PODCAST · education
Professerror
by Steven K. Ayer and Bryan Franz
This podcast is aimed at providing honest experiences about challenges, failures, and possibly a few success stories related to life in academia.
Episodes
-
When is future work NOT needed?
Bryan and Steve discuss when future work may NOT be needed for specific research topics. Sometimes researchers collect data that indicates a novel concept or approach aimed at improving our field will not work. Despite this evidence, we often say “future work is needed” to study the topic…
more -
The Age of Grade Inflation
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences with seeing grade inflation among students. They discuss some underlying causes of it, issues with it, and potential fixes that could theoretically mitigate some aspects of it. These fixes probably won't happen, but hopefully they make for interesting...
-
Handling Technology Vendors
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences in handling technology vendors who often want access to students. They talk about when they do and don't agree to provide access and some of the factors they consider when making these decisions.
-
Conference Planning Headaches with Chuma Nnaji
Professor Chuma Nnaji (Texas A&M University) discusses his experiences, headaches, and some successes with recently leading the planning/orchestration of a major conference in our field. It is great to hear the honest dialogue about the kinds of camaraderie that was built through this experience,...
-
That's it! I'm outta here!
Bryan and Steve discuss aspects of academic jobs that they do NOT like and if these aspects of their job were to expand in scope (hypothetically) would lead to them leaving their positions. Enjoy!
-
Bend but don't break - When to allow failures for impactful graduate student learning
Bryan and Steve discuss experiences where they allow graduate students to struggle through certain professional experiences to support long term learning, even if that comes at the expense of near-term research outputs. Enjoy!
-
Guest: Dan Aukes - Leaving a tenured faculty position? But why??
Formerly "Professor" Dan Aukes of Arizona State University talks about his journey into academia, succeeding in academia, and ultimately choosing to leave it to explore new professional life chapters. Considering non-academic careers after finding success in academia is common, but following...
-
Life After Tenure: What do we do after the game of tenure is over?
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences in finding professional purpose after tenure. The post-tenure life undoubtedly comes with high levels of freedom, but also lacks direction, which can have unexpected challenges for finding motivation and purpose in the profession.
-
a policy? The Policy? Any policy?
Bryan and Steve discuss challenges with following unclear, conflicting, or unchecked policies in academic environments. They discuss difficulties with understanding these and also discuss strategies they’ve employed to handle these challenging situations in academia.
-
Advisors and Advisees: Setting Expectations
Bryan and Steve discuss challenges and ramifications of instances of poorly set expectations between graduate students (i.e., advisees) and faculty (i.e., advisors). Hopefully the stories resonate and possibly even give some tips for how to handle these if they relate to your academic situation....
-
What if federally-funded research ended?
Bryan and Steve discuss the hypothetical scenario of federal funding for research suddenly drying up. What might happen at universities? How would faculty react? Who knows if we're right or not, but hopefully it offers food for thought. Enjoy!
-
Decoding Faculty Excuses
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences in receiving (and sometimes making) excuses related to working with others. When is a "yes" a "yes"? When is it really a "no"?
-
Peer Review Problems
Bryan and Steve discuss their concerns with the peer review process that research papers currently follow and offer some food-for-thought suggestions for changing the process (none of which are likely to actually happen). Despite their grouchy tone, they recognize the value that this process...
-
Sharing Ideas: ♫You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em; know when to disclose ‘em♫
Bryan and Steve discuss their thoughts on sharing research ideas or not. They talk about risks associated with both sharing and withholding ideas. Enjoy!
-
"FOIA'd" with Denise Simmons
Professor and Associate Dean Denise Simmons of the University of Florida joins us to discuss her experiences with being “FOIA’d” (Freedom of Information Act). This conversation is really eye opening about the processes and emotions that may follow a FOIA request related to a given study. Enjoy!
-
Rebuilding new careers (and more) with Matt Morris
Professor Matt Morris (University of Colorado Boulder) joins us to discuss his journey to academia via a first career in the military and second career in private industry. We haven't had the opportunity to talk much with teaching faculty, so his perspective is a nice change of pace from most of...
-
Can the professor come out and play???
Bryan and Steve discuss the value of playfulness in academic discussions. They talk about the benefits they’ve observed in having playful conversations that are not aimed at specific objectives or outputs. They talk about how these discussions have led to rich collaborations despite the seemingly...
-
Moving from a teaching-focused to research-focused institution
Professor Vineeth Dharmapalan (Assistant Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa) talks about his recent move from a mostly teaching-focused institution to one with more research focus. He also discusses some of the professional and personal reasons that guided his move, as well as some of the...
-
Cold Emails
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences in receiving and sending cold emails (emails to people you do not yet know). They discuss what works well and what strategies were not well received. Hopefully this helps you avoid some of the mistakes we've made. Enjoy!
-
Kristen Parrish discusses writing P&T letters
Professor Kristen Parrish (Arizona State University) joins us to talk about challenges with writing letters for other individuals' promotion and tenure (P&T) cases. She talks about challenges not only with writing these letters, but also challenges in considering how they'll be received by a...
-
Research Projects: Finishing Strong
Bryan and Steve discuss challenges and lessons learned when wrapping up research projects. They discuss what is often involved at the end of projects, things to consider when closing out a project, and some strategies they've employed to finish projects on a high note. Enjoy!
-
Summer Summer Summertime
Bryan and Steve discuss their plans for the upcoming summer and how their summer work experience differs from the rest of the academic year.
-
Administration... Bryan goes to the Dark Side!
Bryan discusses his new position as a PhD Program Director and challenges and lessons learned in this administration role. Enjoy!
-
Publishing with AI and the future of research output
Bryan and Steve discuss how generative AI is impacting processes for generating and reviewing research manuscripts. They also offer some food for thought for what a future might look like where academics remain relevant in a world with AI. Enjoy!
-
Bryan and Steve struggle to teach new courses
In this episode, Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences in teaching courses that are new to them. They talk about the moments that were especially challenging, the failures they experienced during the process, and a few lessons learned from surviving it. Enjoy!
-
'Unfundable' with Fred Sherratt
Fred Sherratt joins us to discuss her experiences in struggling to get academic funding and surviving as a qualitative researchers in a quantitative world. Enjoy!
-
Risky Business with John Gambatese
Professor John Gambatese (Oregon State University) joins us to discuss taking risks in academia and some that he took that worked out, and some that did not.
-
Bryan's Sabbatical Reflection
Bryan discusses his sabbatical and shares what went well and what could have been better. Enjoy!
-
Working Abroad with guest Daniel Hall
Professor Daniel Hall (TU Delft) joins Bryan and Steve to discuss his experience of growing up and studying in the US, but deciding to launch his academic career in Europe.
-
Bryan cancels the pie chart
Bryan and Steve discuss successes and failures in developing graphics in academia. An audio discussion about visual communication - maybe this wasn't our brightest move??
-
Burcu Akinci - Imposter Sydrome
Dr. Burcu Akinci, a full Professor and Department Head at Carnegie Mellon University, a National Academy of Construction member, and most recently a Peurifoy Construction Research Awardee, talks about how she still experiences imposter syndrome despite her many successes. Enjoy!
-
Moving Institutions
Steve's moving - and we're talking about it. We discuss what went well in the job application, interview, and moving processes and what didn't. Enjoy!
-
The Daily Routine of an Academic
Bryan and Steve discuss their typical days as academics. They talk about the fun and not-so-fun parts of their professional lives. Enjoy!
-
Failure in leading
Bryan and Steve discuss their struggles with serving in leadership positions - especially when leading individuals who do not directly report to them. Enjoy!
-
Working in a National Lab with Dr. Kieren McCord
Kieren McCord joins us to discuss her experience in transitioning from a PhD student to a full time researcher in a national lab. Enjoy!
-
Shedding 'Leicht' on Sabbaticals with Rob Leicht
Bryan, Steve, and guest Professor Rob Leicht (Penn State) discuss sabbatical do's and don't's. Hopefully you enjoy learning from Rob's experience as much as we did.
-
Faculty "Tropes" in Academia
Bryan and Steve discuss "tropes", or common patterns of behavior in pop culture storytelling, within academic settings. We talk about these patterns and also how faculty who fall into these patterns can be received by others. This was a fun discussion that may be followed up with a "part II" or...
-
Surviving the first year of teaching with Prof. Jennifer Lather
Professor Jennifer Lather (University of Nebraska) stops by to discuss her experience in creating, delivering, and learning from a new course that she taught in her first year as a professor. Enjoy!
-
Attracting Top PhD Students
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences and lessons learned in trying to attract top PhD students for their respective research groups.
-
Academic Freedom
Bryan and Steve discuss academic freedom and how various social and political shifts to impact this freedom can potentially impact students' educational experiences as well as our professional fulfillment as faculty.
-
Teaching - Back to normal??
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences and struggles with helping students succeed in their courses now that most have returned to post-COVID modes of traditional in-person learning.
-
Kasey Faust
Prof. Kasey Faust (University of Texas, Austin) stops by to talk about finding balance between home life and work life. She offers several practical strategies that have helped her to find fulfillment personally and also professionally. Enjoy!
-
Social Look-At-Media in Academia
Bryan and Steve discuss their positive and negative experiences with social media in academia. Enjoy!
-
Using your startup funding wisely
Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences (and their hesitancy) with spending their startup funding when they began their faculty careers.
-
Serving on a Faculty Search Committee
Steve and Bryan discuss their experiences serving on faculty search committees. They share the types of concerns, debates, and challenges that may emerge when serving on a search committee. Hopefully this helps to offer insight if you find yourself on a committee, or perhaps it will offer…
more -
Tenured? How does it feel?
Dr. Masoud Gheisari and our own Dr. Bryan Franz discuss their experiences (and challenges) with pursuing and successfully achieving tenure.
-
Robert LiKamWa
Professor Robert LiKamWa (Arizona State University) discusses struggles related to mentoring students and facing rejections on the way to ultimately succeeding in building a large, externally-funded, research team.
-
Transitioning from Engineering to Engineering Education with Professor Logan Perry
Logan Perry (University of Nebraska) joins us to discuss his experience in shifting from a traditional Civil Engineering domain to Engineering Education and some of the lessons he learned related to conducting research in this field.
-
Poor solutions to poorly structured problems
Bryan and Steve discuss their failures, and occasional successes, with challenging their undergraduate students to address poorly structured problems. While these types of problems can support the kinds of learning necessary for the students' long-term success, they can also be a major challenge...
-
Becoming a Parent in Academia
After a pause in podcasting, Steve discusses his (admittedly brief) experience with becoming a father during the break. He and Bryan discuss successes, failures, joys, and headaches experienced in his journey thus far.
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
This podcast is aimed at providing honest experiences about challenges, failures, and possibly a few success stories related to life in academia.
HOSTED BY
Steven K. Ayer and Bryan Franz
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Professerror have?
Professerror currently has 78 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Professerror about?
This podcast is aimed at providing honest experiences about challenges, failures, and possibly a few success stories related to life in academia.
How often does Professerror release new episodes?
Professerror has 78 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Professerror?
You can listen to Professerror on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Professerror?
Professerror is created and hosted by Steven K. Ayer and Bryan Franz.
URL copied to clipboard!