Janet Read on charm bracelets, finish tape & the work to be a complete academic

Janet Read is a Professor in Child Computer Interaction at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. Janet’s path to academia was via maths teaching, and then falling into a PhD after she had a family. Our discussions are wide ranging and throughout she is incredibly thoughtful, reflective and proactive in how she goes about unentangling processes and challenges, always striving to understand and develop, not just herself but also those around her. Because this ends up being a long conversation, the high level topics are below, along with more detailed notes, and has two parts - see below.We have a problem right through the whole system, understanding what the academic does.So the complete academic probably collapses on a Friday evening with a glass of wine. And gets up on a Saturday and starts doing work again.Daughter (9yr old) said “Mum when you are working at home, the children don’t know if you are being a mum or not.”.Deep work is the valuable work for academics... A really hard thing for academics is finding that deep work space.[Management ideal] It’s the encouragement, understanding individual needs, motivate, say well done. Wouldn’t it be nice to get “a well done”!In the first part, up to about the hour, she explores her own journey learning how to do research, how to supervise students, and how to support good learning experiences. She has some really interesting things to say about today’s university process-driven culture and argues that we need to do much better at understanding students and how to better support the learning experience, not equating attendance with learning.In the second part, she talks about being a complete academic, that one of the challenges is that no-one really knows what an academic actually does. She talks about how she deals with the demands on her time, the potential costs of being too efficient, being proactive and looking after your own needs, creating a collaborative group culture, wishing for encouraging and supportive leadership and saying ‘well done’.  PART 1:02:40 Path via teaching to a PhD, and into academia18:50 Learning to supervise PhD students32:45 Getting to understand processes, value of reflective writing39:08 University culture, process management, monitoring attendance, supporting the student learning processPART 2:1:01:09: The complete academic1:06:05: Understanding what the academic does, being efficient1:14:20 Speaking up, looking after yourself, managing time1:22:45 People management & leadershipWith more detailed notes, she talks about (times approximate) …PART 1: Path via teaching to PhD and Academia:02:40 Janet talks about her unusual path to a research/academic career via a maths degree and high school teaching, wanting to have children and working part-time, having to change schools to do this, resigning in response to an unreasonable unfair workload demand compared to male colleagues, moving to a local college as an IT lecturer, and landing in university by pure chance to cover classes when someone went off for an operation, so never had an interview for her current job!09:10 Moving on to do a PhD part-time while working, with four kids, cats. Well supported but no-one on university team did research. Advised to go out and meet people, get work published. First experience at Sunderland HCI conference, heard Leon Watts ask a good question and thought ‘I want to be that guy’. He was gentle,...

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