Professerror

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, but also some of the surprising challenges that kept him up at night while planning for this event. Enjoy!

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!

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!

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 through with the decision to pursue other career paths is less common. It's refreshing to hear such an honest and open account about the drivers to making this type of career decision. Enjoy!

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.

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.

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. Enjoy!

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!

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"?

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 provides for research, so take their thoughts with a grain of salt. Hope you enjoy!

Bryan and Steve discuss their thoughts on sharing research ideas or not. They talk about risks associated with both sharing and withholding ideas. Enjoy!

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!

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 our prior focus areas. Enjoy!

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 wasteful effort spent on discussing topics that are not immediately productive. Enjoy!

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 challenges experienced in the process. Enjoy!

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!

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 different university audience. Enjoy!

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!

Bryan and Steve discuss their plans for the upcoming summer and how their summer work experience differs from the rest of the academic year.

Bryan discusses his new position as a PhD Program Director and challenges and lessons learned in this administration role. Enjoy!

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!

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!

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!

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 discusses his sabbatical and shares what went well and what could have been better. Enjoy!

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 and Steve discuss successes and failures in developing graphics in academia. An audio discussion about visual communication - maybe this wasn't our brightest move??

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!

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!

Bryan and Steve discuss their typical days as academics. They talk about the fun and not-so-fun parts of their professional lives. Enjoy!

Bryan and Steve discuss their struggles with serving in leadership positions - especially when leading individuals who do not directly report to them. Enjoy!

Kieren McCord joins us to discuss her experience in transitioning from a PhD student to a full time researcher in a national lab. Enjoy!

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.

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 more sometime in the future. Enjoy!

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!

Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences and lessons learned in trying to attract top PhD students for their respective research groups.

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.

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.

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!

Bryan and Steve discuss their positive and negative experiences with social media in academia. Enjoy!

Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences (and their hesitancy) with spending their startup funding when they began their faculty careers.

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 insights on what may be discussed behind the scenes by search committees if you are currently applying for faculty positions.

Dr. Masoud Gheisari and our own Dr. Bryan Franz discuss their experiences (and challenges) with pursuing and successfully achieving tenure.

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.

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. 

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 (and change) from what the students are used to, which leads to some unexpected difficulties in teaching.

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.

Bryan and Steve discuss their first major in-person conference since the pandemic began. They discuss various uncomfortable experiences, and how some may only be relevant in the short-term, while others may be around for much longer. Then they define a wish list for the conference of the future. Enjoy!

John Messner (Penn State) discusses his experience in working in the construction industry for seven years, pausing his research during this time, and then the challenges associated with returning to academia, shifting his research focus, and taking over an existing research group. Enjoy!

Bryan and Steve discuss experiences and challenges in explaining their academic lives to those outside of academia. Hopefully what it lacks in practicality, it makes up for in relatability. Enjoy!