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Tenure-track assistant professor position opening at CIDE Region Centro in Public Administration or Public Policy

CIDE (the Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, A.C., Centre for Economics Research and Teaching) in Mexico recently (2011) opened a branch in central Mexico, the Region Centro campus (where I am based since July 2012). We are currently experiencing fast growth and we are hiring for a number of positions. This one (to start in July 2014) is focused on public finance but we are open to other applicants. While advertised as tenure-track, it is also an open-rank search, depending on applicants’ qualifications. The full job advertisement is below (and in PDF format in both Spanish and English here). I am happy to answer questions about the position and life in Aguascalientes.

Faculty Opening, Public Administration Division/CIDE-Región Centro

The Public Administration Division at CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas) seeks to fill a tenure-track faculty position in our Aguascalientes Campus (Región Centro) starting July 1st, 2014.

1. About the position

CIDE is advertising for a tenure-track assistant professor position in the Public Administration Division, based out of the Region Centro campus in Aguascalientes. We welcome candidates in public administration, public policy, law, economics, political science, or other related fields in the social sciences. The selected candidate’s research and teaching interests’ should be on Public Finance, Federalism and Local Government, Public Policy, or alternatively Public Administration and Public Management. While we especially encourage applicants interested in public finance and budgeting as priority research and teaching interests, other specializations are also welcome and will be considered carefully by the Search Committee. Furthermore, once hired by CIDE, the successful candidate may request admission to the National Researchers System of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) in Mexico (which offers additional monetary rewards and research funding to its members). CONACYT is the Mexican equivalent to the US´National Science Foundation (NSF) and Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

CIDE is a nationally- and internationally-recognized public research center specialized in the social sciences, offering high-quality undergraduate and graduate programs. Salaries are competitive nationally and internationally. The usual teaching load is one course per semester. Additional bonuses for research and publishing productivity are offered. There are a number of mechanisms to support and fund research, including participation in applied projects with additional remuneration.

2. About the candidates

Candidates should have a strong academic background and interest in empirical research. They should also be committed to teaching and mentoring undergraduate, Masters and PhD students. These mentorship activities include graduate student supervision. Candidates should preferably have already demonstrated ability to publish in internationally-recognized peer-reviewed outlets. Applicants should demonstrate ability to carry out top-notch research projects resulting in high-level published work. They should also be open to engaging in collaborative and interdisciplinary work, and show an interest in positioning him/herself as a national reference in his/her research area.

This is an open-rank search, whereby status as tenured, tenure-track, Assistant, Associate or Full Professor will be awarded on the basis of his/her publishing record, teaching experience, academic status and Spanish language fluency. We expect candidates to hold a doctorate. Applications from candidates without the PhD in hand will only be considered if they include a letter from the chair of the committee stating a date for the defense of the doctoral dissertation. The latter should occur at the latest before August 2015. Applicants are expected to be fluent in Spanish, or sign a letter whereby the candidate commits to be able to teach in Spanish within 12 months from hiring. If a foreign candidate is chosen, CIDE will provide advice and support to obtain the necessary work permits and visas for the candidate and his/her dependants.

3. How to apply:

Applicants should send the following documents in PDF format to the following email addresses: comite.seleccion@cide.edu and wendolyn.veana@cide.edu preferably before, but definitely at the latest by end-of-day December 15th, 2013 (addressed to the Search Committee, Public Administration)
– Research plan for the next three years (no longer than three pages)
– Teaching philosophy (no more than two pages)
– Curriculum Vitae accompanied by a cover letter.
– Writing sample not exceeding 50 double spaced pages (the candidate should be the first author of the text, preferably a refereed journal article). ABD candidates may submit the latest version of their doctoral dissertation).
– Three letters of recommendation written within the year 2013. In the case of early career scholars (2012-2014) or doctoral candidates, at least one of these letters should come from the PhD advisor.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by December 20th to schedule interviews. Interviews will take place in person in Mexico City from January 7th through 10th, 2014. Therefore, shortlisted candidates should be available within those dates. Candidates’ job talk should be about the written sample submitted in the application. CIDE will pay/reimburse interviewees for travel expenses. Decisions will be announced during the third week of January 2014. CIDE is an equal opportunity employer committed to the promotion of diversity, and we especially welcome qualified women and minorities’ applications.

The Región Centro campus of CIDE is located in the city of Aguascalientes, in central Mexico. Aguascalientes is consistently ranked as one of the top three cities in the yearly surveys on urban quality of life of the national newspaper Reforma. The city is considered very safe, culturally diverse, has numerous entertainment options and a vibrant business climate. CIDE (in particular the Región Centro campus strongly encourages multidisciplinary and collaborative research and scholarship. For further information please visit CIDE’s webpage.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 14, 2013

Balancing teaching and research

Stationery and research and readingThis term, I have returned to teaching after thoroughly enjoying my full year of teaching release. When I taught at The University of British Columbia’s Department of Political Science, I reached a point where my teaching load was 2-1-2 (5 courses per 12 months). That was, in my view, incredibly exhausting. I had very little time left to do any research or consulting. But since I arrived at the Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE), I have really moved forward full steam ahead with writing every single day.

I recognize that there are people who teach a 4-4 load and I have no idea how they do it. I simply couldn’t. I also recognize my privilege in that CIDE is extremely flexible with the teaching loads. Normally I would only be required to teach a 1-1 load. This 2013-2014 academic year, that is the way it is going to work. I am thrilled to be teaching what would be considered a relatively light load, because I do have PhD students to supervise, I am teaching this fall, and I have a very heavy research agenda and a lot of writing commitments on my plate.

How to balance teaching and research? I can’t say that I am very knowledgeable in this regard, but what I am doing is keeping the balance of my weekly schedule skewed towards research. Because I only teach one course per term, I am able to keep 3 days out of my 5 days strictly to research duties. If you see my weekly template, you can notice that I am teaching Mondays and Wednesdays, both days when I have a lot of energy. And I also have office hours on those same days.

Of course, by the time 5pm hits I am completely spent on Mondays and Wednesdays, therefore I only spend the evenings doing research-related reading. I also devote Fridays to do the bulk of my service-to-the-university (search committee, library committee) and service-to-the-discipline (peer-review) work. And of course, I write every single day early in the morning, which is where I am more energetic.

Overall, I think balancing teaching and research is always a challenge for academics, whether in teaching or research oriented institutions (CIDE would be considered an R1). I just hope I’m always able to strike the right balance!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 12, 2013

A few pieces of advice for presenters and attendees at academic conferences

I have presented my research work in academic contexts since 1998, which means that I have at least a solid 15 years of experience attending and speaking at domestic and international conferences. It never ceases to amaze me how some speakers, some panel moderators and some attendees break what would seem to me common rules of courtesy when participating in an academic conference. So I’m going to re-emphasize a few tips for participants (attendees and presenters) and for panel moderators.

IASC 2013 Panels 1, 2 and lunch poster sessions

1. Be on time, regardless of whether you are a speaker or an attendee.
Nothing irks me more than people who are not punctual. Moving back to Mexico from Canada, and having lived in England, both countries where punctuality is quite the norm, I got to the point where I decided to start my meetings and seminars on time, regardless of who was there. Impunctuality, sadly, is a common cultural norm in Mexico, apparently, and one that I just can’t stand. In academic conferences, whether or not everyone else is late, your job is to be there ON TIME. Period.

2. As a presenter: DO NOT READ PAPERS. Related: Respect other people’s times.
I am well aware that, in the humanities, the archaic norm of reading a paper is actually enforced, and I have no idea why. No writer that I have known in 15 years has ever been able to fit reading a paper from start to finish in 15 minutes. So, if you have 15 minutes to present your paper, make sure you are able to finish in 12. It is disrespectful to other people to take over their alloted time because you are running overtime.

3. As a participant: DO NOT MAKE OVERLY LENGTHY COMMENTS. Related: Do NOT make a “this is more a comment than a question” comments.
Organizers of panels and conferences are often bound by ridiculous requirements (to fit 4-5 or even 6 papers in a panel, which I consider absolutely absurd – yes, ISA, I am looking at you). Since most panels are about 60 to 90 minutes, fitting 6 papers is pretty much impossible. Thus, if in the very scarce amount of time dedicated to questions you decide to actually talk about YOUR research or YOUR opinion, instead of asking participants brief, smart, intelligent questions, you devalue their time (and that of other attendees). Save the lengthy comments and questions for when you have a chance to speak to the presenters one-on-one.

4. As a conference/workshop organizer: DO NOT ORGANIZE OVERLY POPULATED PANELS. Related: Do NOT organize conferences that require speakers/participants to be on site for more than 8 hours.
I am well aware of how academics need to do more with less and less resources, but overly packed panels and workshops end up exhausting the participants and thus diminishing the quality of discussions. 8 hours for an on-site conference is more than enough, and it requires extensive breaks (I don’t know where do people get the idea that 4.5 consecutive hours of panels and conference speakers with no breaks is a good idea). Also, panels with 5 presenters are overly crowded. Make sure that panels have 3, and at most 4 speakers. And the panel moderator, your job is to keep people on time and cut them off when they’ve run out of time.

Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega presenting at LASA 2013

I am well aware that these tips sound rather snarky, but as I am gearing for the fall 2013 academic conference circuit, and as I just started the semester, I am more and more baffled by how my fellow professors fail to remember these basic pointers. Hopefully these little reminders will help!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 27, 2013

Scheduling my academic life to the very minute: My weekly template

A lot of people have asked me through the year how I accomplish as much as I do. While I feel enormously flattered, I don’t think I am particularly productive. What I am, is very disciplined. I learned early in my life that I had a really broad range of interests, and that if I didn’t rein in my own impulses, I would be scattered and disoriented before long. I knew I wanted to do academic research and that I wanted to complete a PhD and thus I needed to plan my life accordingly.

My academic weekly schedule

What you see above is my weekly template for the Fall 2013 semester (this is a term coined by Tanya Golash-Boza, whose blog I read religiously). It was nice to see a couple of other scholars (Eric Grollman and Jan in the Pan) write theirs. Even before I ever read Tanya’s blog, I learned to be organized with my life. I had a similar template for my life when I was a consultant and when I worked in the NGO world. My life is, and has always been, scheduled to the very minute. That was the only way I could play competitive volleyball, teach dance, do theatre, volunteer running literacy programs and teaching adults how to read and write, hang out with my friends, spend time with my family and still maintain a high average in school. All the while, of course, while maintaining sanity.

My schedule is online, and sync’d with my iPod Touch and with my HP TouchPad. This enables me to know what I am doing anywhere at any point in time. For years, my partner and I shared our online calendars, because that made it easier for him and for me to plan our time together. And I booked time for him that nobody else would every overlap with (that was, for me, the only way to maintain a healthy relationship). I follow the same philosophy when I book time for my friends and for my family, as well as for my own health. Nobody can schedule time for THEIR activities when it’s MY time. If you notice, I have left ample time for administrative stuff and for meetings during normal hours.

I am currently on a 1-1-0 teaching load, which is really very healthy and lucky for me. I also have a low number of students that I supervise, and my service commitments are limited too. I am the CIDE Region Centro representative to CIDE’s library, and I also sit on a search committee for a new tenure-track position, so my service does not take a lot of my time. I do have the Associate Editor commitments for the Journal of Environmental Sciences and Studies, and my regular contributions to editorial boards, peer reviewing and so on. But I don’t feel that they are terribly onerous.

Research using the Cornell Notes method

I write better first thing in the mornings and I know that if I try to write on campus it will be much harder for me, so I wake up at 4:45am every morning, brew a pot of coffee and I start writing for 2 hours at least. Some of the time you see blocked for “Research” is also where I do a lot of reading and writing, so often times I end up writing for more than 10 hours per week. I also have scheduled time for “recovery” as my energy levels fall rapidly. This is something I knew about my physiology since I was a child, so I always schedule “down time”, otherwise my productivity falls.

On regular weeks I try to be in bed by 9:30pm at the very latest, except when I go out with my best friend from childhood and his wife (who both live in Aguascalientes as well – something that has turned out to help me keep my sanity). Two things I am desperately trying to fit into this schedule is regular volleyball training and frequent dancing, as I do miss those two components from my life.

Of course, academic conferences completely screw up this calendar, but I always try to ensure that at least I get exercise and regular writing in. I rarely attend academic events where the commitment is 12 hours per day or more, simply because I believe that allowing people to disrespect my time and my own schedule is a really bad idea. One exception I make is when my expenses are paid (as I feel a responsibility to the organizers).

A few caveats that I have to recognize:

  • I have a low teaching load 1-1-0
  • I am single (at the moment), with no children
  • I have low service commitments
  • Both my parents are academics, so even when I visit them on weekends I bring work with me
  • Related: I love my research so I don’t care if I spend more than 60 hours per week on it. This means I often work on weekends and holidays (I try not to, though, at least not too often).
  • I have a small army (5) of research assistants, who are incredible. This increases my productivity.
  • I have an amazing set of collaborators all over the world, who are brilliant. They keep me honest and encourage me to work really hard.
  • I have excellent resources both on campus (because I have a gorgeous office at CIDE Region Centro with a fabulous library and great access to online materials) and off campus (I live alone in a 3 bedroom, two story house, with a fully equipped home office, and I have a full home office at my parental units’ place too).

What I do hope sharing my weekly template with you will achieve is show you the broad range of activities you can engage in and goals you can achieve by being organized and schedule your life every week. This approach works, at least for me. And hopefully it will work for anyone who reads my blog.

EDIT –

Lots of people have asked me “but what about when you have to go on the field, or when you have something unexpected come up, or at a conference?” so I thought I’d share my weekly template for the week following (e.g. September 2-6). As you will notice, I’m at an academic workshop all week, except for Thursday when I am doing fieldwork with the same group of water scholars. So, I only scheduled time to write every day, and nothing else. Because that’s the one thing that I want to keep doing regardless! Also, notice I didn’t schedule anything before or after my flights.

My academic weekly schedule

My schedule is rigid, I know. As Tanya herself said, I run a tight ship. But I am flexible enough to be willing to shift things around, particularly when the going gets tough. Self-care time does not actually get shifted in the sense that even if it’s an intense week for me, I always will take some time for myself, even if it’s not possible every day at the moment.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 26, 2013

Tenure-track International Relations position at #CIDERegionCentro

We are hiring at CIDE Region Centro. Below is the actual ad

IR Search 2013 – Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

The Department of International Studies at CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas/Center for Research and Teaching in Economics) seeks to fill one tenure-track position in International Relations, to start in August 2014. The position is open to subfield and rank. Special consideration will be given to candidates specializing in environmental politics, migration, or global governance. The position will be based at CIDE’s new Central Region Campus, in Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Candidates should have a doctoral degree at the time of employment. Spanish skills are not required at the time of hire, but candidates are expected to become proficient within a reasonable period of time.

Interested applicants should submit the following documents electronically to dei.contrataciones@cide.edu:

  • Cover letter
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Statement of purpose, including future teaching and research agenda
  • Writing sample not exceeding 50 pages
  • Teaching evaluations (if available)
  • Three reference letters, sent directly by the referee

Complete applications received by Monday, September 30, 2013, are guaranteed full consideration. Interviews will begin in November 2013.

CIDE is a public social science research institute oriented towards high quality research with small, elite graduate and undergraduate teaching programs. According to one study (Altman 2011), the International Studies Department is the top IR-only department in Latin America, and one of the top 4 political science departments in Latin America. Successful applicants will be expected to publish their work in top disciplinary journals and presses. Salaries are nationally and internationally competitive.

CIDE is an equal opportunity employer committed to the promotion of diversity.

For more information, please visit the Department webpage (http://www.cide.edu/div_estudios_internacionales.htm) and the Central Region campus webpage (http:// http://www.cide.edu/regioncentro/index.html) or contact:

Dr. Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz
Chair, International Relations Search Committee
División de Estudios Internacionales (DEI)
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
Circuito Tecnopolo Norte s/n
Col. Hacienda Nueva, CP 2013
Aguascalientes, Ags., México

As always, I am more than happy to answer questions about living in Aguascalientes, what being a professor at CIDE looks like, and life in Mexico in general as a foreign academic. My email contact is raul.pacheco-vega(@)cide.edu (remove the parentheses).

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 18, 2013

Making time to read to improve your academic writing

Reading is an integral part of academic life. We expect our students that they read journal articles, book chapters, books and other materials as background to our lectures. But with the haste of academic life, it looks like the only times when we actually engage in reading scholarship is when we need to engage in a broad literature review and prepare our next paper, book chapter, or manuscript. Reading also has an impact on our writing.

The other day, I was joking with Tanya Golash-Boza (one of my favorite writers on all things academic life, and a tenured professor at University of California Merced) over Twitter that I was no longer able to speak Academiquese because of the fact that I used social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and of course this blog). I blame my inability to write obscure, jargon-laden prose on the fact that I prefer if my scholarship reaches a broader audience and actually has a positive effect on policy making and on societal welfare.

Research books 001

But the truth is that we do need to write in a more “academic” way. Contrary to what one of the professors and my own PhD advisors said (to write as I would speak), more often than not, academic output doesn’t follow this pattern. Since the audience for most of our academic writing is other scholars, it is important to write for the audience we have. Thus, whenever I write a paper for a political science journal (specifically public policy), I make sure to read a few articles from the journal I’m targeting, as well as similar ones.

So, given that I write at least 2 hours every day, and with all my other duties (grant writing, dealing with peer reviews, administrative workload, outreach, etc.), when on Earth do I actually have time to read? Well, the reality is, I also book time to read. I schedule my life pretty much to the 30 minute block. I assign at least 30 minutes to 2 hours a day to read. This time is in addition to the time I book to write. This schedule is going to be hard to maintain in the fall when I start teaching again, but my hope is to at least keep this program of work in the fall.

But what happens if you can’t carve 30 minutes to 2 hours a day to read? This happens to me quite often, particularly when I travel for academic conferences or fieldwork. In these cases, I read on the plane, on the bus, first thing in the morning, and before I head to bed. I love reading, and even if all I read is academic literature, I still have a blast.

Like any good academic, reading on the plane :)

One of the most important elements of reading as a tool to improve my academic writing is to take notes. While not a complete fan of the Cornell Notes, I do take detailed notes on the journal articles, books and book chapters I read. This is particularly important because of attribution. Because I need to make sure that I attribute quotes to specific journal articles, making detailed notes is key to my research workflow and process.

Research using the Cornell Notes method

I find that if I don’t read as a preliminary activity to my writing, I often use more colloquial prose. Thus one of the activities I engage in is reading a journal article, or a book chapter right before starting to write. This is particularly important as it kick-starts my thinking around the issues I want to tackle in the manuscript. As this article indicates, reading does have very positive effects on your mind.

An interesting website by Dr. Matt Might who provides a series of useful tips for academics is here, including a couple on writing. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his tips, but they’re good. Except of course, the “don’t work at home” one, because I do actually work at home, and I have the best possible home office.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 1, 2013

My viewpoint on emotions in scholarly research

While perusing Pat Thomson’s blog, I came across a blog entry in which she describes what she calls “emotional research” (e.g. “research about which the researcher feels emotional about“). Pat’s post rings familiar, as I often feel a strong degree of emotion attached my own scholarly work.

Basic sanitation services for rural populations

Photo credit: Gates Foundation on Flickr

Of course I feel emotional. While most academics who read my stuff would probably call my research approach along the lines of positivist scholarship where I strive to maintain myself as unbiased and non-subjective as possible, I do recognize that there are biases that one needs to acknowledge. I learned to do this early in my career. In my training as a graduate student, I took several courses on qualitative research methods. One of the main points the professor made during his lectures was that one needed to recognize oneself’s scholarly position. This is common practice in disciplines like anthropology and sociology, although I have seen political science scholars also openly declaring their own position.

Philippines - Waste picker in Patayas, Manila

Waste picker in Patayas, Manila. Photo credit: Global Environmental Facility on Flickr

It’s no secret to anyone that I have publicly declared my own research position and what drives and fires my research focus: I strive to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. I want to see poverty alleviated and, if possible, eradicated. I want to address global inequalities and inequities. My research is driven by an intense desire to increase access to proper sanitation. Water poverty pains me and I want to help reduce it. Informal waste recyclers’ frequently face inhumane working conditions, thus making them vulnerable populations. I am interested in empowering the disenfranchised, and thus I strongly believe that my research benefits from the raw emotions that I feel whenever I am faced with, for example, the realities of poor communities with little access to water.

I wrote a little monologue on Twitter that I think complements my thoughts nicely.

I found some nice insights on this piece on qualitative methods in leadership research by Dr. Sonia Ospina (someone I consider a solid scholar) on the topic of recognizing your own position.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – July 21, 2013

Increase your conference-paper-to-journal-article conversion rate

How I write an academic paperNote that I said “increase”, not “increasing” in the title of this post. I was HORRIBLE at doing this, although lately I’ve been improving. I have committed this mistake in the past, where I write some phenomenal conference papers, and then I let them sit there, languishing. Worst. Decision. Ever. I have two conference papers (one from 2005 and one from 2006) that would have been stellar (and well-cited) journal articles, had I put in the work, effort and hours to make them into journal manuscripts and send them off.

So, in order to increase my own conference-paper-to-journal-article conversion rate (which should be 1 to 1, always!), here is what I am doing:

1) Only accepting conference invitations where I actually have to write a paper.
There’s plenty of conferences where you just have to give a talk and prepare a few Power Point slides. Now, I only go to conferences where I present a paper that I need to write.

2) Submitting the conference paper BEFORE the conference to a journal.
I do this because I know that if I don’t do it, I will feel that I have already completed my work, and as we know, conference papers don’t count, publications do.

3) Using the conference’s feedback and the peer-reviewers’ comments to improve the paper if I get a R&R or a rejection.
My thinking here is – if I managed to write a fantastic paper, and it’s accepted prima facie, all the better. But if not, if it gets a revise-and-resubmit or a rejection, I can use the conference feedback to improve the paper and resubmit.

If you have any tips to increase your conference-paper-to-journal-article conversion rate, please do share on the comments section!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – July 19, 2013

#PhDTruths My response to @TaraBrabazon’s @TimesHigherEd piece

A few days ago, I posted a few tweets on my stream with the hashtag #PhDTruths before I read the Times Higher Education piece by Dr. Tara Brabazon (which came out right about then). I normally love Professor Brabazon’s pieces (I’ve promoted them before on my Twitter feed), but this piece rubbed me the wrong way. Surely, there are a few gems (particularly around the politics of completing a doctorate), and Professor Brabazon gets into the heart of why one shouldn’t always seek to be supervised by SuperProfessor. That said, I think that it is more important to remind PhD students that both supervisors and themselves are humans and to take a more human approach to supervising/achieving a PhD. These are my tweets in Storify form.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – July 14, 2013

Is working over the holidays a norm in academic life?

River overflow 4Academics work really hard, it’s a fact. Ever since I became an academic (e.g. ever since I started working in a research setting, which was two years before I even completed my undergraduate degree), my expectations of holidays were pretty much erased. I worked in a research lab where I was doing bench-scale wastewater treatment using activated-sludge-processes. I would wake up at 5:30am, drive to the lab, pick up the truck, travel to the city’s sewerage collection lagoons and sample raw municipal effluent.

I would run traditional tests (COD, BOD5, dissolved oxygen, etc.) and then I would run the sample through a bench-scale treatment plant. This process took me about 4 hours, so during a normal day, I would run this process 3 times. I worked 16-18 hour days, and this seemed to me quite normal (I didn’t do this year-round, but only during critical times). When I completed my undergraduate honors thesis, I was completely wiped out from sustaining this kind of workload. I also took more courses than I was supposed (8 instead of 6) so I could finish my undergraduate degree earlier. And I did dance, theatre, volleyball and other extracurricular activities on top of my school and scientific work. My idea of holidays was getting time to catch up with homework.

Research using the Cornell Notes methodAs I moved through the academic ladder (from undergraduate to PhD student to professor), I have always maintained a heavy workload. While I’ve worked hard at saying “no” to any commitments that don’t move forward my career, I do perceive that I need to work many hours a day (and 7 days a week, sometimes) to catch up. Work-life balance in academia is a thorny issue, and an ellusive one at that (just read this, this, this and this piece).

Of course, there’s always someone gloating that their academic life isn’t stressful. I love what I do, and for the most part, I manage my stress quite well (exercise, spending time with my parents and my friends, and extracurricular interests do the trick for me for the most part).

We wouldn’t be academics if it weren’t for the love of it, let’s face it. With the heavy workloads we have, having your heart in it is a requirement. I thought about what I do over the holidays (and what I plan to continue doing) in order to avoid academic burnout. These are a few tips (you can read others over at Jo Van Every’s site, and you may find also some striking similarities – great minds do think alike).

1. If you can’t disconnect for a few weeks, at least do it for a few hours every day

It is a fact that we need down time to recharge. We sometimes need to completely disconnect. This is much more difficult for me during the summer break, as I do have fieldwork to do, writing commitments, grant proposals to read and write, just to mention a few. Over the December holidays this is easier for me as I normally spend Christmas and New Year with my Mom, my brother, his wife, and my two adorable nephews (aged 5 and 2). Spending time with family is one of the ways in which I disconnect. Now, as anybody with toddlers/young kids will tell you, my telling them that Uncle Raul needs to work doesn’t really compute in their brain. They want to play with me, period. Even if I bring my laptop with me, both L and E come into my room and ask me to play with them. And, well, deadlines be damned, I leave my research behind and play with them. Of course, I have to come back in the late evening and early morning so as to catch up. But at least I get a few hours respite by playing with my nephews. You can perhaps schedule your writing as I do, very early in the morning so that you can write when the family doesn’t require you.

2. Schedule your time to work a reasonable number of hours.

During the holidays, I may not want to work 100 hours a week. And even though there’s still debate on whether academics can actually work 40 hour weeks, I still strive to balance my time. During the holidays I make sure that I maintain my writing quota (time-wise, 2 hours a day). But if this is unachievable because of my commitments, I strive to schedule my time in such a way that I only work what is reasonable during “reduced hours” times (e.g. holidays). Holidays are usually when I can catch up on my perennial lack of sleep, so I only work as many hours as required to get stuff out, and not more.

3. Let people know that you are going on holidays and ask them to respect your time.

This used to be really hard for me when I was a PhD student. How on Earth was I supposed to tell my own doctoral committee or my PhD advisor that I was going on holidays without being scolded? But then I realized that my PhD advisor and my doctoral committee ALL took holidays. Actual, real holidays. Weeks where they spent time with their loved ones and disconnecting form the world. When I realized my own doctoral committee were humans (bright, hard-working humans, at that), I gave myself permission to be one. So now I set up a fairly firm auto-responder: I’m away on holidays, and I will NOT answer emails from anybody while I am away. Of course, I never word it that way, but that’s the underlying message. And there’s always something really urgent. But if somebody really needs me, they know how to get a hold of me in case of an emergency.

4. If you really must work during your holidays, make it a working holiday.

In 2013, unfortunately, I can’t really take much time off as I just got two grant proposals accepted, and I need to get going on ethics review board, drafting interview protocols, I need to do field research, and I have six papers to write, a grant proposal to finish. So, my working holidays will involve spending time at my parents’ places (both of them are academics) and also working from home in Aguascalientes. But I also have invited a good friend of mine (also a professor) to come visit me for a few days. This ensures that we both do some work for a few hours a day, but at the same time, that we also take some time off to just do some touristy stuff.

Sunset in Vancouver and North Vancouver

Work-life balance is a challenge, but one that we academics must face and tackle. And I know that it will be a challenge for me too, as I face the next three weeks of holidays.

Happy summer!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – July 14, 2013