Life as an Academic: Balancing Research, Teaching, and Service- Sneha Bharadwaj and Karabi Bezboruah

On this episode of Life Beats with Sirisha, we delve into a fascinating discussion on academia with guests Sneha Bharadwajand and Karabi Bezboruah,. The show looks at the myths and realities of life in academia- from the on-the-job learning experience, the tenure process, to the three pillars of teaching, research, and service. We explore the day-to-day workload, the variability amongst universities, research funding and policies, human subject research, and committee work. The speakers share their personal academic journeys, their reasons for choosing academia, and give advice on the nitty-gritty of the role. 

Sneha Bhardwaj is a Speech Language Pathologist with a Master's degree in Speech and Hearing Science. During her studies, she discovered her passion for research through the thesis options available in her program. Her research interest led her to academia, where she now devotes her time to furthering her knowledge in the field.

Karabi Bezboruah is an academic with a background in public affairs, specializing in nonprofit management. Though her academic journey was accidental, she had experience as a graduate research and teaching assistant during her doctoral studies. Her chair recommended her for a visiting assistant professor position at the University of North Texas, which led to her career in higher education.

**********************************************************************************************

You can subscribe to my Substack Newsletter by clicking here.

I'm a former tech executive, a podcast host and an entrepreneur. I work with Universities on Organizations to transition students to the corporate world and building successful leadership pipelines ensuring a healthy financial future.

If you're interested in coordinating or working with me on keynotes, workshops, or on a one on one basis, you can go to my website www.sirishakuchimanchi.com

Check out my other podcast "Women, Career & Life" where I share stories and practical advice to achieve your career & life goals as you strive towards financial independence.

All: https://solo.to/sirishak

Instagram: womencareerandlife

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sirishakuchimanchi/

#womencareerandlife #podcast #paintlifetogether

Transcript

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:00:00]:

. Hello everyone, and welcome to Life Beats with Sirisha on Radio Caravan. This is your host, Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi. I'm a former tech exec, an entrepreneur.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:00:11]:

And a podcast host.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:00:12]:

You are tuned into one Four, One FM on Radio Caravan and 700 A-M-I host a podcast, women, Career and Life, where I share stories and advice. So if you're thinking about what discussions do have with your boss, how to grow in your career, you can check out the podcast on any of your favorite podcast platforms at the top 30% 45 podcast search for Women, Career and life. And if you're looking for a community of women, I just launched Sahita, which is a community for South Asian women for career and financial empowerment. So if you're trying to figure out how to manage your finances, how to get into those leadership roles, you're looking for like minded women to walk the path with you to answer questions. Check out S-A-H-I-T-A li v e Sahita live. And you can reach me or email me or DM me through Women, Career and Life, either on Instagram or through Gmail. So let's dive into today's program. I am really excited to have two amazing, wonderful women who actually today's topic is learning about academia. What is the university life look like? Some truth and some myths. And many of us have I have very little experience on what that life looks like. So I want to introduce our guests today. I have Sneha Bharadwaj, she's a professor at TW uTexas Women's University, and Karabi Bezboruah, who is an associate professor at University of Texas at Arlington and is also the directive of the PhD program there. And they have been in this field doing academia for a while. So they are going to give us some insight into what made them choose this, what advice look like, and just get some insight. So did you always want to be a professor? How did you end up in this role?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:02:01]:

Yeah. So I graduated with Master's in Speech and Hearing Science. It was a clinical degree in Speech Language pathology, and I was destined to work as a speech language pathologist. But way back in my master's program, we had a thesis option but for both our first and second year of master's degree. And during that dedicated time to do research, I felt like I was waiting for that slot every day, that dessertation hour that they called. And so I think that was the beginning of my research interest, and I knew that academia is the place for me.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:02:51]:

You like the research aspect and the discussion. Okay, we'll come back to that one. Karabi, what's yours?

Karabi Bezboruah [00:02:59]:

Okay, so I'm Karobi Bezboro, and my background is in public affairs. Public affairs includes public policy, public administration, and my specialization is nonprofit management. So getting into academia was by accident for me. So I was working as a graduate research assistant and a graduate teaching assistant during my doctoral studies. And so I had sort of had that experience of working with students, teaching in the classroom. And then this job offer came up for visiting assistant professor at University of North Texas. And my chair just sent my resume and a recommendation letter and then that started my academic journey. And that's how I landed in the academia and higher education.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:03:50]:

Oftentimes we actually accidentally fall into our careers, right, more than we realize. And I wondered how, when you said you wanted to do research, did it turn out like you envisioned it?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:04:00]:

Oh, absolutely. And to this day, I prefer doing research than teaching. And I'm in a set up that is mostly teaching and I've learned to enjoy teaching as well. But research will be my first passion okay.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:04:20]:

Which is totally understandable because I come from sort of an academic background just as a kid growing up and doing research in school, and it's something I love. But when I started working in industry, I like the sort of the immediacy of actually seeing the final product at the same time. So I see both sides of it. So what is your life look like every day? Like on a daily, sort of monthly, yearly basis? Give us what does it look like? Because I think that's the hard part when you are not in that field to understand.

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:04:49]:

Sure. So when I talk to my friends or someone that's not in academia, they tend to ask me, so how many classes do you have to teach or are you done with teaching? So most of the time academia is sort of misconstrued as teachers or teaching in higher education. But there are actually three pillars in academia. One is teaching, one is research, and the third component is service. And again, depending on what type of university that you are in, are you in a teaching institution? Are you in a research intensive institution? It depends your percentage of how much research you get to do, scholarship you get to do versus teaching versus service, it varies. And again, in some universities, it's up to us to kind of define those times that we put in. So on a day to day basis, what it would look like is if you're running a lab, you would be doing data collection one day, or you could also be teaching and doing research, but you're also serving on several different university level committees, college level committees, and department level committees that you are put on. Or you can also choose to participate in those committees by interest. So you have a ton of committees that you're in that's your service to the university. And again, you're teaching. The load varies depending on what university you're at. And then if you have your own lab, then you're also conducting research and that can bleed into days and weekends or depends.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:06:27]:

Yeah, exactly. Because the structure is a little different than corporate structure in the sense because my father was an academic too. So he would go in the night, he'd finish dinner and we go hang out and go. That's how I grew up. So I totally understand that. What I thought was the cool factor was that he got to take trips for his conferences and travel the globe and hit pretty much every continent. And that was the thing that most appealed to me as a kid, but when actually sort of the rubber hit the road and I had to make a decision when I got to basically was that teaching? It's a different mindset, a different way of doing things and teaching students. Right. So you have to have a passion for it and the sense of curly what speaks to you, which is your.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:07:16]:

So I work at the University of Texas at Arlington, which is R one university. So it's a high research university, which means that faculty has to put in a lot of time doing research. Teaching is important. It's very important actually, because without students we don't exist.

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:07:33]:

Right?

Karabi Bezboruah [00:07:34]:

Teaching is important, but research is even more important. So for me, I also do administration on the site. So as they have said, we have teaching research service, meaning nothing happens in university without the faculty working on it. Like from our operation, operating procedures, like our promotion, tenure, hiring, firing, every decision is made by a group of faculty working on it. Everything goes through peer committee days, from review process to hiring to firing, like everything.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:08:09]:

And is that considered the administrative part.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:08:11]:

Or is that something service?

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:08:13]:

Okay, so that's what I just wanted to clarify that because I would think that of as admin. But you are very intentional about the word service. The admin is different. Right. That is a lot of people being leading some programs, you're probably heading those committees or even a step above the committee overseeing the program, like in your case that you are looking at.

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:08:36]:

Right.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:08:36]:

So as an administrator, I cannot do anything unless a group of faculty tells me, hey, this is a policy. So the policies themselves are approved, decided, discussed by the faculty committee. And then I'm the one who kind of puts it through the paper. There is a democracy very much. It has a similar set up as the legislature at Austin. So we have faculty senate, which is like the decision making body, the policy making body. I'm also a faculty senator there. So anything that happens has to go through the Senate body and then any programmatic changes has to go to the graduate assembly, which is like the House. So the setup is like a small universe. It's like a small legislature. So that's why we have university president. Okay?

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:09:24]:

So you have seasons just like the Senate and the legislature. You only meet like when you actually look at it.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:09:35]:

But yours is different throughout the year.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:09:38]:

And what do you do research on?

Karabi Bezboruah [00:09:40]:

What is your my research is on mostly community based organizations, local government organizations, nonprofit organizations. So there are different ways I look at it. So I look at how policies influence how organizations work and how organizations can advocate for better policies. So that's one the organizational behavior part. And then I also look at how organizations can be more efficient, more productive, their capacity. So I look at how the people work within these organizations. So one of the big projects I'm working on right now is an NSF funded three year grant, which is on the coastal and region of Texas. What I'm looking at are like the grassroots community based organizations and how they are getting together to advocate for better environmental policies. Because with all the ships and the oil and gas industries developing there, people are getting health issues. And so it's local folks who are getting together to advocate for better policies.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:10:44]:

So that's a big one. Yeah, I'm going to kind of stay out of the politics.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:10:48]:

I want to be on the spot.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:10:50]:

But it's interesting because as I was driving up today, the Texas, they were talking about Tesla, I think Tesla Payback, one of my company about opening on the CM factory in that Copper Christie region. And there's discussion around the same thing. It's the community. Some are saying, yes, jobs, 162 to 150 jobs. The other side, they have concern about the environmental factor, and they find all the right. So there's all of that discussion going on. So you're right at that intersection of the okay. And Sneha, your research is how is it around speech?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:11:24]:

So my research has again evolved over the years. And again, it's what we call programmatic research that you have an overarching question and you have small studies leading up to that big picture. So right now I am looking at various outcomes in children with hearing loss. So back in the day, when the technology was not that great, we were looking at a lot of speech and language outcomes. And now kids who receive technology, they are sort of behind in terms of reading skills, reading comprehension, and the cognitive domain. So I am looking at schoolage children in terms of their higher language abilities, their cognitive outcomes, as well as reading comprehension outcomes.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:12:12]:

I can imagine the impact that COVID had. And your research, either it probably reset it or it moved it up. It must have shifted sort of like a step function in some way on how you're looking at it.

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:12:25]:

Yeah, I think what COVID did was also put a stop to data collection and things like that because schools were shut down and there was no access, and now schools are opening up for data collection. So my research was actually on a pause. And so I did a metaanalysis and systematic reviews, which you don't need people to do research on. So I was engaged in writing some papers through metaanalysis. But now I'm going to start collecting, actively collecting data for my research.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:13:00]:

So if you are tuned in, you're listening to live pieces. So today I have neha and we talking about life in academia. What does it look like, the truth and passing from this. If you are checking out, you can check out my podcast women Career and Life and join the South Asian Community for women at the so you talked about two things that I wanted to dive in. You talked about meta research. I do not know what that means. And then I know that when you're doing research with people, there is sort of a review board, right?

Karabi Bezboruah [00:13:31]:

IRB?

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:13:32]:

How does that look? And then I want to ask about NSF funding. I'll come back to you about that. But what does that process look like.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:13:39]:

When someone is doing it?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:13:41]:

So, when you are collecting data from human subjects, every university has an institutional review board that has a committee that's represented by the community. And basically it's a very rigorous process to ensure that there's no coercion, that you're not recruiting people for research and that there's no harm done to the individuals and that there is justice in terms of what's in it for them in terms of participating in the research. So there is an application that you submit with your proposal and then they go through to make sure how we are going to recruit. What is the policy in terms of who is going to be recruiting for you? And if there is coercion, if there is any, in effect, trying to make sure that this is a voluntary process and that participants can say no at any given point, but it's also to ensure that whatever data we're collecting, how are we collecting and how are we storing and how are we destroying. So all of these pieces are put together in a paperwork called consent form and everything is explained. And there's a policy and procedures that we have to follow in every step, starting from recruitment to data collection to storage to destruction of the data. And so I think all of that is taken care of by the IRB.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:15:16]:

That makes sense because you're protecting people's privacy and their right to admission. And actually interesting, in some ways it intersects with your research around protecting the community and the people. So both aspects touch on the same thing about your right to your rights, to your privacy, to your confidentiality and to be able to exercise it in your consent. So what is Meta research anyway?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:15:41]:

Oh, metaanalysis metaanalysis is sort of looking at the papers that have been published. Let's say I was talking about the outcome data. So you have so many papers coming out saying this particular intervention, this particular treatment is effective. And then there are other studies that say we didn't find it to be effective. And so you basically are analyzing all of those studies, putting them together to make sense of what's coming out of this set of research. And so you pull papers that are effectively doing similar things, similar using similar interventions, for example, and trying to see distill the essence of all of those papers, rather than people just being lost about how do we make sense of all of this.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:16:28]:

So essentially, sort of name in terms the information overload, you're trying to curate it and tell, okay, this is what it is. This is what the research technically, from all of that technically shows that this is how it bails out. And either you choose to prove it or disprove it or wait for the outcome from your you talked about NSS grant provision. So how does that work? Do you learn in college and university as you're a graduate researcher, how to write this? What does that process look like? I know NSS is only one of the granting agencies. Obviously, there are private companies and government and international organizations. So what is that process look like?

Karabi Bezboruah [00:17:04]:

So the process is something that you learn on the job as a student. You might be asked to write research proposals, and you might be asked to apply for funding from different sources. It could be internal to university or external agencies. And that's how you get into this whole practice of writing proposals, making it sound convincing, feel like, oh, this is a great project, and we should support that. So that's how it starts. For projects that are supported by NIH or NSF, the criteria is that it has to have inputs from different disciplines. So currently I'm working with civil engineering, computer engineering, architects, urban designers, and me. Public policy. And public policy falls within, like, everything, right? So I am kind of a good collaborator for many disciplines, and my expertise being in nonprofit organizations, advocacy, public policy, these are issues that NSF funds. So together we wrote proposals. So first we did a pilot study, and that was a $150,000 grant for one year. And we did a pilot study in a small community, a small town of 800 people right in the troja, this whole environmental problems. And then we submitted we had great results. We submitted the report, and then we also published a paper out of it. And so that led to this bigger grant of $2.5 million for three years, and now it's extended to the whole coastal band area. So the point I'm trying to make is that for everything, we need to show evidence, everything is evidence based. And without evidence, other things don't happen. So we have to show proof of concept.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:18:54]:

Exactly. Yeah, that's what I was just thinking. You have to show, hey, this is my idea. My trial works, and here is the proof, and here's my so one of.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:19:01]:

The things that I would like to mention, and I'm pretty sure Sneha will agree to this, whether it's research or teaching. We have to create everything, like, from our own intellectual property in terms of our teaching notes or our research. We also have to market it. We have to recruit participants. It could be students, or it could be any research. So we have to do everything from the concept to the implementation. We don't have any support staff to help us out. It's just one person show, and that's.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:19:30]:

How we work in academia, right?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:19:33]:

Yeah. I mean, of course, you can have student collaborators, and if you have students, you have a lab and you have graduate students, they can be part of your project. And usually graduate students are, I think, the most supportive.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:19:53]:

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's an ecosystem, right? You need the graduate students. I mean, it's a place for them to do research, for you to head the project and provide guidance as well. We have five minutes. I have a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you. For those of you tuning in, you're tuning into life. We are really listening and learning about what life is like in academia, sort of busting the myths. And there's a lot of learning. I'm getting around service and how to write grants. There's a lot of on the job training for sure, when you're talking about so for those who are listening, I think one takeaway both of them said is it is a one person show actually a one woman show in this case. I know you use the word man, but it's a one woman show in this case. And think about it. You are marketing, you're writing grants, you're serving on committees. And if you're a student, you're probably in school now, but writing is not your thing. I think you need to learn to do it no matter which field you are, but in agreement, because you're writing grants. I remember seeing grants when my advisors was writing. It talked about demographics, it talks about them, and it talks about underrepresentation. All of these are part of the proposal because you're targeting certain market segments. So there's so much that you're looking at as well. If we have a few minutes, I wanted to touch on what is like there's something called a tenure process. What does that usually look like for people when they're trying to get in?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:21:15]:

Yeah, so the tenure process is, I think, again, a documentation that lays out your productivity and your achievements in the area of, again, research, teaching, and service. And so every department has guidelines, and that guidelines have to fit into the university's overall promotion and tenure guidelines. And so some universities will mandate one and a half publications per year. Another one would say up to three peer reviewed publications for that entire tenure period, which is typically five to six years in any given universities. And so when you get employed as an assistant professor on a tenure track, then you have five to six years to demonstrate your productivity. You demonstrate that you can be a permanent employee, if you will, of that institution. And so once you get a tenure, you then become an associate professor and your job is sort of guaranteed in academia at that point.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:22:16]:

Yeah. And then you have students that you're guiding for research for either usually PhD in most cases, and some master students, and then they go on to do either industry or academic or whatever government institutions. Right?

Sneha Bhardwaj [00:22:28]:

Yes. So it's not just the research, I think it's also how many classes you taught, but how well you're teaching evaluations from students and then how many did you serve on x amount of committees. And so there are guidelines and you have to meet those requirements at the department as well as the institutional levels.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:22:45]:

Essentially, it's looking at the impact factor you're having in all these three factors.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:22:48]:

That you're using as often, if I may add. So when we are hired as a tenure track faculty, we are on contract for nine months. So our job is for nine months. For the rest of the summer, we don't get paid. And it's like that's the time we do research because the long semesters this fall and spring we teach. In my university, we have a two two load, which means two courses for long semester. So we have to teach those and have to have good teaching evaluations. So that goes into our tenure review. And so after six years, the whole thing, that comprehensive thing is looked at for when they are making their decisions to give a stadium.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:23:31]:

But that doesn't mean that we don't go through annual reviews. We go through annual reviews.

Karabi Bezboruah [00:23:35]:

We have a third year review, which is very stringent. If you don't pass that, then it's problematic. Besides that, in our 6th year, when we are up for tenure, they also get some anonymous reviewers, peer reviewers, who are like big people in the field. They have to review our dossier. They don't know who we are. They get a blank, just research statement. And they would just look at it and say, hey, this person is doing great work and we support there. So there is this external review process, which is really stressful, of course, because you don't know who's going to review. Your fields are very small, so people know each other. So that's another thing. Okay, so the tenure process can be really different based on what university you work at.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:24:27]:

Yeah. As we are wrapping up in the last 30 seconds, I want to thank Sneha & Karabi for being here. I think you I'm so glad you talked about that nine one three months thing, because there's so much on your plate I think we underestimated. So if you're thinking about it, think about find people in your field when you're looking at an avenue to start your career. So you learn from this. I hope this has helped you to figure it out. Next week, we'll have Chipotle talk about the community college system and how they're helping kids engage into your program. So thank you for tuning into Life Beats.