Episode #254

Pivoting to Public Scholarship with Dr. Becky Dawson

In today’s episode, I welcome Dr. Becky Dawson back to the podcast. Dr. Becky has chosen to direct her academic work to public scholarship. She’s one of my most inspiring clients, and her journey shows how public-facing scholarship can be a career-defining move and a way to make real, tangible impacts on the community. From regular TV segments to hosting live Q&A sessions on social media, Dr. Becky has built a reputation as a trusted voice in epidemiology and public health.

MORE DETAILS

Dr. Becky shares her transition from traditional academic work to public scholarship, exploring how she successfully pitches this work to her university by aligning her efforts with her academic mission. If you are considering stepping into public scholarship, this conversation offers practical advice on juggling impact, visibility, and university dynamics. Tune in to hear Becky’s inspiring story and learn how you can get your academic work and academic vision to the people whose lives you will make better through your work.

 

What Working in Public Scholarship Looks Like

For Dr. Becky, academia is about more than publishing; it’s about engaging the community through public platforms like TV and her weekly Substack newsletter. This work is rewarding but time-intensive, taking about 12 hours a week. For those considering public scholarship, it’s important to be realistic about the time commitment and the need to prioritize it over other academic tasks.

Pitching Public Scholarship to Your University

Dr. Becky has navigated the challenge of pitching her public scholarship to her university by reframing her work to be seen as valuable beyond traditional academic metrics like journal publications. By tracking measurable outcomes such as TV segment viewership and newsletter engagement, she demonstrates the impact of her public-facing work. She also advocates for framing public scholarship to show how it aligns with the institution’s mission and community engagement goals. This strategic approach has helped her gain recognition and receive positive feedback from her institution for her mission-driven work.

Influencing Public Policy

Dr. Becky’s public policy work focuses on immediate and long-term change. During the pandemic, she advised schools and local governments on COVID-19 policies, and now, she’s shifting towards educating the public on vaccinations and health preparedness. She’s researching disparities in Pennsylvania county health departments and plans to use her findings to push for policy changes. Dr. Becky’s strategy involves using local media and personal outreach to raise awareness and build support for policy shifts, all while framing her research to appeal to various stakeholders like county commissioners and the public.

Meet Dr. Becky Dawson

Dr. Becky Dawson is an epidemiologist, public health leader, teacher, researcher, health communicator, mom, wife, and dedicated yogi. She seeks to create healthy communities for all through her work as a tenured professor at Allegheny College, Research Director at a community hospital, and exclusive contributor at Erie News Now (NBC/CBS).

Dr. Dawson publishes a free weekly newsletter — Epi(demiology) Matters — to educate and empower readers to be healthy and create healthy communities. Subscribe NOW.

She has also published the only epidemiology textbook specifically for undergraduates, especially those who do not have a strong background in statistics.

You can find Dr. Dawson on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-smullin-dawson-1b434325/) or Instagram (Instagram (@dr.beckydawson) ).

 

“What I see as a scholar who is writing for the public, my job is to distill the news and information so that it is meaningful, but more than anything action.”

 

 

“It’s a different style of genre or writing and presenting, but it is not less hard. So when you think about the energy that it takes to write in Substack or create social posts, it is not as different as one might think from the energy it takes to do other academic writing.”

 

We’ve opened the waitlist for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and get on the waitlist here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

  1. Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Get on the waitlist here!
  2. Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing,and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!
  3. If you would like to hear more from Cathy for free, please subscribe to the weekly newsletter, In the Pipeline, at scholarsvoice.org. It’s a newsletter that she personally writes that goes out once a week with writing and publication tips, strategies, inspiration, book reviews and more.

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