Alongside research and teaching, most tenure-track jobs come with some expectation of service.
Alongside research and teaching, most tenure-track jobs come with some expectation of service.
What happens when a research subject becomes a research and briefing partner? In 2017, I was contacted by the peacebuilding NGO Peace Direct to contribute to a policy report on...
Academics depend on slow processes subject to unfortunate slowdowns. And, unfortunately, academic timelines can make or break careers.
Business meetings are part of the “hidden curriculum,” academia’s unwritten set of rules They’re also important to attend, especially for those scholars most likely to be unfamiliar with those rules. This post explains why – and what more senior scholars can do to get junior ones involved.
Mentoring starts with how we ourselves act and move through our shared academic world. The more that each of us, particularly those in positions of relative power, can be honest and open about our own diverse identities, the more space we create for others to do the same.
Recent events make it clear: whether loved or loathed, government policies are central to our lives. That’s why public policy schools are devoted to understanding the causes, design, implementation, and effects of government policies. And it’s why some political scientists (including me) feel the pull to work in both a political science department and a policy school. But if we make this choice, what goes from optional to required? For answers, look at Georgetown University faculty member Kate McNamara, the 2020 recipient of a prominent mentoring award from...
What was it like to have Kate McNamara a mentor?
Kate’s has always been my favorite voice in any room. In our current moment especially, it is a voice that has become vitally important for women in the profession as well as so many others marginalized in the academy.
This piece kicks off a short forum on mentoring in academic careers in international affairs, written to honor Kathleen R. McNamara.
This is a guest post by Philipp Schulz, who is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) at the University of Bremen. Philipp’s research focuses on the gender dynamics of armed conflicts, with a particular focus on masculinities and wartime sexual violence. His book ‘Male Survivors of Wartime Sexual Violence – Perspectives from northern Uganda’ is forthcoming with University of California Press. Academic competitiveness and pettiness is alive and real. From expediting demands of the competitive academic job...
The following is a guest post by Leah C. Windsor and Kerry F. Crawford. Windsor is a Research Assistant Professor in the Institute for Intelligent Systems at The University of Memphis. Crawford is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at James Madison University. To take their survey, visit: https://tinyurl.com/drparentsurvey This is the first in the series on changing the field of international relations. #IRChange Academic families – especially dual-career spouses – with young children are struggling in more specific and remediable ways than we thought when we first...
A recent IR Twitter flare-up occurred on a seemingly innocuous topic illustrated by the flow-chart above: what should I call my professor? A PSA from Prof. Megan L. Cook recommended students to address their professors as Professors or Dr., avoiding references to their marital status or first names. Prof. Raul Pacheco-Vega tweeted the following: I also delete every email that first-persons me on a first email. Them’s the rules. You can decide how you want to be addressed, but I’m the one who decides how *I* want to be addressed. Dr. Jenny Thatcher and several others disagreed, pointing out...