Letter Thirty-Nine: Will the US Recover From This Brain Drain?

And I think that lays out important work for us who produce research, are academics, teach or lecture. Think about the success of your work outside of the ivory tower, outside of the stunting and unsustainable set up of academia, and instead consider what it would mean for it to be successful in your community.

We may not on the individual level be able to change the course of the brain drain, but we are not powerless to show people why these policies and choices matter in the day-to-day. We are not powerless to bring our work out from behind the paywall and consider how it would benefit a teacher, a medical assistant, an electrician, a therapist, a director, a retail shop owner. How do we share why it matters? How do we tell the story of our work?

Letter Twenty-Eight: Dear I Communicate like a Girl

Recognizing that there is an impact to others when asking them to do something (often deemed a women’s communication style), is not wrong.

Adding in signs of emotions through exclamation marks or emojis (another “marker” of women’s communication), is not wrong.

Acknowledging that other people’s schedules might not be able to accommodate our ask (yet again another marker), is not wrong.

Positioning a statement or opinion as your perspective, not the objective Truth, is not wrong. (I hope to have effective made my point by now)

Letter Fifteen: Dear (an Instagram Questions Installment)

This is a new format for this newsletter this week!

As I was nearing the middle of the week, the inbox for this newsletter was empty (full of all the other Substacks I love to read, but missing a letter to respond to). Rather than skipping a week, I thought I would give my Instagram community an opportunity to put a question on a story box rather than needing to write an entire letter. I chose two this week to answer below.

The DM feature on Substack is another place where you can submit a letter if you prefer that over email.