What Doesn't Get Written Down

Today I hit that fourth day off wall that I usually hit. I am usually okay with three days off in a row, but once I hit day four I have this intense need to do things, often all the things. So I spent my this morning updating my CV because this is the kind of thing that one should do over the summer. We often give faculty the guidance of keeping lists and notes of things that one has done pedagogically over the year so that when it comes time to update the teaching dossier or teaching philosophy that the work is easier. I try to take my own advice with this and I keep lists of things that I do over the year, like keynotes, and conferences, and workshops, and articles published. Often this kind of work is made easier if you also have to do a yearly report or reflection as part of your work responsibilities. 

Having just finished my yearly report a few weeks ago, I had a list of things to add to my CV (which after 20 years in academe is now 20 pages long) and to update on my website. However, even when I was going through that list and then going into my conference file folder on the computer I realized that I had forgotten a paper that I had given in during my busy March. It reinforced just how easy it is to forget you did a thing. It also reinforced how there are some things that kind of live in liminal space and that is what this shorter blog this week is about. What do you do with the papers and work you do that does not really fit on an academic CV, nor is it something that you would put in your yearly report because it is work that you do that is personal and in your name and not in the name of your institution? You do it because it is a reflection of your morals and values and not a reflection of the morals and values of the place you happen work.

I have a lot of things like that kind of sit in liminal space. It is often advocacy work, or volunteer work, that doesn't really fit on an academic CV because let's be honest academe is afraid of anything that sounds like advocacy. It is the kind of work that kind of sits in your soul, and you do it because it really aligns with who you are as a person, what you believe in deeply. And so I sit here wondering if these kinds of things need to be written down at all. And what happens if they don't get written down some where? And in fact, does the writing down give a different kind of feeling to the work, in a pics or it didn't happen type ethos like clicktivism.

But there are also skills and knowledges attached to that kind of work and volunteer outreach that can apply to a lot of other different places in one's life and even everyday work life. This is important to remember especially in a time where folk are trying to pivot to new areas or try different roles and apply for things that seem a bit broader in scope that what they did before. Ultimately these kinds of things that fit in the middle are all connected to the things that fit in your annual report and your academic CV because they are all rooted in you as a human. 

July tends to be either one of two things for folk: planning time or relaxing time. In both cases there is opportunity to take a moment (yes even in relaxing time because often that is when the good ideas come - for example this post came to me as I was walking to the library to pick up a book on hold) to think about all that you do that doesn't get written down. The stuff that lives in your heart, the things that fill your cup, the things that bring you closer to others and part of a community. Where do you write or not write those things down and what is informing your choice to write or not write it down? Have a chat with your colleagues and friends about their in-between things if they have them and where they live for them and why. Pedagogically this is also a great exercise because it reminds us of the complexities that exists within higher education institutions, not just for teaching team members, but for learners, and graduate students, and librarians, and staff. 

Some folk live their whole academic life refusing to be their CV or their annual report but rather be some third thing that should not be defined. I feel like I am that person. And yet some folk wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they did a thing that fit outside of an annual report or a CV. Because we are all beautifully complex and unique humans, but we all need to take some time to think about the parts of us that are by choice or by systemic omission not written down.