Academic life can be better.
I’m Leslie and I help academics reconnect to the meaning in their work, pursue balance, and find some joy along the way.
Coaching supports you to discover your values, develop a plan, and achieve your goals. My mission is to make academic life better, whatever better means to you. More balance, more productivity, less stress, meeting goals, finding a job, or transitioning to something different.
“Leslie has helped me immensely to get unstuck in my current situation. Through her assistance, I have been able to move forward in my career and achieve what I didn’t think I would be able to.”
I help people:
- make steady progress on big projects like dissertations and books
- revise and submit materials such as grant proposals, book proposals, and articles
- devise strategies for work-life balance
- organize their time and space
- balance teaching and research
- create new habits and set up sustainable writing routines
- plan for career transitions, promotions, and new directions
- develop long-term career plans
- create strategies for dealing with difficult work situations
- polish job application materials
“I feel that the strategies and framing of my day to day helped me to consider possibilities for the future, to help me feel unstuck, and to make organized, strategic plans for next steps in my career.”
I offer:
One-on-one coaching for academics: Guided sessions to help you define your goals and design action steps to meet them.
Academic editing: Assessments and plans for revision for written materials like grant and book proposals, book chapters, journal articles and job market materials.
I have a new book:
Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make it Better for Others, and Transform the University
Higher Expectations is a practical guide to navigating academia for people who want to improve their own day-to-day work lives and create better conditions for everyone. Universities are broken: they’re built on systems that are discriminatory, hierarchical, and individualistic. This hurts the people that work and learn in them and limits the potential for universities to contribute to a better world. But we can raise our expectations. Drawing on real-world, international examples where people and institutions are already doing things in new ways, Higher Expectations offers concrete advice on how to make these transformations real. It covers many areas of academic life including course design, conferencing, administration, research teams, managing workloads and more. Designed for faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and other scholars, Higher Expectations delivers hope and practical actions you can take to start making change now. It is a must-have for everyone working in academia today.
Let’s connect.
My booking page is here.
I have a Substack newsletter about the world of self help and advice called Perfectly Cromulent.
I’m based in Canada but I work with clients around the world.