EVENTS & HAPPENINGS
Stop Pretending You Are Fine.
Tuesday March 3, 2026
10 a.m. – 12 p.m. (PST)
Capacity: 20 people
Virtual
“How you doin’?” to which we often respond, “I’m fine,” is sometimes an inaccurate depiction of how we really are feeling while at work. Results of the survey, Unwellness in the Work Culture, show that 85.5% of participants strongly agree and agree that pretending to appear well prevents them from seeking help or support. Sixty-five and a half percent (65.5%) of participants strongly agree and agree pretending to be well leads to stress, burnout, discouragement, and feeling overwhelmed. These results suggest that preexisting burnout and stress from workload, pressure to teach and conduct research, and meeting deadlines are exacerbated by pretending to have it all together. The results also suggest that pretending to be well or appearing composed comes at a cost to the educator’s wellbeing.
I will lead us into a review of the literature on burnout and stress as an individual pathology and further share results of the survey, Unwellness in the Work Culture, focused on the role of the work culture on our unwellness. From these perspectives, we will create a plan that embodies our personal well-being. Please reserve your seat for this event and learn more about it, including cost. This event can be curated for a group of people (i.e., academic department, student services unit). If that is the case, please complete this form.
Do Something! Your Team is Not Fine.
Tuesday March 17, 2026
10 a.m. – 12 p.m. (PST)
Capacity: 20 people
Virtual
If your role includes supervising a team of part-time or full-time educators, this event is for you. Supervisors might not be surprised that individual team members they supervise are stressed and burned out. Heck! Supervisors are stressed and burnout, too, of course. But supervisors may be surprised by contradictions when they communicate to team members about wellbeing and support in the workplace. Preliminary results of Unwellness in the Work Culture show that while 52% of participants are comfortable setting boundaries around workload and availability for themselves and 52% said that supervisors and colleagues respect these set boundaries, 69% hide feelings of frustration, stress, and exhaustion from supervisors and colleagues. Meanwhile, 91% said that pretending to appear composed prevents them from asking for help and support. Supervisors can be a form of structure that contributes to the unwellness of their team.
I will share the final results of the survey, Unwellness in the Work Culture, and lead a discussion on how we can recognize our own unwellness as supervisors to cultivate an awareness of others’ unwellness. From these perspectives, I will assist us in reflecting on developing our supervising style based on the care we need for oneself and for those we lead. Please reserve your seat for this event and learn more about it, including cost. This event can be curated for a group of educators who have direct reports. If that is the case, please complete this form.
Don't Feel Bad Anymore! Using Data to Reveal Structural Inefficiencies at Work
Tuesday March 31, 2026
10 a.m. – 12 p.m. (PST)
Capacity: 20 people
Virtual
In the survey, Unwellness in the Work Culture, to the statement, “What at work contributes to your unwellness,” one respondent said, “Get[ting] wrapped up in e-mail[s] and not getting done [with] my list and …feeling behind, lack of time to get everything done that needs to be done, being overwhelmed to the point that it’s hard to start anything that needs to be done.”
When skills like planning, prioritizing, and organization are no longer enough to get work done, the problem is not the individual—it’s the work culture. Something is wrong when even our best skills fail us, when time at work is insufficient to meet expectations, and when pressure and guilt follow us home. I will facilitate a review on educators’ stress, burnout, and fatigue, and on what other respondents said in the survey, Unwellness in the Work Culture, about what at work contributes to their unwellness. We will anchor ourselves in the practice of reflection for a deeper understanding of where we spend our time at work. Doing so, will help you to collect data that support where your time is spent and articulate barriers that prevent you from doing the work you care about most. Therefore, you will also learn where time is spent on the things that are outside of your role. From these perspectives, we will clarify why feeling bad for not doing enough at work ignores the structures that prevent us from ever doing our work at all.
Please reserve your seat for this event and learn more about it, including cost. This event can be curated for a group of people (i.e., academic department, student services unit). If that is the case, please complete this form.
Pedagogy of Unwellness Learning Community
Audience: Faculty
Modality: Best In-Person
Length: Minimum of 3 hours
Capacity: 15 people
The purpose of the Pedagogy of Unwellness Learning Community is to explore our teaching experience in the classroom where pedagogy intersects with wellness. This exploration is guided by (a) discussing the rapidly shifting contexts in which we are teaching, (b) examining how our wellness is impacted by different ecosystems through Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model for development (1974), (c) acknowledging our unwellness as part of moving towards wellness (Khúc, 2024), and (d) centering our full humanity as a pedagogical practice (Baker & Pope-Ruark, 2025 as cited by Artze-Vega, 2024). From these framings, we will deepen our understanding of pedagogy and wellness in the classroom by annotating a course syllabus of our choosing that will serve as a template to examine or prepare subsequent course syllabi.
I created Pedagogy of Unwellness Learning Community. I inaugurated the program at a public research university in Southern California. There, a shift in the perspective of faculty-participants where their unwellness impacted students and their teaching practices increased by 60% between a pre- and post-survey. “…Part of my (un)wellness comes from feelings of isolation. I …hope to actively think about my students’ sources of (un)wellness and implement some of the practices covered in this community (Anonymous, faculty-participant, Summer, 2025).” As a result of the learning community, I led the inaugural faculty cohort to create a Pedagogy of Unwellness Teaching Guide, which will can shared in this event.
Please connect with me to discuss bringing Pedagogy of Unwellness Learning Community to your group of faculty.