identity – Page 2 – Katie Kearns

Magic items

I have a childhood memory of owning a “Barbie suitcase.” It was a small case that could hold two Barbies and clothes, shoes, and accessories. The Barbie suitcase held the objects that mattered to me at that age and that I tended carefully. Its magic feels like tenderness, serenity, innocence, play, care, and reverence.

What would it look like if…?

a small stream falling over moss-covered rocks and branches

If the wrong person knew our dreams, they could out-compete us, drive us out of the market, and squash our dreams. At the same time, no one can help us and support us in our dreams if they don’t know about it.

Beyond one-size-fits-all teaching tips

The title of the book is at the top in white font with an orange-yellow banner. The image of the book cover is an overhead shot of a table with five students seated at it. They have laptops and papers around them.

“We think graduate students have a story to tell about their teaching. How have you come to think about teaching as you do? What are the most meaningful teaching activities, accomplishments, barriers, and outcomes for you?”

What does educational development even mean?

I hope colleagues in educational development take some time to think about what “development” means to them and the work they do. I hope they will think about how the term “educational developer” fits or doesn’t, especially as many of my colleagues’ roles have expanded into mentoring and diverse career exploration. Maybe I’ve provided some insight into the work I do to make it legible to others.

Scholarship AS creative activity: Meeting your inner artist

Five glass tiles of different colors and designs on a black background.

I am currently reading The Artist’s Way, and it’s leading me to think about the ways I can guide graduate students as they explore their research, writing, and teaching AS creative activities and learn how to protect and nurture their creative spark.

Rebirth

You know how, when a crayfish molts, It’s new skin is kind of translucent white? A little soft. Squishy. Glistening. Like all those Brood X, Larvae hanging off the oak tree bark, White wings unfurling from a pale yellow body. Now feels like that. Vulnerable. Pluripotent. Inevitable. Dear reader: These words sprinted from my brainContinue reading “Rebirth”

Making Meaning (Part 2): Why focus on grad students?

It is possible for graduate students to check the boxes and to zombie-walk through the initiations and benchmarks of graduate school. Graduate students need and deserve mentoring that is intentional and cognizant of their meaning making process.

Making meaning (Part I)

To me, meaning-making is the way we make deliberate mindful observations, recounting and interpreting stories we find significant and important. It’s the “being” part of human beings.

Dissertation Blues

I often see PhD students, successfully on the other side of these passages, in a state that looks like mourning (as if they hadn’t passed). Even students who have successfully defended their qualifying examples or dissertations experience a lost sense of purpose, listlessness, languidness, low motivation, and lack of direction. I want graduate students to be able to talk together about these experiences and their attendant complex, competing, and ambivalent emotions.

Back to “Normal”

I’ve been thinking about what it means to me to both move forward and return to normal in a psychologically and socially healthy way. And I’ve been thinking about how this transition relates to the work I do in helping graduate students make sense of their significant transitions during graduate school