In trying to find my next audiobook (and after a series of false starts), I stumbled upon the audio version of the Seth Godin book, Linchpin, from my library. This was a book I adored as a young professional because it gave me permission to be daring and different. As I listened to it on my COVID walk this morning, I thought about how some of the information felt outdated in the 2020 of things. I don't think many people under the age of 50 believe in the pension myth anymore, so convincing my generation (or younger) to let go of this notion is sort of unnecessary. Then I thought about how this myth is still mostly alive in what people see in the allure and false promise of the tenure myth in academia. Figures we as academics are among the last to understand a thing about the world. So many researchers have made careers of doing their little corner of well-established research, working toward the next rung of the research or academic ladder, glad to be doing something more autonomous than they thought possible with just a bachelor's or master's degree. Yet, if innovation is constantly a marker of research, then the bar for innovation is actually much higher for being a purple cow in academic spaces. Instead, small additions to well-understood problems (I'm looking at you, younger self, doing HIV things) is not unlike contributing another cog in an automobile assembly line. And that's not enough. At least not for me. I've been thinking a lot lately about how some of my biggest problems in my current alt-ac position are around trying to scale antiracist and equity-focused work and training. But isn't scaling an issue of capitalism and is that actually the desired approach to antiracism and equity? The more I think about it, the more I start to think that scaling need not be the goal for this kind of work. Maybe I should be focusing my energy a little more on customizing... The problem becomes the way.
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October 2021
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