. My number one piece of advice would be to learn from others through mentorship and collaboration. You need multiple mentors in a variety of areas.  For example, you may have a mentor that you go to when you are dealing with professional issues, another person’s teaching philosophy who you really respect, and yet another mentor who can give you great advice on writing with students.  These examples are ones that came to mind for me because I could quickly identify three different individuals I would talk to about these issues. Have multiple mentors! Your mentors can and should come from both within and outside of your university.What strategies, resources, or practices contribute most to your success?Having a plan.  I find it so important to constantly revisit my long-term goals in order to keep me on track.  Each semester, I will set a few goals (e.g., number of manuscripts submitted, data collection, etc.) and then I use these as guidance for my weekly goals.  If I find I am falling short in working toward my long term goals, I know to step up my weekly goals.

• Having structure in my work habits. I work a 9-5 workday in the office at least four days each week and typically one day per week at home. Each day I have a set list of what I need to accomplish that comes from my weekly to do list. This helps me both be productive and achieve balance.
• Connecting myself with others for collaboration, mentorship, and collegiality. Academia can be a lonely job and I think connecting with others can help keep me on track professionally, as well as helping me process challenges in stride. I also have learned to love getting feedback on anything and everything. It just helps make my work more high quality.
• Continuing to move forward even when faced with rejections or challenges. Recognizing that even the most prolific scholars and most amazing teachers face rejection letters and unhappy students helps me keep frustrations in check. Embracing the notion that failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently helps me keep going.
• Last, I would recommend embracing strategies that work and not being afraid to get rid of those that do not work. I found that as my life circumstances changed, specifically when I had children, I had to adjust some of the strategies I was using. For example, I used to do a lot of my grading at night so I could focus on research and writing during the day; however, now that I have young children, I found that I could no longer do this effectively, so I built a block into my Fridays for grading. Try to be a data-based decision maker when it comes to the strategies you use and be willing to tweak and adjust as needed to make sure that you are staying on track.

Early Career Profile: Erin Dowdy

November 3, 2015

What are your current position and responsibilities?I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I conduct research, teach, mentor students, and provide service to the university and local community. I spend roughly 50 percent of my time conducting research, 30 percent teaching and mentoring, and 20 percent engaged in service activities.  I am also currently the Director of Clinical Training and provide oversight and leadership with regards to clinical training. Specifically, I am responsible for APA reports, supporting students with their applications for predoctoral internships, and monitoring communications with professional training organizations on matters related to APA accreditation.What are your primary research interests and activities?I am primarily interested in prevention, early intervention, and early identification of emotional and behavioral risk and student strengths. I work a lot with schools to think about how to efficiently and effectively identify students who may be in need of additional assistance. In the beginning of the year, this usually entails asking every student (in high schools) or teacher (in elementary schools) to fill out some information about how students are currently functioning. Then, we analyze school results to look for patterns and also put supports, both schoolwide and individual, in place to help. For example, at one of our local schools we implemented a mentorship program pairing undergraduate and graduate school psychology students with high school students that were identified in the screening process. I have also conducted a variety of research examining the psychometrics of the screening forms that we have used. As I am interested in longitudinal research, I aim to establish collaborative relationships with the schools I work in so that we can work together for many years. I think we both learn a lot from each other and I have benefitted tremendously from working with fantastic practitioners in the field.How did your training/prior experiences prepare you for your current position? Were you mentored for an academic career?I received my Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Georgia, completed a predoctoral internship at the University of Southern California/Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and then worked as a school psychologist for a school district south of Los Angeles. My graduate school mentors told me early on how fantastic careers in academia were, but I had to figure it out for myself. Turns out, they were right. In graduate school, I was informed and invited to participate in the various roles that are often a part of a faculty position. For example, I engaged in departmental committee work, co-reviewed articles submitted for publication, and received mentoring around grant writing and publishing research. My research advisor provided me with a lot of guidance and support when searching for faculty positions. He helped me prepare application materials, reviewed and provided feedback on my job talk, and discussed the pros/cons of different types of faculty positions (i.e., more research or more teaching focused). Additionally, once I secured a faculty position, I continued to work with my graduate advisor on research projects, grant writing, and publishing empirical studies.Are there any training or mentoring experiences you wish you had early in your career?Had I known that I would have been in a faculty position at a research university, I would have taken more advanced statistics courses. Luckily, I am in a place where I can continue to learn (often from my students) and have worked with some excellent methodologists, but I realize now you can answer many more sophisticated questions with more sophisticated skills.How do you balance your teaching, research and service responsibilities?I took the advice that in a research institution, you have to focus on research if you want to get tenure. I spend a lot of time writing and conducting research, and try to schedule full days that I can work from home writing and without interruption. I generally work solely on writing projects for a full day a week. Then, I spend another day a week in a variety of other research support activities (e.g., contact with schools, data collection, analyzing data, preparing reports, writing grants). I also find myself catching up over breaks or in the summer on writing projects or grant writing, when there are less teaching responsibilities. I also really enjoy teaching and mentoring and consider this to be one of the most important aspects of my job so I always find the time to hopefully do it well.  I spend about two days devoted to teaching. Depending on the quarter, I may teach two mornings (9-12) and then spend another half day or so preparing and grading. If I have a new course to prep, it obviously takes more time.  To me, service to my community and profession is also incredibly rewarding.  I try to connect service and applied research by making meaningful connections in the community, and I find that service to the profession improves my own research. I haven’t found the perfect magic to balance; I just try to do it all!How has mentoring or collaboration advanced your research? Working with others is always more fun than working alone. I have been extremely fortunate to have generous and intelligent mentors and colleagues to work with and enjoy the collaborative process.  I try to find others with similar working styles and complementary skill sets.What strategies, resources, or practices contribute most to your success?Work-life balance is key for me. I am a better academic (and person) when I find time for my family, my friends, and myself. I wake up early before my family wakes up, multitask reading emails and working out, and then spend time with my kids before they go to school. In the evenings, I put my computer away and try to be present. At work, I aim to be efficient - I try to stay focused, keep moving forward, and do what I am passionate about – helping children succeed. One concrete thing I do is to spend a day at the beginning of each quarter and academic year mapping out what I think I can realistically accomplish during that period. Then, I continually refer to those goals to remind myself what I thought was important to work on. In terms of writing projects, I try to have one manuscript I am currently working on, one submitted or in the revision process, and one in press. I have a “pub club” with other scholars in the field where we map out and work on writing projects together.Lastly, please tell us something unique about yourself and how this has been influential on your career.I think I just answered that one! I have young children so they keep me busy and focused. It’s a great feeling when you see educational practices change that will ultimately benefit the next generation of students in schools.I feel very fortunate to work in a place that has excellent family leave policies that allow for reduced workload after the birth or adoption of a new child. For example, after the birth of each child I was given a release from teaching duties for two quarters (roughly 20 weeks). I was also given the option of delaying the tenure clock for up to a year after the birth of each child. Considering what we know about the importance of nurturing and attachment, does your work place offer adequate flexibility and opportunity for you to take care of your young children?