Self-care and generosity when academia and life transitions intersect

Authors: Emmanuelle Fick and Carol Rolheiser

Importance

A theoretical framework is intended to create a structure that describes a theory. For researchers, both new and experienced, such a framework creates a roadmap to both guide the research process, support the analysis of data, and help in the interpretation of findings. The Gentle Academic framework presented through the case studies in this compilation puts forward a set of interrelated concepts that define leadership in a particular way. The Gentle Academic framework proposes 11 principles that work interdependently to define leadership that is characterised by compassion, humility, and empathy. While this case study focuses primarily on Principle #6, be generous with yourself, we invite the reader to also note how intimately this principle works with the other principles in the framework. We believe that Principle #6 is important for all leaders, no matter their experience level, as it demonstrates kindness and generosity for oneself, and, in turn, opens up the space for others on our teams to engage in self-care.

Our case study begins with the reflections of one of my (Carol) former PhD students, Emmanuelle, as she dealt with the intersection of her identities while completing her doctoral program, and as she transitioned from her role as a student into an emergent leadership role within higher education. Throughout those transitions we both reflect on Principle #6 and the impact it had on her journey as a learner navigating new roles, and on my leadership role as a mentor supporting her through transitional periods.

Scenario

I (Emmanuelle) am sitting at the kitchen table finalising the submission of my comprehensive exam for my doctoral program. It’s snowing outside. My bulging belly presses against the rim of the table, and I feel a strong kick from the little being that will soon emerge into the world. I was working against a tight and immovable timeline, the birth of my first child, and a secondary timeline that, in my mind, was equally immovable, the submission of my comprehensive exam. The meeting of this exam timeline was a milestone that, for me, was necessary prior to entering the unknown terrain of motherhood. I felt that my ability to achieve this milestone would sustain my academic path, through an identity shift that I anticipated but could not at that time ever have comprehended. Almost exactly a year and a half later, I am writing thesis notes in my journal at a playground table, again working against a deadline to submit my thesis proposal. My son is with my mom, and they are building a pile of sticks in the grass. My belly, once again, is rotund. My mind is whirring with the details of my thesis proposal, grappling with its amorphous but slowly solidifying shape and with flashes of what I have learned will be the sleepless nights, bodily demands of breastfeeding, stresses of doctor’s appointments, all with an added layer of constant anxiety about the pandemic. I gave birth to my second child, a daughter, in a mask. It was 2020.

Before the birth of each of my two children, I was bracing for change but held my academic work as an anchor to my other identity as an emerging academic. I realise now that this dichotomous thinking, parsing out motherhood from academia, was flawed (Willey, 2020) but not entirely unfounded given the real demands of motherhood and barriers to real or perceived academic productivity in a neoliberal climate (Huopalainen & Satama, 2018). But, at the time, achieving those milestones (first the comprehensive exam and then the thesis proposal) was a buoy in the early storm of motherhood. A conflagration of factors – two young children under two and a global pandemic – forced me to step out of my program for unanticipated leaves of absence. I explained to the very kind student support member at my university that I was caring for two children full-time; because of the pandemic, my family made the decision to keep them out of childcare.

I don’t think I would have completed my program without taking these leaves to care for myself and focus on my family. However, that care was made possible by the unquestioning, compassionate, and kind support offered by my thesis supervisor, Professor Rolheiser, and the institutional supports that recognise the complex lives of graduate students. Sometimes to care for ourselves, we need permission to do so. Professor Rolheiser gave me that permission. As I navigated through those transitional periods and their accompanying identity shifts, she was a lighthouse. When I reached out to her about some personal struggles (and that reach out was not easy), I was met with radiant warmth, understanding, generosity, and empathy that was not just like a much-needed hug but also something tangible that I could brace myself against, a pillar of support. I remember opening my email and feeling a wave of relief at her care and kind words. My committee members, strong academic powerhouse women, were similarly supportive and gracious. Their leadership and mentorship, their unquestioning belief that I would return to the academic work, their implicit belief in the value of my study, was sustaining.

This case study is about the importance of our own self-care, and the importance of leaders in our lives –the generosity and kindness they extend can help to support us as we take sometimes difficult but important steps. There is no linear through-line or prescribed road map for many of us as we engage in new roles and processes. Sometimes the combination of life events and transitional/transformational periods necessitate a stepping back to determine how best to move forward.

During my leaves, I was unable to work on my thesis or make progress in any conventional, measurable way. I kept rehearsing lines from Virginia Woolf’s famous 1929 essay “A Room of One’s Own” (1929/2014) in my head. Woolf’s focus on social injustices for women and the importance of the required time and space for women to write resonated for me. It was only when I could send my children to daycare that I could write; and I wrote incessantly for days and days on end. It was like a dam had burst. It was what had been bottled inside, having had the time to percolate while I was on leave doing endless loads of laundry, wiping down floors covered in food, breastfeeding at all hours, and taking five-minute showers (because that seemed to be the amount of time I could go without someone needing me). However, there was also a benefit to stepping out of the program. The time “off” provided some healthy distance from my study. Sometimes we become so enthralled in our work that we can become myopic. The leaves of absence during this major life transition gave me distance and perspective. In the seemingly unproductive tableaus of motherhood, I mulled over the interviews, the voices of the participants echoing in my head, threading and overlaying their voices, grasping for connections. The time during my leaves allowed for processing and connection-making. It was an invaluable time of reflection.

As a graduate student, obstacles abound. You are a novice researcher grappling with new material, navigating study designs and dilemmas (Gallagher, 2008; Gallagher, 2018), the ins and outs of graduate school timelines, grant applications, and ethical review requirements. Everything is new. Each step is laboured. And at times it is unclear what options are available to you as a student, in terms of institutional processes and support, to take a different path that may allow more time and space to chart one’s learning path and carve out time for self-care and other responsibilities. As a mom, I watched my children explore their newfound worlds, each wobbly step, each half-formed word, everything in their environment a question. I saw not an infantilisation in their growth and exploration but a profound wisdom and beauty and grace. I, too, was wobbly, my thesis half-formed, everything a question, and that uncertainty was ok. To come to that realisation through my children was the most powerful kind of self-care. It took time to get there. There were moments of frustration and sadness that I couldn’t get back to work, but it was only when I embraced being present and the immense personal growth that I was undergoing that I finally started to give myself permission for self-care, for self-generosity – that I started to shed the guilt of taking time off from my program.

I completed my PhD program once my children were both in daycare. My son and daughter are now in school. I find myself now not as an emergent academic, but as an emergent leader in an administrator role at a postsecondary institution. Once again, I am learning, a little wobbly with a lot of questions, and that’s ok. The director of my department in many ways reminds me of my supervisor in her care and support. She empathetically relates her own journey as a mom in administration and the challenges of balancing work and young children in the initial years in her role. In fact, there are many moms with young children in leadership positions in my workplace. There is a culture that supports us in the flexibility of our schedules, in the check-ins that sincerely ask “how are you doing?”, and in the mentorship our director provides through her open door policy.

Reflection and advice

Emmanuelle

Although I taught for over a decade and see teaching as leadership, I am a novice leader in my new role. As I saw modelled for me, I approach my team with humility and empathy. I also have a deeper appreciation for the complex lives, responsibilities, and identities of my co-workers that intersect with their work. I encourage their self-care. I encourage them to take breaks, go for walks, to meet up as a team to periodically break bread, and I engage in conversations to check in, to discuss something they are doing as a hobby, or to share updates regarding their families. This sounds like it might be contrived or that it is an intentional strategy that I use. It’s not. It’s a natural way to connect with others. It stems from a genuine desire to support and care for my colleagues. The kinds of conversations that tend to take place at the start of a meeting are sometimes as important as what is covered in the agenda. My director recently implemented a contactless Friday afternoon policy to allow quiet time and focus for work. We are a high-volume department, and it is not uncommon for our team to hold multiple meetings a day because we collaborate with academic teams across the institution. This policy was explicitly couched around the language of self-care and mental health. I also try to model self-care. This might be as simple as saying I am going for a walk or I have a doctor’s appointment. As I stated above, sometimes we need explicit permission to engage in self-care: leaders can normalise, prioritise, and model self-care and generosity for their team.

Carol

Emmanuelle’s reflections on this core principle, “Be generous with yourself” reminds us of important insights related to this principle. Leaders who are mentoring others need to take care to guide and encourage learners to be generous with themselves and to encourage the actions that they feel are most needed at any one time. It is important to avoid a “one size fits all” approach to mentoring. Second, learners have complex lives, and when we take a holistic view of the learner, including the complex interplay of identities, we can more adeptly support their own self-care and learning journey with kindness and generosity. Having authentic conversations that help us better understand the lives of others makes us more responsive and supportive as leaders. Third, time and space are often needed to lessen the pressure that so characterises our lives today. At times, learners are not able to see options for their path forward.

As leaders, the coaching and mentoring questions we offer others can be key to them discovering what path they need to take in both attending to their own care while also realising their goals. For example, often we impose our own internal timelines or see external timelines as rigid. At times, I felt Emmanuelle would have benefitted from me opening up the conversation about adjusted timelines earlier and coaching her more explicitly. However, I am pleased that when the conversations did occur, I was able to demonstrate empathy and care. Coaching may involve asking questions to others and sharing resources. Questions may be along the lines of “What do you most need in your life right now to take care of yourself?”; “Would adjusting the timeline for that task allow you to explore the issue in greater depth?”; “How can I support you in thinking about a new timeline?”. Coaching may also involve sharing the resources that are available and relaying stories of others who have had similar experiences. I encouraged Emmanuelle to connect with the student support person and apply for time off and shared that I have had other students take leaves. This added re-assurance supported her in reaching out and exploring her options. And fourth, the lessons we learn from mentors, their modelling and their interactions with us, can prove to be key pillars in future leadership work, guiding us to be our best version of The Gentle Academic. In Case Study #4, we follow Emmanuelle as she completes her PhD and takes on a role as an emergent leader in higher education, putting into practice care and kindness as she supports herself as a leader and her staff in addressing their gaps in knowledge and continuing their learning journeys.

Huopalainen, A.S., & Satama, S.T. (2018). Mothers and researchers in the making: Negotiating ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia. Human Relations, 72(1), 98-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718764571

Willey, N.L. (2020). Parenting policies and culture in academia and beyond: Making it while mothering (and fathering) in the academy, and what COVID-19 has to do with it. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, 11(1). https://jarm.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jarm/article/view/40601

Woolf, V. (2014). A room of one’s own. (D. Bradshaw & S. N. Clarke, Eds.). Wiley-Blackwell. (Original work published 1929)