The best piece of advice received in my academic career thus far was given to me by Dr. Wayne Urban, an historian and professor at the University of Alabama. During my first year as a faculty member, I walked into his office and asked, “Wayne, how do you write so much excellent scholarship, how did you become a full professor?” His response was, “I am not a perfectionist.”
These words have stuck with me and I learned immensely from them. Wayne also noted that doctoral students and young assistant professors often succumb to perfectionism and become immobilized in terms of sending out their work for review. He told me reviewers and editors are our friends and they help us to take good work and make it better. I have lived by Wayne’s words through my time as a faculty member and I think I have benefited.
This past week, I attended an academic conference and was lucky enough to share a few meals with some graduate students and new faculty (my favorite part of conferences). The one thing they had in common was a fear of sending their conference papers out for review with scholarly journals. I listened to countless excuses for why conference papers, which I thought were excellent and fresh, could not be submitted to journals. My conclusion is Wayne Urban was correct. We have quite a few perfectionists on our hands in the academy.
