Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 505 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, How role, clarity, and boundaries can help us thrive with Karen Costa. Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, And this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. Dave, Karen Costa joins me once again on Teaching in Higher Ed. Karen Costa is a faculty development facilitator specializing in online pedagogy and trauma aware higher education. Karen loves leading faculty learners through fun, interactive, and supportive professional development experiences. Karen’s first book, 99 tips for creating simple and sustainable educational videos focuses on helping faculty and teachers to make creative use of videos in their classrooms.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:20]:

Karen is involved in various faculty development initiatives, including as a facilitator for the online learning consortium, online learning toolkit, and Lumen Learning. She spent 4 years as a regular writer for Women in Higher Education. Her writing has also appeared in Inside Higher Education, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Bonni BEING, and Faculty Focus. Karen graduated from Syracuse With a bachelor’s in sociology, she holds a master’s in education in higher education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a CAGS in educational leadership from Northwestern University. Karen has a professional certification in Trauma and resilience levels 1 and 2 from Florida State University. A trauma informed organization’s certificate from the University of Buffalo’s School of Social Work, and a certificate in neuroscience learning and online instruction from Drexel University. Karen is a certified yoga teacher and level 1 yoga for arthritis teacher. As you’ll hear about more in the interview, she lives in Massachusetts with her family.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:34]:

Karen Costa, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Karen Costa [00:02:38]:

So excited to be back with you. We always have a good time, and happy to connect with you and your listeners.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:46]:

It’s always interesting to me when we meet new people and they even if it’s at a university and they’re not quite familiar with what is broadly known As the scholarship of teaching and learning, that’s oftentimes I might meet someone who’s not familiar with that body of research. I’m gonna ask you a very broad, unfair question, but what are some of the things that come to mind in that very broad area of research where you feel like A lot of people’s research time attention has been paid to in the broad areas of scholarship of teaching and learning.

Karen Costa [00:03:19]:

Active learning, accessibility, universal design for learning, multimodal learning Are the ones jumping to the forefront for me.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:30]:

And there is an area that you’re here to talk to us about today that is Quite not researched hardly at all, but before we get there, one that I Dave, you know, there are some books out about and some studies, etcetera, would be the broad area of trauma aware pedagogy. Could you help those who might be listening who aren’t familiar with that body of research and and what exactly trauma aware pedagogy is.

Karen Costa [00:03:55]:

Absolutely. So you might hear it referred to as trauma informed. You might hear trauma or trauma informed care. I use the term trauma aware teaching because in the literature, there is some Sense that trauma informed is like the end goal. And, trauma aware is really step 1. It’s just Getting a basic awareness across campus of what is trauma, what is the trauma response. So the trauma is the thing that happens and then the trauma response is how we respond to it. And there’s a whole, you know, multitude, positive and negative.

Karen Costa [00:04:34]:

And Trauma aware teaching is specifically considering how that trauma response impacts how folks learn and also Part of my work is how it influences how folks teach. So my goal is to I really work with people sort of at that foundational level. I am the simple and sustainable, not fancy, gal. So I want every faculty in higher ed to know what trauma is, to know what the trauma response is and to know how it shows up in the classroom, and then I wanna give them sort of some tools and some tips about how they can begin Bringing that into their pedagogy in a really simple and sustainable way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:12]:

I so appreciate how you’re able to take these very complex things, very difficult, Necessary issues for us to explore, but then find ways we can actually put our our fingers on them and and our hands on them and and Put them as part of our practice as you said. All of us, I feel like if you have been reading any headline, it doesn’t really matter the publication. We have those moments where we wanna go, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Hold on. Hold up.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:37]:

I think we’ve I think we’re going off on a on a plane here that’s important for us to talk about. Tell us about a moment where you were reading an article in the chronicle discussing some of the tensions that faculty are slash were experiencing with regard to their own roles.

Karen Costa [00:05:56]:

Yeah. And Maybe I can put my hands on this article and we can link to it for folks. But I was reading an article in The Chronicle about sort of this sense that students were becoming more demanding. That’s not how I see it or how I would phrase it, but that was kind of what I how I felt it was framed, And I think a lot of folks feel that way. And the 1st faculty that were referenced in the article, one of them was running a discord, Which is like a I don’t even know how to describe it because I’m getting old. So it’s it’s like a social my son would describe it, but my My 14 year old will describe it better, but I’m on it. It’s like a social networking tool and you can communicate with people and send messages there. So she was running a discord for her students and was apparently, you know, it took off and all of her students were in there, like, expressing all these needs, Academic, but also social and psychological.

Karen Costa [00:06:49]:

And she got, like, completely burned out trying to manage this at Discord. And the 2nd professor, She had a student who had missed the final and the student couldn’t come to the makeup Dave, so the student was very angry at her for not having The a make another make up date. So it really I I have written I’m I’m sure we can link to the the book chapter that I wrote on scope of practice for educators, Which came out last year. Hasn’t really been at the forefront for me. But when I read that article, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I was just yelling, scope of practice. Scope of practice. Mhmm.

Karen Costa [00:07:25]:

Like, I think it answers so many questions that people are struggling with right now in, Again, a really simple, sustainable, not fancy way that can benefit the you know, you all know what that this is my thing that can benefit Both faculty and students, that is the sweet spot, and I think a scope of practice for educators can do that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:46]:

Take us back to even earlier before that article that that evoked these this I what I’m sensing as empathy and and for these individuals who Dave just Really trying so hard to to meet some some Yep. Difficult to meet needs. Take us back to when you almost left higher education.

Karen Costa [00:08:06]:

Yeah. So around 2016, I guess I had pretty pretty much had it. And I started a it it I had had it in many ways, and I started a yoga teacher training. And I attended a training on yoga for arthritis, run by the program Yoga for Arthritis and I would love if we can link to this I bet a lot of people would would love this. It’s an excellent program. It’s an evidence based yoga program developed by a PhD in public health from Johns Hopkins University named Stephanie Munoz. And, basically, arthritis is growing. More people are getting it and more people are getting it younger, which is a whole another story.

Karen Costa [00:08:51]:

So I was training in yoga for arthritis and my teacher started talking about Scope of practice. And she was explaining to us the difference between what we could be doing as a yoga teacher trained in yoga for arthritis and for example, what She might do as a yoga therapist, which is a more extensive training, and what physical therapists might do As part of their scope of practice and what orthopedic surgeons might do as part of their scope of practice. And Bell started ringing and I was, like, oh, this why don’t we talk about this in higher ed? Why don’t we have it it felt very calming to me. Like, you Karen, you’re not gonna talk to this person about their medication, Their arthritis medication. You’re not gonna do a treatment plan for this person. Right? You’re certainly not gonna perform surgery For this person, you can offer a general yoga class that people with arthritis know you have an awareness of arthritis And you can offer some very basic support with that. And that felt like such a relief. Like, I don’t I don’t have to know all of these things or do all these All of these things.

Karen Costa [00:10:05]:

So I started to get curious about what that would look like in higher education because higher education to me at that point felt like a free for all, Which was one of the reasons why I was thinking of leaving. Long story short, I’m still here. It’s 2023 as we record this. I ended up getting a Concussion. Probably about 6 months after that, and I kind of had to, like, take off work completely for quite a while. And when I came back, I came back to higher ed. So, Can’t shake it, I guess. But I came back with going through that concussion and and certainly the yoga teacher work training work I did Really brought me back with a greater clarity about the role that I want to have in higher ed and how to take care of myself in higher ed, and scope of practice is a big part of that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:49]:

Now take us to slightly more recent, early 2020. How did things change?

Karen Costa [00:10:57]:

Yeah. So early 2020, we went into lockdown. My lockdown day was March 13th. I have a date that I will never forget when that was the first time my son didn’t have school because of COVID. And it was chaos. So there’s obviously, there was the the horror of people dying of COVID all around us and not knowing what this thing is and how you could We get it and all of that. And meanwhile, this place where I work, higher education specifically, I do a lot of work in online learning. It was just turned upside down overnight.

Karen Costa [00:11:35]:

And so many faculty were were forced into emergency remote teaching, many of whom had never taught Or learned online or remotely in their entire lives and we are all doing this within this collective trauma. So there’s this dual crisis of COVID, but also the mental health aspects doing it in isolation, which we We now know that the isolation of COVID was perhaps as damaging, which I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have Done things what the way we did them, but isolation is a really, really damaging to to us as social animals. So scope of Practice really started to generate then when I saw people being asked to, like, completely revamp their entire course and learn how to online, but nothing was removed from their play. And all all the while, doing that with their own trauma, and then You’ve got students in the classroom bringing their trauma into the classrooms. I got really concerned about secondary trauma, which is very well known in the Caregiving fields, first responders, clinicians are trained to look out for secondary trauma. That’s when you’re exposed to somebody else’s trauma and you can develop symptoms even if you haven’t experienced the trauma directly. So I was hearing from faculty telling me these Stories of students coming to them, sharing their traumas in the classroom because for you know, once once we started coming back, and it was just it was too much. It was too much and in many ways still is.

Karen Costa [00:13:11]:

So I wrote the scope of practice and developed that work probably early 2021 As we started returning to campus as a tool for faculty, you know, as a a sort of a language for them to have, and we’ll talk more about what this looks like, To say this is mine and this is not mine and to do it in a really simple way, not only to help them take care of themselves, but also to take care of So it’s again, it’s this is absolutely based on mutualism, benefiting faculty and students As this crisis and and continues and as we we see, we we now live in sort of this era of crisis. It’s a tool for faculty take care of themselves and take care of their students.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:52]:

I am gonna invite you in just a moment to read a little bit from a table from the chapter that you wrote here about this this is mine, This is not mine. I’m gonna remind people of a story I’ve shared some time ago. Though, if you’re a newer listener, you may not have heard this one. But I remember I I used to work for a computer training company when I first graduated, and I was a computer instructor. And it was an interesting experience. They call these in the training and development field. They call these smile sheets. You know, you’re not actually you’re not actually being rated every single day on anything that people might call substantive.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:26]:

It it ends up just being, like, how much did people like you even though it’s not, like, do you like me? Yes? No? Like those little elementary school. She said the kids fill out, but it but it really does come down to that. So I would tend to get rated on a scale of 1 to 10 every single day of my working life, except unless I was prepping or what have you. But but and I and I would do really, really well. 9.9, 9.9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9.9. And it’s a lot of, like, a different kind of pressure than we might put on ourselves, although we certainly know we put a lot of Pressure on ourselves when it comes to course evaluations or we can that way. But so anyway, I remember there were these 2 women that we used to teach really large 24 Students for 8 hours, you know, walking them through stuff. And these 2 women sat in the back corner And talked to each other the entire time, and were really rude throughout the entire day, and then gave me I think it was straight ones or straight fives.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:21]:

I don’t even remember. I just remember it was not what I was accustomed receiving as my sense of worth, which is by the way super healthy. And for those reading the transcripts, there’s a lot of sarcasm in my voice right now. But, anyway so so I remember going to my manager at the time, and and he he had me literally hold these Evaluations are pay piece of paper that they would put in a locked box in the classroom. You have me hold them with open palms. Just I want you to hold these. Are these useful to you? Are they helpful to you to be better at what you do? And are they informative to you? I said, no. And and he literally took them and tore them.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:58]:

And it’s just, you know Yeah. Radical tearing noise and everything, and they went in the trash. And that was a kind of heresy For that, you mean, you weren’t you weren’t allowed to look at those. They went in the locked box. So it’s just the fact that we could do that. You know? It’s a it’s a pivotal memory for me That feels very empowering to make that choice. So when I saw this table that I’m gonna invite you to explain to us and then read from, It immediately resonated, Karen, because I just think about that one powerful exercise and how much more all of us that just Struggle with knowing what is mine. I don’t know what’s mine.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:31]:

And just hearing it and seeing it put out in these concrete powerful ways, I think could be very Instructive to all of us and very powerful, and then you’re gonna even empower us to go beyond that to personalize it for ourselves. But But talk us to us a little bit about this mine, not mine table, and maybe read off some of the items that are there.

Karen Costa [00:16:51]:

Yeah. So couple things. I actually, Actually, in advance of this podcast, I have been meaning to do this. And when I got your invitation, it gave me a little nudge. So I created a scope of practice template With a mine, not mine exercise, and I will send you that link. And I hope we can share that with folks. So it’s It’s a Google Doc, but I know I might have some Notion geeks that that follow your podcast. So I’ve also got a got it in Notion as well.

Karen Costa [00:17:18]:

Awesome. And you can also do this with just a piece of paper and you write mine on the left and not mine on the right and see what comes up. And the other thing I was folks that I was telling Bonni before, I wrote this in 2021 and my scope of practice, We’re recording this at the end of 2023. It’s changed and that’s okay. This is not meant to be set in stone. It’s meant to evolve. The world has changed. I have changed, so my scope of practice has changed.

Karen Costa [00:17:47]:

I’m actually gonna start here at the bottom. This is the first one jumping out at me. So I wrote in the mind column, I wrote refer, refer, refer. Kinda like Thoreau saying simplicity simplify three times. So you are referring your students in a crisis to the appropriate parties. And then in the not my column, I wrote not my problem. So that’s not for me. I know that saying, like, oh, a student’s in crisis.

Karen Costa [00:18:14]:

I’m not a counselor, so I can’t help them. Not my problem. That’s not mine. That’s not for me. But referring them to the appropriate person is for me. That’s that is part of my qualifications and it’s part of my my responsibility. I this is a good one. We could do a whole podcast on this one, Bonni.

Karen Costa [00:18:31]:

Mine is to develop self awareness And not mine is to be overly focused on the behaviors of others. So what that says to me is that I need to focus on my pedagogy where I have control to focus on my teaching choices and not Be obsessed with what students are or are not doing. I see that a lot with faculty. I I think I might have said this on the last podcast I was on with you, buddy. I’d probably a lot. We can’t control other people. I know, and I always say it in a sad voice because I’m so sad. Can barely control myself most days.

Karen Costa [00:19:10]:

So, yeah. So that’s a mine, not mine. Oh, here and here’s 1 more. Let’s do 3. Good things come in threes. Mine is empathy and not mine is counseling. This one is so huge And it’s be it’s a growing problem that I’m seeing. It’s getting worse, not better.

Karen Costa [00:19:29]:

So we’re seeing this mental health crisis among our students And I’m seeing more talk about training faculty to do this mental health work in the classroom. I get really I get really edgy about that one. Often that’s done without extensive training and often it’s done without taking anything off of Their plate. So we’re just piling Bonni, which is gonna burn faculty out and that’s gonna hurt faculty and that’s gonna hurt students. So I can empathize with my students around their mental health crises, and I do. I do it every day because I have many students who are struggling with that. But it is not mine to counsel them in that regard. That has the potential to do immense harm to the student, because I am not a counselor and to to ultimately harm me.

Karen Costa [00:20:15]:

So, yeah, that’s a big mine, not mine. It’s mine to have empathy. It is not mine to be a counselor.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:21]:

I would love to hear you speak a little bit when you talk about referring to what extent do you first and I realize these are very personal choices. This is Yeah. Not something that you’re saying everybody needs to adopt your list and then come up with even more to get bonus points, you know, that kind of thing. But I’m curious just because of my My thoughts and wrestling over many decades on this is the refer refer refer, to what extent do you see the reducing of stigma to to help facilitate those referrals more effectively as yours or not yours?

Karen Costa [00:20:52]:

Oh, That’s absolutely mine. And I say that not only as that that awareness has grown for me as I’ve dealt with my own mental illness crap. And I wrote an I put this in the chronicles, so I’ll happily share it here. Or where did I put it? I don’t know. It was in Inside Higher Ed The Chronicle. I I have ADHD, that I’m also in perimenopause, and that’s, like, blown everything up, including mental health stuff. So, I yes. That’s impacted the stigma has impacted me and my ability to get correct care and my, like, Resistance to accessing help and medication because I wanna do it on my own and I don’t wanna talk about it, and, like, that was Making me sicker.

Karen Costa [00:21:36]:

So I absolutely I feel that in my Bonni. And one of the ways I reduce stigma is I I’m transparent about those challenges with my students. I know that’s not for everybody and it’s very, very I I disclose that to my students when appropriate. So it’s not I’m not posting constant videos in my class About my mental health story, I for me, that’s not the way it works. But if a student discloses an introductory discussion, for example, that they live with anxiety, I’m responding to them and saying, me too, because I want them to know their college professor lives with anxiety and you can do thing you can it’s a both and. It’s a It sucks and you can do do things even though you have anxiety. So absolutely breaking down that stigma, but I it’s I talk about it all the time in my classes, Sharing resources as a group with the group about counseling resources on campus, external resources outside of the college. Some students might have had a bad experience with the college at office x and that’s keeping them from going.

Karen Costa [00:22:42]:

You know, it might not even be a bad experience with the counseling office. They might be willing to call an external agency. So I’m sharing those resources with my students. And I’ll and I’m able to you and happy to use myself is an example of somebody who’s reached out for help and benefited from that. So, yeah, there’s and that’s a lot of work that I just said, And we’re increasingly being asked to do that kind of work. I talk about this a lot. Course loads and class sizes Need to be right sized in the post we’re not even post COVID. In the continuing COVID era for the emotional.

Karen Costa [00:23:18]:

I’m I’m not doing count just what I said. I’m not counseling anybody, but just that referral process and decreasing the stigma. It’s it’s labor that’s happening in our classrooms. So I would really love lots of forward thinking administrators To really take a hard look at course loads and class sizes and ask if they are right sized for this era of crisis and for the mental health challenges That fact both faculty and students and staff are experiencing.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:47]:

And if I can just stick this in there just since you brought it up, maybe we don’t Reduce everything to just pay people more if they have to teach more and pay them less if they have to teach less so that your enrollment problems become creating even greater precarity. Sorry. I have just some feelings and thoughts about it.

Karen Costa [00:24:07]:

I’m thinking of Thoreau. I don’t know why Thoreau is Coming to me Dave, but I might be quoting him badly. But he said something along the lines of the cost of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. And I’m thinking of that. You can pay people more, but if they’re burned out, like, how much life are they exchanging for that that increased salary and people are burned out and they’re gonna Paying them more doesn’t decrease their burnout. So we really need yeah. I I’m liking the word rightsizing to think about How we can approach this issue. You know, I wrote in the book chapter that we’ve mentioned a couple times that higher education of today is not the higher education Of a 100 years ago, and we’ve had this shift from elite access to mass access.

Karen Costa [00:24:53]:

And I think that we really need to look at the work Faculty are doing and now, certainly, the era the era of COVID the era of COVID. COVID has changed everything. Like, Can we get it together and continue to talk about that? It’s not over. It’s not past. We’re not back to normal. It Turn it changed everything and turned everything upside down. The the faculty student relationship has fundamentally changed. Students’ relationship with the university has fundamentally changed.

Karen Costa [00:25:21]:

The labor market shifts. And we really, I think, need to take a look at the work that we are now doing in the classroom, which to me seems increasingly relational in nature. What are we giving folks? And if you’re giving folks more to do, you’ve gotta take something away or people are gonna burn out And it hurts them and it hurts our students, which ultimately holds hurt hurts the bottom line as well. So, yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:45]:

I’d love to have us walk through an example, one that comes up, I think, for a lot of people. And that would be making some determinations around a student who is eligible for an incomplete according to your university’s policies.

Karen Costa [00:26:00]:

Talked about incomplete. Please.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:03]:

I mean, because we’ve been talking a lot about role clarity and boundaries. And I had such a great conversation with a colleague the other day trying to navigate that for a couple folks in enrolled in a class I’m teaching. And so how do we think that through in terms of protecting our boundaries? Also, being wanting to be equitable in our teaching for people who really are facing things. Anyway, I’d I’d love to hear how you think through both from the student perspective and also from the faculty member’s perspective.

Karen Costa [00:26:34]:

Yes. Okay. Incomplete is a I love it. It’s a great topic. I know we I we’re not doing a good job of it. Let’s start there. And to your point, I think everybody I know is going through something. So let’s, yeah, let’s talk about Then what we can do in terms of designing a system.

Karen Costa [00:26:53]:

Right now, the system is we we respond there is no system. We sort of respond to it on a case by case basis. Which doesn’t make any sense to me because of all of the things we’ve just talked about. You know, mental health crisis, COVID changed everything, faculty burned out, Climate change. All of the above. Why are we still doing this sort of on a case by case basis? Why don’t we put a system in place that helps, You know, wild idea. Faculty, students, and staff. So here’s the problem with incompletes as they stand now.

Karen Costa [00:27:25]:

So you have a student who, You know, gets really sick, ends up in the hospital the final 2 weeks of class. They were they were getting an a, but they don’t turn anything in. If they don’t Do that final work. They’re gonna fail the class, but they’ve been doing fairly well all term. Of course, I think you want to give that student incomplete. However, the the flip side of that is that that faculty member needs to then commit to that additional work Of being in touch with that student for whatever the period of extension is allowed, 2 to 4 weeks typically. And there are emails from the student. There’s support with those assignments.

Karen Costa [00:28:06]:

There’s checking and grading and communicating with registrars. So it’s additional labor. This is particularly, I think, an issue for our contingent faculty, And it it doesn’t make sense to do it like that. I don’t know why we can’t have sort of, like, a flex Adjunct faculty in our departments who could work with students on completes and help them get the things submitted, answer any questions, triage. Maybe they could work with department chairs if there were subject specific questions. But putting that burden on faculty aft you know, The the day that we submit grades is like a, you know, we we love our students and we’re we’re tired and we need a break, And we need to rest up so we can come back ready the next term. My terms as an adjunct often run back to back. So as it does for many adjuncts, it seems to me we could create some kind of system.

Karen Costa [00:29:06]:

Because to me, that sort of Extra advising piece of things outside of the term is a little bit outside of our scope of practice as educators, But it is within the scope of practice, I would say, of sort of our our mission of the institution to be flexible for students’ needs. Now We could talk a whole other story would be competency based education without the strict, we start on this day, we end on this Dave. Competency based education, you you go at this is one of the beauties of it. You go at your pace and you you meet the competencies and then you move on to the next thing. You get sick? Okay. No problem. You’re you take 2 weeks off and then you come back and meet the next competency. I know these are wild ideas in higher education, but folks are doing that.

Karen Costa [00:29:49]:

So, yeah, I think there’s conversations to be had outside of the putting the burden onto the individual faculty and Individual student, I’d like us to think more. What scope of practice can do is it helps us remind us to think in systems. When we have this Continued concern coming up repeated. This person is working outside their scope of practice over and over. That’s a sign that the institution needs to develop a system To support that issue.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:14]:

Yeah. And I think I I so treasure everything you said. And in conversing with my friend at work, I also think it’s just helpful to talk about this with each other, and how do we now especially with someone who you feel like you share some values of student care to to really hone in, but also, I mean, self care too. So how, you know, how do we think through these things? The colleague I’m I’m thinking of here didn’t feel Safe to be able to share her practices across our university in risk of Being seen as being too soft, you know, which is not great in term in terms of that we would set up systems where if you were to do something that came out of empathy care and awareness, by the way, of trauma and and and and the whole reason that oftentimes incompletes are needed, that we would be concerned due to our precarity that we we would wouldn’t be tough enough on the students, which is just, You know, so so to find those safe places where we can explore ideas, one thing that she shared with me that that is important to her is that a face to face conversation happens. And by the way, face to face meaning could be Zoom, could be a telephone call, but just not email. Like, that that she for her, And and part of it is for the referral process that you spoke of earlier, but that that’s an important part of her practice. So then I oh, okay. Well, that’s I love that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:36]:

That’s helpful. And then and then for me, I I find it helpful to think about what are my boundaries. So I don’t have my classes quite run back to back in the way that you described. But I mean, we teach on a semester system. So it’s either bumping up against some holidays, Or it’s bumping up against the summer. So it it’s, Yeah. Thinking through, like, what what is it that I want? What is it that I need? What would what would, How can I create my own carve out my own little slivers of joy during those times, which can be Joshua, for their own reasons, having nothing to do with the work, but thinking through those things and setting those boundaries in really healthy ways, I think it’s great modeling too for students to to recognize? So I’m anyway, this is all just making me think of it, because you and I happen to be having this conversation at an end of a term grades are almost Dave. So this is top of mind for many of us.

Karen Costa [00:32:27]:

This is such a a pickle for so many people. Is this and and this is why I love my learning experience design mindset. So How can we design a solution to this? Like, we are very we theoretically, higher ed has a lot of smart people in it. Like, there’s Gotta be a better way Mhmm. Than 1, you know, the faculty member says this student really needs this extra time. They can benefit from it, But I gotta I gotta take a break or else I don’t I’m on the I’m exhausted and anxious and burned out and I’ve gotta take a break. Like, Why are we forcing that decision? That har so you’re either going to to fail the student Or you’re gonna sacrifice your your mental health and well-being. That’s a horrible design.

Karen Costa [00:33:17]:

That doesn’t make any sense. This is why I Say, why are we calling ourselves higher education and doing these things? There’s a better way. There’s a better way. And it’s as you said, it’s gonna be specific to departments and institutions and institutional types. But come on. We can we can figure out a better way than that. I know we can.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:36]:

So I saw an article by Robert Talbert, and I’m going from memory here because it’s been, I don’t know, 2, 3 years since he put it out, but he has this twelve week course design, a 12 week course that fits inside of a 16 week semester. So the I think Taking the spirit of what you said, Karen, to be more imaginative within systems and structures that might, you know are are any of us likely be in positions where we entirely convince an entire institution to change schedules? Probably not, although we should keep trying, I think. But we can take what what what we do have in terms of learning experience design and rethink the timing, And he’s been just been able to structure a a 12 week course in in terms of that, and then have more flexibility both for students and also for himself too. So that’s what some things I’ll I’ll link to the article. I found it powerful.

Karen Costa [00:34:30]:

Yes. I’ve seen that, and I think it’s a great idea. I think it’s a great idea. It’s a great example of what there’s there’s a 1000000 ways you could answer this question. Right? There’s so you you with learning experience design, you start from a place of See. And then you look at the context and you come up with solutions. And and what we have now just stinks. So I I think that’s a great example of one One way that design can answer this challenge.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:54]:

Before we get to the recommendation segment, Karen, anything you wanna leave us with in terms of questions, We might ask ourselves in terms of better thinking through our boundaries and also better thinking through our role clarity. Yeah.

Karen Costa [00:35:09]:

So there’s there’s 2 words I wanna leave people with, and, this is in that template that I share with folks. So the first question I want folks to ask themselves is what are my qualifications in this role. So I am not qualified to perform hip replacement surgery on someone who lives with arthritis. I am qualified To teach a yoga class, a general yoga class for people who might have arthritis. I am not Qualified to offer a specific treatment plan for rehabilitation for somebody who’s had a hip replacement, but I am qualified Off to teach a yoga class. So that’s an example outside of higher ed. I would love to invite folks to think about in your role in higher education, what are your qualifications? So that’s the 1st way you can help frame your your scope of practice. And then the second way is the word responsibility.

Karen Costa [00:35:59]:

So what is my responsibility in this role. So for example, if I have a student in one of the classes that I’m teaching. Let’s say I’m teaching an intro to research class and I have a student who says, hey, I see from your bio that you’re a yoga teacher, and he emails me every week to ask me about yoga postures. I am qualified To offer that advice on yoga to him. But in that role, it is not my responsibility. So just because you are Qualified to do it does not mean that it is yours. So asking those 2 questions, am I qualified? What are my qualifications in this role? And what is what are my responsibilities in this role? I think will really help people get clear. And the other thing I would say, Bonni, that I like about this model, I’ve heard a lot of folks talking about boundaries, and I I just heard that word in your question.

Karen Costa [00:36:49]:

I didn’t know what boundaries were until I was about 35 years old, and it’s taken me about 7 years of really challenging interpersonal work In therapy, in 12 step programs, in journaling, in all kinds of places to understand what boundaries are and to feel confident in in setting boundaries For myself. I worry when we use the language of boundaries that it’s asking people to, like, fly to the moon. Right? A Lot of us didn’t get that skill, growing up. So saying, like, you need to have boundaries at work is just like fly to the moon right Now. Right? People are like, oh, yeah. Boundaries. What? What is that? People don’t know. So what I love about scope of practice is it’s a little bit simpler, That vocational lens, think about what are your qualifications and what are your responsibilities, and if something is outside of that scope of practice, That is an opportunity to reflect on what you’re doing, what choices you’re making, and also to have conversations with the folks around you.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:47]:

When you were Stating the 2nd question, I heard you say the word responsibility in terms of the two parts of it, the response Ability, the ability that we have to respond, and that almost to me drives to what you’ve been Sharing throughout, there’s the thinking about our roles as individuals, but then there’s also thinking about from a systems standpoint, The ability that we have to respond beyond individual expectations, and that’s why it makes the boundary conversation so hard for for some of us in terms of Maybe we we weren’t always taught and equipped to set boundaries, but then also thinking beyond individual boundaries to How do we protect our systems and structures such that they support the missions of the institutions in the 1st place? So that’s really I I don’t know if you were intending on separating out response ability.

Karen Costa [00:38:41]:

But I’m so glad you heard that way. And so one of my recommendations is for folks to do this work in community. That’s my recommendation. Period. Let’s do small let’s all do small things in 2024. Let’s all do small things in loving community. So sit down with your department And do a do your scope of practice work as at your next department meeting, and then do it as a division, or do it as Part of your committee or do it with your friend group at work or do it with the 1 other person that you can trust at work and have conversations About what’s coming up and what one small next step might be that comes of that conversation. So this is not me work.

Karen Costa [00:39:20]:

This is WeWork. And yeah. I think I’ll leave it at that. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:24]:

Alright. So my recommendation is going to be a book this time, and I am so excited to share that I read a book in less than 24 hours, which I didn’t think was possible for me anymore in my life. It swept me away. It’s a very hard book to describe, and I would even recommend that people not read the back cover because I’m glad that I didn’t and that I went in fairly not understanding exactly what the book was gonna be all about, but I can share a little bit of the themes. It’s a a a story that involves race and also socioeconomic status. And I’m gonna read one of the reviews from the back cover, which is safe and doesn’t have any spoilers, but a striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice. The book is called Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid. So Such A Fun Age is a page turning and big hearted story about race and privilege set around a young black babysitter, her well intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to Undo them both.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:31]:

I don’t I’m realizing now that maybe I don’t have enough fiction in my reading diet at present, and so It’s harder to get swept away with really good books about teaching and learning, and I read a ton of really good books about teaching and learning. But just that my entire imagination would be swept away, I had just All those so fun moments where you can’t wait. When will be the next time that I can pick up that that digital reader and put it back In front of my eyes, I would I would find myself arise arriving places early, and then, oh, good. I have a few minutes I could read before I go inside. It was that kind of a book. And so I kept wanting to talk to people about it. I don’t wanna spoil anything for people that that enjoy reading books without knowing a lot. And so I just thought, Oh my gosh.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:12]:

Who’s read this? Who’s read this? Who’s read this? And so I went on Blue Sky and searched around for the author’s name and for the book title. And I found a woman who must, among other things, write book reviews on a regular basis, who’s got a Instagram and, another thing. So she talked about she had gotten an advance Copy. As of Karen and I talking, we’re talking in December of 2023. This episode’s coming out in 2024. You probably could not only, at that time, get your hands on the book, Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid, but I also heard on Instagram, and on Blue Sky that Kiley Reid has a book coming out in January 2024 that is set on a college campus, and I cannot wait to read that one as well. So, Karen, I don’t know I know you already gave your recommendations or anything else you wanna recommend before we close the episode for us to put in the show notes?

Karen Costa [00:42:02]:

I have a couple quick recommendations for folks since this is coming out in January, and and these are kind of related. So the first one is try snowshoeing. Get outside. I in the winter, I did not want to do this. People kept recommending it to me because I said I hated winter and I don’t like being cold. I run cold, so get yourself some some long underwear and get out on your snowshoes. It’s something that we do as a family To get outside, get some fresh air, I love it. I’m so looking forward to it.

Karen Costa [00:42:33]:

And the the second is a book called Don’t Even Think About It, Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, and the author is George Marshall. And here in Massachusetts, we’re at the end of December. We really haven’t had any snow yet. We just had some really warm weather, a rainstorm. Climate change is here and it’s gonna impact us in so many ways, including the ways that we can have recreation and fun with our families. So what I love about this book is it’s 3 speaking of reading an entire book in a night, you’re not gonna read his entire book in a night, but you’re gonna read an entire Chapter, because the chapters are 3 to 4 pages long. I love I’ve been reading 1 chapter a night. I love feeling like I read a chapter of a book about climate change tonight.

Karen Costa [00:43:17]:

Right? So Do small things in loving community. And he really touches on the why of why so many of us don’t wanna talk about it or even Think about it. We just are sort of living in this denial that is making the problem worse. So I hope folks will check that out, And it’s got a lot of a lot of great ideas for us to consider.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:38]:

Karen, thank you so much for coming back once again on Teaching in Higher Ed and give continuing to be so generous and helpful with the tools that you recommend. I am so looking forward to downloading This worksheet and filling it out myself and then getting some colleagues I trust at work to do the same and have these conversations you’re recommending. I so appreciate you, Your work and even just your encouragement to me privately and personally over email has meant so much to me. So thank you so much, Karen.

Karen Costa [00:44:08]:

Well, thank you, Bonni. And, yeah, we’re gonna we’re gonna do small things in loving community, and, we’ll be okay if I think we stick to that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:17]:

Thanks once again to Karen Costa for talking with us today about how role clarity and boundaries can help us thrive. I so appreciate each one of you for listening and hope that you’ll extend these conversations over to the weekly email updates that I send out. Head on over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe, and you’ll receive the most recent episodes, Show notes as well as some other resources that don’t show up on the regular show. Thank you so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.

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