4.48 GREATEST HITS - How to build your own academic community

This week we’re thinking about community and relationships! So many people feel isolated in academic and like they "should" have more of a community than they do. In this episode, I talk about the benefits of having a community inside and outside of academia and the barriers there might be to building a community. I then go through some really simple tips to help you build an academic community, step by step. 

If you liked this episode, you might also like this episode on Ten lessons I learned about doing PhDs by playing Stardew Valley (no particular connection but I love this episode!

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I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464

I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the third of my greatest hits episodes for the summer, and this week we are thinking about community and loneliness. So today's episode is looking at how we can build an academic community, and this was one of my really early episodes, right? And listening back to it, I am super pleased at how useful it is and how well it has stood the test of time.

I found it quite poignant, because it's nearly four years since I started this business, as you know, and as I discuss in the episode, I also moved, location when I started my new business, moved back to my old hometown, and many of the things that I talk about in this episode I have done successfully since I've moved.

One of the things I talk about is finding a community that understands your situation, i.e. for you guys doing your PhD, being in academia, that sort of thing, and finding a community that gets you, that understands you as a person. And it was really interesting for me to reflect on the extent to which I've found communities that understand me as a business owner, me as a coach, and then the extent to which I've found new people, people in my new local area, who get me as a person. And for me, that was a real, I dunno, a real eye-opener to see how far I've come and where I still want to act a little more on some of the advice I give in this episode.

The other thing that I didn't reflect on in the episode but that struck me when I thought about it was the role of leaders and more senior people in establishing community. So some of you listening to this will be PhD students who don't necessarily have responsibility for any of these things. Some of you will be more senior PhD students who perhaps are student reps or involved in committee work and things, and therefore you might a little bit.

But many of you will be academics as well, who have more responsibility for establishing community as well as finding a community. And I think the reason this struck me is partly 'cause I didn't talk about it much in this episode, and partly because in this episode I talked about, just being at the beginnings of starting a new community, a circus community at that stage, so joining a local community.

And the irony is, that didn't work out, for lots of reasons that I'm not going to go into on here. But essentially, it turned out to be an existing community that had a lot of its own challenges, in terms of interpersonal issues and things like that. And it was a community that didn't have a clear kind of strategy or mindset towards community building. So I would go to the classes, and I would meet nice people, and we would have some chit-chats, but there was not much strategy behind encouraging anything else. Whereas many of you will know that four months ago now, I joined a local CrossFit gym, and my experience couldn't have been more different. Building community is clearly a key part of why they exist, and you see it in every lesson, whether that is checking in with people at the beginning, remembering details about their life so that you can ask specific questions, so this is the people who run the gym, who run the sessions. Whether it's that sort of thing, whether it's welcoming new people in a way where they encourage everybody else to introduce themselves. So they have a silly policy where if by the end of a session the newbie doesn't know your name, you get punishment burpees for not having talked to them. So the newbie doesn't get punished at all, and so you spend the session making sure that the newbie knows your name and trying to confuse them about other people's names so that your friends get burpees.

So it's all very entertaining and very silly, but also does normalize the fact that these people who are exercising next to you, shouldn't just be random strangers that you never talk to and encourages you to sort of chit-chat. And then we have the social chat and WhatsApp and things where people can not only say they're running late for sessions and stuff- But who also share expertise, ask questions, share examples of fun stuff that's happening around and seeing where anybody's going.

They organize sanctioned social events, all sorts of things like that. And you can really see how the community is a key part of what they do. And it made me think about the role of academics and universities in establishing community. Now, this doesn't have to mean organizing lots of social things, but creating a world in which it's normal for people to know each other and it's normal for people to reach out and ask questions.

How can we create environments in which when there's a new PhD student, for example, they get actively introduced and actively included in things, where they get connected into different networks and so on. And so my own experience of trying to build a personal community and in fact a business community down here, has really made me reflect on the role of academic leadership in building community. Maybe that's something that I should do a podcast episode about in the future. Do let me know if you think that would be useful. If you ever have any questions or anything like that, you can join my newsletter on my website, thephdlifecoach.com, and then you'll get emails from me, and you'll be able to reply to all of them.

The other thing that I have to mention at this point is that we are two weeks out from the PhD Life Coach membership opening up again. So if you are keen to find people who have similar challenges to you, who have a similar approach to wanting to build a better version of their PhD life than what we have at the moment. People all over the world in a variety of different disciplines. If you want a community like that, then you have to check out the PhD Life Coach membership. Again, it's on my website, thephdlifecoach.com. You can find all the details there. If the only thing putting you off is the finances and you have specific reasons why finances are challenging to you, do email me because I do have a small number of scholarships or partial scholarships available for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford the membership. So come, join us.

In fact, the entire next quarter is gonna be about making our academic relationships better, whether that's having a better relationship with our supervisor, or handling difficult supervisors, having better meetings, handling feedback, getting the feedback you need, or whether it's building communities, networking, getting to know people across this wonderful academic world.

So if any of those things are your thing, if you're listening to this thinking, "Oh man, I need some support doing this," this is gonna be the perfect quarter for you to join the membership. So hopefully see lots of you there. Make sure you're on my newsletter for all the details, the free sessions for you to try it out, So for now, enjoy the episode and I hope you enjoy the slight prophecy that I make about Twitter during it. Enjoy 

hello and welcome to episode eight of the PhD Life Coach.

So in this episode, we're really gonna focus on building academic community. Cause in my coaching practice, a lot of my clients report feeling quite isolated in their academic world, not feeling part of a broader community, whether that's within their department, their discipline, or even personal and social communi.

Especially following the pandemic, I think it's much more common for people to feel that they're working on their own, that they haven't necessarily got people that they can rely on and talk to where they feel part of a wider group. And if you are feeling like that, I want you to know that that's really normal.

There's so many people that I work with that I see on Twitter who are experiencing the same sorts of thoughts, and the good news is that there is something you can do about this. So what we're gonna think about today is why community is important. I'm gonna suggest there are two different types of community that you should cultivate, and I'll go through what they.

And we're gonna spend time thinking about what the barriers are to doing it at the moment. I'm also gonna make sure there's some really concrete strategies in there, so things that you can do if you want to slowly build more of an academic community, and I know what this feels like. You might think that somebody who has stayed at the same academic institution for their whole career. Like me, I came as an undergrad and left as a full professor.

That I've never really had to build that community cuz it was just sort of a consistent thing and it really wasn't like that. One of the things with academia is that it's really quite transient and people graduate or move to other places. They get in relationships, take new jobs, and actually the community changes quite regular.

And so I've really found a number of times in my life that I've had to reinvent the community around me and had to make conscious efforts to make that happen. So if you worry that for other people, this sort of just naturally falls into place, please believe me when I say it's totally normal to need to make some effort around this and to actually.

Build this community carefully yourself, and I'm gonna support you through doing that. So before we start though, I want you to think about why community is so important, because it's not just a kind of fluffy feel good thing. There's real research that talks about the benefits of having community. So as an example, we know that one of the basic psychological needs is relatedness.

That feeling that you are part of something,, Other people care whether you are there or not. They're looking out for you and so on. And we know that people who feel more related are more likely to feel intrinsically motivated to engage in a behavior.

So for example, with exercise, I used to be an exercise scientist. When we think about trying to motivate people to exercise more, we know that if people are part of an exercise group or sports club where they feel part of a group. They're much more likely to continue to attend that group to adhere to the exercise behaviors. And the same is true in academia. If you feel part of your community, whether that's your department or your academic discipline, you are much more likely to feel intrinsically motivated to do all the work associated with your PhD or your academic.

That's one reason community is really important. Another is that community can really help you create a sense of self. One of the things we see is, my clients talk to me about not quite feeling like they're an academic, that they're the same as other people. And one thing that community with other people who are doing the same things as you can help you build that sense of self.

That research is something that people like me, like people like us do. It becomes normal. It can really help you to build that identity as an academic and being part of a group of academics. And so a community is really important from that perspective as. Having an academic community can also help you to have people who empathize with the challenges.

Sometimes we feel like we're the only people who struggle with procrastination or feeling like we're not good at writing or being bored of our lab work or whatever it might be, and having that academic community is a really good way of having people who understand. They get it, they've been there, they know what it's like, and they make you feel normal.

The other thing the community might do is actually help you with some solutions to some of that stuff by sharing their own experiences. You have all these people that are maybe six months ahead of you, two years ahead of you, who can share with you how did they get past that barrier. Not only is it normal, but it's surmountable.

There's something you can do about. They also connect you to other people. They might say, oh, did you know about so-and-so in that other department? They're doing something similar to you. Why don't you talk to them? Or, oh, you are trying to use that software. Why don't you speak to so and so? They're really good on that software and I'm sure they'll help you with it.

So they kind of connect you to other things that are going on.

In a broader sense, our communities are where we can relax and have fun and be ourselves. And this doesn't necessarily need to be within your academic community. And we're gonna talk more about that later in the podcast cuz there are a lot of people who don't necessarily feel that they can bring their whole selves to their academic community.

But a community in that broader sense is a really important place to have that downtime, to feel that you can be your whole self, and just relax and have fun, and not have to be an academic all the time. And a really important part of that is having a wider community that helps you feel understood.

So not just understood as a PhD student, academic, and the challenges associated with that, but understood as a wider person. Whether that's understanding your hobbies, understanding your culture, understanding your sexuality, understanding all the wonderful different bits of you that make you, you.

Having a wider community that understands all those facets and enables you to be your true, authentic self is really, really important.

What that really started to raise for me is how, actually, I think we need two different sorts of community. We need people who get it, who get the academic life, and we need people that get you.

Now, it might be for a few of you, you have one group that does both of those things. Maybe you have a really tight group in your PhD program where you started together and you really bonded over your academics and over your sort of social lives. But for most people, that's not necessarily the case.

For most people, you can't cover all facets of you in one group of people, and that is okay too. You don't. To, I would really try and I have always tried to nurture two types of community, the academic community, and a broader community. And you might find that you have some overlaps, like in a Venn diagram. Some of my very best friends are people who are from my academic life and my personal life. They're friends outside of that. But there's a whole bunch of people that form part of my academic life who aren't part of my wider life. And as I discussed last week when we were talking about hobbies, there's a whole bunch of people that I have a wider life with, with my circus and my training and all those things who don't have a clue about my academic life.

I would actually encourage you not to try to do this in a single community. There's something really strong in having an element of redundancy in your communities, so knowing that if something goes wrong here, you've got these other people. So if there is some sort of falling out, you've got this other group as well.

How can we go about building these two types of community? Well, whenever you are thinking about changing any behavior, doing anything new in your life, what I want you to think about is the barriers that you might come up against. Because it's really easy to say, right, I'm gonna build a new community and plan what you're gonna do.

But if you don't anticipate what barriers you might come up against, then it's not necessarily gonna be effecti. So some barriers that I hear from my clients and that I've experienced myself. First one is other people have already got a community. One thing I hear more than anything else from my clients is that they feel isolated, but everybody else is in a group.

There's this belief that everybody else is settled into a community, and trust me when I say that is simply not true. I've seen people from the same groups say it about each other, that they think the other people have it and they don't. When actually there's a lot of people struggling with this, so the first thing I want you to do is think about what are the implications of thinking, something like that. When you think other people already have community, what comes up for you? Usually, There's an and to that sentence, there's other people have community and that means they wouldn't want to be friends with me or other people have community and therefore I'm weird and should have community, but I don't.

So the problem is not usually that we believe other people have community. The problem often is what we then make that mean as well. And the problem then comes that we make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you believe that other people already have community and there's something weird about you because you don't, and that they don't need other community cuz they've already got friends, then you start to behave in ways that make it much less likely you are gonna build community.

So if we think other people have already got a community, we're much less likely to reach out to them. We're much less likely to make small bits of effort. We're less likely to turn up at things. So what I want you to think about is how would it be different? How would you feel different? How would you behave differently if you thought that other people felt isolated? If you believed that at least some of the people in your direct academic world also feel isolated, what would you do? I think it really changes the way that people feel. I think it brings out an empathy, and from empathy, it's much easier to reach out to people to make small sort of advances, to like say, how are you?

Or ask someone to go for a coffee . So really try and reframe that and think what if other people felt isolated too, what would I do? 

The next one I want us to think about is the thought I'm being excluded, and I want to say up front that we're gonna be really careful around this one because we're always gonna analyze is this true?.

We also have to be open to the fact that for some people in some groups it could be true. So this is not necessarily one we're gonna try and mindset ourselves out of. So if you find yourself thinking I'm being excluded, the first question from a really compassionate place is, is this true? Is it possible I'm misinterpreting? Is it possible that there's something else going on here? And I'm reading more into. But if when you ask yourself that, the feeling and response you get from yourself, No, I actually am getting excluded. I, I really do think I am. You don't need to gaslight yourself. You shouldn't gaslight yourself by trying to talk yourself out of that.

That's not something we're gonna mind set ourselves out of, because we know, unfortunately, in academia, people do get excluded and that that doesn't happen randomly either. That exclusions can happen at a structural level to historically marginalized groups, so rather than trying to mindset ourselves and believe that maybe I'm not being excluded, is it possible I'm not being excluded?

And all those things, if when you ask yourself that, you're like, no, no, I, I actually am. I actually think I am. What I want you to ask yourself is, what am I making that mean. Because there's a whole lot of damage that happens in our structures and the prejudices and biases that exist in academia and beyond academia. There's a whole lot of damage that happens by being on the receiving end of exclusion, but then there's a whole level more damage that's done when we make that mean something about us. So when we make that mean that I don't belong here. They're excluding me, therefore, I can't succeed here. But they're excluding me, therefore, I can't have a future in academia, or I can't have a community here. I sometimes see people go, they're excluding me, so I just need to get my head down and get this done. And it's those thoughts I want you to think about.

Are you creating more damage for yourself by making this mean something about you, when actually it means something about the structures that you are existing within? And I want you to see whether it could be different by acknowledging how that exclusion makes you. Actually giving yourself space to feel disappointed by that, to feel angry about that, to feel hurt.

So not trying to get rid of those feelings, but actually validating them and allowing them, but also to then think thoughts like, I can meet part of my community needs here. These people might never be my friends, but I can make sure I'm connected to the things that I need to be connected. So I can meet part of my needs here, or I can build community my way.

So the structures here are biased against me. That makes me angry, that makes me sad. That makes me disappointed. But I can do community my way. Notice I'm not going to, and I can fix it and I can make it better. Because I think sometimes we put a lot of pressure on people who are already disadvantaged by the system to also fix this and to improve the community in their schools.

And if you have the capacity and the spoons, the effort to be able to do that, all strength to you. But if you don't, That's okay too. And thinking instead I can build my community my way, might be another approach that helps you. 

The next thing I want to move on to is this notion that I don't have time to build community. So again, is it true? Is it helpful? The questions we all ask ourselves. When we are thinking about, I don't have time, one of the first ones I want you to go to though, in the, is it true thing, is making sure we actually know what we're talking about here. So if you are saying, I don't have time to do something, ask yourself, how long does this take?

 Often we say, I don't have time for anything. I'm super busy. I've got a thousand things to do. But how long does this thing. To give a really flippant example, I sometimes don't do the washing up cause I haven't got time cause I've gotta get back and do my work. And then you time yourself doing the washing up and it takes like four minutes and you're like, girl, come on.

You've got four minutes, let's go. And it's the same with this. So if you're telling yourself you don't have time, what's the teeny, tiniest short thing you could do that would build a little bridge? How can I build little bits of community in the time that I do have. If I'm at a seminar anyway, how can I build a little bit of community while I'm there?

If I'm on an online meeting already, how can I build a little bit of community while I'm there? And remember, there's lots of different places where community can be. So we are not necessarily talking about attending every departmental event and socials and seminars and all these things that departments put on for people.

Online can be a community. Twitter can be a community. There's loads of different places that can be communities. So for example, in my Ask Malia Me series, a Twitter account called The PhD Place, who I would recommend you all follow, message to ask who are the best people that you can follow in academic Twitter?

And I talked all about there, how you can find different types of people for different types of communi. So even places like Twitter are great places to build community, assuming Elon hasn't killed it by the time you're listening to his episode. But think of all the different types of communities and how you can fit in tiny little bits of time that enable you to believe you can build a community within the time you have available.

Another thing I hear a lot of people telling at themselves is, I'm not good at this. I'm not good at making friends. I don't do small talk. And again, these things might be true. You might be somebody who takes a while to get to know people who feels awkward at first, who doesn't enjoy talking to people for the sake of talking to them, and again first step is some acceptance. That's okay. That's totally normal too. In fact, I'd say within academia it's super common amongst lots of people. Other people might think I'm not good at it from the other direction. I have a tendency to get overexcited, babble, interrupt a lot and bulldoze people, and then I worry about that.

But again, there's a whole lot of people in academia who do that too. So however you are, however you interact with people, you can still build a community your way. You can find people who are more similar to you. You can find people who perhaps are a bit different, but who love you the way you are. You don't need to be good at it.

This is not something anyone's ever gonna give you a badge for. One thing I would always say is focus less on impressing people. Focus on being interested in other people. Loads of people who don't consider themselves good at this stuff have friends, have communities. You can build this in a way that works for you.

The final thing that I see really getting in people's way is telling themselves that it's not important. Now, this is related to I don't have time, but there are some people who say, I would love to, I see why it's important, but I just don't have time.

There are other people who say it's just not a priority. Sometimes this is people who have got friends outside of academia anyway, so they kind of feel personally supported and looked after already. Other people, it's that they feel that they've got a group within their department already and they don't need anybody else.

I would really check in with yourself that you are getting all of those benefits that I mentioned before. It's really unlikely the same people will do all of them. If you can recognize that all of those things are important. And you don't need to get them from the same people. Suddenly it's easy to see, oh, okay. It's important to build bridges with them because they're gonna connect me to this stuff. It's important to build bridges with those people because I can really relax and have a laugh with them. It's important to build bridges with these people so that when I feel like my head is gonna explode, cuz I've been writing for 12 hours and nothing is on the paper, I can talk to them and they'll get it.

So I want to finish with some really concrete strategies for you. First tip is to put yourself in the room. That might be a real room or a virtual room, but if you are not there, it's really hard to even begin to build a community. And I want you to ask yourself if that feels uncomfortable. And if it feels uncomfortable and again, this is a tactic. I want you to use other scenarios to if it feels uncomfortable, is it the sort of uncomfortable where you feel like it's uncomfortable and I'm gonna have to be kind to myself and look after myself, but if I do this, I'm gonna be really proud and I'm gonna be okay?

Or is it the sort of uncomfortable that just makes you panic and feel unreasonable? If it's the latter, that's okay. We just take a step back. How can you put yourself closer to a room? What sort of room might you feel more comfortable in? Perhaps that's online. Perhaps that's actually large groups where you don't have to say as much and you can just sort of lurk in the background.

So think about what sort of real or virtual room might you feel comfortable in. If it's the format that it does feel a bit uncomfortable, , but you think you can do it, think about what boundaries you're gonna put around that. It's like, okay, so I'll go to this thing in the department, but I don't have to stay more than quarter of an hour. If it's just a bit too much for me. What challenges are you gonna set yourself? So I'm gonna go to the thing into the school online, let's say, and i'm gonna say three things in the chat, or I'm gonna go to the face to face meeting and I'm gonna talk to one person that I've never spoken to before. So setting yourself tiny bite size challenges is a really good way to start to slowly move towards having a little bit more community. It may be that you've realized that your home department, isn't it? So some people come to a department not really knowing much about the community or who have really high hopes for what the community might be. And it ends up feeling like you don't fit.

Maybe it's, it's a very male department and you identify as, more feminine. Perhaps it's a department that has particular political views that you don't feel you fit with. Perhaps it's a department where you are one of very few people of color or where there are very few people who, Talk about any sexualities except, for heterosexual relationships.

There's lots of reasons why your academic community might not feel like the place where you want to be building your community. So what you can then think is, where else can I build an academic community? Where can I find phD students who are in a different department, perhaps, where can I find people in my discipline who are at a different university?

Online is always an option. Events is another. Now, I know conferences aren't always accessible to people, but they're often local events, local things in your universities, and so on. some of my very best friends in my academic discipline, so I used to be a stress immunologist, are people that I have met at events, and we've actually only spent probably 15, 20 days together in total ever in our lives.

But we've been friends 20 years because we kind of had a random conversations and then spent a bit of time going to a seminar together and then got to know each other a little bit more. And then they introduced us to other people. And I've got my little group now who, as I say, I've known since I was 22 years old and they were all over the world, the wrong side of the Atlantic as far as I'm concerned, cuz I would love to see them more.

They're not part of my department, but they're part of my academic bubble. They're part of my support system. And if they're listening, I love you all dearly, and you know who you are.

So, Then building on that, where can you find your non-academic community? Where can you find people that empathize with the other parts of you? Now, over the years, this has been different places for me. You've heard me talk about the circus, and that's been a really important part of my non-academic community. Other times it was British military Fitness, doing like burpees in the park. I met some of my very, very best friends there. So thinking about at different times in your life, there might be different parts of your life that you want to emphasize.

For some of you it might be cultural groups, it might be religious groups. think around where you can find those non-academic communities. And then once you put yourself in the room, I want you to think what tiny behaviors you could take that make it more likely, you'll build some connections. So one thing I always recommend is to look for people around the edges.

Often when we're in a room, we look at the kind of the noisy, popular ones in the middle who are all chattering and having fun. Have a look around the edges, especially if you're feeling nervous. Are there other people who are looking like they might like somebody to talk to? I always look for somebody who's doing something.

So those of you listen to my previous podcast know that I've just recently joined a new circus place. I'm very much still at the getting to know people. I wouldn't call it my community yet. I'm building little bridges and seeing how it goes in this particular circus place. And one of the things I did was I looked out for people who were like putting the mats out and I just went and said, can I help you?

Because before that I was sort of standing at the edge, looking like a bit of a lemon, not talking to anybody, and I wanted to build some bridges. but it felt a lot just to go and say, hi, I'm Vicky. Good to meet you. And so I asked them if they wanted some help and they wanted help and so I helped them put the mats out and we kind of got chatting a little bit because of that.

So often you can look for people who are doing those sorts of things. Oh, can I help you sort the badges out? Oh, can I help you with the food? Helping people with a task is a really low risk way of getting talking to somebody. 

Also really be aware of your tendency to get into other people's heads. So most of us spend a lot of time thinking what other people might be thinking that, oh, are they gonna think I'm too pushy, or are they gonna think I'm too awkward, or I'm too weird. I would really suggest that you try and remind yourself to behave in a way that you think is nice and appropriate and let them have their opinion.

Most of the time, people aren't thinking about us anywhere near as much as we think they are. So if we can just adhere to our own principles and allow them to think what they think, usually we end up building far more bridges than we ever realize. 

So to conclude, when you think about your community, I want you to think about people who get what you are. And people that get you as a person. I want you to put yourselves in situations where you can build little tiny connections and to support yourself to do that. And I want you to remember that every community is made one interaction at a time.

So take a little bit of time this. To think what interactions you can plan now and how you are gonna support yourself through them so that you can start to build a community that helps you thrive and enjoy and succeed.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found that episode useful. I would love to hear how you are finding developing your academic community or what things you want to do in the future. So jump on that newsletter, go to thephdlifecoach.com to find the sign up, and let me know exactly what you want to do to build your community.

And don't forget to check out the PhD Life Coach membership, which One of my ex-members, I have permission to share this, described as a shining light of what kind of space academia can be. So if you want some of that in your life, come join us. I'll see you soon