Writing tools and tips

Academic writing resources abound from the Owl at Purdue.

For those of us driven by meaningless incentives like streaks and badges, 750 Words is a fun tool to help you write more. Lets you track how many days each month you were able to get three pages worth of words down.

Exploration of Style is a blog with a variety of academic writing tips:

Written kitten has writing tips for those of us driven by kittens.

Productivity in your personal life

This Harvard Business Review article has tips on applying the productivity and other apps you use at work to your home life to help with parenting and beyond.

This piece in Epidemiology says unconscious bias plays a big role in why similarly apt and motivated young women who enter academics fail to succeed at the same rates as their male colleagues.

This opinion piece published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focuses in part on the institutional context features that nourish the payoffs of diversity in science.

This NSF report looks at the latest data in minorities and women in STEM. In part, it found that “at every level — bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate — underrepresented minority women earn a higher proportion of degrees than their male counterparts. White women, in contrast earn a smaller proportion of degrees than their male counterparts.”

Tips, best practices and research

The Commission on the Status of Women site is a great source of information, including the group’s “graphs that will make you gasp” page.

If you are looking to improve departmental climate, check out this link from Virginia Tech’s Advance project.

Thinking about minimizing your unconscious bias? See this.

Need best practices for faculty searches when you’re hiring someone new? The University of Washington has suggestions.

Jerry Kang’s website on implicit bias has some great info.

Here’s a guidebook for searches for committee chairs

Giving or getting career advice? Read this first.

Higher education news, information and advice

The National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity has a range of information on diversity and faculty development

The Chronicle of Higher Ed and its related Vitae site (requires a sign-up) provide good career advice for academics. 
Inside HigherEd has a variety of news stories, blogs and advice columns

Be hip and join the Reddit discussion on a variety of teaching topics.

This article gets into the “flexibility myth” in academia. If the following sounds familiar, you should check it out. “Academic mothers have it much better than other professional mothers because of their flexible schedule—a luxury women in business, journalism, law, and medicine don’t enjoy—which allows them to set their own hours, and chart their individual paths to success.”

Motivating faculty

When you’re ready for something completely different, Brain Pickings provides insight into the human condition through the various lenses of literature and science.

This piece from the Guardian talks about being the “right kind” of woman in academia.

Need a laugh? we found funny stuff for academics

Academics explain their doctoral theses in 140 characters or less on LOLmythesis.com. Hilarity ensues. 

When you need to hear from someone who just gets it, check out the Academics Say page.

On Worsereviewer.com, you can laugh or you can cry at the comments from Reviewer 2. They’ve decided to laugh.

Other Advance programs

See what our colleagues at other universities are working on.

Howard University

Oregon State

University of Delaware

University of Maryland