14609: It’s Not Just You! Let’s Have an Honest Conversation About Failure

Dealing with failure is one of the most common challenges scholars face in their academic careers. In fact, scholars encounter more failures than successes, whether it concerns the publication process, one’s career path, or the ability to disseminate knowledge to students and the broader society. Yet, in public, we mainly talk about successes and often form narratives of negativity around failure. In this Professional Development Workshop (PDW), we invite participants to rethink the conventional way of seeing failure as the opposite of success. We encourage them to look at failure with curiosity, as an opportunity for personal growth, and by accepting the feeling of vulnerability. This PDW provides an opportunity to hear vivid, real-life stories from a diverse and distinguished panel of scholars about their failures, ranging from dry spells in publishing to not getting tenure and from accepting the ‘wrong’ job to deciding to leave academia. Through these open and honest stories, we aim to (a) normalize failure and humanize academia, (b) illustrate how to ask for help if one needs it, and (c) offer practices, skills, and mindsets to overcome failure or even fail successfully. Interactive roundtable discussions and dialogues follow the panel presentations. Panelists and panel organizers lead each roundtable. The roundtable sessions allow participants to suggest strategies to build resilience, share ideas and embrace the possibility to fail.

Registration is not required, but we encourage those interested to register for one of the roundtables. Please provide your roundtable preferences here by July 15th: https://ieseg.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eVb0lFUpNFemOk6