Higher education often pressures faculty to fragment their time, energy, and identity into isolated buckets: teaching, research, service, and “life.” But what if sustained productivity and purpose came from approaching your career as a unified whole? Join a fellow faculty member for an inspiring and practical one-hour session designed to help you thrive, not just survive, in academic life. This talk is built on three transformative, big-picture principles:
- The Law of the Whole Person: Reclaiming your right and responsibility to act as a unified person, refusing to separate yourself into discrete work and life components.
- Consistency Beats Performance: Discovering how showing up regularly for your most important work is more vital than chasing high-stakes outcomes or occasional bursts of intense effort.
- Small Steps within Coherent Systems: Learning that daily, sustainable action within a well-structured personal system creates more progress than ambitious, high-profile “wins.”
We’ll explore how to translate these principles into practical, everyday faculty life to make it possible for you to be fully present for everything you hold to be important — both work and life — and pursue a more coherent, fulfilling, and productive career.
About the Speaker
Dr. Robert Talbert is a Professor of Mathematics at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, where he teaches courses for Computer Science majors and writes about practical, faculty-centered approaches to improving higher education. His scholarship focuses on teaching innovation, which he shares on his blogs Grading for Growth and Intentional Academia. He is the author of Flipped Learning: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty and co-author of Grading for Growth: A Guide to Alternative Grading Practices that Promote Authentic Learning and Student Engagement in Higher Education.
A Tennessee native, Talbert earned his B.S. in Mathematics from Tennessee Technological University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University, specializing in algebraic topology and category theory. Before joining GVSU in 2011, he held faculty positions at Bethel College and Franklin College, where he began blogging and experimenting with flipped instruction.
He lives in Allendale with his family and has been a bass guitarist for over 30 years, performing with several Grand Rapids–area bands.
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