Heather Shea:

Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host, Heather Shea. Today, we are talking about imposter syndrome and its effect on graduate students. I’m thrilled to be joined by four dynamic individuals to discuss today’s topic. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you’ll find these conversations, make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find us at studentaffairsnow.com or on Twitter. Today’s episode is sponsored by Anthology. Is your goal to engage in effective assessment boost data fluency, and empower staff with strategic data collection, documented analysis, and use of use of results for change? No matter where your campus is in the assessment journey, Anthology formerly Campus Labs can help you figure out what’s next with a short assessment, you’ll receive customized results and tailored recommendations to address your most immediate assessment needs.

Heather Shea:

Learn more about how Anthology’s products and expert consultation can empower your division with actionable data by visiting campuslabs.com/SA-Now. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Heather Shea. My pronouns are she her and hers, and I am broadcasting from East Lansing, Michigan near the campus of Michigan State University. MSU occupies the ancestral homelands of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples.

Heather Shea:

So grateful to the four of you for joining me today on the conversation. So let’s meet our guests as each of you. Introduce yourselves. Tell us a little bit about your current roles and responsibilities within student affairs and higher education. And I am going to start with my good friend, Alex Lange. Welcome Alex.

Alex Lange:

Thanks Heather. Thanks for having me here. Again, my name is Alex Lange my pronouns. Are they/them. I am a PhD candidate at the University of Iowa. Hopefully I will be just PhD by the end of February. I am currently serving as the graduate assistant for the HESA program here at Iowa. So I actually coordinate master’s admissions for the program. My previous work experiences have included LGBTQ services, student affairs, operations, and leadership program. And part of what I study is I study students who were on the margins of our campus, but also the forces that push those students to the margins as well. So really excited to be here and chat with these fabulous folks today.

Heather Shea:

Thank you so much for Alex now. Thanks for being here. Katherine, welcome to the episode of Student Affairs NOW. Katherine is a student at Michigan State in the program that I work with,

Katherine Lechman:

I am thank you, Heather. And I’m excited to be here. My name is Katherine Leachman. I use she, her hers pronouns. As Heather mentioned, I’m a second year master’s student. I’m studying student affairs administration at Michigan State University. My graduate assistantship is as the coordinator of campus engagement for the MSU writing center where one of my primary responsibilities is supervising or writing engagement liaison program servicing other units on campus and engaging folks in, in literacy work broadly conceived. I’m also on the graduate staff of My Spartan Story, which is MSU is co-curricular record and I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in the national peer educator study as well. I’m particularly interested in academic gatekeeping and its impact on students’ sense of mattering.

Heather Shea:

Thank you so much for joining the conversation. I’m thrilled. You’re here. Eileen. Welcome.

Eileen Galvez:

Hi, my name is Eileen Galvez. I use she and her pronouns and I’m logging in from the ancestral homes of the Quinnipiac today known as New Haven, Connecticut. I am a scholar practitioner, which means that I am a PhD student of higher education leadership at Colorado State. And I also have the honor of serving as La Directora of the Latino cultural center at Yale. And I also serve an assistant Dean for the college. I’m also one of the two graduate student reps of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Board of Directors, but you know what? These are like just a bunch of titles and who I am saying as a scholar practitioner has everything to do with where I’ve come from. And so I I’d like to take this time to state that I am the daughter of refugee immigrants from El Salvador. I grew up with five amazing brothers in South central Los Angeles, and I’ve lived in Texas and Illinois prior to Connecticut.

Eileen Galvez:

My first vivid memory was of our apartment burning down during the Rodney King riots. And so since then I wanted to do something about the things that were around me. I just didn’t have the language articulate them. Today many, many years later, my scholarly work it aims to center the experience says of central American college students and specifically exploring race and ethnicity because Latino is not a race! I know it’s hard to believe, but we are different kinda folks. So I’m excited to join in the conversation today with this lens.

Heather Shea:

Thank you so much for joining us, Eileen. It’s very nice to meet you. Meg welcome to Student Affairs NOW. Thank you. My name

Meg Moore:

Is Meg Moore. I use she her pronouns and my current position is the associate director of graduate student life and wellness at Michigan State. Prior to that, I worked at the counseling center. So I’m a licensed professional counselor and graduated from Michigan State in the HALE PhD program had the distinction of being cohort mates with Heather. And so it’s really fun to be colleagues now and be able to really capitalize on the things that we learned about each other as as cohort mates. And I love working with graduate students. My office does health and wellness programming and as well as leadership development programming I think wellbeing and leadership are intricately connected that and, and really excited to be in a place to offer those types of services to students, especially now in the midst of all the current challenges that that we’re going through.

Heather Shea:

Oh my gosh, this is going to be a fabulous conversation because you all come at it from both personal and also professional lenses. So thank you for your time today. We’re going to kick off by talking about what do we mean by imposter syndrome, and I’m going to queue this up to Alex, Alex, tell us what you think.

Alex Lange:

Yeah. I think the literature really sets imposter syndrome as the combination of two things happening at once. One is sort of like our deep doubts about our accomplishments, our skills, our talents, our abilities plus it’s sort of this deep fear that we’re going to be exposed, that those things are not true. Right. I think Meg is talk a little bit about how this is about belonging, but it’s really this idea that if we’re found out we true, someone will know we truly don’t belong in a space. And so it’s these combination of two factors that come together, but I would offer a third one from my own experiences is that imposter syndrome I find is a really environmental condition. It is about being in spaces that make us feel like an imposter. And we know when I started graduate school, I was in a brand new geographic location.

Alex Lange:

I never been when I started my master’s and my PhD. I was in a brand new program where I didn’t know anyone. And I was the student who only had like two assistantship interviews. The day I went to go visit program. Whereas like so many other people seem like they have a packed eight per like eight sites schedule. And I was like, Oh my gosh, maybe I’m not supposed to be here. Right? So like this stuff starts, but at the moment I decided to apply for graduate school in some ways still feel, and there’s those two compounding environments of imposterism. It’s like not just living in a new place, but it’s also working in a new place going to class in a new place. And all of this sort of just stacks on top of each other into a not nice stack of pancakes, it’s like a poor stack of pancakes in many ways is how imposterism feels sometimes like an overdone pancake with no butter, no syrup.

Alex Lange:

It’s just, Ugh, no one wants that. And so I think the deep part of this that’s really important for me is that yes, environments and contexts can really make us feel like imposters, but it’s also about thinking about how we negotiate our expectations of what is real and possible for ourselves too. And I mean, it’s a really hard conversation. A lot of us don’t like having, I know I have a nice therapist who helps me process those conversations for myself. But that’s what I think about when I think about imposter syndrome. I think this, this bad of pancakes is going to be something I really think about a lot now that was a really on the fly metaphor. So

Heather Shea:

I love it. I love metaphors is ways to explain the things that we’re trying to say. Thank you for that, Alex. So I want to ask Meg, I mean, as a counselor, I think one of the things that we know is that some level of self doubt, you know, might be, you know, quote, “normal”, whatever that means. We can problematize what that means. But when does this crossover into something that might be actually mental health has mental health implications for graduate students. And then I’d love to hear more about what you think about this kind of community belonging and what Alex just spoke of regarding environment environmental context.

Meg Moore:

Sure. And there’s so much to unpack there. But to start with that sense of belonging, I think there’s a sense that people like me don’t belong in a place like this. So it’s also about social identity and group identity. If you come from a non-dominant group or a marginalized group there’s already that’s already one of the pancakes we’re just going to keep extending that metaphor cause it’s, it’s great, but that’s none of the pancakes is that people like me don’t belong here. We’re here. Because we we have to be exceptional if we are here because because people can tell by the way we look or the way we sound or the way we dress or something about us that marks us as outsiders. And so even though I do think that everyone could potentially experience the sense of imposterism that it is different depending on what you look like depending on where you come from.

Meg Moore:

And so she feel like I belong here. What does it look like to us to have a sense of belonging when you come in with that pancake already on your plate? And so so I think that’s definitely one of the big challenges from a mental health perspective. I do think for that all humans come into the world asking, am I enough? Am I loved? And we all have a different set of answers to that. And that we wrestle with it different, you know, based on our, how we were raised or the, you know, the, the resources, our family had, all those things. And so I think everyone has some type of insecurities that’s normal. I think it becomes a problem when the insecurity is start to to drive our decision making to the extent that it was really impacted your sense of wellbeing.

Meg Moore:

If we are feeling hounded and bullied by our own insecurities to the point where it increases our anxiety depression, obviously you know, depressive symptoms would come from that or feeling just hopeless and helpless. So I think that there are definitely a lot of mental health implications for someone who constantly feels like they don’t belong, that they’re not good enough to be here. And eventually someone’s going to find that out. It really can feel like, I think being haunted by this, by these these fears and that over time, it can absolutely lead to complications in your mental health and wellbeing. And they can break down your physical sense of wellbeing. It can impact you in so many different ways.

Heather Shea:

Eileen talk a little bit about when this might show up for graduate students Alex spoke of you know, when they came to campus, right. Or just thought about the idea of going to graduate school. Is it admissions? Is it when the first you get the first assignment or paper back talk a little bit about your experience related to that.

Eileen Galvez:

Yeah, I think, I think higher ed just happens to be one of those environments, but it’s beyond higher ed. And I can’t remember when I haven’t felt content. I really liked that. Because that’s exactly what it feels like. It you’re scared all the time. You’re scared of making a mistake. And if someone finds a mistake, how much that mistake is going to be amplified, and how is it going to affect your various circles or whatever you’re dealing with. But as a graduate student, I would say that it started even before I applied. It started in the process of, with me as a scholar practitioner is, can I do both? Should I do both? How do I write in my application that I have the capacity to balance these things and what programs should I pick? And I already hear that people look down if you don’t do a program full time.

Eileen Galvez:

All of these scenes haunted me to the point where I didn’t tell, I think maybe more than three people on my campus that I was in a program. I, because I was so afraid that if they noticed anything, they would say, see, she can’t do it. She can’t handle both things. So at the end of my first year, I revealed to everyone for the past year, I’ve been doing this. It’s been really painful for me not to share it’s painful for me now. But I had to be like strategic. I had to be. And, and that’s the haunting of you constantly feel it’s going to be used against you. So it’s, I would say it, it doesn’t go away. And I’m assuming that even after I get these, these digits after my name, that out, it’ll still affect me in some way or another.

Heather Shea:

Yeah. Wow. I just want to say thank you for sharing your story and also for the vulnerability, right. I mean, to come to this space and to share, and I, I think even when you get those, the digits, I think it’s very, very true that it still shows up in all of the roles that we, that we carry. Katherine, I think we’re going to talk more about writing in a moment is related to imposter syndrome, but I am curious about your experience as a master’s student in, in a program that has also a parallel doctoral program and other other experiences, like how has that shown up in your experience in the SAA program?

Katherine Lechman:

Yeah, I think that to start, I would echo a lot of excuse me, Eileen sentiments about the application process and even deciding to go at the beginning. I can say that I did not decide I was going to apply to graduate school until October– the December, before applications are due. And it wasn’t until I had one of my mentors at the time say, you know, like this sort of like side hustle that you’re doing right now at the university, like this could be a job that you like do this could be your career and it didn’t Dawn on me. And until someone said something that like, that’s something I could pursue, I had sat next to a number of graduate systems from MSU student affairs program and really look up to them, admired them and did not see myself as someone who could also sit in that seat. So I, I definitely can empathize with, I, it felt like a secret for awhile.

Katherine Lechman:

I totally hear that even after being accepted, I will echo some of Alex’s sentiments that they shared about the, like the assistantship interview process. I remember it’s this weird, you’re trying out a program. You’re trying to figure out if you fit in here, if these could be your friends, your colleagues, or peers, and you’re also competing for funding with them and interviewing for assistantships and, you know, trying not to be competitive in that way and compare yourself, but it’s hard not to. Right? So I think that a lot of my experiences with imposter syndrome certainly showed up in that that application process. Absolutely. I think Heather, you bring up an interesting point about the parallel doctoral program. I’ve been really lucky to have HALE doctoral students serve as mentors for me throughout my process as a master’s student here.

Katherine Lechman:

But I have often thought about whether I deserve to be in the room with them, or if some of the research projects I’ve been a part of, I almost am lucky to be part of, but I worked hard to be a part of those. So I’m gonna take that out. If I should, you know, have my name next to theirs as well. So I it’s not comforting to know that it never goes away, but I think that it’s you have to check yourself and I often think about the advice I’d give to my students on this topic is that, you know, anyone who’s admitted to this program, you deserve to be in that room, you’re here because you can be successful. And there’s a lot of folks that recognize that. And that’s something that keeps saying to yourself all the way through.

Heather Shea:

Alex, your role at Iowa. Similar to my role at MSU, is to work, work with coordinating these types of experiences that students come to campus. What are some of the things that you’re trying at university of Iowa to, to send that message you belong here? You deserve to be here? Like Katherine was just talking about,

Alex Lange:

Yeah, I think the magic really comes in trying to talk to students one-on-one and in some way, and to the extent that it’s scalable and students feel comfortable doing that. But I think that it’s always been really important to me to stress like one as someone who is a first generation college student, like for even applying to the idea of grad school, unlike college, where I feel like there are more folks around me when I was coming up through the K-12 system who had been to college, like my teachers were, my parents had not, there were less people around me who knew what grad school was or how to do it. And so saying to the students, I’ve never done this, I haven’t done this either until this. So please, no question is beyond asking. And I’ve really appreciated students who come with like 45 bulleted questions and asked every single one.

Alex Lange:

Cause I’m like, yes, like just ask, like, there’s nothing off limits here in terms of what we’re thinking about two is really demystifying the process for them a lot. So I think without fail because higher education in many ways is a system of merits. And so that is the sort of system we judge each other by because of achievement. Folks are like, well, what do I need to do in my application to get in? Right. And they’re all, everyone’s like, why do I need to write in the personal statement? And it’s, I, I tell students, this is going to sound cliche. And I just want you to tell me about you, right? Because as I emphasize to the students, I’m not looking for 20 different Alex’s to fill out this master’s program. Gosh, no faculty ever would want that. That sounds terrifying.

Meg Moore:

So many Alex’s!

Alex Lange:

That would be so much like, I know I’m extra I’ve I have awareness of my extra-ness and like, no one needs that, but we’re looking for 20 different individuals who can compliment one another. And because the predominant image of postgraduate education is medical school, law school sort of professional fields that are actually quite competitive because they want a certain kind of student they’re sort of a reprogramming, not counter programming. That sounds really like post-structural … And I go, sorry, everyone I’m coming back. And a reframing as the counselors would say of the, what graduate admissions actually looks like, which is a holistic process, which is about finding the right people to come together and teach one another. Right. And when you frame it like that, it’s more of like, I’m not competing with these other people. I want to see how much of you you can show.

Alex Lange:

And that’s a lot to combat with folks experiences in K-12 in college. Just sort of like have this flip switched all of a sudden that’s really about you as a person and all you bring and not just about your transcripts. But it’s sort of about continuing to repeat that point over and over again, which for some students that’s really helped them feel like a sense of relief in many ways. And just sort of emphasizing that, like I’m about to defend this dissertation theoretically in two months. And I’m very excited about that would be very clear and like by many people’s standards in our field, I am “somebody” right? And I still feel imposter in so many ways. It’s like right. Like I can be published in JCSD. Eileen has a really great piece in JCSD that just came out by the way that you should all check it out. But like no amount of like publication or anything is going to make this go away at this point. Right. it helps let not the publication itself, but the process of feeling competent helps. But it’s, it’s a, it’s more of a process and trying to emphasize that with students, I think is really, really important.

Heather Shea:

Yeah. Yeah. Meg I want to turn to you because I think a couple of things that Alex just said really, really resonated for me with our shared experience in the doctoral program which it’s so it’s so meta, right. For you to have been in this program, but now working for graduate student life and wellness. But I was thinking about that idea of a community of scholars and you know, we heard that quite a lot when we were applying for the HALE program and Alex just spoke little bit about this idea of how do you compliment one’s learning. So graduate student life and wellness exists for kind of building those communities and emphasizing life and wellness. Can you talk a little bit more about what you do and in what ways you help graduate students kind of think about the ways that imposterism is showing up for them?

Meg Moore:

Yeah. so I, I could go in like 20 different directions with this. So I’m trying to pick one.

Heather Shea:

I know I asked you like five different questions, so sorry about that.

Meg Moore:

I mean, I think the graduate school experience is not really geared towards supporting one’s wellbeing because…

Alex Lange:

…just in case people missed that. Can you say that one more time!

Meg Moore:

Environments, the ways, the myriad ways that we are judged and compared because that’s what we’re coming in for. Everything is it’s, it’s, it’s tough, it’s tough. On, on having a sense of wellbeing and balance and any of those things that we’re supposed to have. And I do think that community is one of the best ways to combat this sense of not belonging. It’s like, if you could find a sense of belonging on your own terms because the system is kind of set up to pit you against each other. That education is somehow as a zero sum game, that if some, one else has more of something, you have less of something. Now, sometimes it does, because it’s one thing is, is a zero sum game, but but education isn’t and belonging isn’t. And so what I try to do in my programs and every workshop I’ve done this during the pandemic the thing that participants say the most is that it was just so good to be around other people who were also struggling, because you’ve really start to isolate yourself.

Meg Moore:

The more you feel like you’re struggling, the more you want to hide that– it’s going to make you look bad. In certain programs, it, it does, for you to admit that you need some extra time or some extra support, it does make you fall down in the rankings. But even in the programs that are supportive we still feel that way. And so to be around other graduate students sometimes to get them outside of the bubble, to talk to people in different disciplines and different colleges, or even just with different advisors and so to be in those type of community spaces and to hear other people’s struggling and being authentic with their struggles especially if it’s someone that you look up to, or someone who is a, you know, fourth year in your program, who you think I’m, yeah, I’m gonna remember when I came into and I saw a second year HALE PhD student doing a presentation in this colloquium, and I thought, am I supposed to be able to do that next year?

Meg Moore:

Because I’m like Googling words, you know, I don’t know what that is. And and so to hear that people ahead of you are still feeling like they don’t know what they’re doing sometimes. Those are some of the best ways to combat the sense of of imposterism. And so a lot of my programs are just getting students together in the same virtual space at this time to talk about how they’re doing especially right now during the pandemic where I have not talked to anyone who feels like they are thriving and at their best right now. And so it’s a really important time and extra difficult, I think for those who already struggle with imposterism, because you’re imagining this perfect grad student out there who is just using all of this extra time to advance knowledge and like read every article that’s been written, you know? And so I think it’s even harder in the time of COVID to to do some reality testing and to check yourself and to say no other people also feel unmotivated and like, they’re not doing even what they should have been doing before. And so I think it’s yeah, so those are, those are the things that we’re trying to aim for in our programs. And and, and really try to support that and bring that out because it is, it is extra tough, extra pancakes on that pile.

Eileen Galvez:

Oh, wow. Someone says they’re not struggling. They’re lying, lying liars.

Heather Shea:

They’re performative in this space, right. That we’re all occupying these little, these little picture windows. I can, you’ve probably seen the, everything is normal in this background, but on the other side it’s yeah, yeah. This is time. So I want to go back to this idea of environmental a little bit, because I know that you know systems of higher education or for the most part built and maintained for white people with white people’s needs in mind. And the way that systemic oppression is baked into the history of our institution, I think creates these environments in which imposter syndrome thrives. And, and particularly for students from various social identity backgrounds. Right. So, Eileen, can you talk a little bit about the ways that this imposterism might show up differently for students from various identity backgrounds, they find your work at Yale or your own experiences?

Eileen Galvez:

Yeah, I think actually, even before I can answer that question, I think we really need to look at the roots of what we call imposter syndrome. It was originally theorized by Clans and Imes in 1978. This was after soon after affirmative action is starting to be implemented in the seventies, right in the United States and Clans and Imes are really working from their personal framework as white women. And so they came out with this paper called the imposter phenomenon of high achieving women. And when you look at who hose women were, they are high class educated white women. So when we think of imposter syndrome, the foundation is based on one very particular experience which is based on insecurity, right? And of course, today, we know that obviously this applies to really everyone, but even then, is that the right conclusion? What we really need to ask is maybe it’s something altogether differently for other communities. Maybe, maybe there is a sense of imposter syndrome and because we all feel it, but this is where critical frameworks like intersectionality, like critical race theory are important. So we can draw that out and say, yes, I’m feeling that. And it goes beyond that. And maybe the impact, the social impact of .. is much greater than the people that it was originally theorized for. Right. So, yeah. So I can, I can tell you what I would, it feels like for me, but I think the point here is, is that specificity matters. And so we need to specifically ask these various communities, what, what are you feeling? What messages are you receiving from the institution? How, in what ways do you not feel like you can belong? So would that, and actually implement things to change those things? And not just say, I hear you yes.

Alex Lange:

In a report, in a record, in some ten-year old library document

Eileen Galvez:

Or from a one-year committee that won’t come back.

Heather Shea:

Yes. Yeah. I’m also reminded when you were talking about that history, that it sounds like it was really rooted in individual experiences without understanding the structural realities. Right. And so I think a lot of, you know, maybe it’s about kind of like, well, what can we do individually? Well, what can we do systemically on our campuses? And, and this is where I want to transition to talking a little bit about the writing center on the role that writing plays. This entire conversation was sparked by a fabulous conversation that Stephanie Aguilar-Smith and Katherine and I had to talk about writing and graduate school. And what does it mean to do academic writing? And how does that kind of foreground within the, like the credential, right, that seeking this way that imposter syndrome can kind of show up. So I don’t know if you want to give folks a little preview of what that conversation was, but talk a little bit about how the writing center has really directly addressed and tried to make make communities who have language barriers or what, you know, whatever feel as if they belong even if the structures around them don’t.

Katherine Lechman:

Yeah. So I would start first by encouraging folks to check out the writing center’s website. I’m sure we can link it somewhere, but it’s writing.msu.edu. In the past couple of years have released a language inclusivity statement talks about a number of things. But it really gets to the root of students right to their, to their own language practices. And there’s a text on that as well, but is a great one to read. I’m sure it can be linked as well, but I see this in a lot of graduate students through a number of disciplines, but especially it’s perfection perpetuated for folks who don’t see their language practices reflected in what we deem to be academic writing or good academic writing, whatever that means. And you can probably problemitize that a ton. And I love too, but you know, we’ve crafted language in academia as a mechanism for, for gatekeeping exclusion.

Katherine Lechman:

And that further perpetuates imposter syndrome for a number of populations who were already kept out of academia. I’m thinking of marginalized folks particularly whose language practice practices are deemed other and, and not that the standardized English that academia tends to subscribe to I think more broadly, this speaks to the reality that institutions of higher education are constructed in a way that are meant to exclude. And these ideas are meant to hurt particular groups should have been structured that way. I think we have to confront that reality. I think on a more one-on-one level when working with writers, it, it is so challenging. When a student comes in and, you know, says things, and this happens all the time that, you know, my professor said that I should have, I’m a native English speaker, look over my assignment.

Katherine Lechman:

At that point not helping the student isn’t an option. And as a graduate student, I’m doing my job, it’s, it’s really hard to, I don’t grade their, their, their work. Right. and I know that if I, if I don’t assist them with this and, and help provide tools that they’re gonna fail, you know and the professor is going to grade them unfairly. I think the first thing I is really important to do is acknowledge the harm that those kinds of statements in that culture and academia causes. And then I see my role as teaching the rules of the game, so to speak and talking about how messed up that structure is. And how do we work in this space right now with the power that I have at the power that you have, and figure out how to dismantle that structure from within hoping that, you know, someday I might have more power and be able to rewrite some of those rules to the game. So I see a of tensions

Katherine Lechman:

In the work but I do work with writers. But I think there’s a little bit of hope in recognizing your own agency and where you have place to make those decisions. And I will continue to advocate for students right to their own language practices because we need more voices tackling all sorts of issues and subscribing to a standardized academic English that we’ve prescribed is not inviting more voices. And we’re not doing more about better research by using that as a mechanism for gatekeeping.

Heather Shea:

Wow. I, you can see why this conversation just sparked into this broader conversation because I was blown away by that. I mean, we were talking about you know, how do we help master’s level students, you know, conform and then come to find out that the writing center at MSU is really this place. That’s much more inclusive and broad based. So I, I appreciated that introduction and, and knowledge, Katherine Alex, it sounds like a little bit of this rest with faculty. Your teaching a little bit,

Alex Lange:

A little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Yeah.

Heather Shea:

Yeah. And you want to be a faculty member, am I correct? Yeah.

Alex Lange:

Maybe look at Alex from your lips to all those applications that I filled out!

Heather Shea:

Tenure track positions in the future! Talk, talk a little bit about what you think though that faculty might do to better support graduate students and maybe specifically in student affairs, right. As graduate students, as they’re coming into these spaces around writing.

Alex Lange:

Yeah. I think feedback is so paramount. I think I am a believer that feedback is a gift that folks have taken the time to invest in my either writing capability, my arguments, whatnot. I think that’s I got a nice kind reminder from students that I can even be more, I think I’m pretty assuring and like supportive in my feedback. And I think, and especially in I think it’s offensive to call 2020 a dumpster fire, but for the sake of the conversation in this dumpster fire of a year, cause I don’t want to have to have you put an explicit tag on this episode on iTunes.

Heather Shea:

Thank you. Thank you.

Alex Lange:

Anytime. It’s been important to reassure folks that they do, they are no worse, right? That they are folks who do know and bring something to the conversation. They, might’ve not replicated the concepts from the readings exactly. In the ways that they needed to. But what can, what did happen well? Right. Cause I think a lot of times in feedback we think being scholars or being in graduate school is the associated with our ability to be critical and oftentimes unkindly critical. I think there are times to be unkind. Let me be very clear because some people somehow don’t get the picture if you’re not unkind. Sometimes that’s not students though often that is often our peers who maybe need to be taken off a high horse once in awhile. Right. various there’s space to be unkind, I would argue. But with students, I think it’s about practicing kindness in feedback and saying, not that you got this wrong, but here’s an opportunity as you think in the future, I was just grading final papers or giving feedback on final papers for our class I co-teach now.

Alex Lange:

And I often said things like as you continue to evolve as a writer, think about this thing in the future. Like this could be a way that you take your writing from good to great. And how do you emphasize those traits? You know, I often use emojis gifs and like text language in my feedback. I’ll never forget when I was a master’s student at the University of Georgia Chris Linder and like one of my very first papers for her environments craft class wrote LOL about something I wrote in a paper and I was like, what did you just like, laugh out loud about something I wrote? And it was like this really humanizing…

Alex Lange:

Quick concept of just like being like, I appreciated what you did here. Right. Cause I was being smarmy about something and it was about a campus tour project. And and, and those little things, remind students that one you’re human giving them feedback. But two that like feedback does not have to be this slogging process through comments of just how awful I am as a person, because that’s how often some of us like writing, especially feels, especially in a field that prioritizes reflective writing, reflective writing is really hard to separate from ourselves. In fact, we’re more encouraged and feedback to be more and bring more of ourselves to our writing. We’re bringing more of ourselves to our writing. Then folks should be bringing more of themselves to their feedback. And talking to me as if I was another person in the room rather than some piece of paper that’s in front of them. Right. and so I think it’s really important particularly in feedback mechanisms as instructors and faculty, how we think about giving students that confidence and self-assuredness, and I think too, it’s you know, I’ve moved more assignments in the last year to sort of be you turn in a draft that’s not great at first. And then you turn in a draft that’s graded, right? How do you build in assignments that allow people to experiment, try different things and, and do so in a way that doesn’t maybe affect their ultimate outcome in a course. Right. and those kinds of assignments have been really well because ultimately what I want to do is I want to read your best writing and I want to help you get to your best writing. And so let’s do that together across the course of the semester, rather than just sort of at the end to make it a big stakes, 50% of your grade paper that’s due in the last two weeks. That’s nerve wracking who needs that. So let me help you if I need to, if that still needs to be a 50% paper thing this semester, let’s write it throughout the semester then as a different way of tackling those things.

Heather Shea:

Yeah. Well said, well said Meg, Eileen, I, this question was posed by one of the other hosts of Student Affairs NOW Susana Muñoz. And I, I did the, I don’t know that I’m doing this exactly right. These questions around imposter syndrome don’t seem to have quite be getting there and like demonstrating… Right. Susana wrote, she’s like, how about a question, like “when your imposterism flares up, what do you say to it? How do you literally speak to your imposter syndrome to counteract its negative effects?” So I’ll, I’ll pose that to you two. And then anyone else who wants to jump in and then we probably will close out a little early and move to our final question after that. So what do you say to your imposter syndrome, Eileen?

Eileen Galvez:

Yeah, so Dr. Susana Muñoz is my advisor. And the paper that Alex brought up is co-written with her. And the process was in many ways, really great of really kind feedback. But the difficult part was me of what do I do with this? And passive voice keeps coming up.

Katherine Lechman:

I tell ya

Eileen Galvez:

So many reviews and when is it going to be over? And in one of those nights Dr. Muñoz was like, you just reminded me. This is a symptom of me growing up with Spanish as a first language. This is how I speak naturally to my family. And I’m being forced to communicate and this colonial manner writing what, you know, we, we say that we, we want to do liberatory practices, but even the way we write isn’t accessible. And so I think part of that is the recognition of it’s not my fault and that’s okay. And you know what, whatever I’ll like acquiesce on this paper, but I need to do other things outside of the Academy if I really espouse to liberatory practices. But I did want to mention that. And I started working at Yale in 2015 and which that semester we had the largest demonstrations in Yale history, lots of activism going on.

Eileen Galvez:

And I very much felt like an imposter as someone, not from an Ivy someone with a single parent growing up, low income. I mean, I remember at the end of the year, a former Dean told me that when she heard that I was Salvadorean, she didn’t like it. So I was receiving lots of messages of unbelonging and it to try and make sense of it. Not just make sense of it, but how do I find my footing? Because either I need to figure that out or I need to leave. And so I reached out to my former supervisor and I said, I’m thinking about imposter syndrome, but I’m thinking about specifically, how does that affect communities of color? Would you be interested in submitting a proposal for NASPA with me? And we wrote something together, it was accepted. And then we were told it’s going to be a featured session. And I’m like, Oh, I don’t know what that means.

Eileen Galvez:

And so we get there and I, I text my, my co presenter, Brandon Common, Dr. Brandon Common. I’m like, I think this is huge. Like, I don’t, this it’s going to be an empty room. He’s like, it’s fine. It’s whatever. Then the day of he’s like, it’s going to be empty room. And it turns out it was opposite that it was like standing room only. And the first thing we asked is, are you here for you? And that’s what they were there for. Certainly they were there to try and figure out how to best help their students. But it’s that we, as in these people, in these titles, in these roles, we also do not feel like we belong. And so since then I’ve conducted this imposter syndrome workshop for marginalized communities at Yale. And I, I very much appreciate Alex that you brought up environments.

Eileen Galvez:

It’s something that I strongly believe in as well. And one of the activities that we do is think about your environment at Yale. What messages do you receive when you look at these iconic, the campus icons, right. And who are the pictures who’s reflected in there? Okay. Now let’s step away from Yale. Let’s think about your environments at home. What were the major icons and who are they? So we’re constantly receiving these messages that even though it’s not verbal, it’s, it’s telling us that’s the person that belongs not you. And so my answer to that is let’s change the environment, right? Like let’s physically change the environment. Out of that, I created a critical history tour of Yale. Well, we know that’s not the full story there. There’s more than just the admissions tour. Let’s think about that. Let’s go, let’s push back.

Eileen Galvez:

But also we have agency and this, and I think most importantly, which I think people have mentioned it already share it with other people because they’re feeling it too. They’re probably just afraid to admit it to be the first one to admit it. And lastly, I, which I tell students all the time, it is don’t use deficit language when describing yourself. Cause they’ll always say, Oh my God, I’m trash. Like, well, you know what? The messages are already there. Can you not add to the messages that are telling you? And so we, we have agency too.

Meg Moore:

Well, that’s, that’s really a perfect segue into what I was going to talk about. Because this idea of negative, self-talk the way that we talk to ourselves has so much power. And, you know, in my years, as a mental health professional, and you know, now doing the work I do now I think that the way we talk to ourselves is one of the greatest predictors for future mental health and wellbeing. And it’s the thing that we have the most control over, not full control because there are messages and tapes that just kind of run on a loop in our heads. And so it’s, it’s not just a simple fix, but well, I guess I should say it’s not easy, but it is simple in the sense that if we can figure out how to be a little more kind to ourselves over time, it will make a huge difference.

Meg Moore:

And this idea of imposterism, the ways that we’re convincing ourselves, that we don’t belong, that something is wrong with us, that other people are going to find out that deficit view of ourselves in we’re all too quick to find confirmation, right? Any type of negative feedback which feels any type of feedback, feels negative confirms, Oh my gosh, see, I’m, I’m not good enough. And so I think one of the exercises that I have people do is this how to become a friend to yourself. And if you just think of some of the things that you say to yourself and most high achieving people, and I would put grad students in that category pretty firmly have like a, a very bully voice inside of their heads. It’s getting them to do things, especially now when our motivation is so low, you know, like, Oh, you’re just so lazy.

Meg Moore:

I can’t believe you, blah, blah, blah. If you heard, if you imagine someone that you love and imagine another person saying those things to this person that you love, how would you feel about that? And I can tell you right now I would be in, I would have violence in my heart toward someone who said anything like that, to someone that I love that would not fly, mama bear would come out and I would have some feelings, thoughts, and feelings about that. If it’s not okay to someone to say to someone else, it’s not okay to say to yourself. And it matters. We know that words matter. Why would you be so mad if someone said something they’re just words, right? But they matter. And they have an impact and they leave marks in some, in, in deeper ways, in some ways than physical things can, can, can do because it’s hurting us from the inside.

Meg Moore:

So if we can figure out how to be a friend to ourselves and be consistent, be the kind of, cause we all know this too. You know, when a friend is struggling with imposterism and you hear them say something like my work is crap and you’re like, your work is, I wish that I could do work as good as you’re doing, you know, the way that we encourage our friends, we know how to do it. So we have the capacity, we just have to figure out how to point it at ourselves and be the same kind of friend to other, to ourselves as we are to others. If you can take one thing, one concrete thing away, if you can work on that, it will make a difference.

Heather Shea:

Wow. I love that. And I really feel like I’ve, I’ve said this to myself several times. Like if a student came into my office and was expressing some of the concerns that I’m feeling in my own, I would walk them to the counseling center. Right. Like huge need to go see my therapist. Right. so that’s really, that’s really powerful Meg. So we’re at the end of our time, I wish we had more time. It’s fabulous to talk with all of you. We will have additional resources that folks shared posted alongside this episode. But for the conversation, as we always end on Student Affairs NOW this podcast is called Student Affairs NOW. So really quickly, what are you pondering, questioning and troubling now? And it could be related to this podcast or beyond and Eileen, I’m going to start with you. I’m going to go across my screen. So I leave

Eileen Galvez:

I alluded to this earlier, but I’m really thinking about troubling, the concept of Latinadad of also questioning why we use the word Latinx, if we’re not centering trans Latinx folks. And, and really just I think there, there’s a need to push back on how we think of this group of folks as a monolith.

Heather Shea:

Thank you, Alex.

Alex Lange:

Now you’re asking a PhD student what they think now in 30 seconds, 60 seconds. One, I think dealing with imposter syndrome is a process not a switch. I think I’m really, I mean, I’m thinking a lot of what Eileen shared. I think I’m in particular thinking about imposter syndrome versus impostering conditions. I think that lets us sort of pinpoint these things that happen that we those who control spaces more, you may have more agency to correct and fix out thinking of a quote. My, one of my master’s cohort mates always shared is that comparison is the thief of joy. I think imposter syndrome is so much buried in comparison. Comparison is actually a, quite a natural human response specifically in education. So I think about often about the people that I need to reach out to that will help me stop comparing myself to others and make me compare myself to myself.

Alex Lange:

Am I staying with who I know myself to be? And how do I latch onto those people? Specifically, especially in times of the beginning of the semester, when there’s so much being spent in assistantships and in your new places and whatnot, and like, where are you finding places to combat that imposter syndrome? Where are you talking to the people that don’t make you feel like that? And how are you using those resources? And two, I think, I, I think that even people listening are going to listen to the five of us and be like, yes, those people feel it, but they’re also really accomplished people too. And they’re going to do this comparison game. And what I’m going to tell you right now is that you put on your leggings most likely in a similar way that I put on my is one part of the waist strap of a time, right? So like we’re all doing this together. And none of us is more sort of glorious or have this figured out in any way than any other person. I think about this during conferences a lot, when I see the quote unquote rockstars of the field who are rock stars. But they feel the same ways too. They just are really good at navigating it in ways that I’m not yet

Heather Shea:

Absolutely snaps to that. A hundred percent! Meg,

Meg Moore:

What are you pondering now? Oh, similarly I have a million things on my mind just as a result of this conversation, but I think it’s one of the things that, like the difference between imposterism or the word people use is imposter syndrome, imposter phenomenon interchangeably. And what I like about using imposterism is it, to me, it does capture a little bit more of the environmental, the impetus like imposterism is something that exists. It’s not something that is my problem. Like a phenomenon, a syndrome makes it sound like I have a disease. And, and so I’ve been hearing people use imposterism. And when I, and I really liked that because I think we have to, we have to look at the environment and the, you know, I, part of my research was looking at graduates socialization and that the especially in doctoral socialization, but I think it is true across the board in higher education.

Meg Moore:

We’re being socialized to think, act, dress, right, like the dominant culture like cis straight white men. And and that’s what we’re being trained to do. And how do we take that apart? And how do we be, because also an identity that’s the other piece of my work is just, it’s about identity development and identity is such, it’s so strongly connected to language and to expression and to to the things that we think and write about. And so so the last thing I’ll say that is, this is, is that, how can we protect our identity while functioning in this environment? How can we separate our sense of self-worth our self-worth isn’t being judged? Our paper that I wrote is being judged. How can I keep those things? How can I build some distance between those things?

Meg Moore:

So it doesn’t feel like myself is being judged my identity, my culture, my, you know, even though the intent might be to judge those things. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to mean that to me. And so what type of community support, what type of support can I find to, to ground my sense of who I am so that it can’t be shaken or so it can, can be held separately from the products that I’m producing and to be able to, I don’t think we should, I don’t want to say we should separate our identity from those things. Right. But we can separate the judgment and how do we do that? And so that’s that’s what I’m thinking right now.

Heather Shea:

Thank you. Thank you, Katherine.

Katherine Lechman:

Yeah. I’m thinking about two things. I’m first, I’m thinking about feedback and I’m thinking about what it means to give and receive generative feedback that pushes us towards our goals. That shows us what we like and what we don’t like and how to do, and not do those things versus destructive criticism that really can feel like it’s attack narrow identity and our self-worth and our very being. But I’m even thinking about how we can prioritize the needs of people in a community over institutions and structures that tend to hurt us.

Heather Shea:

Very well said. All of you, thank you so much for your today. And thank you for being guests and panelists on Student Affairs NOW contributing to our podcast. Thanks also to our sponsor Anthology, formerly Campus Labs. For those of you who are not current subscribers of the Student Affairs NOW newsletter on MailChimp, you can find out and receive reminders about this and other episodes by subscribing you’ll receive just one email a week on Wednesdays when we promo that episode of the week, and you can also browse our full archives, which is growing! at studentaffairsnow.com. If you subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, please invite others, share on social. And I know this is cheesy. If you leave a five star review, it really helps conversations like this one, reach more folks and build a community again. I’m Heather Shea, thank you to our fabulous guests today. And to everyone who’s watching and listening, make it a great week.