How to get the Academia Made Easier content you want in 2023

Plus the backstory of why I started this newsletter in the first place. The tl;dr: selfish reasons!

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here. 

I started Academic Made Easier in February 2021 (check out my first post!). Academia Made Easier’s origin story is a bit silly. I was chipping away on a book project (now under review!) but it was moving slowly. Through word of mouth, I learned about a book whose very title called me out: Are You Actually Going To Write A Book Or Just Talk About It? (Ouch. And fair.) In it, I was surprised to see that Brandon Scott’s first assignment for aspiring book authors is to start a blog. A Substack newsletter seemed easier to me than a real blog, so I went with that.

And now, almost two years and almost fifty Academia Made Easier posts later, here we are.

Writing Academia Made Easier has been helpful to me. It pushed my book writing forward (as Scott accurately predicted, writing begets writing). It allows me to connect with great people I wouldn’t have otherwise met. 👋 It is a fun creative outlet in which I can subtly push back on the culture of academic busyness while reminiscing about dated pop culture and sharing photos of my cats and neighbour’s dog. 

But while it has been helpful to me personally, my less selfish goal with Academia Made Easier is to be helpful to my readers - that is, to you. Your time and attention are valuable. I want Academia Made Easier to be that email (or Substack app notification) you look forward to receiving. 

A better understanding of your interests as a reader will aid me in achieving this. And that is what today’s small thing to try immediately is all about.

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Complete the Academia Made Easier Reader Survey

In an ideal world, I would love to sit down with you and chat. We could share photos of our pets and eat chocolate while talking about your career. But as time and geography limit this possibility, I must resort to another option: a Google Form reader survey.

The point of this reader survey is to help inform my topic planning for 2023. It is NOT for research purposes. It is anonymous (unless you choose to include identifying information, which I don’t ask for), entirely voluntary, and relatively short. Just so you know what you are getting into if you choose to participate, the survey includes three dated pop culture references, one chocolate reference, and one reference to my cats, because that is just how I roll. There are three sections: reader interests, reader demographics, and general feedback. For the open-answer questions, feel free to respond with bullets, short phrases, haiku, lengthy essays with thesis statements, or whatever works for you. All questions are optional.

Okay, enough preamble. Here is the link: Academia Made Easier Reader Survey December 2022. I will close the survey on Sunday, January 1, 2023 (time dependent upon when I remember to do so!), so please complete it by the end of the day in your time zone on Saturday, December 31, 2022. 

I appreciate your assistance in helping me align Academia Made Easier content with reader needs. You are very kind to share your insights. Thank you, my colleagues!

Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To

A quick update on some of my own activities since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:

• Lisa Young (author of What now?!? An Alberta Politics newsletter) and I wrote a Policy Options article for the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). In “Standing up to Ottawa: Western alienation shifts into Prairie constitutional challenges”, Lisa and I explain how the latest dynamics between Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Ottawa is different than those in years past and argue that the narrative of alienation is being challenged.

• As the academic leader of a two-university policy school, part of my work life involves commuting between Regina and Saskatoon, a distance of roughly 260 kilometres. As there is no flight option, this means a near-monthly road trip. Last week, I had my last Regina visit of 2022. I always love being at our Regina campus and spending time with University of Regina colleagues. I wasn’t, however, a fan of the winter driving conditions on my return trip. 🌨️ Hoping for clear highways in 2023!

• Like many people, I find I am spending a lot less time on Twitter these days. I am not clear where exactly I am redirecting that time, though. It is a mystery.

Until next time…

If you are like me, you read to the bottom with the intention of clicking the survey link … later. But that requires effort and my newsletter is about making your life easier, so here is the link again: Academia Made Easier Reader Survey December 2022. I look forward to hearing from you!

Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. I went back to check my numbers and it turns out that I wrote 24 Academia Made Easier newsletters in 2021 and another 24 (including this one) in 2022 thus far. So close to fifty! If you happen to have read all 48, my sincerest appreciation for your continuing readership. 😘 And if you haven’t read all 48 and are looking for a holiday reading project, here is the Academia Made Easier archive! 😏

Want to help support my chocolate habit? You are very sweet. Buy me a coffee is a site that allows readers to show their appreciation for the unpaid labour of writers, artists, and other creatives. Check it out!

Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time binge-watching television and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of University Affair’s Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.