Powerful Mind Coaching News

Staying Up While Economy Goes Down Not Impossible

Good Question: How Do I Beat The Recession Blues?

Written by Alan Gionet

DENVER (CBS4) ―

 

 

 

 

The pressures of worrying about our jobs, our homes and the future for our families are high during this recession.

We’re grinding our teeth and biting our nails. But there are a few proven ways to chill out, according to Prof. Mary Coussons-Read, a psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Denver.

“We have some choices about the way we think about things. One thing you can do is you can say ‘You know what? I’m going to make a choice and I’m going to do something different,’” she said.

But how, you ask?

“You can do some things that are fun. You can do some things that don’t cost a lot of money,” Coussons-Read said.

“One thing you can do is you can say … ‘I’m going to spend some time thinking about what’s good.’ And even if that means sitting down and writing in a journal about that vacation last summer and how great that was and how ‘I’m looking forward to doing that again sometime.’ Those are all things that can help you improve your psychology and help you stop focusing on the negative so much.

“So if you sit down and you write down all the feelings and the frustrations that you’re having and then actually go through the act of shutting the journal and putting it away and saying, ‘OK that was my time to be frustrated and grouchy and now I’m going to move on’ (then you can) try to have a more positive attitude.”

You will need to keep in mind that unless you’re a failed, overpaid investment banking CEO, the recession is probably not your fault. (And even then, you have your defenders …)

“So if you can’t control everything in your life it’s really good to think about the things you can control,” Coussons-Read said.

To gain some control, set some goals but make them reasonable.

“You’re making progress toward a new goal and having that written down and holding yourself accountable. (That) can really help you feel like you’re in control of something that’s happening.”

Exercise is terrific.

A breath of fresh air is called just that for a reason.

“You can do some things that are fun. You can do some things that don’t cost a lot of money.”

There’s a lot to volunteering, according to Coussons-Read.

“One of the things that’s really helpful when you’re really feeling down is to try to help other people. One of the things that can be really helpful is if you’re feeling isolated, feeling like things aren’t going well … socialize.”

Remember, we’re all in this together. A little company amid our misery can go a long way.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO:Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, an ethnic-studies professor at CU-Colorado Springs, and Mary Coussons-Read, who teaches psychology at CU-Denver, have won the 2008 Elizabeth D. Gee Memorial Lectureship Award, which honors teaching, scholarship and interdisciplinary collaboration to advance women in higher education.

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 News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education

Moving Beyond the ‘Big 3′
By Mary Coussons-Read and Tammy Stone

It’s a brave new world for tenure-track faculty members, graduate students, and postdocs these days. New and aspiring professors enter an academy in which the traditional boundaries defining faculty work, the “Big 3” of teaching, research and service, are blurred and, in many cases, disappearing as modern scholarship becomes increasingly collaborative, cooperative, and integrated. For example, not only do we pull the most recent research results into our class lectures but, increasingly, we actively involve our undergraduates in the research enterprise. Institutions of higher education appear to promote this redefinition of faculty work by encouraging professors to weave together aspects of teaching, research and service, especially in areas that lend themselves to collaborative inquiry and scholarship. In some cases, grant competitions and other types of administrative support are in place to foster this integration, but there’s an elephant in the room.

Faculty searches at many institutions of higher education already acknowledge this shift, actively seeking candidates who are multi-disciplinary in their training, teaching, and service interests, and who are used to blending these activities. For many incoming faculty members in the sciences, the silos that defined training and teaching 15 or 20 years ago have given way to team-based approaches to graduate training, postdoctoral mentoring, teaching, and field and laboratory-based research. Similarly, the training model for many social sciences includes traditional research methods and data-oriented training merged with community outreach opportunities and service learning. Frequently, these experiences are interdisciplinary, bringing together interests and scholars that deepen understanding of an issue and provide more comprehensive data or possible solutions. These trends would appear to be entirely positive.

Enter the elephant.

Colleges and universities are sending very mixed messages to faculty members on where integrated research, teaching, and/or service work fits in their progression through the reappointment, tenure, and promotion systems that literally make or break their careers as professors. Many colleges show that they support and encourage integrated work, for example, by providing administrative and financial support for such activities through internal grants and centers, but when the time comes for reviews, professors find themselves in the position of essentially defending their activities. This is because many existing review criteria are designed with the “Big 3” in mind as separate factors, as a result of being formulated at the first half of the last century in terms of an academy that focused on itself as a free-standing intellectual center and less on being a resource for and an integral part of the communities that surround and support it.

When faculty members approach the review process at our university and elsewhere, the value of faculty work that blends the “Big 3” is unclear and difficult to measure. In some cases, integrated faculty work, especially integrated research and teaching, is seen as an aberration that requires justification, additional documentation, and assurance of the value of the activity in question. Indeed, the degree to which this message is unequivocally delivered varies somewhat, but as a general rule, a Google search of Web-accessible review criteria for many types of academic units returns requirements for justification of integrated or collaborative work. Examples of the types of validation required include but are not limited to:

Detailed explanation of why the integrated work can be classified as both research and service, and what proportion of the work falls into each category.
In the case of multi-authored or multi-participant projects (and this is common for integrated work), descriptions of individual contributions of all collaborators.
Explicit justification of why an integrated or collaborative approach was used.
Assurance that the integrated work is occurring in addition to the candidate’s activities in the traditional divisions of faculty work, especially in the case of research.
Clearly, part of the purpose of these guidelines is to assure that candidates are, in fact, making substantial and relevant contributions in research, teaching and service, and are not “double dipping” when engaged in and reporting integrated work. Moreover, when more than one individual is involved in a project, there can be concern that participation and responsibility for the project is not spread equally. It could be argued, however, that integrated work and collaborations produce positive outcomes that can be measured in ways besides the number of journal publications, student course evaluations, or the number of committee reports generated, many of which are not captured in traditional review guidelines.

For example, the definitions of contributions to a scholarly field can be expanded beyond the traditional disciplinary divisions and the journals associated with them for generations. Instead, equal weight can be given to relatively new but high quality venues dedicated to collaborative and integrated research, teaching and service. A great example of such an area is science education, in which science faculty conduct research on K-12 science education and classroom approaches. Additionally, work products, activities, and outcomes occurring outside traditional journal publications (i.e. applied work with non-profit organizations, governments, communities, or civic organizations) can be given greater weight in the review process.

Importantly, the collaboration that often goes hand-in-hand with integrating aspects of teaching, research and service has garnered significant support from several respected groups in higher education, and provides an additional challenge to faculty evaluation. This sentiment is well-articulated in a 2005 National Research Council report on fostering “independence” in emerging scientists: “An ‘independent investigator’ is one who enjoys independence of thought — the freedom to define the problem of interest and/or to choose or develop the best strategies and approaches to address that problem. Under this definition, an independent scientist may work alone, as the intellectual leader of a research group, or as a member of a consortium of investigators each contributing distinct expertise. Specifically, we do not intend ‘independence’ to mean necessarily ‘isolated’ or ’solitary,’ or to imply ’self-sustaining’ or ’separately funded.’”

This definition is fundamentally different than the definition of independence that is used in many review documents which are based on the way we conducted ourselves as faculty members 20+ years ago. It is certainly different from the definition used, formally and informally, by review committees in many universities, and does not fit especially well with the team approach that often characterizes integrated teaching, research and service among our best and brightest faculty. The traditional definition is of a solitary, funded, scholar, recognized in his or her own rite as a contributor to the discipline, who does research, teaches, and serves in the silo of his or her discipline and institution and keeps each area of his or her job (teaching, research, and service) strictly separated.

It could be argued that in a world without the digital, data, and real-time communication and knowledge access capabilities of today, engaging in collaboration or attempting to integrate research and teaching, for example, was much riskier, and had the real possibility of diverting a pre-tenure faculty member’s attention, resources, and focus. Without electronic media, for example, the lag time between current research findings and the classroom or lab was much longer, and would conceivably be somewhat of a diversion from the focus of a course or project.

Today, however, the world is a very different place, and it is entirely possible for faculty members, regardless of career point, to collaborate, cross disciplines and time-zones, and get the on-demand data and communication they need to develop highly effective integrated research, teaching, and service activities and projects that provide incredible experiences for students and show, unequivocally, the value of the university. Doing this successfully can be a career-building centerpiece for some of our most innovative, committed, and promising faculty. As institutions, we strive to recruit the brightest, most promising faculty, many of whom are doing wonderful integrated research, teaching, and service work. It’s time for us to meet them halfway by creating review criteria and systems that reward this new definition of independence. Are review committees really so rigid that they can’t handle one list that combines research, teaching and service rather than three lists?

Mary Coussons-Read is a professor of psychology, an associate dean at University of Colorado at Denver and the founder of Powerful Mind Coaching, where she coaches parents in academia and blogs about the trials and tribulations of balancing home, a research career, and academic administration. Tammy Stone is an associate professor of anthropology and an associate dean at the University of Colorado at Denver.
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© Copyright 2008 Inside Higher Ed

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For Parents in Academia, a Life Coach can Make the Difference Between “Tenured” and “Terminated”

Littleton, Colorado — July 29, 2008 — Getting tenure is hard enough, but doing it when you’ve got a family too? Moms and Dads in Colleges and Universities do it, but in the process, many struggle with intense stress, guilt about lost family time, and serious problems with time management. Add to that the fact that although the tenure clock can be stopped for faculty as they start families, it does restart again, and when it runs out, if a faculty member fails to make tenure, they are terminated from the University. Although the pressure and challenges can seem insurmountable, professors on the tenure track can more readily find their way to academic and personal success with the help of a qualified academic and life coach. The needs of parents in academe, however, are not met by life or tenure coaches who lack first-hand experience with successfully navigating tenure and promotion processes in modern Universities. The limited time and money untenured professors with families have to invest in their own professional and personal development must be wisely invested with a coach who can provide the specific skill set needed to get parents in academia where they want to go. Working with an academic and life coach who has experienced the struggles of succeeding at the university and at home can be a wise investment that is transformational for faculty facing the challenges of succeeding as professors and parents. Powerful Mind Coaching, LLC, provides the necessary combination of experience, training, and perspective to help parents in academia get tenure, get promoted, and have a healthy family life.

“I commonly see stressed-out, incredibly hard-working parents who are either on the tenure track or “stuck in rank” at Associate Professor- I can relate, of course, because I’ve been there myself!!,” says Mary Coussons-Read, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Founder of Powerful Mind Coaching. Mary indicates that many clients are frustrated that they are having a hard time getting the needs of their families and careers met consistently, and moreover, that they have no “down time”. “This is an exhausting cycle that can be broken with support, planning, and choice, and that’s what I do in my group and individual coaching work. One of the first things I work with clients to do, and that I do myself on a daily basis, is to begin make choices about everything to help prioritize time, energy, and resources,” she says. “For example, if you have a 3-hour block of time, how are you going to spend it? Revising a manuscript that is almost finished and ready to submit or making a list of new courses you’d like to develop in the next academic year? Well, if you’re on the tenure track, the papers have to get published, so put the manuscript first, then do the class list if you have time; do not let yourself get distracted from the critical task of the paper by the lure of the more enjoyable task of thinking up new courses.” Clients report that the simple act of making small choices like this over and over again and being deliberate about how they spend their home and work time is incredibly liberating. “It emphasizes that although we can’t control everything by a long shot, we can control how we spend our own time and energy, and that is empowering” says Coussons-Read.

Coussons-Read is currently working on a collaborative research project collecting empirical data on the effectiveness individual and group coaching for increasing retention and promotion of faculty who are parents and on the mental and physical stress-reducing benefits of coaching in this group. “It’s important use data to show the benefits of this approach, not only to make a contribution to the faculty development literature, but also to provide clients thinking about coaching with some hard evidence, beyond a testimonial, that coaching can make the road to academic success smoother for them and their families.”

About Powerful Mind Consulting and Coaching, LLC

Powerful Mind Coaching, LLC, is a professional practice that helps Professors with families invest their time and energy to simultaneously succeed in their academic and home lives. For more information about Powerful Mind Coaching or engaging Dr. Coussons-Read for interviews or speaking engagements, please contact her at 877-753-2251 http://PowerfulMindCoaching.com

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COHESIVE LIFE COACHING ENRICHES FAMILY LIFE BY HELPING PARENTS

EXCEL IN THEIR CAREERS AND AT HOME

Moms and Dads struggling to excel as professionals and parents make
tremendous gains by partnering with a with a life coach. Powerful Mind
Coaching uses research in Psychology and Mind/Body health to support working
parents in their careers and improve quality of life for families.
Dr. Mary Coussons-Read, Founding Principal of Powerful Mind Coaching,
discusses this process of Cohesive Life Coaching and her results.

Littleton, Colorado – May 12, 2008 – Cohesive Life Coaching is a new
approach to supporting working parents and their families that uses research
in psychology, communication, and mind/body health to relieve the stresses
felt by this group. Powerful Mind Coaching was founded by Psychology and
Behavioral Science Professor Dr. Mary Coussons-Read, and provides
personalized support for parents struggling to excel in and balance their
aspirations as professionals and parents by adding solid research-based
approaches to her already successful model of one-on-one
life coaching.

“We commonly see stressed-out, highly committed parents in our practice that
need help crystallizing and moving toward what is essential for them and
their families. Making the distinction between “essential” and “desirable”
is a critical step in this process,” Dr. Coussons-Read states.
“Although we’ve been coaching folks very successfully prior to this, the
incorporation of research on communication and mind/body health into the
practice has helped our clients move forward even faster.”

Coussons-Read is currently collecting data on the effectiveness of this
integrative approach to helping families and parents achieve lasting balance
and reduce the long-term impact of stress on their mental and physical
health. “Although we and our clients know this works, it’s critical to
measure the value-added by this approach to support and expand the
effectiveness and reach of Cohesive Life Coaching for families and working
adults.”

About Powerful Mind Consulting and Coaching, LLC

Powerful Mind Coaching is a professional practice specializing in helping
men and women in creating more centered, satisfying, and balanced lives at
work and at home. For more information about Powerful Mind Coaching,
Cohesive Life Coaching, or engaging Dr. Coussons-Read for interviews or
speaking engagements, please contact Dr. Mary Coussons-Read at
1-877-753-2251.

Contact Info
Mary Coussons-Read, Ph.D.

Founding Principal

Powerful Mind Consulting and Coaching, LLC

Phone: 1-877-753-2251

Email: drmcr@comcast.net

Web: www.PowerfulMindCoaching.com