A healthy work-life balance is important regardless of where you are in your academic career.

  • Every PhD has the first-hand experience with Grad School struggles.
  • Every tenured professor can remember the feeling of going on the job market.
  • PhDs in non-academic careers know how difficult the decision was to choose a non-academic career path.

Outlets like the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed often share perspectives and advice on combatting challenges we all face throughout our academic careers. For example, challenges like imposter syndrome are no longer hidden but are now acknowledged and widely discussed.

One of the biggest challenges we still face is asking for that initial help from our seniors, mentors and even colleagues. More often than not, most of us choose to not seek help when we are going through these challenges for fear of being judged or having it held against us.

Recent losses in the discipline and subsequent conversations in person and on Twitter have encouraged us to open the door for further discussion about managing the unique brand of stress that accompanies academic life and fostering a work-life balance.

While a Twitter chat won’t provide a quick fix, we hope that this conversation will reveal resources and help strengthen support networks that will prove beneficial to our friends and colleagues.

On Tuesday, August 22 at 2:00 PM (Eastern), please join us for MPSA’s first Twitter chat on this subject. Co-hosts for the inaugural discussion are Todd Curry, Assistant Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas at El Paso, Jacqueline Sievert, Research Fellow with YWCA Niagara, and Adnan Rasool, Doctoral Candidate at Georgia State University.

If you haven’t participated in a live Twitter chat before, here are a few tips:

  • A moderator from MPSA will post a series of numbered questions over the course of the hour to help prompt response from participants. (Q1: What is your ideal “work-life balance” for the new academic year?)
  • To share your answer to a specific question, just begin your response with “A1” and include the hashtag(s) designated for the chat.
  • The live chat will last approximately an hour, and you are welcome to participate for some or all of it. We hope that the conversation continues using the hashtag so others can catch up on it later.
  • You may choose to use your regular Twitter account to follow along or you may opt to use online tools created specifically for Twitter chats. Here are three examples and instructions for each.

We will be using two hashtags for the inaugural Twitter Chat (#MPSAchat and #PSBeWell). #MPSAchat will be carried forward for each monthly chat and we hope that #PSBeWell will be used exclusively when work-life balance topics are in focus.

Future MPSA Twitter chats will be on the fourth Tuesday of each month with a focus on topics including professional development, public engagement, advocacy, research, publishing, teaching/learning, and work-life balance.