Show Notes
In this episode, Dr. Willow Scobie, associate professor of sociology and coordinator of the MA programs in sociology at the University of Ottawa, discusses her multiple research projects illuminating extractivism both by mining companies in Quebec and within introductory sociology textbooks in Canada. We also dig into the ethics of good research, especially around working with Indigenous communities, and the humility needed to learn from our mistakes. We end with lots of really practical tips for students wanting to apply to graduate school, profs needing to write yet another reference letter, and our thoughts on grading and supervising graduate students.
Guest Bio
Dr. Scobie holds a PhD & an MA in Sociology from Carleton University and a BA in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of Ottawa. From her MA challenging social policy that defines those on social assistance as “non-workers” and her doctoral dissertation demonstrating the role capitalism plays in creating a specific ontological understanding of time as a linear trajectory, Willow’s work has turned upside down our most cherished and defended assumptions about how the social world works to identify & root out injustice.
This has continued over the course of her career, as her research has expanded into explorations of Inuit and other Indigenous communities, especially around youth transitions, digital media, and mining rights. Bridging many of her scholarly interests with her many years of experience teaching intro to sociology courses, with co-author Kathleen Rodgers, she most recently published in the premier teaching journal for sociologists Teaching Sociology the article “Unsettling Sociology Curriculum: Indigenous Content in Introductory Sociology Textbooks.” Using a settler colonialism framework, they conducted a content of analysis of 10 of the top-selling English-language introductory books in Canada along with interviews with Indigenous scholars to critically assess how Indigenous peoples and their lives are being presented and taught to thousands of students every year.
Works Cited
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rodgers, Kathleen, and Willow, Scobie. 2024. “Unsettling Sociology Curriculum: Indigenous Content in Introductory Sociology Textbooks.” Teaching Sociology 52(4):352–66.
Scobie, Willow, and Kathleen, Rodgers. 2019. “Diversions, Distractions, and Privileges: Consultation and the Governance of Mining in Nunavut.” Studies in Political Economy 100(3):232–51.
Todd, Zoe. 2016. “An Indigenous Feminist’s Take On The Ontological Turn: ‘Ontology’ Is Just Another Word For Colonialism.” Journal of Historical Sociology. 29(1):4-22.
Tuck, Eve. 2009. “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.” Harvard Educational Review 79(3):409–28.
Other Concepts, People, & Resources Discussed
University of Ottawa Guide to Best Practices, Roles and Responsibilities for Graduate Supervisory Relationships
Carol (Rippey) Massat, sister & once social work dean & professor extraordinaire
Charlies Menzies, PhD, Department of Anthropology, UBC
Researching Sexual Violence & Revolutionary Resistance with Farinaz Basmechi
Errata
My half sister’s name is Carol Massat not Carol Rippey (she’s only been married since the 1970s, so how was I to remember?! oops)
The minerals in your cellphone diagram shown above and mentioned in the episode was at the booth for the Geology Rocks club, put on by the organization Mining Matters and not associated with either Carleton University nor its Department of Geology. Interestingly, though the website frames the organization as a charitable “educational” organization, its about us page also notes that “In 1990, the Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) was confronted by industry surveys showing that the public perception of the mineral industry was extremely negative or that there was no perception at all.” Note as well their “recognition of the important roles of Indigenous people in the industry” led them to introduce “programs for Indigenous youth in partnership with communities in 2001. Expansion across Canada was enabled with the implementation of a robust fund development strategy in 2005.”
To better understand what’s happening here, please see Antonio Gramsci (1971[1929]) Selections from the Prison Notebooks writings on hegemony and Stuart Hall (1982) “The Rediscovery of ‘ideology’; Return of the Repressed in Media Studies.”
Ways to Get in Touch
Join the Doing Social Research Podcast Discussion Group to keep the conversation going
Follow the Doing Social Research Facebook Page for updates on the website
May we suggest following our Doing_Social_Research Instagram account where we might some day hold office hour like lives?
Find Phyllis on LinkedIn (which she often forgets to check. oof!)
Or good old email: [email protected]
Credits
Thanks to Willow Rippeyoung for the amazing sound editing.
Vera Oko is our research and all around awesome assistant.
Jonathan Boyle wrote the theme song “Like a Badass”.
Transcript
(Not really edited and probably full of weird errors. Thanks AI!)
Hello and welcome to the doing Social Research podcast where I talk with some of my favorite people who do Social Research to dig into the cool projects they’re working on.
00:00:06 Speaker 1
You.
00:00:10 Speaker 2
My goal is to help demystify research for students, inspire other researchers, and provide a platform for all the brilliant work of folks doing research in the humanities and social sciences.
00:00:15 Speaker 1
Really.
00:00:19 Speaker 2
I’m your host, Phyllis Rippey a professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa and creator of the website doingsocialresearch.com.
00:00:26 Speaker 2
But today, we’re not here to talk about me.
00:00:28 Speaker 2
We’re here to talk with.
00:00:29 Speaker 2
One of my dear friend, Willow Scobie associate, professor and coordinator of the MBA program in sociology at the University of Ottawa.
00:00:35 Speaker 1
No.
00:00:36 Speaker 2
We’re going to talk about her research as well as having her provide some tips for folks looking to apply to Graduate School and to talk about some of her thoughts on student supervision.
00:00:43 Speaker 1
The.
00:00:47 Speaker 2
So doctor Scobie to be formal holds a phd and an MA in sociology from Carleton University and a BA in sociology and women’s studies from the University of Ottawa.
00:00:58 Speaker 2
From her MA challenging social policy that defines those on social assistance as not the workers and her doctoral dissertation demonstrating the role capitalism plays in creating a specific ontological understanding of time as a linear trajectory.
00:01:04 Speaker 1
For good.
00:01:12 Speaker 2
That everyone is supposed to go through.
00:01:14 Speaker 2
Willow’s work has embraced and exemplified my absolute favorite parts of sociological research.
00:01:19 Speaker 2
So when we turn upside down, some of our most cherished and defended assumptions about how the social world work.
00:01:26 Speaker 2
In order to identify and root out injustice, this brilliance of hers has continued over the course of her career.
00:01:32 Speaker 2
As her research has expanded into exploration, explorations of Inuit and other indigenous communities especially.
00:01:38 Speaker 2
Around youth.
00:01:38 Speaker 2
Transitions digital media and mining rates bridging many of her scholarly interests with her many years of experience teaching introductory sociology courses, among others with coauthor Kathleen Rogers, she most recently published in the premier teaching journal for sociologists teaching sociology and article titled Unsettling Sociology Curriculum Indigenous.
00:01:47
No.
00:02:00 Speaker 2
Intent and introductory sociology textbooks where they conducted a content analysis of 10 of the top selling English language introductory books in Canada, along with interviews with indigenous scholars so that they could critically assess how indigenous peoples and their lives are being presented and taught to thousands of students every year.
00:02:17 Speaker 2
I highly recommend folks read this article not only for the findings, but also as an example of how to do ethical research on indigenous communities that incorporates a settler colonialism framework.
00:02:28 Speaker 2
Currently, she is working with Amec.
00:02:30 Speaker 2
Filmmaker Sabie Flemon on a series of short films.
00:02:33 Speaker 2
Attika AMEC research methods to be used in university classrooms, which I only learned about just in doing this podcast.
00:02:40 Speaker 2
Bio so I’m dying to hear more about that because I had no idea you were doing that.
00:02:44 Speaker 2
And I’m super curious, as someone who teaches research methods, but I also want to hear about everything else that you’re doing.
00:02:49 Speaker 2
And I’m just so excited to talk to you here.
00:02:52 Speaker 2
So welcome.
00:02:52 Speaker 2
Welcome to my podcast.
00:02:53 Speaker 3
Thanks for having me, Phyllis.
00:02:55 Speaker 2
Amazing.
00:02:55 Speaker 2
So usually.
00:02:57 Speaker 2
Um, because, um, I keep saying this every episode I’m trying to build a brand, you know, with my 15.
00:03:03 Speaker 2
Well, Okay, 14 listeners so far.
00:03:06 Speaker 2
And so I always like to.
00:03:07 Speaker 2
Serve asking. Like what?
00:03:08 Speaker 2
What kind of research are you doing these days?
00:03:11 Speaker 3
Well, I’m continuing my interest in mining proposal Community relations and there is quite a bit going on, just a little bit north and a little bit east of Ottawa on the
00:03:23 Speaker 3
Next side, as the world pivots to transportation via electronic vehicles, the need for precious metals is intensifying and so by precious metals that includes nickel, that includes lithium and some of these regions just north of Ottawa potentially have deposits of these precious minerals.
00:03:49 Speaker 3
And so there are companies that are exploring these regions just a little bit past Gatineau, if you’re familiar with this area and north of Wakefield, both on the Quebec side.
00:04:02 Speaker 3
And what is?
00:04:04 Speaker 3
You know what is of concern?
00:04:05 Speaker 3
So already in in Quebec, there are mining sites that are in development for some of these metals, but they are in areas that are very sparsely populated.
00:04:17 Speaker 3
There are indigenous communities in those areas, and because they already have very well develop.
00:04:25 Speaker 3
But Land claim documents on the record that mining companies do need to consult with and negotiate with those communities.
00:04:37 Speaker 3
But that’s what is already in development.
00:04:39 Speaker 3
And so a little bit closer to Ottawa.
00:04:42 Speaker 3
They’re a little bit more in, in intensely populated.
00:04:45 Speaker 3
And so as helicopters fly overhead and as like orange markers show up on and near people’s property, they are freaking out about the prospect of of claims being made near their homes near their farms near their cottages.
00:05:05 Speaker 3
And the legislature, the legislation in Quebec is such that mining is the priority.
00:05:14 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:05:14 Speaker 3
Mining is a priority over many other activities and because mining is the money and we are just geopolitically, we’re in a situation where China holds about 80% of the rights to precious metal mines globally and we certainly know what is.
00:05:18 Speaker 2
As mining as the money.
00:05:35 Speaker 3
Happening South of the border in the United States and as you know, as as president-elect Trump has this vision of a kind of self-sustaining us I guess um or bringing bringing um resources a little bit closer to home and renegotiating trade relations with China and Russia then finding other sources of these metals is crucially important and in Canada may play A maybe not a major role but at least somewhat of a role in as a resource site for the.
00:06:12 Speaker 3
Metals and.
00:06:13
That’s.
00:06:14 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:06:15 Speaker 3
And so I’m interested in in how people are reacting, how people are sharing information.
00:06:21 Speaker 3
And it is kind of fascinating some of the folks in these communities taking the lead are cottage owners.
00:06:30 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:06:30 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:06:31 Speaker 3
And so one might think that they have a little bit less of a stake, but they tend to be particularly well resourced.
00:06:37 Speaker 2
I would have said they might be have less at stake, but they have more.
00:06:37 Speaker 3
And they they might.
00:06:40 Speaker 2
Resources and clout.
00:06:40 Speaker 3
They have more resources and more cloud, and they’re not putting in the long days that the farmers are putting in.
00:06:47 Speaker 3
And so they’re organizing community meetings.
00:06:50 Speaker 3
They are.
00:06:52 Speaker 3
They are learning the Quebec legislation on mining and sharing that information and and it’s really fascinating to see neighbors creating PowerPoint presentations to share with their neighbors.
00:07:05 Speaker 3
You know that that that level of exchange fascinates me so.
00:07:10 Speaker 3
And so that’s what I’m working on right now.
00:07:10
Yeah.
00:07:13 Speaker 2
I.
00:07:13 Speaker 2
Of that, I love it makes me think of.
00:07:15 Speaker 2
Like so many environmental social movements that, like historically have been started by like housewives or, you know, right?
00:07:21 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:07:23 Speaker 3
Kitchen politics.
00:07:24 Speaker 2
Yeah, of people being interested like they have a stake.
00:07:28 Speaker 2
Their lives are.
00:07:29 Speaker 2
There in that it’s not just about money.
00:07:30 Speaker 2
It’s about, you know, their health, their Children’s Health, their communities health and just there’s something I find so hopeful.
00:07:34 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:07:37 Speaker 2
I think also you know you mentioned the US election and I keep.
00:07:42 Speaker 2
You know, it’s it’s hard for a lot of people to be finding hope these days, and I just had a a I just recorded another episode with a grad student, Farinaz Basmechi who’s a grad student in at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies.
00:07:55 Speaker 2
And she’s from Iran.
00:07:56 Speaker 2
And we were.
00:07:56 Speaker 3
I know her, yeah.
00:07:56 Speaker 2
Yeah, she’s so lovely.
00:07:58 Speaker 2
And so we were just talking about sort of women’s activism in Iran with the especially in recent years.
00:08:05 Speaker 2
And it’s so inspiring to just, you know, cause you can feel like there are these giant, you know.
00:08:11 Speaker 2
Mega billionaire multinational corporations, and it’s like how like we can feel so small, you know?
00:08:18 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:08:18 Speaker 2
But it’s like when we can come together, it’s suddenly we become a lot.
00:08:23 Speaker 2
A lot stronger and that’s so powerful to me.
00:08:28 Speaker 3
And in the case of mining companies, that is, that is indeed the level at which they operate.
00:08:34 Speaker 3
They are larger and certainly more powerful than many nations globally, and certainly larger and more powerful than the province of Quebec.
00:08:42 Speaker 3
And so in terms of negotiating power and scale.
00:08:46 Speaker 3
That kind of mobilization is important, and although they may yet feel supported by their government officials, I think that at the municipal level, there is a sense of partnership and allyship between residents and their municipal politicians, which is interesting.
00:09:07 Speaker 2
That’s really interesting.
00:09:08 Speaker 2
And how does like are the like you’ve been talking about Cottagers, but also indigenous communities.
00:09:14 Speaker 2
And then mean like, how does the poet like that kind of level of politics among the non mining groups?
00:09:21 Speaker 2
Of stakeholders or whatever you call.
00:09:22 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:09:23 Speaker 2
How is that playing out?
00:09:24 Speaker 3
Well, I have yet to approach, so the there are in this case reserves actually a little bit further north than where I’ve been focusing my research so far.
00:09:35 Speaker 3
And there is no question that if I look at the maps that there are potential sites near the, um, the community of kittens vibe, for example, and barrier like they are implicated, those communities are implicated either because of where the.
00:09:55 Speaker 3
Mining claims are being made or because they are near water sources or because they may affect forests where there are animals that they might be hunting.
00:10:06 Speaker 3
They might be relying on those more forested areas for supporting their their traditional food sources. So.
00:10:15 Speaker 3
Because of my previous experience working in Nunavut, I do now understand that I need to bring something to the table.
00:10:23 Speaker 3
I can’t just show up and say, um, tell me everything.
00:10:27 Speaker 3
Tell me all about your feelings.
00:10:28 Speaker 3
Tell me all about what you’re thinking.
00:10:30 Speaker 3
That it has to be a little bit more of a reciprocal exchange.
00:10:34 Speaker 3
Here is the information that I have.
00:10:36 Speaker 3
Here are the here are some details about the legislation.
00:10:41 Speaker 3
Here are some details about what other communities are doing in terms of resistance in terms of pushing back.
00:10:47 Speaker 3
In so that there is, there is something that I can offer.
00:10:52 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:10:52 Speaker 2
Could you actually expand on that?
00:10:54 Speaker 2
I think that’s a concept that maybe everybody, especially, maybe I don’t know, it’s been so long since I’ve been in the US, but for my US, like I I find like, I don’t know if it’s a.
00:11:05 Speaker 2
Time thing or just that like?
00:11:07 Speaker 2
I’ve moved or like if it’s a geographical difference between the US like cultural or.
00:11:13 Speaker 2
Temporal I don’t know, but I feel like certain there’s certain things people talk a lot about.
00:11:17 Speaker 2
A lot in Canada that I don’t know if they’re having conversations about this in the US anymore.
00:11:21 Speaker 2
But about this sort of idea of, like extractivism and research and it could you just like sort of expand on like what what do you mean when you say you were what you learned on research in the north and like, what did tell me more about what you learned about that?
00:11:24 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:11:35 Speaker 3
What I learned is that, well, I think that extractivism is the right word.
00:11:40 Speaker 3
And that is that is how many communities feel, and I mean it isn’t an my first experience with that was not in fact in an indigenous community, but in a low income housing.
00:11:57 Speaker 3
Cluster and I was working as a as a graduate student and I had an RA position on this larger project and so my job was to recruit interview participants and so I was walking around this housing public housing development and I looked left and I looked right and there were other people who looked just like me with clipboards and paper and pens.
00:12:24 Speaker 3
And I was.
00:12:24 Speaker 3
Big ohhhhh this is a bit gross.
00:12:27 Speaker 3
You know that we are all here trying to race each other to ring the doorbell of people in order to interview them or follow up on something.
00:12:39 Speaker 3
And so it it was for research, yeah.
00:12:42 Speaker 2
Like for research like this, like so at this is all also like I mean I can totally see myself as that person if I were not.
00:12:49 Speaker 2
As socially anxious this, but it’s like this idea, though I think is for so long is that like, well, we’re the good guys, like, as the researchers, it’s like we’re being good and we’re just trying to make your lives better.
00:12:57 Speaker 3
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
00:13:02 Speaker 3
Yeah, you just want to tell your story.
00:13:04 Speaker 2
Yeah, like what’s wrong with that?
00:13:06 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:13:06 Speaker 2
And yet, as you’re saying it like when you start to look around, it’s like, oh, this feels kind of gross.
00:13:10 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:13:10 Speaker 2
So.
00:13:11 Speaker 2
So yeah, keep.
00:13:12 Speaker 3
I mean, there were, I mean it, I mean just just finishing that thinking more about that experience. And one of the most fruitful ways for me to recruit participants in that particular project was to hang out at the Food bank.
00:13:25 Speaker 3
Because the there was a a common shared space in that housing community, and that’s where they had the food bank.
00:13:32 Speaker 3
And there were it was.
00:13:34 Speaker 3
It was a hub for other services and so if I spent time hanging out there then I could meet people chit chat and then ask them if I could follow up for an interview.
00:13:44 Speaker 3
And so I would find myself playing cards with people and getting to know some folks.
00:13:50 Speaker 3
And I met this young woman, and she indeed agreed to sit down with me for an interview.
00:13:55 Speaker 3
And.
00:13:56 Speaker 3
We did that and then at the end, she said something along the line now.
00:14:00 Speaker 3
So when are we going to get together again?
00:14:02 Speaker 3
And and my heart just broke.
00:14:07 Speaker 3
And I had this terrible feeling in my stomach and I felt like I had tricked her.
00:14:13 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:14:14 Speaker 3
That she thought this was the beginning of a friendship.
00:14:17 Speaker 3
And I needed something from her.
00:14:19 Speaker 3
So these these are tricky things to negotiate.
00:14:23 Speaker 3
That and that there is something extractive list about what we are doing and so.
00:14:23
Yeah.
00:14:30 Speaker 3
Move in the case of Nunavut, which is one of the northern territories in Canada, which is the majority of the population, is Inuit, and they have a national organization that represents their interest, particularly in relation to the federal government, but that they also develop policies.
00:14:53 Speaker 3
Related to health related to education and related to research.
00:14:57 Speaker 3
And so they have a research protocol.
00:15:00 Speaker 3
If you want to engage with the Community Nunavut, then you need to be familiar with this protocol and you need to apply for a research license.
00:15:11 Speaker 3
You know it is it is governed.
00:15:12 Speaker 3
It is.
00:15:13 Speaker 3
It is fairly highly regulated.
00:15:15 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:15:15 Speaker 3
And so one of the very basic stipulations in those research protocols is that the Community must.
00:15:22 Speaker 3
First, decide that this is research that they want.
00:15:26 Speaker 3
It is that the impetus to launch this project comes from them, that you don’t kind of parachute in and say I am here to poke and prod and figure out what is going on.
00:15:32 Speaker 2
Is so cool.
00:15:39 Speaker 3
Yeah, they identify an issue.
00:15:41 Speaker 3
They identify a problem and then partnerships are formed and the other thing that is kind of at the core of these protocols is that you must hire research assistants.
00:15:52 Speaker 3
And so it’s not.
00:15:53 Speaker 3
Just that they are setting the agenda.
00:15:56 Speaker 3
It’s not just that the research questions reflect what they what are their priorities, but that they are young people are also gaining skills and hands-on experience in conducting research.
00:16:08 Speaker 2
Yeah, that is so cool.
00:16:09 Speaker 2
And it also just like I keep thinking like going back to the minds and this idea of like, who are the good guys or who are the bad guys like I think?
00:16:17 Speaker 2
Like to me there we’re all good guys.
00:16:19 Speaker 2
And we’re all bad guys.
00:16:20 Speaker 2
And so it’s it, this idea, it’s like the mining companies, we can see them as these, like giant, powerful, multibillion dollar things.
00:16:28 Speaker 2
But like my, my husband is really into rock collecting.
00:16:31 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:16:31 Speaker 2
And so we went to like the rock and mineral show.
00:16:34 Speaker 2
That was that, you know, some little well, that little I don’t know, Nubian sports blacks or something anyway.
00:16:39 Speaker 2
And they had there people from Carlton there.
00:16:41 Speaker 2
Carleton University from the geology department, and I remember I think I took a photo of it.
00:16:47 Speaker 2
I’ll put it maybe in the show notes if I can find it, but it was like all about.
00:16:50 Speaker 2
Look at all the minerals.
00:16:51 Speaker 2
that are found in this area that is used to make a cell phone and they were like really enthusiastic and really happy about it.
00:16:56 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:17:00 Speaker 2
And I was just like, this is a little problematic to me that it was like, presented uncritically.
00:17:07 Speaker 2
And so one it points to me to like the importance of sociological and other social sciences research that we stopped to question these things, but also the people doing that or like the the mining companies, they all probably feel like they’re the good guys too.
00:17:13 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:17:23 Speaker 2
Like they are creating like you.
00:17:25 Speaker 2
Well, as you said at the beginning, like, um, electric cars or cell phones like I have.
00:17:31 Speaker 2
Well, I don’t have electric car, but I, you know, I have a cell phone like I use all these things.
00:17:35 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:17:35 Speaker 2
And so I think it is like what you’re pointing to is something that I just keep.
00:17:40 Speaker 2
I keep thinking of use it as the shows like logo is Hannah parents question like her simple her purpose in writing the human condition.
00:17:49 Speaker 2
Is she just wants us to ask, what are we doing?
00:17:51 Speaker 2
And it’s like, what are we doing?
00:17:53 Speaker 2
Why are we doing it?
00:17:54 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:17:54 Speaker 2
What are the implications and um because I think it’s so easy for us in our sort of like.
00:17:55 Speaker 1
Mention hmm.
00:18:00 Speaker 2
Especially as white people.
00:18:02 Speaker 2
To like get into the like Saviorism, of like I’m gonna rescue everybody and I love that the sort of, you know, the work that you do to try to not do that and to sort of challenge it.
00:18:05 Speaker 1
OK, food.
00:18:16 Speaker 3
I also love Hannah Arendt, the human condition, and there is a line in the preface that I always share with my students, and I think about it on a regular basis.
00:18:27 Speaker 3
And so if you haven’t read the preface.
00:18:29 Speaker 3
This in that in those pages she describes watching the first shuttle launch.
00:18:37 Speaker 3
Into space on television, so she.
00:18:40 Speaker 1
Spot them.
00:18:41 Speaker 3
So she’s watching it on television and she writes, you know, and and realizes and recognizes that globally, people are cheering.
00:18:50 Speaker 3
People are happy.
00:18:51 Speaker 3
It feels like a victory of humanity and and instead, Hannah Arendt writes.
00:18:57 Speaker 3
I fear we may be insufficiently preoccupied with living.
00:19:02 Speaker 3
And I just think that that is a place where I want to start every project.
00:19:10 Speaker 3
You know that that at the very heart of what I am doing is about life and and what what is interrupting or interfering or what is the, what are the ruptures here with life and how can we suture that and what are people doing to suture that like that is to me.
00:19:31 Speaker 3
Be such a fundamental question.
00:19:34 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
00:19:37 Speaker 2
I love that.
00:19:38 Speaker 2
And that it’s yeah, like.
00:19:39 Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean just this question of you know, I think that you know you and I both are very familiar with accusations of wokeness.
00:19:47 Speaker 2
Well, you.
00:19:48 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:19:49 Speaker 2
Political correctness, as they used to say, and I think there’s this idea that, like the social sciences and what we’re doing is about like disciplining people or like correcting them.
00:19:51 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:19:57 Speaker 1
You.
00:19:57 Speaker 1
Hmm hmm.
00:19:58 Speaker 2
And it’s like, no, you don’t get it.
00:20:00 Speaker 2
It’s like we are trying to like celebrate and like challenge and question.
00:20:05 Speaker 2
But so that we could sort of bring.
00:20:09 Speaker 2
Like as you say, like life like like bring more life about and you know it’s sort of as opposed to destruction and and death.
00:20:10 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:20:17 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:20:18 Speaker 2
You know, I love that.
00:20:21 Speaker 2
I love that.
00:20:22 Speaker 2
Could we talk a little bit too about like maybe your, would you mind talking a little bit about the article you were with Kathleen and just because I think that that also has a lot of important lessons about just what we’re talking about that sort of extractivism.
00:20:38 Speaker 2
So could you just like?
00:20:40 Speaker 2
What I sort of described in the intro.
00:20:43 Speaker 2
Sort of.
00:20:44 Speaker 2
Your method or whatever, but like what?
00:20:46 Speaker 2
What inspired the paper and maybe could you talk maybe about the findings and or yeah, whatever.
00:20:50 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:20:51 Speaker 2
Whatever seems interesting to you?
00:20:52 Speaker 3
Yeah, it was like Kathleen and I were stuck, like so many people in COVID.
00:21:00 Speaker 3
Can’t the house can’t interact with other humans face to face, and so this was a project born of those conditions.
00:21:10 Speaker 3
And So what we wanted to do was.
00:21:13 Speaker 3
Is figure out what we were teaching a first year sociology students and and as we, as we say in the paper introduction to sociology is a service course and and so we really meet students from all disciplines in those courses and by and large what is happening in introduction courses in sociology, we give students a little survey of some of the classic theories and some fundamentals and research methodology.
00:21:16 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:21:48 Speaker 3
And then explores some substantive topics.
00:21:52 Speaker 3
Crime and deviance.
00:21:53 Speaker 3
Families, education and so on and so forth.
00:21:57 Speaker 3
Each textbook has has its own particular approach, but for the most part they all follow a very similar formula.
00:22:08 Speaker 3
And so Kathleen and I put our heads together and asked the question.
00:22:13 Speaker 3
And.
00:22:16 Speaker 3
What is happening in these books in terms of presenting information about Canadas indigenous communities?
00:22:26 Speaker 3
When, where and how do they show up in these books?
00:22:29 Speaker 3
And so we did a content analysis and we we focused on the top 10 textbooks and we did that just by kind of looking at um course syllabi if they were.
00:22:43 Speaker 3
Accessible online.
00:22:45 Speaker 3
Looking at what the university bookstores were selling, so we just kind of crawled through the Internet.
00:22:49 Speaker 2
I wondered has.
00:22:51 Speaker 2
Yeah, but it’s like also feels like to me, especially if you look at Canadian textbooks, I don’t know, it’s been a long time since I taught intro, but I I taught intro like 8 times before I got my first job and like 1st 10 year charged up.
00:23:04 Speaker 2
But and it seems like there aren’t that many like there’s like 10.
00:23:08 Speaker 2
Feels like it’s pretty, yeah, exhaustive of what?
00:23:12 Speaker 2
Would be sort of the major textbooks like that feels like like 10 might sound small in some places, but it like to me that feels like you’re almost getting the population of all the books.
00:23:19 Speaker 2
That.
00:23:20 Speaker 2
Anyone would teach? Yeah.
00:23:21 Speaker 3
But the handful of publishers, and we, and so even if it is not a publisher with kind of a Home Office in Canada, some of them have a textbook that they have tweaked for the Canadian audience.
00:23:36 Speaker 2
Right, like the Canadian edition of the Rick Schaefer window.
00:23:38 Speaker 3
The Canadian edition of Seven, Zach.
00:23:40 Speaker 3
That’s right.
00:23:40 Speaker 3
That’s right.
00:23:41 Speaker 3
That’s right.
00:23:41 Speaker 3
So, um, so we did a content analysis and found that so.
00:23:49 Speaker 3
Inspired by some of the literature, in particular, Eve tucks work on methodologies and.
00:23:58 Speaker 3
As a as an indigenous scholar.
00:24:00 Speaker 3
And so we found that there, that there was this, there was this presentation that she described as.
00:24:11 Speaker 3
She that she describes as damage centred and so when?
00:24:16 Speaker 3
When there is a reference to people who are indigenous in the textbooks, it is about crime.
00:24:23 Speaker 3
It is about poverty.
00:24:25 Speaker 3
It is about not finishing high school.
00:24:28 Speaker 3
Yeah, alcoholism and and so it is this really damaged, centred portrayal.
00:24:34 Speaker 3
Yeah, of indigenous communities.
00:24:37 Speaker 3
There is also this this term that Zoe Todd uses, which is citational lism and.
00:24:46 Speaker 3
And that is about, you know, so where there is a mention the source on that data is from, well, the majority is Statistics Canada, right?
00:24:59 Speaker 2
Oh, interesting.
00:25:00 Speaker 3
So we how do we come to know the experiences of indigenous communities in Canada?
00:25:05 Speaker 3
We know them statistically that there is this percentage and so it’s not just damage centre.
00:25:07 Speaker 2
Rates.
00:25:11 Speaker 3
But we don’t know the people.
00:25:13 Speaker 3
We know their numbers, right? Right.
00:25:15 Speaker 2
And like there’s someone I wish I could remember someone once said to me some famous sociologist always said point to the average person.
00:25:22 Speaker 2
Do you like?
00:25:22 Speaker 2
Can you point do you know?
00:25:23 Speaker 2
Do you know that quote?
00:25:24 Speaker 1
Like.
00:25:24 Speaker 3
No, I don’t know that quote.
00:25:25 Speaker 2
I forgot I got.
00:25:26 Speaker 2
I gotta look it up, but like basically this idea that like the average never doesn’t exist.
00:25:30 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:25:30 Speaker 2
Like you.
00:25:31 Speaker 2
Can’t we all are.
00:25:32 Speaker 2
And this was like another quant head person sociologist that I knew who said this to me.
00:25:34 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:25:36 Speaker 2
But yeah, yeah, it’s like that doesn’t really capture the diversity of human existence or experience.
00:25:43 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:44 Speaker 2
So OK, so.
00:25:45 Speaker 3
Joe Todd literalism.
00:25:46 Speaker 2
Talk like that, yes, yes.
00:25:48 Speaker 3
You know that it’s very, very few sources that these authors and we’re not, we’re not trying to single anybody out or shame anybody in particular cause it was across the board.
00:25:58 Speaker 3
It was the pattern and so not sometimes, but not often, looking to an indigenous source for a discussion on indigenous experiences.
00:25:59 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:26:10 Speaker 3
And there was also a real overrepresentation of discussions of residential schools and and other.
00:26:19 Speaker 3
Sources of trauma.
00:26:21 Speaker 3
And so it was.
00:26:23 Speaker 3
And we quote him in the paper.
00:26:26 Speaker 3
Charles Mendes, who’s an anthropologist at UBC, describes it as the trauma parade as a way of knowing some indigenous experiences in Canada.
00:26:32
Hmm.
00:26:34 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:26:38 Speaker 3
So those are that those were in the results and that was the point of the analysis.
00:26:44 Speaker 3
And so we also intern.
00:26:47 Speaker 3
You’d indigenous scholars to talk about these findings, process the results out loud with them, and get some of their insights.
00:26:56 Speaker 3
And that was those were really great conversations too.
00:26:58 Speaker 2
I love that.
00:26:58 Speaker 2
And again, that’s like what you were talking about in your work and right in in Nunavut of, you know, it’s like bring it back.
00:27:04 Speaker 1
Right.
00:27:06 Speaker 2
Like, we’re not just gonna extract this information? Yeah.
00:27:07 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:27:08 Speaker 3
That’s right.
00:27:09 Speaker 3
What is important to you in this conversation?
00:27:14 Speaker 3
You know, if the if the objective is to raise awareness about the way that introduction to sociology textbooks.
00:27:23 Speaker 3
Or teaching these young scholars to, you know, what are we teaching them about formulating questions about picking a priority about framing a problematic?
00:27:37 Speaker 3
And so that’s those were great conversations and that was the objective of.
00:27:39 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:27:42 Speaker 2
You were also just, you know, the point that you were just making about how everyone is doing it.
00:27:47 Speaker 2
I think they’re also is a kind of risk in a white person coming in and being like.
00:27:53 Speaker 2
I see nine other books are doing it.
00:27:55 Speaker 2
I’m writing intro book, so I’m going to do something entirely different because then they’re like, oh, maybe I’m not matching my peers or whatever.
00:28:02 Speaker 2
And I think as you were pointing out, it’s important that we, when we’re talking about you know, it’s like you know like nothing about us without us is like a thing trans folks say as well.
00:28:10 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:28:13 Speaker 2
So what were the indigenous scholars that you were talk about?
00:28:17 Speaker 2
Like what were they suggesting?
00:28:20 Speaker 2
As sort of what should be happening if this isn’t the right way to do it, what would how how should textbooks be talking about this stuff?
00:28:28 Speaker 3
Collaboration.
00:28:29 Speaker 3
You know, bringing indigenous scullers on board, citing indigenous forces.
00:28:36 Speaker 3
Recognizing you know, the other thing that that happens, as I said a moment ago, there are these substantive topics that introduction.
00:28:47 Speaker 3
Two sociology textbooks always include and, so if they appear in the chapters on race and ethnicity, for example, and as the scholars we interviewed pointed out, we do not understand ourselves racially and as an ethnicity we understand ourselves geopolitically.
00:29:10 Speaker 2
As a.
00:29:10 Speaker 3
We.
00:29:10 Speaker 3
Nation nations, we are not brown people of this variety, and so although one of our one of our research participants made the point that.
00:29:13
Rich.
00:29:16
Wait.
00:29:25 Speaker 3
That sometimes a discourse on race and ethnicity is an important tool in reacting to a policy, to legislation or whatever.
00:29:36 Speaker 3
It is not how we understand how we understand ourselves.
00:29:40 Speaker 3
And so if there’s an over concentration.
00:29:45 Speaker 3
Of discussions of indigenous realities, indigenous experiences in the chapters on race, race and ethnicity than already that’s a problem.
00:29:53 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:29:53 Speaker 3
It should appear in a chapter on politics.
00:29:57 Speaker 2
I was gonna say, like, political sociology.
00:29:59 Speaker 3
That’s right.
00:29:59 Speaker 2
I would totally get that wrong if I were making an intro textbook until you just said that.
00:30:04 Speaker 2
That is so fast and it makes total sense.
00:30:06 Speaker 2
Like I’ve tried stuff like.
00:30:07 Speaker 1
How?
00:30:08 Speaker 2
Fred multiple thing.
00:30:10 Speaker 2
I mean, I’m not an expert on indigenous stuff, but like everything I’ve read is like we are nations.
00:30:11 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:30:15 Speaker 2
This is, you know, that I’m now.
00:30:19 Speaker 2
I’m so glad you wrote that paper in here today, because I feel like a.
00:30:22 Speaker 2
Dummy, but yeah.
00:30:23 Speaker 3
And so, you know, finding junior female indigenous scholars to cite bringing them on to a committee to collaborate, collaborate with you in the writing and thinking about being much more intentional about where that content appears in at.
00:30:43 Speaker 3
This book, the other thing, the other pattern, and again every single I think maybe without exception every single introduction textbook did this is in a discussion about sexualities and identities.
00:31:00 Speaker 3
They all used the example of two spirited people with no source.
00:31:03 Speaker 1
Ohhhhh.
00:31:06 Speaker 3
No source, right?
00:31:08 Speaker 3
Where does this idea come from?
00:31:10 Speaker 3
Who did you speak?
00:31:11 Speaker 3
To about this reality, and whose reality is this?
00:31:16 Speaker 3
Is it every nation?
00:31:17 Speaker 3
When is it every First Nation in Canada that has this notion?
00:31:21 Speaker 3
Is that the language that they use?
00:31:23 Speaker 3
Are you sure that you understand correctly that this is about gender fluidity, which is often how it is deployed?
00:31:31 Speaker 3
It is like um, it is like a prop.
00:31:36 Speaker 3
Yeah, that authors put on the table for illustrative purposes, but it does not come from.
00:31:45 Speaker 3
Any indigenous scholar or any indigenous authors account of anything?
00:31:51 Speaker 2
That is so fascinating, and I feel so-called out right now because I have to make up a course.
00:31:56 Speaker 2
I’m going to be teaching gender and society at this spring and I’m just like, ooh, mental note, to not do like, I don’t like.
00:32:02 Speaker 1
Which?
00:32:04 Speaker 2
I just pulled out the books just for like one second to like I haven’t even given any thought.
00:32:09 Speaker 2
But I’m like, oh, yeah, like, this is like it’s sort of just like in the alphabet soup of queer sort of.
00:32:16 Speaker 2
That’s right, unities and I mean two spirited people exist like, yes.
00:32:16 Speaker 1
Communities.
00:32:19 Speaker 3
Totally. Totally.
00:32:20 Speaker 2
Yes, please. Yeah.
00:32:22 Speaker 3
But it is it is.
00:32:23 Speaker 3
It was fascinating to us and people some and some of the folks that we spoke to agreed.
00:32:30 Speaker 3
That to put that into a textbook without citing a source without asking somebody who is Ojibwe, or Hayden Ashani or Cree or two spirited or too small like, tell me about this idea, this experience, this concept, what is the word that fits that experience, that concept?
00:32:52 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:32:53 Speaker 2
Yes, again and it’s like.
00:32:56 Speaker 2
Yeah, it makes total sense, but it also I think speaks to why like when people talk about like representation or inclusion like conservatives or just general jerks will be like it, like, present it as they like.
00:33:11 Speaker 2
Oh, I need to like tick this box or like oh, this is like, you know, I have to be politically correct.
00:33:17 Speaker 2
And it’s like no.
00:33:18 Speaker 2
We’re all idiots in some way or another like we are.
00:33:21 Speaker 2
Everyone is beautiful and brilliant.
00:33:23 Speaker 2
But also we all have things that we don’t know about and and that is I think the challenge of writing an introductory textbook is if it requires you to act like you’re an expert on so many things that you are not an expert on.
00:33:38 Speaker 2
And so to like, have some sympathy for like the authors of those books.
00:33:44 Speaker 2
It’s it’s hard, but it also like and This is why it’s not you’re not like.
00:33:49 Speaker 2
Berating anyone.
00:33:50 Speaker 2
It’s just like, oh, hey, hey.
00:33:52 Speaker 2
I mean, this is what all to me.
00:33:53 Speaker 2
Good research should be about.
00:33:55 Speaker 2
It’s like shining a light on something that we, you know, it’s like you’re cleaning your house.
00:33:59 Speaker 2
You might miss a spot and if somebody points out.
00:34:01 Speaker 2
Oh, hey, there’s some dirt over there.
00:34:02 Speaker 2
It doesn’t mean like, oh, I’m the worst cleaner.
00:34:05 Speaker 2
I should just I should just sell my house.
00:34:07 Speaker 2
And I just don’t deserve to live here.
00:34:08 Speaker 2
It’s like, oh, I miss.
00:34:10 Speaker 2
I missed something and so and the way that we find it is by having people who are thinking to look in those spaces because that’s their lives or that’s their research area or whatever.
00:34:20 Speaker 2
It’s like they have been spending the time.
00:34:22 Speaker 2
Focusing on that and so, which also makes me think of like when people act like they’re experts on everything and it’s really annoying, like a sociologist, we get that a lot of, like, I’ll.
00:34:32 Speaker 2
Tell you what society is like and what you like. OK, friend.
00:34:35 Speaker 2
OK.
00:34:36 Speaker 2
But yeah, I just wanted to make that point about like, why it’s so important.
00:34:41 Speaker 2
That we include other voices and other people.
00:34:43 Speaker 3
So yeah, and and I do wanna say that, um, that that many some of these Canadian textbooks.
00:34:51 Speaker 3
Since the additions that we examined were published, subsequent editions, some of them do include collaborative work with indigenous scholars, and so this is a conversation that is happening in sociology.
00:35:07 Speaker 3
This is a conversation that is happening in Canadian universities, and I mean photos to our colleagues who are taking on these big projects of writing these textbooks and um and kind of having the humility and curiosity that would inspire them to reach out and be collaborative.
00:35:27 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I think it also is like.
00:35:30 Speaker 2
There’s they’re just has been a lot of work at decolonizing.
00:35:34 Speaker 2
You know, there’s obviously a lot more work to be done, but yeah, that’s some really important work and I think it’s like the more that we are bringing in indigenous voices and not just as like, you know, a free speaker to extract their wisdom but like, actually paying people as like you.
00:35:48 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:35:51 Speaker 2
Know and and bringing them into departments and that that’s when we start to like see the world like, see our research. See all of these things and new and.
00:36:00 Speaker 2
It’s sort of new and old ways which I think is really like what this whole project of academia should be should be about.
00:36:03 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:36:08 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:36:10 Speaker 2
But I wondered if we could also talk just in terms of like the project of academia.
00:36:14 Speaker 2
I guess if we could also talk, maybe some of us promised at the top about sort of some of your thoughts and advice both as because you’re the coordinator of the MA program in three MA programs, thesis, major research paper and of course based program.
00:36:25 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:36:29 Speaker 3
Which that’s right. Are.
00:36:31 Speaker 2
Sort of very different things.
00:36:32 Speaker 2
And so you are on.
00:36:33 Speaker 2
In the admissions committee, I wonder if you could speak like you’ve been doing.
00:36:36 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:36:38 Speaker 2
How long have you been doing?
00:36:39 Speaker 2
Have you been?
00:36:39 Speaker 3
On this for a long time.
00:36:40 Speaker 1
Free.
00:36:42 Speaker 3
Um, I was on it before and then I took on different administrative work for awhile and then I circled back.
00:36:51 Speaker 3
I should say there is no poor me in that because I do really enjoy that and I I find it really fascinating to read application packages.
00:37:03 Speaker 3
People out there living interesting lives and so as a sociologist, when I get to open these transcripts and read their letters of intent and reference letters like it’s a, it’s all fascinating to me because people are fascinating.
00:37:19 Speaker 2
I love that.
00:37:20 Speaker 2
I love that.
00:37:21 Speaker 2
So when you are opening these things, what are you looking for?
00:37:25 Speaker 2
I mean, there’s part of it as you as a sociologist, but then you as.
00:37:28 Speaker 2
To sort of first gatekeeper of who gets to be a graduate student at the University of Ottawa.
00:37:35 Speaker 2
What’s and like?
00:37:36 Speaker 2
How?
00:37:36 Speaker 2
Like you get, we get a lot of applications, don’t we?
00:37:39 Speaker 3
Like we do some some of the more kind of quote unquote professional programs like international fairs, they they are flooded with.
00:37:52 Speaker 3
I think that in some years they’ve had like 800 applicants to their program.
00:37:56 Speaker 2
Oh my God.
00:37:58 Speaker 3
And I can understand the logic there that people see a more see a very Direct Line between the content of the degree, the title of the degree and some of the demands out there in the labour force.
00:38:11 Speaker 3
But we we get a lot of requests as well and and I what I would say if somebody um, if somebody was sitting at home thinking about next, the next step they would like to take in their life in their life and perhaps Graduate School is in the.
00:38:30 Speaker 3
I a by all means submit an application because I think that, um, people might be surprised at the fit between their undergraduate experiences, their academic background at the undergraduate level, and what we recognize when they are applying to Graduate School.
00:38:52 Speaker 3
We, the majority of our students, do have a degree in sociology.
00:38:57 Speaker 3
There’s no question that that is an obvious match, and if they don’t have a degree in sociology then they might have a lot of sociology courses on their transcript and they graduated in a kind of sister discipline like political science or criminology or gender studies.
00:39:17 Speaker 2
Interested.
00:39:18 Speaker 3
Gender studies.
00:39:20 Speaker 3
We get some folks who have an undergraduate degree in psychology not a lot, but I think that there is a lot of content there that.
00:39:28 Speaker 3
We can recognize as sociologists, especially in terms of research methods, yeah.
00:39:31 Speaker 1
Totally.
00:39:35 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:39:36 Speaker 2
So this is the kind of people who are applying.
00:39:38 Speaker 2
Is there anything like how?
00:39:40 Speaker 2
How does it work that you like?
00:39:42 Speaker 2
Who do you pick like?
00:39:44 Speaker 2
Is it just based on their grades and that they have enough sociology courses?
00:39:48 Speaker 2
Do you like how much do like I know every like because I’m writing reference letters for folks now.
00:39:54 Speaker 2
So I know that they need those, but like what?
00:39:57 Speaker 2
How do you how do?
00:39:58 Speaker 2
You make decisions about the.
00:40:01 Speaker 3
We um grades do matter.
00:40:04 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:40:05 Speaker 3
And I think that so at the very least, like every program, there is a cut off.
00:40:10 Speaker 3
And so if you’re average, if the last 60 credits of your undergraduate degree don’t kind of help you clear the threshold of having a 7.0 out of 10 Ridge.
00:40:24 Speaker 2
And that’s like a.
00:40:24 Speaker 2
Bee it’s like a bee.
00:40:26 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:40:27 Speaker 3
Yeah, low B, then indeed your file won’t go forward to the admissions committee.
00:40:28 Speaker 1
OK.
00:40:34 Speaker 3
We um and I guess in this much as a grade speaks to somebody’s previous success as a student that we, we want to set people up to succeed in Graduate School, so grades do matter.
00:40:50 Speaker 3
We also recognize and that’s why I pour over transcripts, because sometimes when you see the average, the average might be.
00:41:03 Speaker 3
Something kind of modest, but when you look at the transcript, you see, you know, worked really hard and really succeeded in these courses.
00:41:12 Speaker 3
But when this student maybe had the courage to dip their toes in another discipline or try another area, that kind of paid a price with some low grades.
00:41:24 Speaker 3
And so that’s that’s not fair.
00:41:27 Speaker 2
Raids.
00:41:27 Speaker 3
And we pay attention to if it if, if it matters to the discipline and the courses and the work that we’re doing in our program then.
00:41:38 Speaker 3
If you if you have a really low grade in Japanese studies, well, good for you for trying.
00:41:43 Speaker 2
Right.
00:41:46 Speaker 3
But we’re going to penalize you for struggling and not in that language course.
00:41:46 Speaker 1
Not gonna be, yeah.
00:41:51 Speaker 2
I love that.
00:41:51 Speaker 3
And so and yeah.
00:41:52 Speaker 2
I love that I also had a student once who was in one of my undergrad classes and he wanted a reference letter, and at first I was like, eh, that GPA is not very high.
00:42:02 Speaker 2
And then he came to talk to me.
00:42:03 Speaker 2
And it was because he got basically like.
00:42:05 Speaker 2
I don’t know if you can.
00:42:06 Speaker 2
It’s like technically an addiction, but like like I was like video game play.
00:42:11 Speaker 2
Like I forget which.
00:42:12 Speaker 2
Anyway, one of the like big ones and was just like basically in his first year.
00:42:15 Speaker 2
It was like, hey, barely.
00:42:17 Speaker 2
Like almost flunked out of everything.
00:42:19 Speaker 2
And then but then got help for it.
00:42:21 Speaker 2
Got his stuff together.
00:42:22 Speaker 2
And then, like in his last year or two, he was like getting old, like, as in a minuses or something.
00:42:27 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:42:28 Speaker 2
So I also love the like in the US, Gpas like high school and university.
00:42:34 Speaker 2
Or College, as I say.
00:42:36 Speaker 2
Like it’s your whole GPA.
00:42:37 Speaker 2
There’s nowhere in Canada.
00:42:38 Speaker 2
I love it that it’s like your top 6 marks from grade 12 is what gets you to university or in here that you’re saying is like the last. It’s the last half.
00:42:43 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:42:47 Speaker 3
Then.
00:42:48 Speaker 2
It’s like you don’t get penalized for when you are like floundering.
00:42:50 Speaker 3
Trying to figure it out, you know.
00:42:53 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:42:53 Speaker 3
Floundering in the beginning, right?
00:42:55 Speaker 2
Yeah, like that’s just it seems so.
00:42:57 Speaker 2
Much more humane.
00:42:58 Speaker 2
Yeah, you know and and it allows those of us who might have been **** ** so a little bit and sure getting to like get.
00:42:59 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:05 Speaker 3
Mr. Live an interesting life.
00:43:08 Speaker 3
Don’t just put your head down and motor ahead.
00:43:08 Speaker 2
Right.
00:43:10 Speaker 2
That right?
00:43:10 Speaker 3
That’s not interesting.
00:43:12 Speaker 2
Yeah, right.
00:43:13 Speaker 2
And there’s a lot of research that comes.
00:43:15 Speaker 2
Out of life.
00:43:16 Speaker 3
Of living and I think that your point about reference letters is really important, and I, and I wish that more students gave a little bit of a spiel to their referees because there’s no question that with some letters you can see that this, this professor really knows this student.
00:43:17 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:43:37 Speaker 3
They’re they’re really unpacking the journey that they took together and that’s that’s great.
00:43:42 Speaker 3
But otherwise, you know, maybe that’s, um, full-time Prof but, but you had them in a class of 120, so they they can’t really speak to what it is about you.
00:43:55 Speaker 3
That is interesting or relevant, and so it is always welcomed to layout some bullet points.
00:44:04 Speaker 3
Here are some things that are amazing from my CV, from the essays that I’ve written, here’s where I’m going with my research.
00:44:05 Speaker 2
Oh my God.
00:44:12 Speaker 3
If you give your your referee.
00:44:15 Speaker 3
If you approach a professor to ask for a reference letter and then follow up with a nice bullet point list of your strengths and your research potential, and why you’re going to make a great TA, you are going to end up with a reference letter that offers a great deal more insight.
00:44:33 Speaker 3
Because I do look for to validate my impression of a file in the reference letter or or perhaps a reference letter can balance some of the things that might look might be of concern, and the transcript and the example that you gave is a great one.
00:44:42
Hmm.
00:44:50 Speaker 3
Look, this student was struggling.
00:44:52 Speaker 3
Thing and then they worked really hard to turn that ship around like that.
00:44:56 Speaker 3
Sounds like a great student.
00:44:58 Speaker 3
That sounds like a student.
00:44:59 Speaker 3
Who is now really committed?
00:45:01 Speaker 2
Yeah, there’s, yeah, like they found what they wanted.
00:45:01 Speaker 3
To their studies.
00:45:04 Speaker 3
You yeah.
00:45:04 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:45:05 Speaker 2
And that’s, you know, as opposed to just being like, well, I don’t know what else I’ll do.
00:45:08 Speaker 2
I guess I’m going to go to grad school.
00:45:10 Speaker 3
That’s right.
00:45:10 Speaker 2
So just touching, touching that.
00:45:11 Speaker 2
Which is like which is.
00:45:12 Speaker 3
Also, a dime, which is certainly true for many people, is that I haven’t left school right.
00:45:19 Speaker 3
So if I.
00:45:19 Speaker 3
Can I can relate to that?
00:45:22 Speaker 3
There’s there’s no need to leave these four walls.
00:45:24 Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s, yeah.
00:45:25 Speaker 2
No, totally.
00:45:26 Speaker 2
And I I think also like I always tell my students, I’m like tell me, I was like, tell me as much as you want.
00:45:32 Speaker 2
Like it doesn’t mean I will say it, and sometimes they’ll put in things like I say like I give all my student I have a kind of spiel of like alright, give me any work that I graded that you did in my class.
00:45:43 Speaker 2
So I can speak to that.
00:45:44 Speaker 2
Yeah, like usually what I do is I’ll go through my grade book and see like and I because it’s always an excel.
00:45:49 Speaker 2
So I’ll sort it like I’ll highlight your name and all your grades and then I’ll sort it and be like, OK, is there a kind of like statistic I can assign to this to be like, oh, you were in the top third?
00:45:54 Speaker 1
The.
00:45:59 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:46:00 Speaker 2
Or, you know, you got the highest grade on this one assignment or something else.
00:46:04 Speaker 2
Um, but sometimes it’s like really hard if I don’t really know the student.
00:46:08 Speaker 2
If it’s like, you know, it’s like you were a good student with grades.
00:46:12 Speaker 2
But I do not remember you.
00:46:13 Speaker 2
Like, especially like the COVID era.
00:46:16 Speaker 3
Yeah, when they’re cameras were off.
00:46:16 Speaker 2
You know where we were online, right?
00:46:18 Speaker 2
It’s like I don’t know anything about you.
00:46:20 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:46:20 Speaker 2
It’s like the easy letters like I’ve had a few that were just like, Oh my God, I had one student.
00:46:24 Speaker 2
I wrote a reference or a pluses and every single course 1A and he was just like.
00:46:30 Speaker 2
Oh my.
00:46:30 Speaker 2
Like I’d never had a student like like he was so humble and kind and he would come to my office hours like during COVID, like, online and just like chat.
00:46:39 Speaker 2
Like he took a couple of my classes like it was like I was.
00:46:42 Speaker 2
So, you know, he wrote me a thank you note after like it like that is a very rare rare student to be able to sort of speak to it, to be like it was so easy.
00:46:47 Speaker 3
Yeah, people.
00:46:51 Speaker 2
Like this is, you know, like they’ll ask, like, you know, is the student in the top one percent 2%?
00:46:56 Speaker 2
It was like that was so easy.
00:46:57 Speaker 2
It’s so much harder for people.
00:46:59 Speaker 2
It’s like, well, they got.
00:47:00 Speaker 2
An A in my class.
00:47:01 Speaker 2
They did well, their paper was good.
00:47:04 Speaker 2
I do not remember anything else.
00:47:06 Speaker 2
What you know like and I try like it’s I wish.
00:47:10 Speaker 2
But if it was like more than a year ago and it’s, you know, it’s like I’m 48 year old woman going through perimenopause like, this is not fair and feed me and me and feed.
00:47:20 Speaker 3
Me some details.
00:47:20 Speaker 2
Right.
00:47:21 Speaker 3
Give it to me and I think that because what some some referees resort to a kind of character pro.
00:47:22 Speaker 2
I.
00:47:28 Speaker 3
File and that’s irrelevant.
00:47:29 Speaker 2
Yeah, I don’t.
00:47:30 Speaker 3
Yeah, I don’t care if this is a nice person, right?
00:47:33 Speaker 2
The Yeah, that’s good to know because it’s relevant.
00:47:36 Speaker 2
I often say that’s I often will be like and they’re just lovely to work with as a sort of like, can they work in a team?
00:47:40 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:47:42 Speaker 2
But oftentimes, I mean, sometimes I think is relevant, but I’ll defer to talking about what we did in the class.
00:47:48 Speaker 2
It’s like I’m trying to fill up a page.
00:47:49 Speaker 2
Yeah, because I remember my ex-husband, he got a reference letter and the letter cause it was at McGill.
00:47:55 Speaker 2
And it was, you know, it was like and he was in psychology.
00:47:58 Speaker 2
So they were these huge courses.
00:48:00 Speaker 2
And he didn’t hadn’t had a lot of, like, so he wanted the people that he got the best grades from.
00:48:05 Speaker 2
But one of them was in a class of like 200 people.
00:48:07 Speaker 2
And so basically she just it was something like one or two sentences.
00:48:10 Speaker 2
Like I confirmed this person was my class and he got an A like and sounds like he’s still gonna do grad school.
00:48:18 Speaker 2
So is it OK?
00:48:20 Speaker 2
But I’m just like, I don’t wanna be that person.
00:48:22 Speaker 2
But then sometimes it just feels like filler and well, and so tell me a lot of my podcast episodes, we end up talking about AI because I’m obsessed thinking about it and actually was just talking to one of our colleagues this morning about this as well.
00:48:25 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:48:32 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:48:39 Speaker 2
Does who we’re in it group chat with because she’s like in the thick of like Oh my God.
00:48:44 Speaker 2
Like everyone needs reference letters right now and then so bananas and so like.
00:48:47 Speaker 3
Bananas.
00:48:50 Speaker 2
What are your thoughts on Chachi, PT and AI about like as both?
00:48:55 Speaker 2
I mean, you could talk about it.
00:48:56 Speaker 2
I feel like I still have some like sheep visionist because I will use it, but I’m like, I feel like I’m cheating.
00:49:01 Speaker 2
So even if you want to just speak to it from the perspective of receiving the letters, like can you tell when the letters are written by?
00:49:09 Speaker 2
AI doesn’t matter.
00:49:10 Speaker 3
No, no, you can’t tell.
00:49:12 Speaker 3
And I think that and, and I’ve had this conversation with you already, and I’ve and I fully own the fact that I use AI to help with reference letters, because the bits and pieces that I pull comments from an assignment, comments on the essay.
00:49:34 Speaker 3
Here’s a converse.
00:49:35 Speaker 3
Here’s some notes from a conversation we had about their CV.
00:49:38 Speaker 3
I’ve got bits and bobs and rather than spending 60 plus minutes composing.
00:49:47 Speaker 3
A letter.
00:49:48 Speaker 3
I find it really helpful to use I.
00:49:51 Speaker 3
Yeah, I use copilot, which is the account that we have at this university and and so I queue it up with write me a reference letter using the following notes.
00:50:03 Speaker 3
The content is provided by me and the composition is thanks to AI.
00:50:07 Speaker 1
You.
00:50:09 Speaker 3
Then I go through and and reword some things myself.
00:50:13 Speaker 3
I find that AI is way too effusive.
00:50:15 Speaker 2
Ohe my God, yes, this is where our friend and I were saying I was like, Oh my God, no, this student is great.
00:50:18 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:50:20 Speaker 2
But not the most brilliant scholar ever to have, like.
00:50:24 Speaker 2
You have some planet Earth.
00:50:25 Speaker 2
It’s tone it down.
00:50:27 Speaker 3
OK, I take it down and I yeah.
00:50:27 Speaker 2
Why?
00:50:28 Speaker 2
Know.
00:50:28 Speaker 2
Hey, I.
00:50:28 Speaker 2
It’s like get, a room and.
00:50:34 Speaker 2
So true.
00:50:35 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:50:35 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:50:35 Speaker 2
And I also was saying that I really find AI is like like I sort of use it well.
00:50:43 Speaker 2
What I did recently, I found it really helpful when it was someone that is new to me, I don’t know as well, but I really like.
00:50:52 Speaker 2
I really think that they’re doing exciting things.
00:50:55 Speaker 2
I just don’t have a lot of like concrete examples, but I’m.
00:50:58 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:50:58 Speaker 2
Like I I bet.
00:51:00 Speaker 2
Even them give them this scholarship or whatever.
00:51:01 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:02 Speaker 2
And so it was like I put in their transcript.
00:51:05 Speaker 2
Like I just copied and pasted in their transcript and their CV and I said who I was and what their research project was about and what they’re going to be doing.
00:51:15 Speaker 2
And it was like, holy ****, it just like it really did it like an fight for that kind of a thing.
00:51:21 Speaker 2
It would have taken me half a day, like I’ve spent entire work days working on reference letters, and I know you have long said to me, Phyllis, this is not a good use of your time.
00:51:25 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:51:28 Speaker 3
Don’t devote that much.
00:51:29 Speaker 2
Do not do it like you read them.
00:51:30 Speaker 3
You.
00:51:32 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:32 Speaker 2
On the committee, but it is.
00:51:33 Speaker 2
Like and so it just it really has made a huge difference I think also because I will spend in this is just my own anxiety or whatever.
00:51:42 Speaker 2
But like I spend so much time agonizing over like, yeah.
00:51:45 Speaker 2
Are they in the top 5% and 10% really like if I were to do it mathematically, they’re kind of in the 20%, but like I don’t feel like that is like like I will spend so much time overthinking that to have this machine be like, here you go and then I can read.
00:51:47 Speaker 3
Plotly totally.
00:51:50 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:55 Speaker 3
Uh huh.
00:51:58 Speaker 2
It and be.
00:51:59 Speaker 2
Like oh, like I saved 4 hours of overthinking.
00:52:03 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:52:03 Speaker 2
And then I delete them like yeah, most brilliant person ever.
00:52:07 Speaker 2
I like, I’ll edit it and change it but.
00:52:09 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:52:10 Speaker 2
Yeah, I I find it like miraculous.
00:52:13 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:52:14 Speaker 3
But I think that, um, you know, when you’re reading all of these reference letters, and I should say, as an aside, it is a little bit different when a student is applying for funding, especially if it is a big prize.
00:52:27 Speaker 3
Then I then I think that’s a little bit different, but if we’re talking about admissions where somebody?
00:52:32 Speaker 3
In my position is reading 203 hundred 600 reference letters.
00:52:38 Speaker 3
Yeah, we’re looking for key elements, right?
00:52:41 Speaker 3
To validate what we see in the transcript to counter what we see in the transcript and that goes both ways.
00:52:48 Speaker 3
I have seen kind of mediocre grades, but the referees describe that student as you know, works really hard.
00:52:58 Speaker 3
Really brilliant insights.
00:53:00 Speaker 3
And so that’s important information, especially if they’re coming from a kind of different.
00:53:08 Speaker 3
Framework for grading.
00:53:10 Speaker 3
You know if if a B is really an exceptional grade in the context of that institution, then I don’t necessarily know that off the bat.
00:53:14 Speaker 2
Writings.
00:53:20 Speaker 3
But the referee is giving me information that that looks like a B to you.
00:53:26 Speaker 3
But I’m telling you, this is the top student in our program.
00:53:29 Speaker 2
Which I think I mean, I think you’ve said before for international students especially that’s important.
00:53:32 Speaker 3
For international students, has really.
00:53:34 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:53:35 Speaker 2
Like, we just don’t know the context.
00:53:37 Speaker 2
Yeah, like the edge.
00:53:38 Speaker 2
But but even could be like I remember.
00:53:41 Speaker 2
That I did my first year of undergrads at Big 10 school in the US.
00:53:47 Speaker 2
And then I transferred to McGill, and I remember just feeling like it was so much harder to get an A at McGill than it was.
00:53:53 Speaker 2
And like my my first year school was University of Iowa, and it’s also where I got my PhD and it’s an excellent school.
00:53:59 Speaker 2
It just it’s a different.
00:54:03 Speaker 2
The student body is just different.
00:54:05 Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s like it was just so.
00:54:07 Speaker 2
Like because I think also what people don’t or maybe they know, but it’s like when we’re grading like it’s always like it’s all so subjective.
00:54:15 Speaker 2
And so it’s going to be in reference to like what everybody else is doing.
00:54:18 Speaker 2
Like what if I’m grading a paper?
00:54:20 Speaker 2
I often will pull out a student that it’s like this person is on the ball.
00:54:25 Speaker 2
They are always participating.
00:54:26 Speaker 2
They’ve done good work.
00:54:27 Speaker 2
I’ll pull out that paper, thinking it’ll this will probably be close to the top, and I’m going to use that as a kind of benchmark of learning can expect like maybe others will exceed it.
00:54:34 Speaker 3
Yeah, you know.
00:54:36 Speaker 2
Like I’m not saying.
00:54:37 Speaker 2
That, like I pick one person to get the job grade just off the bat, but it’s like a kind of benchmark and I might even pick somewhere.
00:54:44 Speaker 2
It’s like this person never shows up to class like this.
00:54:48 Speaker 2
Person doesn’t really like and I sort of start with like here my boundaries.
00:54:53 Speaker 2
And so if you are at a place where everybody is a top student and everybody is showing up and ever, it’s like it gets a lot harder.
00:54:57 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:55:01 Speaker 2
Like I still remember in I took a women in the Christian tradition class and I got a B plus on a paper.
00:55:06 Speaker 2
I was so proud of and I put so much work.
00:55:08 Speaker 2
Into it and it went to the Prof and she said, and I was like, you know, like, could you just help me understand what I could do better in the future?
00:55:15 Speaker 2
And she said, well, the one a paper just sparkled.
00:55:20 Speaker 2
And I was like, **** you.
00:55:24 Speaker 2
It’s it’s like the one the one and I was like, what does it mean to sparkle?
00:55:28 Speaker 2
Yeah, I can’t.
00:55:29 Speaker 2
I don’t know how to sparkle but.
00:55:30 Speaker 3
Well that, I mean, that’s kind of a segue to one of the other topics that you and I were going to discuss and that is kind of supervising students.
00:55:37 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:55:38
You know.
00:55:38 Speaker 3
And so, sometimes that mentorship is comes in the form of these are the TA’s that we are supervising because they’re working with us for a course and giving instruction and giving a framework for grading is actually pretty hard.
00:55:54 Speaker 2
Hands.
00:55:55 Speaker 3
And I remember early in my teaching experience I had a TA who.
00:56:03 Speaker 3
Her two previous degrees were from a really different part of the world, a really different university tradition and and so some of what we were doing was trying to figure each other out.
00:56:16 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:56:16 Speaker 3
And so she picked up the research papers and was setting off to do some grading.
00:56:22 Speaker 3
And she said, you know, I had already given her a marking rubric, but she said just give me a sense.
00:56:29 Speaker 3
Like what is an A paper going to look like in this class?
00:56:33 Speaker 3
I said if you feel the urge to pick up the phone and call me, then that’s an A+ paper.
00:56:40 Speaker 3
And then it happened.
00:56:42 Speaker 3
Yeah, just like I got, I have to talk to you about this one.
00:56:44 Speaker 3
Willow.
00:56:45 Speaker 3
Because either this person has plagiarized this text and I can’t find the source or this is a really brilliant student and it was a really brilliant student.
00:56:55 Speaker 2
I love that as a metric of like ohm.
00:56:55 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:56:57 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:56:58 Speaker 2
My God, I gotta put something out.
00:57:00 Speaker 2
About.
00:57:00 Speaker 2
I gotta share with someone.
00:57:02 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:57:02 Speaker 2
My God, I love that.
00:57:03 Speaker 2
I love that.
00:57:04 Speaker 2
And there are sometimes where it’s like.
00:57:06 Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I still I was looking cause actually cause I was looking at my grade book and I was like it’s like I’m such an *******.
00:57:12 Speaker 2
There’s like a in for the paper in one class I saw I gave two students 99th.
00:57:18 Speaker 2
I’m like, I will never give off yours.
00:57:20 Speaker 2
It’s like it can’t.
00:57:21 Speaker 3
It’s not perfect, to their great chagrin, but but true, yeah.
00:57:23 Speaker 2
Right.
00:57:24 Speaker 2
I know, but on exams.
00:57:26 Speaker 2
Possibly, but you never own a paper.
00:57:28 Speaker 3
No.
00:57:28 Speaker 2
But what’s it like to actually cause?
00:57:30 Speaker 2
I tend to only ever get one TA cause I teach a lot of research methods and we always get one.
00:57:35 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:57:36 Speaker 2
But they tend to be smaller classes, so, but you’ve taught classes you have multiple Tas.
00:57:38 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:57:41 Speaker 2
How do you get that balance?
00:57:44 Speaker 3
You there is the advice that I received was to do a little bit of grading together as a group because at some point there needs to be a calibration, otherwise it isn’t fair, right?
00:57:53 Speaker 2
Oh.
00:57:59 Speaker 3
And so that was some advice I when I was in grad school, there was a professor and he had his.
00:58:06 Speaker 3
TAs do all of the marking in one room from beginning to end, and to me, that’s like torture.
00:58:12 Speaker 2
Oh my, that I like my.
00:58:13 Speaker 3
So I would never ask for that right for hours and hours and hours.
00:58:16 Speaker 3
OK.
00:58:17 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:58:17 Speaker 3
But but I I think that that is a good idea for the group to see together.
00:58:25 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:58:25 Speaker 3
Um what?
00:58:28 Speaker 3
What a bee looks like.
00:58:29 Speaker 3
What a B plus looks like and so that there is profound calibration happening socially.
00:58:31 Speaker 2
Yeah, I know.
00:58:35 Speaker 2
No.
00:58:35 Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I know it.
00:58:37 Speaker 2
At the Institute Feminist Gender Studies, I know profit does intro.
00:58:40 Speaker 2
Who does a similar thing as a like let’s all get on the same page?
00:58:41 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:58:44 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:58:45 Speaker 2
So so you also you supervised a.
00:58:48 Speaker 2
Ton of student.
00:58:49 Speaker 3
A ton.
00:58:49 Speaker 2
That’s.
00:58:50 Speaker 2
Yeah, you also do you get extra students because you’re the RMA coordinator where no.
00:58:55 Speaker 2
Oh, that’s good.
00:58:56 Speaker 2
It’s not like no.
00:58:57 Speaker 2
Like nobody else will work with this.
00:58:59 Speaker 2
No, no offence to your students, but in.
00:59:00 Speaker 3
There you there was a time.
00:59:02 Speaker 3
There was a time there was a time when that would happen, like you could see if there was a chart, if somebody if somebody created and shared a chart.
00:59:12 Speaker 3
To see the distribution of graduate students supervision, you would see that each person who was responsible for a program would have a spike it, so you could tell that they were the ones scooping up the folks who were struggling to connect with finding a supervisor.
00:59:29 Speaker 3
That is no longer the case, and I think to some extent, um, it’s because we have.
00:59:37 Speaker 3
A critical mass of super Nice colleagues who say yes.
00:59:42 Speaker 3
Um, so it is good.
00:59:42 Speaker 2
That’s good to know.
00:59:44 Speaker 3
It is really good.
00:59:45 Speaker 3
I think that it is both.
00:59:49 Speaker 3
I think it’s good pedagogy and it’s really collegial.
00:59:52 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:59:52 Speaker 3
There are more people who say yes to a wider variety of projects willing to take on and supervised projects, even if it isn’t perfectly within their research interests.
01:00:06 Speaker 2
Yeah, Kendrick impossible.
01:00:07 Speaker 2
I mean, it’s just so like when I look at people.
01:00:09 Speaker 2
In like the you know, engineering or like the quote UN quote hard sciences or whatever, it’s like they have a lab and there’s grad students just do what they do like it’s they just run the mice or the experiments whatever wears from us.
01:00:13
Yeah.
01:00:18 Speaker 1
Hmm yeah.
01:00:23 Speaker 2
It’s like, what do you want to do?
01:00:25 Speaker 2
I’ll help you and like I do, try to like balance.
01:00:30 Speaker 2
Like I take on students that like if nobody else in the unit like I again and I’ve said this before, it’s like I get a lot of students interesting, like sexuality stuff.
01:00:39 Speaker 2
And I’m always like I have zero training in that.
01:00:39 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:00:42 Speaker 2
It’s like I’m sexy, but yeah, you know, like, what qualifies me.
01:00:47 Speaker 2
For this, but it is you know.
01:00:49 Speaker 2
But then what?
01:00:50 Speaker 2
I enjoy about it is I learn a down from them and there’s always something I feel like I can contribute in terms of like, you know, methodologies like or just like organization and, you know, basic writing stuff.
01:00:54 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:01:00 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:01:03 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:01:07 Speaker 2
Although I know you have very strong thoughts about editing.
01:01:10 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:01:11 Speaker 2
What do you wanna do?
01:01:12 Speaker 2
You wanna share some of those?
01:01:13 Speaker 2
Like how?
01:01:14 Speaker 2
How?
01:01:14 Speaker 2
What is our role as a supervised?
01:01:16 Speaker 3
As a supervisor.
01:01:17 Speaker 3
Yeah, I think that is a really good question and we don’t spend a lot of time.
01:01:22 Speaker 3
Talking about it and I, and I think you mentioned that in a previous interview, one of our colleagues said we’re absolutely not trained for this. Yeah.
01:01:29 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:01:29 Speaker 2
That frauds in that.
01:01:31 Speaker 2
Yeah, he and I was like OHS.
01:01:32 Speaker 2
My God, I had not sort of put it together cause people talk about, oh, we’re not really trying to teach, but we are.
01:01:35 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:01:38 Speaker 2
We are trained like we get.
01:01:39 Speaker 2
We are TA.
01:01:40 Speaker 2
That’s part of our training.
01:01:41 Speaker 2
Like a lot of us have taken courses, but it never even occurred to me like.
01:01:45 Speaker 2
We have.
01:01:46 Speaker 2
There’s no, like course on how to be a supervisor.
01:01:48 Speaker 3
No.
01:01:49 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:01:50 Speaker 2
So yeah, what do you what?
01:01:51 Speaker 2
Do you think it should be doing?
01:01:51 Speaker 3
I I think it I think that it is it is part of our responsibility as educators.
01:01:57 Speaker 3
Like, I think that being a supervisor is being an educator.
01:02:01 Speaker 3
I think that there is.
01:02:03 Speaker 3
I think there is teaching and mentorship and guidance and.
01:02:09 Speaker 3
Training.
01:02:09 Speaker 3
Yeah, in that rule and I, it is my impression that that is not a universally shared perspective on being a supervisor, because I think that maybe in our discipline and maybe there are stronger cases in other disciplines.
01:02:27 Speaker 3
But I think that some people think if they see the mentorship in the training but it.
01:02:31 Speaker 3
Is about come into my team and follow my lead rather than I am going to teach you how to formulate a research question.
01:02:40 Speaker 3
I’m going to know that there is.
01:02:41 Speaker 1
Yeah, I think.
01:02:41 Speaker 2
Well, I think that’s more like the science.
01:02:43 Speaker 2
Yeah, model.
01:02:44 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
01:02:46 Speaker 2
So.
01:02:46 Speaker 2
So what do you think we are should be?
01:02:50 Speaker 3
I think that it is, um, I think that it is.
01:02:54 Speaker 3
A part of our teaching responsibilities that you are teaching them how to formulate questions.
01:03:00 Speaker 3
You are teaching them how to locate and synthesize a literature that is relevant to the topic at hand, and I think that it is also about writing.
01:03:14 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, writing well.
01:03:16 Speaker 3
And so you prompted me to react to the question about editing, and I do not see myself as a person who is editing their work, although because.
01:03:30 Speaker 3
Once I start down that road, I begin to rewrite.
01:03:35 Speaker 2
I know.
01:03:35 Speaker 2
And this I do too much.
01:03:37 Speaker 2
I actually have started using read aloud on which I highly recommend to anyone with ADHD and sometimes I do it because it’s like I gotta get this thing red.
01:03:41 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:03:47 Speaker 2
And I also have to make dinner for my family.
01:03:50 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:03:50 Speaker 2
And I’m like, so I’ll just do it and I’m listening.
01:03:53 Speaker 2
But what I also have found is it stops me from editing because I can take over as like.
01:03:55 Speaker 3
At it, yeah.
01:03:58 Speaker 2
This is my paper and I just.
01:03:59 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:04:00 Speaker 2
I’m like what?
01:04:00 Speaker 2
Like I was doing that this morning, actually that I had something to get back and I was like, I made a change and then I undid it because I was like Phyllis.
01:04:06 Speaker 2
How?
01:04:07 Speaker 2
She wrote it was perfectly acceptable and perfectly fine.
01:04:09 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:04:10 Speaker 2
You might, you know, it’s like these stupid tweaks, but it slows me down and right.
01:04:13 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:04:14 Speaker 3
Yes, it takes forever.
01:04:17 Speaker 2
But I mean, I do think often they appreciate it, cause they’re like, oh.
01:04:20 Speaker 2
That does sound better.
01:04:21 Speaker 2
Yeah, but then like I was at a defence once where someone like this one sentence you said was beautiful.
01:04:26 Speaker 2
And I was like.
01:04:27 Speaker 2
I wrote that.
01:04:28 Speaker 2
Yeah, like the student didn’t write that and it feels really creepy to me.
01:04:30 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:04:33 Speaker 2
But so keep telling you more about your.
01:04:35 Speaker 2
Thoughts and I’ll.
01:04:35 Speaker 3
Shut up about why I agree.
01:04:37 Speaker 3
I think that connecting to somebody who is available to them and has the skills to edit is important, and I think that.
01:04:37 Speaker 1
No.
01:04:49 Speaker 3
A few moments ago we were chatting about using AI in our writing and we seem to agree that it is acceptable to use AI as a tool for composition.
01:04:59 Speaker 3
If you are crunched for time, you’ve got all of this content.
01:05:02 Speaker 3
You’ve got these notes.
01:05:04 Speaker 3
Why not use AI to compose something that is coherent and logical and is a reference letter?
01:05:10 Speaker 3
Because what they need is the content.
01:05:14 Speaker 3
They are not evaluating us as writers, and so it doesn’t feel like it is cheating the system.
01:05:17
It’s.
01:05:20 Speaker 3
In this case, I think that we have to make some choices about accepting people’s writing.
01:05:26 Speaker 3
If the exercise is to put original ideas and original formulation of the sentence of the paragraph of the chapter down on paper, then we also have a responsibility to accept the outcome of that, that it is an imperfectly composed document.
01:05:46 Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s so weird.
01:05:47 Speaker 2
It makes me think of when, when my older kids who are now, well, one of them is.
01:05:54 Speaker 2
Editing this podcast and but they’re both like adult adult children of mine when they were in elementary school.
01:06:01 Speaker 2
Maybe like 4th and I don’t like third and 5th grade.
01:06:04 Speaker 2
Something like that?
01:06:05 Speaker 2
There was a school science project and so I was like helping with them and they had to make the like board with, you know, the little name, whatever their thing was.
01:06:14 Speaker 2
And I was like, at the time.
01:06:18 Speaker 2
So there would been like the early 2000s and I thought, well they, they need to write it by hand to show that they did this themselves and not use like my laptop and type something out that we would print out and but they both did really cool projects.
01:06:31 Speaker 2
One was the littler 1.
01:06:33 Speaker 2
Did like just a vent diagram about monkeys like primates versus humans and learned a lot in my older one.
01:06:41 Speaker 2
I had to do this experiment because they were really into video games about whether or not video games caused violence, and I was like, you need to consider Hawthorne effects because I’m a methods nerd and I was like, you need to consider whether or not the research.
01:06:46 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:06:51 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:06:53 Speaker 2
Influences because both you and your brother are going to want to be playing the games, and so and whatever it was like trying to be like, smart for little kids and they hand wrote them and they both they only feedback they got on them had nothing to do with the like projects.
01:07:08 Speaker 2
It was like these are really messy.
01:07:10 Speaker 2
You should have typed.
01:07:11 Speaker 2
It was like, *** **** it, like I was trying to, like show that I didn’t write it.
01:07:17 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:07:17 Speaker 2
And I think it’s like this is kind of a conundrum.
01:07:20 Speaker 2
About AI in general is like it really raises questions.
01:07:21 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:07:23 Speaker 2
Like what?
01:07:24 Speaker 2
What is the learning outcome we’re trying to assess, like and I do think knowing how to write is important.
01:07:25 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
01:07:31 Speaker 2
Like, it’s important to me and I learned how to write by having a mother who was a professor who would spend way too much time and we, you know, we both crying by the end because it be like now you don’t understand.
01:07:43 Speaker 2
It should be like this is just a rule, but it was like you know I got a lot a lot of editing feedback but.
01:07:50 Speaker 2
I mean, one thing that you’re raising also is, does the supervisor need to be the person giving the editing feedback like there are other tools like hammerly?
01:07:56 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:07:57 Speaker 2
Yeah, like hiring an editor like up here, like reading things with others like.
01:08:00 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:08:01 Speaker 2
Those are also ways I learned how to write.
01:08:04 Speaker 2
And for my professors, giving feedback on my writing.
01:08:07 Speaker 2
But is it?
01:08:09 Speaker 2
I think this is kind of always the question is, is it?
01:08:12 Speaker 2
Is it the you know?
01:08:13 Speaker 2
Is it the writing that matters, or is it the content?
01:08:16 Speaker 2
And to me, I think both matter.
01:08:19 Speaker 2
You know one thing I tell my students, I’m like, just at least do a *** **** spell check.
01:08:22 Speaker 2
And they’re like, well, does it really matter?
01:08:24 Speaker 2
It’s like, well, if you were looking at a university and you went to the website for the University of Ottawa and there were spelled like typos all over, wouldn’t you kind of think less of it?
01:08:32 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:08:32 Speaker 2
Like impression management matters.
01:08:34 Speaker 2
Yeah, but I do think it is.
01:08:38 Speaker 2
It it’s interesting.
01:08:40 Speaker 2
I also know colleagues who will supervise sort of the Parisian way, where it’s like I meet you at the beginning and then hand me a completed thesis at the end and I’ll give you feedback.
01:08:49 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:08:51 Speaker 2
And I’m like, well, that’s that’s not how I do it like, you know, maybe like, I’m sure there are benefits to it, but yeah, it’s hard to know.
01:08:54 Speaker 3
No.
01:09:00 Speaker 3
It is hard to know.
01:09:01 Speaker 3
It is hard to know, and our institution has.
01:09:05 Speaker 3
There is now a website, a guide book, that is on a web page that.
01:09:13 Speaker 3
The guides us in that relationship between student and supervisor and at the end there is a contract and I think that’s a strange it makes sense.
01:09:23 Speaker 3
I understand why they did that work and I understand why that exists and a contract can sometimes get out in front of some problems that may arise later on, but at the same time, I’m not sure that that is always what is hard about supervising graduate students.
01:09:44 Speaker 3
It is, I think sometimes it’s trying to.
01:09:47 Speaker 3
Figure out how much to push.
01:09:49 Speaker 3
How much to let them figure out for themselves, and I don’t want to sound like a parent because that would be inappropriate.
01:09:56 Speaker 3
But there is a teaching part of the journey, but there is also a learning part of the journey and uh, again, at the risk of sounding like a parent, some of that stuff, they have to learn and figure out for themselves.
01:10:02 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:10:11 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:10:11 Speaker 2
No, I mean my the thing that drives me.
01:10:14 Speaker 2
I mean, the thing about the contracts that I think I like the idea, I’ve tried to do.
01:10:19 Speaker 2
It then I always forget.
01:10:20 Speaker 3
Hmm.
01:10:20 Speaker 2
Like when I’m first meeting with student ID, but I always like here’s the way you can expect for me.
01:10:24 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:10:24 Speaker 2
Here’s what I expect from you.
01:10:25 Speaker 2
It generally speaking, the big thing is I will not chase you and I will forget to respond to most of your emails.
01:10:31 Speaker 2
So always follow up police.
01:10:32 Speaker 3
Dude, please e-mail me twice.
01:10:34 Speaker 2
So it always evenly 2 three times.
01:10:36 Speaker 2
This is preferred so like do not feel bad about that, but it’s like it doesn’t.
01:10:41 Speaker 2
Like I can have students.
01:10:42 Speaker 2
I always say I need at least two weeks, ideally a month for something to.
01:10:47 Speaker 2
Like get you feedback.
01:10:48 Speaker 2
Yeah, there been times.
01:10:49 Speaker 2
Where students are very gracious.
01:10:51 Speaker 2
And then one last year when I was chair and I was so overwhelmed, it was like 6 weeks and I felt horrible.
01:10:57 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:10:58 Speaker 2
He was very understanding, but there are other times where they’re like oht.
01:11:03 Speaker 2
My God, I need you do this right now.
01:11:05 Speaker 2
I can’t not help, I mean and I care about my students, but it also, you know.
01:11:09 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:11:10 Speaker 2
So but also I also can identify with like how things happen, where it’s like I wanna be human with my student.
01:11:14 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:11:16 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:11:17 Speaker 2
But I also want to set like I actually I went to this the teaching and Learning Centre just did a workshop yesterday on Universe design.
01:11:25 Speaker 2
So it’s talking about sort of like access, accessibility, kinds of stuff.
01:11:27 Speaker 2
But my big question at the end was like I want to make things accessible.
01:11:32 Speaker 2
I wanna make everything available, but there also is a part where it’s like if you give too much space, it’s like students can flounder, you know it’s.
01:11:41 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:11:41 Speaker 2
Like setting boundaries sometimes is helpful for people because otherwise they’re just.
01:11:46 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:11:50 Speaker 2
It’s like like a lot of us work to deadlines, you know, like.
01:11:53 Speaker 2
Yeah, and.
01:11:54 Speaker 2
It’s hard to know it is.
01:11:55 Speaker 1
No.
01:11:56 Speaker 3
And I think he raised a really good point about having conversations about this working relationship, making it explicit.
01:12:05 Speaker 3
So that people aren’t guessing or assuming or feeling neglected or feeling over surveilled or whatever doesn’t fit for them.
01:12:16 Speaker 3
There is some obvious advantage in saying this is how I work.
01:12:21 Speaker 3
This is how I usually work.
01:12:24 Speaker 3
Is that OK with you?
01:12:25 Speaker 3
It does that fit your needs?
01:12:27 Speaker 3
Is that a good style for you?
01:12:29 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
01:12:30 Speaker 2
Do you find like do you get because you’re the coordinator of the Emily program?
01:12:33 Speaker 2
Do you have to, like, ever deal with disputes between like, yes, you’re not.
01:12:37 Speaker 2
In your like, yeah.
01:12:39 Speaker 3
In but not, um, not terribly dramatic.
01:12:43 Speaker 3
There are some.
01:12:46 Speaker 3
There are some supervisor student dynamics that don’t work, and that’s part of the human experience, and I think that my advice to everyone would be call it quits as soon as possible.
01:13:00 Speaker 3
Don’t don’t let it drag on.
01:13:01 Speaker 1
Oh.
01:13:02 Speaker 3
It is actually OK if one or both parties come to the realization that this is just not a good fit.
01:13:10 Speaker 3
We don’t work well together.
01:13:12 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:13:12 Speaker 3
And then you know, then sever that and and move on to somebody else.
01:13:18 Speaker 3
As soon as humanly possible, I know that and and in fact you said, you know, don’t you don’t describe specifics most of the time, I don’t know the specifics.
01:13:29 Speaker 3
I just know that something went really wrong over there and now this student is working with somebody else and I I don’t know why.
01:13:37 Speaker 3
Um, but if a lot of time was invested in that first.
01:13:43 Speaker 3
Not working relationship.
01:13:45 Speaker 3
I think the outcome is pretty poor for the student.
01:13:49 Speaker 3
I see that whatever momentum they had at the beginning is now gone and it’s really hard to get that momentum back, even if the second supervisor is a better fit, has lots of excitement and enthusiasm, and is trying to kind of help the student get back to that energized place.
01:13:55 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:14:09 Speaker 3
That’s a hard place to get back to.
01:14:11 Speaker 2
Totally.
01:14:11 Speaker 2
I also think sometimes students.
01:14:13 Speaker 2
It’s like they feel bad like I’ve had.
01:14:14 Speaker 2
Students switched others.
01:14:15 Speaker 2
Supervisors, I find it happens.
01:14:16 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:14:17 Speaker 2
I think probably more with Francophone students, which I feel bad about where it’s like because, you know, I’m bilingual, but I don’t like I do.
01:14:24 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:14:26 Speaker 2
I mean what is helpful is I do less fine tune editing.
01:14:29 Speaker 2
Yeah, sorry, French isn’t good enough.
01:14:31 Speaker 2
It’s like the conversations are always a little bit more stilted.
01:14:32 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:14:35 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
01:14:36 Speaker 2
And so like I am, I am there for them.
01:14:39 Speaker 2
But like just thinking about this, students that have left working with me, but they’re not all francophones, but a few francophones did switch to someone.
01:14:43 Speaker 1
You can.
01:14:47 Speaker 2
But they feel so bad about it.
01:14:49 Speaker 2
And I’m like, Oh my God, I am like.
01:14:49 Speaker 1
Hmm.
01:14:52 Speaker 2
God bless.
01:14:53 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:14:53 Speaker 2
Let go like in there go to work.
01:14:54 Speaker 2
With great people.
01:14:55 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:14:55 Speaker 2
It’s, you know, or you know, it’s it’s a topic that, you know, sometimes it’s like they come to work with me because they saw like my bio.
01:15:03 Speaker 2
And it seemed like I did what they do, but then they realized that, you know, maybe they shift what they’re interested in, or they discover someone else that had maybe a less filled out by that actually fits their interest.
01:15:14 Speaker 2
Like to me I’m like, go with my blessing.
01:15:17 Speaker 2
Like I’m happy to have, you know, like I care about you. But.
01:15:17 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:15:20 Speaker 2
Like, don’t let the door hit you on the way out or whatever.
01:15:25 Speaker 2
I mean, not really, but it’s just like, you know, like again, I I’m interested in all my students.
01:15:26 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:15:30 Speaker 2
I care about my students, but it’s a lot of work, so if if I can pass that, if I can pass the buck I am, I’m not gonna be crying.
01:15:30 Speaker 3
Yeah, it is.
01:15:32 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
01:15:37 Speaker 2
And I’ll still often I’ll still be on the students committee life and I’m still here if they want to come talk to me.
01:15:41 Speaker 3
Sure.
01:15:43 Speaker 2
Yeah, like there’s, like, you know, hard feelings.
01:15:46 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:15:46 Speaker 3
It’s I think that and maybe people in other sectors feel this way as well, but being in post secondary education.
01:15:56 Speaker 3
Is a funny place to be.
01:15:58 Speaker 3
It’s at the intersection of a lot of different things.
01:16:02 Speaker 3
I remember one time being in a hallway just outside of a classroom and you know, so I was waiting for the group to leave before I could go in to set up my class.
01:16:12 Speaker 3
And there were two people sitting on a bench making out, and my and my first thought was, gosh, work like, what are you doing?
01:16:22 Speaker 2
This my workplace.
01:16:23 Speaker 3
This is my workplace, but this is their learning space, social space, dating space, eating space, sleeping space.
01:16:31 Speaker 2
Sleeping like it’s our home like dorms are right on campus.
01:16:34 Speaker 3
That’s right.
01:16:35 Speaker 3
And I think that the boundary between personal and professional and student and mentor and friend and whatever, those are very, there are a lot of perforations there and.
01:16:56 Speaker 3
I think that it does feel personal to folks if they want, you know, if they feel like, oh, I’m gonna break up with them and it’s OK if those feelings are in the mix.
01:17:05 Speaker 2
Right.
01:17:09 Speaker 3
Um, but we don’t.
01:17:12 Speaker 3
We don’t put that stuff on the table.
01:17:13 Speaker 3
We own.
01:17:14 Speaker 3
We don’t acknowledge.
01:17:16 Speaker 3
Yeah, we don’t acknowledge that.
01:17:18 Speaker 3
It does feel kind of personal.
01:17:19 Speaker 3
One of my long time students long time just because they were balancing work full time work and part time studies.
01:17:28 Speaker 3
So it it kind of went on for a few years and now they’re done and they’ve defended.
01:17:34 Speaker 3
And the final document is deposited and I.
01:17:37 Speaker 3
Felt really sad.
01:17:38 Speaker 2
And you know, like not gonna miss you.
01:17:41 Speaker 2
I know because we grow close like it’s, you know, it’s professional, but it also is like, I don’t know, like we get invested in their lives.
01:17:43 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
01:17:50 Speaker 3
Totally, yeah.
01:17:50 Speaker 2
No, I have some former students.
01:17:53 Speaker 2
Where I’m like, why aren’t they reaching out to others?
01:17:55 Speaker 3
Like I say, I’m like, what the?
01:17:58 Speaker 2
Charge like they graduated.
01:17:59 Speaker 2
They moved like they got what they wanted.
01:18:01 Speaker 2
I said it was like, dude, therapists feel this way, you know where it’s like you.
01:18:01 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:18:04 Speaker 3
Yeah, I wonder.
01:18:05 Speaker 2
I’m just like and I was so like rooting for them.
01:18:08 Speaker 3
Yeah, that’s right.
01:18:08 Speaker 2
And I’m so infested in them.
01:18:10 Speaker 2
And then it’s like they just go on.
01:18:11 Speaker 2
And live their life.
01:18:12 Speaker 2
You know, I mean I am, you know, LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever.
01:18:16 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:18:17 Speaker 2
Where I’ll still.
01:18:17 Speaker 2
Be connected and I can see you know.
01:18:19 Speaker 2
But they’re like having babies.
01:18:20 Speaker 3
I know.
01:18:20 Speaker 2
And they’re, you know, it’s.
01:18:22 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:18:23 Speaker 2
And it’s.
01:18:23 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:18:24 Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s, it’s, I don’t know.
01:18:26 Speaker 2
It’s such a weird thing cause it’s actually funny when I say like, oh, don’t let the door hit your *** on the way out.
01:18:30 Speaker 2
Like there are like, you know my that’s my first reaction is like, oh, let’s work.
01:18:35 Speaker 2
But then there can be moments where I’m like or.
01:18:37 Speaker 2
It’s like if I’m still in the committee and I’m like, I could have helped them with that.
01:18:41 Speaker 2
Yes, no, it’s like.
01:18:41 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
01:18:43 Speaker 2
Phyllis let it go.
01:18:44 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:18:44 Speaker 3
I went to workshop um again early in my time here and the workshop was about.
01:18:53 Speaker 3
It was advice on supervising graduate students.
01:18:56 Speaker 3
And one of the facilitators said, try to figure out what your students, the flavor of your students favorite chocolate bar.
01:19:03 Speaker 3
And I’m always have that on hand.
01:19:05 Speaker 3
And I thought that is the most useless piece of advice I have ever heard.
01:19:10 Speaker 3
This has nothing about providing treats.
01:19:12 Speaker 3
I’m not training them like a dog.
01:19:14 Speaker 3
What are you talking?
01:19:15 Speaker 3
Out like that, it just was so parallel to what I understand the challenges to be and the challenges are about workload and pace.
01:19:25 Speaker 3
And as you said, you get an e-mail at 10:00 PM on the Monday.
01:19:30 Speaker 3
You’re scheduled to meet them at 1:00 PM on the Tuesday and the and the content of the messages here.
01:19:36 Speaker 3
My chapters I’ll look forward to discussing them when I see you tomorrow at 1:00.
01:19:41
Like what?
01:19:41 Speaker 2
Skip that back to you.
01:19:44 Speaker 2
Like I am a human.
01:19:46 Speaker 2
I am not ChatGPT myself.
01:19:46 Speaker 1
It’s.
01:19:49 Speaker 2
Oh my God.
01:19:50 Speaker 2
Seriously.
01:19:50 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:19:50 Speaker 2
Although the chocolate bar reminds me of.
01:19:52 Speaker 2
We my half sister, Carol Rippy is she is a Dean at she’s in.
01:20:01 Speaker 2
She’s a social work scholar.
01:20:03 Speaker 2
I’ve done a lot of interesting things.
01:20:06 Speaker 2
She’s quite a bit older than me and but she I was asking for advice because I was.
01:20:10 Speaker 2
She was a department chair.
01:20:11 Speaker 2
And then she’s now at Dean.
01:20:12 Speaker 2
And when I was chair last year and one of her pieces of advice was always have cookies, which I totally forgot to tell you just said that, and because there’s so many times you have to tell people no.
01:20:18 Speaker 1
In.
01:20:21 Speaker 2
Like you just have to know.
01:20:22 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:20:22 Speaker 2
And she’s like, at least you can offer them a cookie when you say.
01:20:26 Speaker 2
It’s like that’s kind of good advice.
01:20:30 Speaker 3
Is that why the administrative office always has treats is because?
01:20:32 Speaker 2
This, and that’s why there’s always like chocolate in any kind of like managers, you know, front desk but.
01:20:37 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
01:20:40 Speaker 2
No.
01:20:40 Speaker 2
This has been amazing.
01:20:41 Speaker 2
This is I think, so helpful for future researchers and.
01:20:47 Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s just so and I, I I just, I love doing this podcast cause I get to learn about like, all this stuff about your research that I had no idea about even though we.
01:20:55 Speaker 2
Talk all the time and.
01:20:56 Speaker 3
I no, it’s a good point.
01:20:57 Speaker 2
Like, yeah.
01:20:57 Speaker 3
Well, thank you for the invitation.
01:20:59 Speaker 3
I really appreciate the interest and.
01:21:01 Speaker 2
Well, thank you.
01:21:02 Speaker 2
Thank you to those of you listening to doing Social Research.
01:21:06 Speaker 2
If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please take a moment to give us a five star rating of my daughter told me not to say 5 star. For some people say.
01:21:14 Speaker 2
It’s like they don’t wanna be told to do 5 star, but I heard someone else on a podcast, so I’m gonna still do it.
01:21:19 Speaker 2
Like if you want to give it a five star rating, share what you liked about it.
01:21:22 Speaker 2
If you didn’t enjoy the rest of the episode, no one wants to hear about that.
01:21:27 Speaker 2
Just kidding.
01:21:28 Speaker 3
Just kidding.
01:21:29 Speaker 2
Anyway, this will help reach more listeners to make doing Social Research within the reach of everyone.
01:21:34 Speaker 2
I’d also love to connect with you.
01:21:36 Speaker 2
You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at socio mom.
01:21:40 Speaker 2
Well, also I realize I’m also on LinkedIn, although I’ll build that up more.
01:21:43 Speaker 2
I think that’s where you just start sharing more stuff.
01:21:46 Speaker 2
I also have a Facebook group.
01:21:48 Speaker 2
They’re doing Social Research.
01:21:49 Speaker 2
Facebook group, where we can have conversations, links to all my social media as well as references mentioned in today’s episode, arguing the show notes.
01:21:57 Speaker 2
If you have a question about Social Research you’d like me to tackle on the podcast.
01:22:00 Speaker 2
My website send me an e-mail through social media or you can e-mail me if [email protected] would love to hear from you and don’t forget to check out the website for other tips and info.
01:22:07
No.
01:22:14 Speaker 2
It is still a work in progress, but it is a workflow special thanks to our sound editor Willow Worthy Young for making a sound amazing.
01:22:21 Speaker 2
Jonathan Boyle, not AI, an actual person, wrote our theme music like a ******, and that’s the name of this song.
01:22:23
OK.
01:22:27 Speaker 2
Making this joke isn’t even the song I’ve been episode know if he’s an actual bad.
01:22:30 Speaker 2
***, but it’s it’s not first.
01:22:32 Speaker 2
Anyway, I’m Phyllis, Rippey and this has been the doing Social Research, podcasts, and always remember, don’t let the ******** get you down and keep doing Social Research!