I'm teaching my graduate seminar in professional and career development this semester, which is now officially a graduate course at UConn. You can find my syllabus here. 

How do you find job ads? 

In preparation for my Fall professional development graduate classes, I compiled a list of places to search for jobs, with some help from #AcademicTwitter. And because I never met a list that didn't look better in a spreadsheet, we made a spreadsheet of Places to Search for HDFS-relevant academic and alt-academic jobs. Behold: 

Places to Search for HDFS-relevant academic and alt-academic jobs

It includes traditional places for faculty jobs, like Chronicle of Higher Ed and Academic Jobs Online. 

​It includes some places the hip young people go, like the Psych Jobs Wiki  (warning: Not for the faint of heart!).

​More specialized places like Obesity Society and Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

And, places for primarily alt-ac jobs, like Idealist and the Versatile PhD. 

I'm always looking to add, so please send me suggestions.

Want to check out my other compilation lists? 

Post docs (almost 140 listed)

​Fellowships (almost 100)

​Internships (almost 50)

​“Where to search for HDFS-relevant jobs" first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on May 14, 2021.”

My favorite course to teach starts now! Here's my syllabus for my graduate seminar in professional development and career planning. 

SYLLABUS SPRING 2021

This Fall, I taught a 344 student general education course on individual and family development across the lifespan. You can see my syllabus here.
 
Today, at great personal cost to my self-esteem, I read and summarized all written responses from 266 students (78% response rate). How did I summarize? Learn more about my technique, and why. 
 
I am going to share the summary of every single response with you. Then, I’m going to summarize differences between perceived strengths and weaknesses of this semester compared to Fall 2018 in person. Then, I’m going to share what these ratings (granted, just one class) can tell us about how to support students’ online learning in large classes. I share this information because it was hard for me to find in Summer 2020. Our university does an excellent job in preparing online instructors, and offered many additional trainings and workshops for faculty to take their classes online. But our online classes are historically designed to be relatively small, and so some of the best practices do not easily scale to large format classes.
 
I consulted with Suzanne LaFleur, Director of Facuty Development at UConn’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, who helped me talk through ideas and provided some great advice that I incorporated.
 
It’s important to note that the way I structured the course only worked because I had substantial TA support. Communication and grading with 350 students would have been impossible if I did not have that kind of support.
 
You can find the full summary of every single positive comment and suggestion for change here.
 
Here are the most common responses, noted by 10 or more students, to the question, “What was the most positive aspect of the way in which this instructor taught this course?”
 

* La-de-da. Let’s pretend we didn’t notice how long it’s been since I last posted.
 
Here is my syllabus for Fall, 2020 in HDFS 1070, a general education lifespan class on individual and family development. The course was fully remote.
 
Here is my syllabus from Fall 2019, fully in person.
 
Here are the things I changed/adjusted to be fully remote:

• More office hours: I had WebEx office hours 3 times a week during the scheduled class time
• Videos instead of live lectures: I had recordings of (almost) all my lectures from Fall 2019. I had recorded them for a student with accommodations to view recorded lectures outside of class times. I can’t tell you how many times I said how lucky I was. I emailed this student in August and thanked her. Instead of posting 50 minute lectures, though, I chunked the three 50-minute lectures into about 10 videos per week.
• Introduction videos: In addition to the pre-recorded lectures, I made weekly intro videos (more on these in my next post) in which I went over the week’s topic, reviewed assignments and expectations, and tried to make the class feel more connected/personalized through a range of techniques.
• Exams: My exams were already online. But, I decreased the percent of the grade based on exams from 60% to 50%, and thus increased the percent of grade from assignments.
• Independent assignments: Previously, students completed one weekly online assignment that applied course material to their own experiences – for instance, to take an online life expectancy calculator and answer questions about the feedback. Instead, I added lecture assignments – about one question to answer after each of the week’s 10 videos. Some were just comprehension/recall. Some were more application, such as “think of a movie/TV show/book.  What type of love (based on the Triangle of Love) do they demonstrate in this example, and what evidence is there for that type (you may need to consult the textbook to see all of the categories)?”
• Group assignments: In person, I have unannounced, approximately weekly in class assignments that they do in spontaneously formed groups of about three people, where they apply the day’s material to an application question – for instance, “Over Thanksgiving break, your 40-year-old aunt, who learned you took a class on lifespan development, asks you what she should do so that the next couple decades of her life go well. Based on what you learned about MIDLIFE, what are three pieces of advice that you will give her? Make sure each piece of advice is something she can actually act on (e.g., not, “become a grandparent” or “don’t experience menopause”). And, make sure each piece of advice is something we learned in this class, either from lecture or the textbook.” I converted these to weekly online group assignments, to be done during scheduled class time. I assigned groups of 8-9 at the start of the semester, and students could use Blackboard Collaborate or any form they wanted to meet. They had to submit one google doc with their collaborative response. Of all the class design changes, this one caused the most headache for me and the TAs (as I anticipated – I was right!). Students often didn’t actually meet but worked asynchronously. Students complained that they couldn’t meet during the scheduled (class) time. Students complained that some group members didn’t show up but added their name to the google doc, anyway. Not sure how I would do it differently next time, but I would probably do it differently.
• Dropped assignments: I increased the number of each type of assignment that students could drop – generally added one additional drop.

 
“Introductory Individual and Family Development: Remote, large section class syllabus first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on January 5, 2021.”
 

I check email a lot – more than I should I am sure. I have colleagues who are skilled at limiting their email checking – only before noon. Only after noon. Never after 9:00 PM. Not on weekends. I fail on all of these accounts, even when I try. In the past, I never, across 365.25 days a year, took a break from email for more than a few hours.
 
What I have done for the past 20+ years, though, is use my vacation message. When I went out of town, whether for work or for a conference (oops, I meant work or vacation), I put my vacation message on. I love that satisfying moment of setting it up. I find the vacation message very liberating, because I can choose whether to reply to someone – they know I am away and so it lowers the expectation of an immediate response. I particularly love that at UConn, if someone emails me from within UConn using their UConn account in Outlook, once they start the email they can see I have a vacation message, and they are, I believe, less likely to send their message. But even when I was at Penn State, I would often, while away, receive messages and then a follow up, never mind, I see you’re away, and I figured it out. Basically, I love the moment I set that vacation message and the corresponding decreasing sense of responsibility to swiftly respond to each message.
 
In the past though, I always continued to check email across every break, even if my vacation message was on. I often didn’t reply, but sometimes I did if it seemed important, or quick. But more critically, if it was an annoying email, or about a problem, even if I didn’t reply, it was in my head. I would be thinking about it, or feeling an increase in stress levels, because that message existed.
 
The summer after my first year as department head, my husband and I took a 4-night vacation to Bermuda to celebrate our 15-year anniversary. It was our first real trip without the kids since they were born. And after much deliberating and stressing about it, I decided not only to turn on the vacation message, but also not to check my work email. I still checked my Gmail account, and so people in the office knew if it was an emergency they could contact me. My vacation message explained I wouldn’t be checking email, and whom to contact instead. I moved my work email icon on my phone off of the first screen so it wasn’t always in front of me. And, for about 5 days, I never checked my work email. Seriously, would you want to be checking work email while here?:

Guess what? Everyone survived. Nothing came up that couldn’t wait. And, when I returned I felt a lot more rested and ready to tackle the email and work in general.
 
Last summer our family went to Spain for about a week, and I did the same thing. Again, nothing went terribly wrong, no one ever had to contact me there, and I dealt with everything when I returned. Can’t really tell in the photo, but I was rather relaxed:

And most recently, for about 9 days in June, my family was in the UK, and I put up this vacation message:

Thank you for your message. I am out of the office and will be doing my best to recharge before returning to the office on June 26th. During this time, I will be using all of my will power not to check my email. If this is an emergency, please contact one of the following:

[DETAILS]

Otherwise, I will certainly respond to you as soon as I can when I return.

In the past, I have used variants of this message, with lines such as “I hope that you also find times to disconnect and recharge this summer.” This trip was a bit longer, but again, nothing burned down in my absence. And, with jet lag, I was up at 5:00 AM my first morning back and had sorted through all of the email by about 7:00 AM, even though of course I didn’t respond to everything in 2 hours. Instead of checking email, I was taking time to really appreciate the scenery, like at this moment after climbing 212 stairs in Bath Abbey (thank goodness for all of my stairs walking at work):

If you haven’t ever really, truly disconnected from your email, I highly recommend you find a time to do so this summer. Let me know if you find it as freeing as I do. 
  
“The joy of the vacation message first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on July 2, 2019.”

If I convinced you that grant writing matters for many different post-PhD jobs, you may be wondering how in the world you can get grant funding. Trying to get external funding can be a daunting task, particularly for a new faculty member who has never pursued such funding before, and is juggling research, teaching, and service. Even knowing where to apply for funding can be confusing at the start. Most people know about NIH as a potential funding source, but there are many other possible sources that people may not as quickly consider. I wanted to review these sources today – and also discuss the differences between grants and contracts.
 
These sources apply both to faculty, and to research associates in a range of different positions discussed in my recent post. 

• Government agencies: These are often the ones that people think of when they think about pursuing external grants, and include some of the same ones you might pursue during graduate school or for a post doc, such as NIH, NSF, IES, NIJ, CDC, ACYF, USDA, FDA, DoD, and military branches.  One challenge with funding from these federal agencies is they sometimes have restrictions on citizenship status.
• State agencies: obviously which state agencies fund research varies by the state you live in. Several of my UConn HDFS colleagues have funding from CT state agencies, and it was not as frequent among my Penn State colleagues. I don’t know if this difference indicates different opportunities in the states, or different preferences among the faculty. But, sources in CT, as an example, include:
  • Department of Administrative Services/The Office for Workforce Competitiveness
  • Department of Children & Families
  • Department of Economic and Community Affairs
  • Department of Education and Education Connection
  • Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services
  • Department of Social Services
  • Judicial Branch
  • Office of Policy and Management
• Foundations and agencies:  Funding from foundations and agencies can be very different from funding from government, and in particular, federal agencies. Federal agencies almost always have specific forms to complete and specific deadlines for when you apply. Some foundations have similar procedures, but others work more one-on-one with potential grantees. More so than with federal agencies, knowing someone personally can often help with foundation funding. Sometimes, you cannot apply for foundation funding unless invited. Here are some examples of foundations that are often relevant to HDFS faculty and alumni:
  • American Cancer Association
  • American Heart Association
  • American Psychological Foundation
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Foundation for Child Development
  • Kaiser Family Foundation
  • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
  • Spencer Foundation
  • Social Science Research Council
  • Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
  • Templeton Foundation
  • WT Grant Foundation
• Community-based agencies: These tend to be smaller agencies than the foundations listed above, and are often doing more direct translational and applied research than theory testing. Often they will partner with local researchers to address a very specific question such as to assess efficacy of a particular intervention, to do a needs assessment, or to develop a new prevention program.
• Industry funding: Funding from companies/corporations is quite common in some areas of academia, such as in engineering. It tends to be less common in HDFS and other social/behavioral science programs. However, there are times when HDFS faculty may receive industry funding, for instance, from educational materials companies, from companies that develop health-related apps, or from food industries for nutrition researchers.

 
What’s the difference between a grant and a contract? It has taken me some time to determine the difference, but I found this chart from University of Pittsburgh very helpful:

[Source: http://www.research.pitt.edu/fcs-basics-federal-contracting#GrantvsContract]
 
In summary, grants are often investigator-initiated – you develop the research question. Contracts are often agency-initiated – they ask you to answer a specific question they want addressed, such as the efficacy of an existing program, or what are the effects of substance use among military personnel on their families. You have more flexibility and freedom with grants, both in terms of what you pursue, but also the ability to make changes (e.g., new constructs, new measures), less frequent reporting, and fewer restrictions on when you release your findings.
  
“Common sources of external funding for faculty/research associates first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 27, 2019.”

In my professional development seminar, we have a week on grant writing. Of course, the topic of grant writing could be (and frequently is) a course in itself, so what I cover in 2.5 hours is really only an overview and primer on thinking about grants.
 
Research grants are not only relevant to faculty; they might fit into your career at several different stages.

[I got really excited about PowerPoint’s SmartArt feature this past semester]
 
In terms of graduate students, there are a range of grants/fellowships that grad students can apply for, which I’ve covered in an earlier post, though now I have a cool new graphic.

There are also different types of postdoctoral funding, which I also covered in an earlier post.
 
In terms of grants that one might apply for at the faculty/research associate level, there are a range of sources one might pursue for grant funding. I am going to write about this topic separately, soon.
 
First, though, I want to discuss different kinds of PhD-level jobs where either grant writing is part of your expected job responsibilities, or the skills you develop during grant writing are valuable as transferable skills for that position.
 

• Tenure-track faculty positions: Probably the most obvious. If you are in a tenure track position, particularly at an R1 university, there is usually an expectation that you will pursue external funding to support your research. At other universities, depending on their research-focus and the type of department you are in, there may or may not be such an expectation. If you are at a very teaching-oriented university, you may never have to pursue external funding. But keep in mind, often there are other reasons you may need to write proposals, such as applying for a Fulbright, or even applying internally for research leave. Having training/experience in grant writing may prepare you for these tasks.
• Faculty in medical schools/soft money faculty: Many faculty at medical schools are expected to bring in their own salaries. They can do so through teaching, research grants (whether their own or time on others’ research grants), and/or clinical hours. Grant writing is an integral part of such faculty members’ positions. I know people who submit multiple proposals to every NIH funding cycle.
•  University research positions: University-based research associates and similar non-faculty positions at universities are also often on soft money. They have to bring in their own salary through their own grants or by serving as an investigator on other people’s grants. Grant writing is a critical part of such positions.
• Research institute: Individuals who work as researchers at research institutes often pursue funding to support their salary/time. It will depend on the position, and depend on the institute, but grant writing is often a large proportion of such positions.
• Government and other funding agencies: If you work at NIH or a research foundation that provides grants to others, you may not be pursuing your own external funding. However, positions at such agencies usually involve being on the other end of the process: writing calls for proposals, giving advice to investigators, reviewing proposals, and managing external research grants. Thus, having grant writing experience can be really valuable for obtaining such a position.
• Non-profit organizations/NGO’s: If you work for a non-profit organization, chances are some of their funding comes from pursuing external grants or contracts. Grant writing skills are very valuable for obtaining such a job and for succeeding once you are there.
• Industry-based careers: If you have a job at a for-profit corporation, you may not need to write grant proposals for external funding. However, a student in my seminar this past semester pointed out that often in industry, you need to write proposals to supervisors for ideas you have for projects – you are essentially asking for internal funding for your internal research or idea. Grant writing skills and experience can well prepare you for such job responsibilities.

 
I won’t argue that every job post-PhD requires grant writing skills. However, many different careers benefit from such skills, so getting these experiences early on can be highly marketable.  
  
“Jobs where grant-writing matters first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 25, 2019.”

The last two academic years I taught a large intro course, with 300 and 350 students. The last time I taught a course with 200 students was my first year as an assistant professor – 1998. The last time I had 100 students was 2000. So, I had some new learning to do about how to handle large classes, and also, how to teach large classes in 2019 (well, technically it was 2018).
 
One large management issue with 350 students is emails. I was fortunate to have three TAs each time I taught, so they honestly dealt with the majority of the emails. Even if students emailed me, I would skim the email and assuming it was one that should go to the TA, forward it to that student’s TA (they each had part of the alphabet). How should students know if they should email me or the TA? It’s in the syllabus, of course:

This information was my attempt to decrease overall emails and make it as easy as possible for students to know whom to email and when. It’s a challenge in a large course to appear both approachable when needed and not standoffish, but also not have every student email weekly with questions they could answer on their own. Despite these attempts, I received emails from students every single day, at least 90% of the time about topics they should have emailed their TAs (or no one) about. The TAs became very good at screenshotting the syllabus and sending it to students in their replies.
 
Unfortunately, a clear syllabus is not very useful unless students read it. And, it has become very challenging to get students to read the syllabus. There is little incentive, as far as I can tell, especially given how little effort it takes to email the instructor/TA with a question rather than look for the answer in the syllabus.
 
I tried to keep my syllabus as short as possible – it is five pages. Perhaps that seems long, and I have read about the one page syllabus, but note that the one-page syllabus usually has a number of appendices or addendums, at which point you are asking students to read multiple documents. I’d rather have it all in one place. I use bullet points and tables. And multiple colors.
 
Yes, I have a syllabus quiz. It is due one day after the end of add/drop period so that everyone in the course can take it. It is worth points toward their final grade. It is online so they can take it at home, with the syllabus in front of them. They can take it as many times as they would like until they get a score they are satisfied with. Most students did eventually get 100% (84% of them). But 4% never took it, and 8% scored 83% or lower, even with retakes.

The most recent time I taught the course, I also put an Easter egg in my syllabus. Any guesses on what percent of the class did the extra credit based on the Easter egg in the syllabus? I’ll wait.

11%. You might wonder, why would I reveal my Easter egg in a blog post? I figure if the students didn’t find it in the actual syllabus for the course they took, they are not going to find it buried in a blog post.
 
Want to see my whole syllabus? You can find it here.

Normally my blog posts provide advice for academia. I’m not sure this post could serve as best practices for getting students to read the syllabus, though, because, as you can see, I have not been particularly successful. I would love to hear what you have done to get students in large classes (any classes?) to read your syllabus.
  
“It’s in the syllabus  first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 20, 2019.”

I am a huge fabric poster convert, and my goal is to convince everyone that their lives will be better if they use fabric posters. I do not have any investments in fabric poster companies, nor do I have affiliate links – I just think you will be happier if you too convert to fabric posters. Here are, in my opinion, the benefits of fabric posters:

• Goodbye poster tubes. No one enjoys carrying a poster tube through the airport, right? Or squeezing it into the overhead compartment? Or worrying that you will forget it on the plane? The only thing I will miss about poster tubes is easily being able to identify in the airport and at baggage claim who else is going to the same conference.
• Fold it and go. Perhaps related to the prior point, you can literally take a fabric poster, fold it, and put it in your carryon. I mean, you could put it in your checked bag too, but if they lose your checked bag, they lose your poster.
• Don’t worry about bending it. There is just no worry in your office or in the hotel room or anywhere else that someone will accidentally step on your poster and bend it. It can’t really get hurt.
• Iron if needed. If you really beat it up somehow, or you want zero creases, almost every hotel has an iron, and you can iron it.
• Reusable. It is much easier to save and reuse a fabric poster, if, for instance, you present it at your university after presenting it at your national conference.
• Cost. Hardest for me to believe was that fabric posters do not cost more than paper posters. The last poster – regular size – I ordered cost $16.20. Yes, I paid extra for expedited shipping, but that’s on me for submitting it last minute.
• Conversation starter. If most people are still using paper at the next conference you attend, lots of people will want to touch and ooh and aah over your fabric poster, and find out how you made it and how much it cost. Trust me.

Doubles as a blanket. If you get stranded in an airport, you have a large piece of fabric that you can use to keep warm in an emergency. What can you do with a paper poster in an emergency? A very quick fire for heat?

So, I convinced you, and now YOU want to make your own fabric poster. But how? The website I have used is Spoonflower, recommended to me by Rose Wesche. Thanks to Mackenzie Wink for figuring out the details of how to use it and helping it get set up in our department. So most of this information comes from them.
1. Create a login
2. Click upload- you will upload a JPEG image of the poster 
**PLEASE NOTE: THE POSTER MUST BE UPLOADED IN THE CORRECT FORMAT. It must be a JPEG not a PowerPoint or pdf. This link  explains how to convert it.
3. If you have to come back to the account before being able to checkout with the order, the poster will be in your 'Design Library'
4. Ensure that settings are correct-
a. Centered (the default is a repeated design meaning multiple posters would print repeatedly on the poster like a fabric pattern)
b. 48X36
c. Performance Pique fabric
d. 1 yard
5. Make sure that the poster looks exactly how you want it in the preview window (make sure you can see the whole thing, etc.). This preview will be exactly how it prints.
6. checkout
 
It’s actually quite straightforward. And I bet once you try it, you will be converted for life. Until we all go to digital interactive posters. 

  “Where I convert you to fabric posters first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 18, 2019.”