Who am I and why am I writing about improv?

I’m a public relations professor at Sam Houston State University (SHSU), and I started doing improv in 2015 when I was working on my Ph.D.

I fell in love with improv from that first free class. “You can’t fuck this up” was all they needed to say to hook me. In academia, it’s easy to feel like everything you do is wrong and to second guess everything you’re doing. Imposter syndrome, anxiety, and depression have been called a “crisis” in graduate students, and suicide rates are higher in my profession than the general population. There are plenty of articles with titles like “There’s an awful cost to getting a PhD that no one talks about,” which talk about these issues.

No, I will not be citing my sources—this is a blog and not a research article. I will link to interesting articles, and I do fact-check my information before I write it—I’m still an academic who believes in trying to represent information as accurately as possible. If you take issue with this and are grumbling, “I don’t know if I can trust her without a reference list” or whatever complaint you can come up with, your negative attitude is part of the problem in academia.

There are a host of things that make academia and getting a Ph.D. hard. Isolation is a big problem, especially for an extrovert like me. Maybe introverts have a slightly easier time, but I’m sure it still feels isolating at times for them too. The competitive nature of academics is grueling and hard for me—I prefer cooperation more than being competitive.

I’m blessed to have a supportive department, but not every department is supportive. Some departments are unfriendly or hostile, and minorities in academia face more significant challenges of hostility, unequal pay and treatment, and invalidation of their work and contributions.

Other challenges academics face are research and teaching. Research can be daunting, but submitting to journals is brutal—it’s an intellectual version of fight club, and reviews can be jerks. Teaching is rewarding but also a lot of work. It’s easy to overthink something you said in class or overthink what you’re going to say in class. It’s easy to get frustrated with students, and it can be hard to let go of the mistakes we had during the day.

With all the stress and frustration I face in my career, improv has given me an outlet for my creativity, and a way to feel like I’m succeeding. It’s also taught me to let go of control over things I can’t control and to stop overthinking my actions. Improv has improved my teaching and my personal life.

This blog isn’t just for academics, but that’s my experiences so it will be heavily peppered into my posts. I hope anyone who ends up here learns a little about improv, a little about academia, and a little about living their best life.

I want to give a special thank you to The Institution Theater and The Hideout in Austin, TX, and BETA Theater in Houston for building supportive communities to play improv and giving me the skills for a better me.