What’s your headline?

What makes you famous? Or, what do you want to be famous for? If you are working on getting a job or communicating your value for fellowships or other audiences, chances are you are getting tips on your “brand,” or trying to write the perfect tagline for LinkedIn. As an academic, boiling your dissertation or many years of experience down to a few words might feel too hard, or overly simplistic, or even trivial, but this skill of distilling your contribution is useful. It can actually help you understand what you are doing and what you care about in new ways, and help you communicate your value concisely and compellingly to different audiences. The strategies I use with students to help them get at the essence of their complicated research can help with this. A great professor I worked with once suggested that instead of introducing your research by saying, “ I study Korean poetry,” you try something more memorable, “I study how love begins.” You would certainly get your audience’s attention in a different way, right?

Let’s try it: if you had to describe your approach or contribution in five words, what would they be?

I’ll tell you my words and how I found them.

For many years I ran a successful and popular Teaching Certificate program for graduate students at a university where teaching was not always a priority. How did that happen? The students understood what we were offering them. We were teaching valuable skills they wouldn’t necessarily learn in their departments, and we provided a supportive and fun space for them to learn and share in community with others. We treated them like smart and capable academics at the beginning of their journeys, and we gave them a certificate of recognition for their efforts. One day my work bestie and I sat down to talk about how to organize and market our growing program. We brainstormed a lot of words and slogans, and there was a moment where they snapped into focus:

Learn. Practice. Reflect. 

It was one of those great moments when everything clicked and our program development and marketing plans flowed from there. “Learn” became the component of the program where the students took seminars and short courses, “Practice” was what we called the requirement for students to design and deliver a lesson on video, and review it with a consultant, and “Reflect” encapsulated the documents and materials students had to submit, including a teaching statement, draft syllabus, and reflective statement on the experience in the program. The words helped us organize the program and make it easy to understand. There was so much overlap in how students experienced the program (it’s not like they didn’t practice when taking a seminar, or reflect when they were learning) but this worked. Maybe the program would have been successful no matter what we called it, or how we structured it, but who’s to know that now? Those three words helped us take the program to the next level. 

Now when I think about how to convey the essence of my professional work, learn, practice, and reflect are still my words. And if I can add two more, since we are playing for 5, they are feedback and community. 

Learn. Practice. (Get) Feedback. Reflect (in) Community.

I have dedicated my career to helping students and faculty learn and grow, and building communities to support personal and professional development. This is what matters to me. Most of my consulting work has been about listening and holding up the mirror to help students and scholars see what I see, to make sure it’s what they want to be putting out there, and to hone their work from there. As you grow on your professional journey, you learn, practice, think about it, get feedback, see what else you need to learn, practice more, reflect, learn, in a continuous process. And all of it is better done in community with intellectually generous peers. Remember, I didn’t come up with my words by myself. I have been lucky in my work to have built and been a part of some amazing communities, where everyone involved helped shape the work. 

So what are your 5 words? What will help you snap your work and value into focus? I’d love to discuss!