Teaching in Higher Ed

Teaching in Higher Ed


Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make It Better for Others, and Transform the University

November 06, 2025

Roberta Hawkins + Leslie Kern share about their book, Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make it Better for Others, and Transform the University on episode 595 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Quotes from the episode

We advise lots of different ways of rethinking our relationship with work in the book.
-Roberta Hawkins

You can’t solve institutional problems with individual sacrifices.
-Leslie Kern

We are not cogs in an institutional machine.
-Roberta Hawkins

One of the challenges, is the idea that our work is kind of a calling. It’s a passion project. The institution knows that we love our work and that we are passionate about our students and that we care about bringing great ideas to fruition in the world, so it will extract every little drop of that from you in terms of your time and energy.
-Leslie Kern

Invisibilized labor is an equity issue as well as a workload issue.
-Roberta Hawkins

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