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Lessons from being a SAYAS Blog editor...

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  June was the last month I was officially part of the Editorial Team of the SAYAS Blog. The Blog has been part of my life for the last few years.... Here my thoughts and goodbyes ....(how bad I am in goodbyes though...) Reposted from the SAYAS blog  30/6/2021 The more you give the more you receive I was walking with my dog this morning and listening to one of  Simon Sinek ’s podcasts. Among the amazing things he usually says, he described the most profound thing. When he was on a mission worrying about himself and only him, concerned about his challenges and aspirations only, he was always stressed and tensed and anxiety was taking over. Based on some observations, he decided to change his own narrative and see things from another perspective: every task, action he takes and thought should be for the benefit of the team, or the group, or the family or the society overall. That was when he found a sense of calmness of purpose and meaning in his life…and in a sense, happiness. “Hey that
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Science Communication: Never too early to start – Lessons from the SAYAS PhD blog

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  Presentation at the University of Cape Town, Human Biology seminars.  Date 3 May 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsGjlz2kh9E
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Little blond academic girl in Email-Land

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First day at school in Grade 1 many years ago… Little blond girl that has just moved to a new house and changed schools, arrives in the new school ready to take over the world. She looks back at her mum and walks forward between all the other kids. Some other little girls approach her and one of them – the most beautiful blue eyes in the world – tells her “hey girl, you have the wrong school bag; in this school, we don’t carry this type of school bags” having her little hands around her little waist… Words matter. Words have power. Over the years, people have forgotten that words matter in all areas and aspects of our life, in academia even more. Whether it is getting into a class or a boardroom, being part of a debate and leaving the room, the discussion would “stay” there; if you were not there, you missed it. Academia and the scientific community were not like that in the previous centuries – letters and manuscripts were exchanged between scientists even if it took months to get a
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Location: Pretoria, South Africa
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To paper or not to paper? - The dilemma of an early career academic

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  It’s 2 pm on a Saturday. Kojo is in the kitchen whipping up my favourite cocktail – a super-milky pina colada. I can hear the violence as he shakes his flask mixing the ingredients from one of his made-up recipes. Recipes which he never seems to perfect. It’s a compulsory lazy weekend for me. I am in my comfy reclining sofa, curled up in my favourite duvet, surrounded by a mountain of throw pillows. The front windows are open, letting in a cool breeze and the sound of birds. The plan is simple: to drink Kojo’s almost perfect cocktail whilst binge-watching whatever Netflix series Twitter is buzzing about currently. My phone vibrates and a notification pops up on the screen. It is an email from an Elsevier journal editor. A request for major revisions on the Cryptolepine paper I submitted four months ago. I stare at my MacBook; it stares back. Somewhere deep within its MacOS, it wonders why it was sold to this West African slave driver. Kojo walks in with the cocktails and sets them do
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Surviving academic life: a “reality show”

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  In our October 2020 blog , an analysis of the current situation of academics with respect to workload and the associated unease was unpacked. The blog post ended with a call to action for us academics to share our experiences and challenges as a starting point for working towards possible solutions. By reflecting on these experiences and challenges, we are hoping it will help pave the way for getting out of the cycle of stress and “abuse” as well as find ways to challenge the status quo and the “that’s how it has always worked” mentality. In continuation of the discussion, I will be sharing some of my experiences from 2019 up till date highlighting how the COVID-19 lockdown experience and having to work from home have played a role in my hitherto overburdened schedule.  In 2019, I had not only been honoured to be selected as an Africa Science Leadership Programme (ASLP) fellow, but I also signed up to professionally develop my career through a postgraduate diploma in higher education
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Location: South Africa
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Towards a generation of Academics at eaze

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“ Academics generally work within a university, combining research, teaching and administrative duties. Academics are the life-blood of a university, without whom the institution would not exist”        “On a given day, you might have to write a reference for a student; develop teaching materials; read and comment on a PhD  dissertation ; review a journal article and organise a workshop , have an impromptu meeting ,  to name a few !  Yet, when academics talk about their 'real work', they often mean research. 'You have to carve out time and space to think about writing. You must focus on your own research,' says Dr Angelia Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Politics .” University of Manchester .          The role of an academic is  hence  multidimensional and  complex . And while one can argue that all professions have their own features and requirements, an academic  is required to  be a teacher, a researcher, an administrator, a supervisor, a contributor to societal change, an
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Location: Pretoria, South Africa
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