Need to find the perfect gift for students, teachers and professionals working in Ethnic Studies? Here is my list of recommendations.

You should use thankfulness to sift through the challenges of your situations and find good things that you can build on. It requires a mental shift and a conscious effort to push aside the despair to keep your own potential clear in your mind’s eye.

When people say their computer died, they often mean something less dramatic that can usually be fixed. Not this time. The laptop literally won’t turn on anymore: no screen, no light, no sound. So, what do you do?

The Great Resignation has been a hot topic in the news lately, but how has it impacted teachers and faculty? As it turns out, this part of the workforce has also been affected by this trend.

Going to college is probably the best investment in yourself that you can make. Someone with a college degree ends up making at least a million dollars more in their lifetime than someone who has never gone.

There are options for reducing or eliminating crippling college debt. One of these is these is through the FedLoan services. After having paid down a sizable amount of my loans, I applied for loan forgiveness - here is how that went for me.

Why should you use the summer to improve your skills and learn what is new in your field? Why not spend the whole time relaxing at the beach instead? Here’s why…

It was an incredible experience attending and presenting at the 2022 AERA conference in San Diego this year. I finally met colleagues I had only known online, purchased new books, and learned as much as I could in such a short time.

Where you decide to teach as an adjunct matters. Not all colleges and universities offer the same security of employment. Do your research and ask what is available when you accept the offer to work there.

Many of our fears are connected to an earlier bad or distressing experience in our life, and this is also true for how we coped with covid and how we now need to adjust to the lifting of covid restrictions. One way to approach these fears is through mindfulness.

Is the treatment of Black & Brown people at the Ukrainian border just racism? Or is there more to this issue than meets the eye? I think there is an important lesson in this issue that requires a more nuanced discussion.

Adjuncts often do not have access to campus workshops to support them. They often also don’t have the expertise to create the curriculum they would like to follow and that would be best for their students. So, what do they do? They hire an expert.

Educators will soon be charged with developing courses to meet the new Ethnic Studies requirement in California. To help in this process, I’ve decided to provide some books to help build a foundation of knowledge from which to start.

Work stability is something that makes anyone’s life easier and adjuncts are no exception. Being a Freeway Flyer is fine but adjuncts also prefer full time stable work at one institution. Academia must do better by its adjuncts, especially considering they teach nearly half of their courses.

Social Media is more than just entertainment for scholars and academics. Some schools actually require their faculty to use social media. It is therefore important to treat social media like an extension of ourselves and our professional identity.

The hiring process at most companies, campuses and organizations is long, tedious, and often unnecessarily difficult. It is so unpleasant that many people are not returning to work. If you need to hire qualified people, then don’t be that hiring manager.

Rest is one way to regain your energy as well as a sense of control over your life. Many problems we experience come from our sense of feeling out of control – anxiety, depression, disengagement, anger…

If you are an adjuncts you should begin to see yourself as a gig worker. The gig mindset will help you clearly define who you are, what you do, and why you do it. The gig mindset will help you know your worth. The gig mindset allows you to think beyond the Ivory Towers and see the whole world as a place where you can shine.

Mindfulness allows entrepreneurs to observe an experience as if it is for the first time, called as "beginner's mind" instead of perceiving through the filter of their beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and desires.

What institutions provide is structures of accountability. During this time of COVID-19, those of us who used to work in an office, or attend school, find ourselves at home. No structure, no accountability. Not having these things can create some angst, but also provide an opportunity for you create those structures of accountability for yourself.

During this period of physical distancing, teachers need to improve their teaching so that it is more than a video-chat session as easily forgotten as a social media call. That is why they need to find a half-way point between the in-class teaching they were used to, and the camera-sitting they’ve been asked to transition to.

COVID-19 has put us all into a new reality but it has also created an opportunity for us to continue to grow and learn. All of a sudden we needed to quickly become experts at videoconferencing, and so it was for me when my employer required that we move all our courses online. I learned something new!

I won’t waste your time with basic how-tos on how you can change your Zoom background. Instead, I want to share with you some of the technical things you should check that you may not have considered yet. Some of these are from my own experiences videoconferencing with colleagues.

This is Part 2 of our discussion of the California’s new Assembly Bill 5, and its impact on Adjunct Faculty. In This article we look at how the law is not applied equally to all institutions. The criteria for determining how the law should be applied appears to be more convoluted than it needs to be and will require careful evaluation.

California’s new AB5 law addressing part-time and contract workers will directly impact companies such as Uber, Amazon, or Lyft that hire large quantities of contract workers. It will also have a significant impact on colleges and universities who hire large numbers of contract employees, including adjunct faculty.

A positive mindset determines how you create, how your recover, and how you keep going. For academics, this mindset helps them withstand the rigors and demands of their work. This helps them realize their best selves which then impacts their own research, their teaching and the way they impact their students.

As populations become more diverse, it is important that people learn about ethnic differences. Taking a class on diversity will help you understand the cultural and historical antecedents of social structures and institutions. That is why we are planning a new curriculum to meet this important need.

No matter what work you do, some aspect of what you do will require writing. Inherent in that process is time to think about what you want to write about. Whether the writing is a proposal for a client, a marketing plan, course prep, a blog, or an academic journal article, you need to set aside time to think before you put words down on paper.

We all have those days… we lose our keys, spill coffee on our only clean shirt, or get stuck in traffic on the way in to work. Those events come at the least opportune times, and usually when we are at our wit’s end. During those time, it’s hard to fight back the bitterness we feel for the circumstances we are in.

As Collegiate Gigsters we have a tendency to think that we either have to “Go Big or Go Home”. Well, human beings have complex lives that require us to meet them at different levels. All acts of courage have the potential to change history. I challenge you to be bold…for just a few seconds. Share with me what happened after your 12 seconds of courage.

During the summer months, most adjuncts and Collegiate Gigsters are put in the position of having some extra time on their hands. For some of us, this is downtime, but for me it is an opportunity for introspection and growth.

At long last my speech was ready and so was I. The stage fright had subsided and I knew I had prepared enough. I titled my speech The Politics of Action. As it turned out, it was very well received, but this wasn’t certain when I was prepping for it.

Not unplugging can increase stress, make us ineffective (even dangerous depending on the work that we do), and make us crazy. The body is not a machine. It is an organism that works to maintain stasis, or balance. Our actions must support our body’s natural desire for stasis. We do this by monitoring and controlling how our lives pull us in numerous directions. If we do this, we experience many benefits…

As a Collegiate Gigster, you are good at bringing aspects of your life together to create something new. This entrepreneurial spirit is inherent in who you are and what you do. I ask that you use the metaphor of the book to provide a framework with which to capture your creativity, your ideas, your contribution to the world. You never know, you may have a best seller!

We often hear from self-help gurus that we must empower ourselves. Envision our future and it will come true. Write the story of our life and it will come true. Yes, at their base, these ideas are good, but what does that really mean? How do we go about it? Are they separate or one in the same? Are they supposed to happen right away? And if they don’t am I a failure?

The right photo will help propel us past our competition. The budget spectrum for head shots is broad – from free (that cousin who loves photography) to thousands of dollars (studio quality work) – but start where you can and go from there.

One thing that makes this easy for me is that I only acquired my Ph.D. a few years ago. I think of myself as a newly minted graduate, not too different from someone in their late 20s. I am also a professor, so I also spend much of my time with students half my age. I find this refreshing. I consider myself a perpetual student and a life-long learner.

Whether you work for a private business, the state or the federal government, age discrimination will continue to be an important factor in your day-to-day operations. Every employer needs to ensure that they remain within the law when hiring, training, promoting and firing employees.

The Colégas Group was something that I saw value in early on. It took work & time to demonstrate its worth to others. Listening to their input helped me see what their definition of value was and provided a guide to continue the conversation and ultimately convince them.

Women-owned businesses are the fastest growing businesses in the US. When they are able to find venture capital, they have a much higher rate of success than the average sponsored company. My company is just starting out and we are epitomizing what it means to “bootstrap” a company from the ground up. I shared my story at the 2018 Women’s Leadership Conference.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that as of February 2018, the unemployment rate of those 55 and over is just 3.2%. The annual rate of growth for the number of people entering the workforce who are 75 and older is a staggering 6.4%. Are most of these new workers re-entering the workforce hired in upper level (and high-paying) management and professional jobs?

A call to all the gig workers out there - we’ve shared what we have been doing, so we’re curious what have you been up to? Share your stories of how our articles have helped you grow and develop.

We all have skills and abilities that are informed by life experiences within and outside of work and school. Learn to tell stories about those experiences. Put in the work to understand the meaning and life lessons of your experiences. Doing this will help you stand out from the crowd.

This summer I decided to take an aspect of my dissertation and see if I can create a journal article out of it. I chose to work on a new concept that grew out of my findings and develop it more fully as an article.

You have to care about yourself enough to know that once you do what you have to do. You must make time to do what you want to do. Here are some strategies to help us all focus on self-care as it relates to mental well-being.

I share this story as proof of concept: Gigs such as these can and do pay. A college education provides the foundational knowledge in addition to the experience and confidence to speak and present when an opportunity such as this presents itself.

One of the best ways we can use the summer months is to plan for the next 12 months. Whatever our gig work is, we should all have a plan in place that provides the following insights: Reflection, Strategizing, Planning, and Execution.

It's kind of empowering to be able to say at a faculty luncheon: "Well, my personal philosophy is stoicism...," wait for the inquisitive looks, then say: "...and let me tell you what that means to me."

Over the years, we’ve heard a lot of professional advice from well-meaning friends, family, and school officials. The adage “Fake it till you make it.” is a familiar one. We also heard that we should apply for a job even if we are only 50% qualified…

As you ponder who you are, realize that you will never definitively answer that question. What we can do is decide who we are today, tomorrow and into the near future. Knowing who we are adds to our confidence as professionals.

It is important for the mature worker to understanding how some of these simple shortcuts can really help them do their job even better. This quick and easy keystroke combination has saved me hours of frustration and it’s a great one to keep in your virtual tool-belt.