S3E1 Discovering the Benefits of Academia and Corporate Partnership with Kim Campbell

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 0:08

Hello, listeners. Welcome to Inside Tech Comm With your host Zohra Mutabanna. In season three, we shift our focus to shed light on why Technical Communication is a core business asset. In this regard, we will speak with guests who are our stakeholders, such as product managers, marketing professionals, UX designers, QA and customer support, who engage with writers to create a seamless experience for the customer, and meet business goals together. Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of the inside tech comm show. We are kicking off season three with our special guest, Kim Skydow Campbell, who is from academia. Kim is the Professor and Director of Corporate Relations at the University of North Texas. My goal in interviewing Kim is to understand the challenges that one faces in academia and how we, the professionals, can collaborate to create a business win for our field. Welcome, Kim.

Kim Campbell: 1:16

Thanks for having me. Zohra.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 1:18

Well, it's my pleasure. Tell us about yourself, Kim.

Kim Campbell: 1:22

Well, I'm 61. So that question could take me a while to answer but I'm going to try to focus on the most important things in terms of what your listeners might find interesting, related to tech comm. So I have a lifelong passion for words, especially written words, I got an undergraduate degree in English linguistics. And in 1987, I found myself in a graduate degree program at LSU, working on a PhD in linguistics and writing. And I took at the same time, a part time gig as a technical editor working for the vets who were doing research over in the vet school. At the same time, my mentor told me PhDs are all about research, we don't know yet whether you're going to be successful at that. If you're not, the good news is, you'll be able to get a job as a tech writer or editor. And I thought, Okay, this is a win win, I feel really good about this, like, oh, because nobody starts a PhD, I don't think knowing that they're gonna succeed. It is all about research. So I thought I knew that I could teach and I could do other things. But I wasn't sure about the research. So I became interested in tech comm partly because I was doing that job. And partly because I was in a department that actually had some graduate courses in tech writing. So I took all those courses. I eventually taught both business and tech writing to undergrad students. And I figured out I like this so much. This is what I'm gonna really concentrate my career in. What's unique, I think, is that my path was not accidental, really, or at least less accidental than for many folks in the field.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 3:17

You said that because it sounds very intentional.

Kim Campbell: 3:21

It honestly was once I found I love linguistics, but I knew that I did not want it to be able to do something applied. I like to believe that what I teach and research has real impact in the world. And I found that tech comm was the perfect fit for me

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 3:41

First of all Kim, thank you for that awesome introduction. And you started with I'm 61. And I'm I would have not known that. Okay, well, thank you. Yes. So let's get that out of the way. No, I have a lot of insecurities. Hearing that you're you. I mean, you look fantastic. But you have to tell an amazing background. You know, you've been teaching and I've kind of gotten to know you through STC. And you've done a lot, I see your postings on LinkedIn, you're trying to promote the field. Every other guest interview that I've had, I have asked my guests about their journey. This episode, we are going to pivot a little bit. And as much as I would love to know about yourself, you and I talked about how we want to promote this field.

Kim Campbell: 4:26

If I give you a quick rundown of the places that I've worked over the years, I think that it's less interesting about the specific places. But I think that it helps listeners get a feel for where academics that do tech comm

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 4:42

I think it's important. Yes, please do.

Kim Campbell: 4:45

Okay, so my first job as a professor was in an English department at Auburn University. I stayed there for two years. Then I moved on to a tech comm division at something that's called the Air Force Institute of Technology. As a postgraduate school for Air Force officers, DOD, civilians, sometimes international officers, I spent five years there. Then I spent 19 years as a professor in a management and marketing department in a business school at the University of Alabama. And then the last five years, I've been in one of the very few tech comm academic departments in the world, at the University of North Texas. So despite the names of all those different colleges, institutions, departments, I've been teaching and researching tech comm pretty much the same way for 30 years. So we in academe, we truly do not have a single home in the same way that accounting does.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 5:52

Which other universities have a department of technical communications? And in your opinion, are those going away? Would you like to share something about that?

Kim Campbell: 6:02

Absolutely. I have strong opinions about this. So I'm just gonna warn the listeners. Now, my disclaimer, the fact that there are so few tech comm focus departments, there are literally hundreds of undergraduate degrees in the US offered in tech writing, literally, hundreds, maybe 400. Different institutions have tech writing degrees at the undergraduate level. There are lots, there was an article about 10 years ago by some of my colleagues in which they looked at the different disciplinary homes of those degree programs. And basically, they're spread out primarily in English departments. Some are in engineering, and some are in odd places, like colleges of agriculture, where everywhere, is what I'm trying to say there was one in a journalism school were everywhere. In my opinion, the field has not flirt, the degree programs have flourished because of the interest in education that is more directly relevant to careers. The field has not flourished so much from being housed in humanities departments, because they're not very good at thinking about professional careers. That's not what they do. I don't have anything against I love literature. However, being good at analyzing literature, does not directly relate not just being a tech writer, but being a leader of tech comm in an organization made up of engineers, or developers or scientists or whatever. So I would say that it's unfortunate, we've not grown more than we have. That's all related to the politics of universities, which is not something we really want

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 8:10

Right. And I'm so delighted that you to talk about. brought up this aspect of the field because, again, I personally graduated in a master's, with a master's in technical communications, Technical and Professional Writing. And it was part of it was housed in the Department of English. And like you said, one of the big challenges that I personally felt was funding. Again, when you talk about rhetoric, how do you apply that in the real world? Even today? Sometimes I question why did I study this? And how does that apply to my field? I still question that.

Kim Campbell: 8:44

I think every with very few. Well, it's true of everyone they'll say even in I know one of the things you're interested in is what kind of degrees we offer in tech comm at u and T. So we do have we have a whole slew of degrees in tech comm. So we have an undergraduate BA, we have an undergraduate BS, we have certificates at the undergraduate level and a minor, we have a master's degree, and we have certificates at the graduate level. We don't have PhD level students in tech comm which is unfortunate, because I think that we who we are, would do the field good if we were producing PhDs that went elsewhere. But that's PhDs are expensive programs. And it's not a time to ask your university to come up with new PhD programs. So when I think about sorry, that's a long winded way of saying students who come out of our degree programs are, I believe, far better prepared for the realities of the corporate world or the white collar world or the profession that they're going to practice. Nevertheless, they need there's so much To know, and technology is so important in our careers, that it changes constantly, people have to be okay with being lifelong learners, they cannot thrive at all. In fact, really, I don't even think they can survive without being lifelong learners in tech comm. So even though I think we do a really, for example, one of the things we do with our undergraduates is we instituted a new class a few years ago, that's called the profession of tech comm. And we have a wonderful book from XML press. And we have industry guests come in every week, we have students thrown into teams in which they have to do things they have no idea how to do, because this is the beginning of their degree program, not the end. And so we throw them in redo a website for someone or we throw them into repurposing a white paper into a slide deck for someone or really pretty hard things. We don't expect them to do a great job on the products, but we expect them to come out of that class with some understanding of how important teamwork, collaboration, and all the things that go into it, how important that is asking questions, taking responsibility for what you know, and what you don't know. So really, the lessons in that course are more, they're much more

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 11:27

Logical. And yes, I think the soft skills that the emotional quotient as I think the EQ that is required, is very important. And those are the things that you're touching upon. And I, I would like to share that I've come to some of the showcases at UNT. And I've been impressed and I'm thinking I wish I were in their place, I wish I could go back to school and learn this invaluable.

Kim Campbell: 11:53

Every, like every kind of parent, I guess we're just happy that we can provide what we wish we had had to our students.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 12:01

I can you know, vouch for that. I mean, the department is doing a fantastic job in that area. So thank you for preparing the next gen of tech writers because I am so passionate about this field. But coming back, I can sing songs of praises about this field that has given so much to me. But you are the Director of Corporate Relations, and a professor, of course, what is the objective of this partnership with the corporate world, Kim.

Kim Campbell: 12:29

So it's multifaceted. I suppose the easiest thing for listeners to understand is that there is definitely a focus on students. So we want as many corporate partners as possible to be involved in our degree programs. So that means things like having people who will be guest speakers and courses or do workshops, people who will be mentors to students, people who will help students find internships and jobs, or offer them, let us know about them, we do get called a lot. Once people find us, they don't all know about us, unfortunately. But once they find us, they're usually on the phone every time they have an opening. Because there are relatively few programs that prepare students in the way that that we do. We also are interested in money from corporate sponsors, because they do things like offer scholarships to students, we were lucky enough to have the people at Pay Pal, make a gift to the Department last year, we actually use that for marketing purposes. Because we know we all know in the field that too few people know about this path. Those are the most important reasons why we want corporate interaction regular like I'm a strong believer in community. And the community cannot be made up only of faculty and students like and it also can't be made up only of employers and tech comm pros like it's silly that we don't have a not silly, it's counterproductive for us not to have a community where we're sharing information. So it's also really important to us from a faculty perspective, which might be something that listeners aren't thinking about. But we care deeply that we're preparing students for the workplace, they're going to enter in a couple of years, not the one that was around when we did whatever, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And so the only way I know of to be current is for us to be talking to people who are doing the job, right. So we need both access to what's happening in the world. And I have to say as a researcher, one of the most frustrating things for all of us is we want many of us want to do relevant research for industry, but access to data is incredibly hard for us to get. So we need corporate partners to help let us in to study what's happening in their organizations.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 15:12

I'm a practitioner, and I was thinking that there is definitely a disconnect. That's my personal opinion. And you're sort of in a validating that opinion of mine. And we need to build bridges, and agreed, the bridges that you're trying to build are is what will set us up for success? And also all brings the whole community, the whole community? Absolutely. So Kim we've been talking about how we can build bridges, and how we can take this profession forward? Keeping with that same notion, I want to ask you, you talked about how this helps us as a community. One of the things that you mentioned was, it's hard to find data, what would you like to happen so that you can find data? Let's talk about that?

Kim Campbell: 16:02

Absolutely. This is one of my favorite things to talk about. It's not the sexiest thing to bring up with most corporate partners. So it's not usually the first thing we talk about. We talk about students first, because most people are on board with students. It's harder to get people. So first of all, let me say there's a lot of fear about letting some external person in side inside your workplace. So the kind of data that we would like, it varies depending on which of us is doing the research and what the research questions are. But, for example, we have a researcher who is interested in how tech writers in software companies interact in Scrum, and what kind of influence they have, what kind of influence it has on them and their work. She has fought really hard to get access to software development companies, I have another partner. So we also some of us would like to just get our hands on content. And it can be arranged much content is on the web. But that's not always the content we're looking for. So sometimes we want to look behind the scenes, what

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 17:19

sort of content I want to dive into the specifics. Sure. So

Kim Campbell: 17:23

for example, much of my research has dealt with, because I'm a linguist, with style, and with editing. And so one of the things that is really lacking is some understanding of how review and revision actually takes place. So we try to prepare students for what's going to happen, and we hear people talk about it. But that's not the same thing as watching or collecting the data that actually is involved, the conversations, the drafts, who all is involved, what do they say? That kind of data is incredibly powerful? Because it gives us a much I mean, you think about in your own practice, like that's where the work happens. Yes, right. That's those interactions with those sneeze or product managers, or whoever it happens to be, or maybe your supervisor or however it is, you're integrated into the technical product development, right? However, that happens, and it happens differently. That's part of the frustration for us, too, is even if we got in one organization, and we're able to study all of this, and it would be a case study, right? So it would be an n of one, right? That organization, that particular product over some amount of time with that limited number of people. But it might be totally different, even in the same industry, but in another company, because they may be organized differently. So there were just the number of things we don't know. Yes, astounding.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 19:02

Got it. And I think I've worked with some really young writers. And now it's sort of you're shining a light on why sometimes they may struggle, because there is no, it's not an established process. And we are trying to find our seat at the table. And that's another goal of mine through this podcast is for writers to be empowered.

Kim Campbell: 19:25

Absolutely. So one of my I suppose most successful lines of research has been in leadership. And I am particularly interested because of our tech comm students. And because of I don't know how real the perception I mean, I know what the perception is. The perception is that they're all introverted. They all just want to sit in a cubicle, do their own thing. Have everybody leave him alone. They don't have a you know, if they have opinions, they don't want to tell anybody what they are. But I just don't believe that I've met ours. Students, I don't think that's all of them. I think some of them want to be leaders. When I was listening to agonises, episode it with you. Yeah. Yeah, one of the things that made total sense to me was that she didn't start out as a tech writer. She thought she had a voice from the beginning. Right? Yes. And she has used it to her benefit and to the organization's benefit, and honestly, to all of our tour the communities,

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 20:27

community. Yeah, right.

Kim Campbell: 20:28

So there are a couple of us who are really interested in finding ways. Another thing that I'm really interested in was brought up by Steve Wiseman, who was your guest a couple of episodes ago. And he's talking about how tech comm basically should or could be leading. All this digitalization that's going on because of Content Strategy. Like we've been doing this I had an interview, I teach content strategy at the grad level. And I had several expert content strategists come in and visit with my students. One was Rahel and Bailey. And one of the things Rahel said was tech calm should have the seat at this table. We're the ones who for 20 years, have been figuring out how to produce content efficiently and deliver it in multiple ways. And like, we're the experts in this. And yet, content strategy is CO opted by marketing, and become something very different. And they reinvent the wheel, which is not good. It's not good for us as a profession. And it's not good for the companies because they're losing out on the knowledge that's already inside their organization.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 21:43

I'm so glad that this conversation is, is allowing these issues and this challenges to surface. As a practitioner, I have questioned these very same things. Why why is this happening? And I think you and I would agree that probably this requires a much more deeper dive. But I agree totally Yes. Right. As much as we are sort of just skimming the surface, I do want to bring these to the fore that these are some real challenges that we as even practitioners face. Yes. And one. Thank you for listening to my other episodes, I'm so touched for giving me you know, it was an opportunity. And yes, Agnes has done such a fantastic job. She talks about sponsors, you find sponsors who can speak for you. And Steve Wiseman, who talks about content strategy, all true things. One, I think one of the challenges that I have faced as a writer is I did not find the words in my profession. And I think that's probably because where I was taught, it's not the fault of the degree program, but we are so you know, we talked about being part of the Department of English, there is no focus on the business side. And I think, no matter where this program is housed, we need to focus on how do we create business value for ourselves?

Kim Campbell: 22:58

Absolutely. So my grad students who take my content strategy course are always they have no idea what to expect, I don't think but then they're totally blown away, because the first few weeks are all about content equals asset. So why do we want to focus and strategize about content? Because it's worth something? Yeah, the organization in which you work. And so this really kind of blows their mind. This is not something we do what we can to integrate some lessons about every business related thing, but content strategy is the one course where how can you talk about content strategy without talking about business? Like obviously, it's about business. That's what strategy? That's what it is. Yeah. And every undergraduate business students study strategy.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 23:47

Yes. And I think there needs to be more collaboration, that interdepartmental collaboration as well. Tech Comm needs to step out of its shell, and collaborate. So I think that also needs to happen. And that probably, again, will happen eventually as the community builds, because there is that communication and the dialogue happening. We've touched upon all these interesting facets challenges. But there are successes too. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. And would you like to share about that? Okay, so

Kim Campbell: 24:17

I'll just be selfish. First, I was going to talk about students because that's obvious, but like my own career is an absolute slam dunk. Like, okay, this opened every door for me. I've had a wonderful career. I've had a tenured position at many universities, I've made a decent living. I've gotten a chance to do work that I find meaningful. I mean, honestly, there's a lot of opportunity in academe for people with tech comm. Chops. But the first thing I thought of of course, is students. So one of my jobs as a faculty member is to supervise internships that are taken for academic credit. Our undergraduates are not required To do an internship at some do we try to encourage every single one, I visit that professionalization course every semester and say, Come talk to me, like or follow me on LinkedIn, I'm sending out zillions of opportunities. Literally zillions I see that day. I mean, guys are, there are lots of opportunities out there, even during this pandemic, I really did not see a terrible slowdown. You know, of course, the jobs went remote. But honestly, many tech writers have worked remotely for years. So it's not that odd for them to take that kind of a so anyway, so I'm, I see success, because I see those students in those internships, one of the things that we require them to do is create a video, that 1015 minute long video about their getting the job, what did they do with the job? Show us the work products, talk about what courses helped you? What do you wish you had known? So it's mostly valuable to the faculty members? To be honest, because that's our way of validating whether we're heading in the right way, are we preparing students in the right way for the jobs that they're going to get, but it also helps other students see what's possible, because they can watch those, you know, it's one thing when the parent tells you something, it's one thing when the teacher tells you something, and something else when the peer tells you something. So when students watch these videos of former students, people just like them, same degree programs and courses, same whatever, doing incredible stuff, and making a good, I mean, even our interns, they make good money, if they should, and I tell them all the time, you should not be working for free. Unless this is just some passion of yours. There's no way you should be working for free. Let me tell you the data on what are you know what I mean? Let me tell you the data on what students have been earning because I ask because that's part of that value, right? I want you to recognize how valuable you are to industry. So when I didn't finish a we do have undergraduates, our MA program, we require them to do an internship. And it's one of the reasons why we have 100% placement, because that internship is super important.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 27:21

That is awesome. That is awesome. And it's so good to hear that students step out into the real world and then find that success. Absolutely. We as a community want to make sure that our students find the success that he deserves, like you said, Absolutely. And that define their value in this field. And it's not the students finding value, but businesses that are missing out if you're not hiring the right talent.

Kim Campbell: 27:47

That's exactly right. And to be honest with you, almost every I mean, I can't, I don't course I don't have data on this. I can't imagine that our students don't rise to the top of any pool of applicants, unless they've applied for something that's clearly you know, they want, so I can get on this rant for a minute. There are no jobs listed for entry level people with less than three or five years of experience, which is totally ridiculous. Why would anyone have three or five years of experience and want an entry level? Job? So I just tell students to ignore that, you know, if it says eight, okay, it's not for you. If it's a senior, probably not for you, not for you. But really anything else apply? What do you got to lose?

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 28:35

Yes. And I, You're not kidding. I read about this, like just a few days ago, I think a lot of graduates are entering the real world. And the same challenge. If you're asking for experience, how is this an entry level? And I actually saw an ad on LinkedIn, I believe, eight years. And it was, and it was entry level. And I was a technical writing. So this seems to be Yeah, across the field.

Kim Campbell: 29:01

It's a trend. It's a trend. We try to coach students to understand that job Eds are not necessarily written by the person who's going to hire you. And there are also job ads for unicorns there for individuals who don't exist. They've written this wish list, yes, of what they wish someone had, and they want to pay him 50,000 A year. Well, you're not gonna get that. I mean, I'm sorry, that's not realistic. And so like, we try to coach students, but of course, part of it is youth. Right? Part of it is we tend to attract a little more introverted, you know, these are not the students that chose to go into sales. marketing as a major, they're a little more introverted, and they've really been taught from the beginning that their greatest skill, their word skill, their communication skill is not the most valuable, which is on Fortunate But yeah, if I could say, if I could fix K through 12, I would, but I don't really know how

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 30:06

I see. Okay, so you're saying that this is not just at the university level, but this is? Oh, no, it's,

Kim Campbell: 30:11

it's throughout. So if you think about the way, sorry, this is one of my get on my, my preachers

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 30:18

Please, as we said, we want to we want to deep dive a little bit here.

Kim Campbell: 30:22

All right? Well, my one of my greatest disappointments in life, I actually started my PhD in a college of education, because what I wanted was to use my linguistic expertise as a way to teach help young people learn to write. Okay, in a nutshell, that's what I wanted to do. But I lasted about six weeks. Well, I mean, I finished the semester, but they were not interested in doing anything differently. They just wanted me to learn how to make poster boards, you know, like, whatever on the wall, and they wanted me to learn a lot of this a PhD program. So I just said, Okay, I'm out of here, I'm gonna go back to where I came from, which was linguistics, and it all worked out. But the issue is, the way that students are, you'll know this, from your own experience, the way students learn to write, they only learn one genre that has one audience, and it has what they write has zero communication value, because that's not what they don't write, to communicate something they write, to display their knowledge to someone who already knows the answer. When in the rest of your life, do you do that? Never. It's the total opposite of why you write for the rest of your life. You're the expert, your job is to communicate what you know, to someone who doesn't know it.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 31:56

And that's such a different mindset. I mean, that requires a different thinking process, not the writing process. But

Kim Campbell: 32:01

I'm not Yeah, I'm not opposed to having kids learn how to do creative writing, too. I think that's awesome. But alongside that, did you write many proposals while you were in school? Did you write poems? You wrote a lot of essays, those are real helpful for nothing past the age of 21. So students don't know that they've only learned one genre. For one audience. They think writing is that, right? And this is most of my job, as a professor forever in teaching has been to

Unknown: 32:35

unteach Oh, my God, like, forget that.

Kim Campbell: 32:39

Just forget all of that stuff. Like, yes, that's good for this. But we're not doing that anymore, right? We're doing we're gonna do something different. But it's a very big psychological leap for anyone to take, really. And I mean, honestly, I saw this not just with tech writers, I taught lots of business students to at the undergrad level. And it's exactly the same for them. They try and write up some marketing research report as an essay. That's like, Well, no, that's not how it works. It's on that five paragraph thing with an intro. That means nothing. And then finally, you get to the bottom line at the end. Yeah, no, that's not how all the rest of the world wants you to think about.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 33:24

So that's something that I think, as curriculum planners, probably we need to start looking at how to be probably at the university level, like, you know, how do universities influence how the K to 12 education is happening?

Kim Campbell: 33:40

Currently, it's all goes back to like the literature. Stranglehold. Yeah, on language education. There isn't really any language education, there's a lot of literature education,

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 33:53

every teacher, but I'm not experienced in that profession. So I'm going to kind of lean towards lean on you to shine light on that, which you are, if I may share this. When I started my master's in Technical and Professional Writing, one of the few things that I had to do was a critical analysis, which I mean, you're kind of trained to do but I came from a background where critical analysis was not part of my education. And when my professor told me to do that, I said, What do you mean by that? And I'm here I was in my 20s. Asking that question, why? Because one of the things was I had to do an audience analysis, which I did not understand. So you're right about that. Personally, I have gone through that experience, and I had to unlearn. So not only I mean, as a professor you have to unteach but I had to unload and it was very hard at that is

Kim Campbell: 34:51

psychologically it is brutal, which is why I wish that it started to happen at a younger age, during elementary and In fact, when my son was in school, when he was young, and in elementary school, I would go every year, and do a workshop with the kids in which I made them bring in some piece of writing that their mom or dad or whoever had created at work. And then we would do an analysis of it. And we would talk about how's this different from the essay that you had to write? Or how's this different from the poem? Or how's this? And like, really, once you it's called rhetorical awareness. So once you open their minds to the idea of, there are multiple genres. Oh, just like music, like, whatever, just like any performance, right? There's multiple genres. So once you open their eyes to that, I think that it's much easier. If they're younger, it's younger for them. Yeah, it's easier for them to understand. And I think it also helps them be more motivated, honestly, in English during school, because not every kid wants to focus on literature. I'm not saying that we should stop teaching literature. But we should also be helping those kids for whom That's not the thing that lights them up.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 36:14

Again, another thing, my oldest daughter, she was 14 at the time, and her school district offers a course in professional communications over the summer. And it's a requirement, but it's a requirement as part of her IB curriculum.

Kim Campbell: 36:29

Great. So see, internationally, they get this way more than the US does way more.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 36:36

I was gonna flip that and say, probably the US gets that better, because I had a grounding in literature. So I think this is an issue, again, anecdotal, but we all have to take a look across the board or globally, on how do we streamline and mainstream humanities as part of those the curriculum and and not just literature. We've talked about the successes and the challenges. Now, one of the things that I wanted to kind of work upon was funding being housed in an English department. What kind of help would you look for in that aspect?

Kim Campbell: 37:15

Let me tell this by telling my own personal story, because I've worked in different kinds of institutions doing the same job teaching and doing research. So I'll talk about I spent a long time with business professors. So 19 years at the University of Alabama and the business school, and then the five years before that, at the Air Force, postgraduate school, those are really those my colleagues were business people who taught for whatever for the Air Force. I had summers off, always with funding to do research, always, almost every single year, and I'm talking about more than I would have made teaching a class in the summer. We have beautiful facilities in business, which I really miss being back in arts and sciences. So the facilities themselves, obviously, it's not the goal. But one of the things that I made a priority when I got to you and T's tech comm department was to do everything I could to make our floor not look like a dungeon from the 1920s. We're supposed to represent cutting edge industry stuff here. And so many of the faculty laughed at me, but I made sure we got everything painted. We got new furniture, we got chrome letters on the wall and Lucite chairs and lamps and everything that would communicate like modern. And so facilities don't themselves don't matter. But it does matter in terms of how it makes you meet the faculty, even the most reluctant, reticent folks came to me afterward and said, you know, it does actually feel different teaching in a room that's not a trash dump carpet that's been there for 20 years and dingy gray walls. And so anyway, so part of the funding deal is, is your physical surroundings. It's time off from teaching, because of course academics work nine month years, right? So you have a nine month job, three months off. So many people think I don't know what people in general think about what we're paid. But you can make a lot more money work in a nine month job in industry than you can a nine month job or even a 12 month job in academia. So money's a deal most of our professors choose to teach in the summer, because it's a way to earn extra money, but I wouldn't say it's the best use of their time. I think they would have more influence if they concentrated on making connections, collecting data from industry talking to people in industry. So that's another thing conferences and professional organizations are very expensive from an academic point of view. And we have, oh, I don't know, 20 of them. There is nothing cohesive about our community. Part of that is, and I don't even mean just academics, I mean, so at one time or another, I have been a member of the IEEE Professional Communication group. In fact, I was their editor of the research journal for more than 10 years. So I was very active with them. ACM, the other big engineering group, ACM has their own SIG, Doc. Then there's SDC, of course, which is the one most whatever main, but very few practitioners are, I mean, very few academics belong because it's expensive. And there aren't very many academics there. Att W, which is the Association of Teachers of technical writing, which is definitely an English department kind of affiliated with the National Council of Teachers of English. Yet I could go on and on, you know, like, there's a million of these things, they all cost money to belong to CPT, SC I could go on, they all cost money to belong to there's no core. Hmm, for lack of a better, you know, there's one place. So even in communication studies, which is very diverse in terms of the kind of research and the kinds of courses and the kinds of degrees, they have the National Communication Association, NCA is huge. Everybody belongs to NCAA and NCAA National Communication Association. It's only academics, there's no practitioners. So, one of the strength of our field is our many different perspectives. It's also one of our weaknesses, money, money for it, and not just memberships. But industry conferences are way beyond the scope of anything. Most faculty in tech comm are going to be able to afford way beyond. Yeah, far beyond. So I'm not even thinking about the summit. I'm thinking about lava con and whatever con fab and you know, the big industry? Yeah, like we're there's no way I mean, an academic, I increased our funding when I came as chair so that everybody got $2,000 A year for professional development. That doesn't go too far. That's pretty good. Most most tech comm faculty, I think, probably get less than that. Business schools get a lot.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 42:39

So to me, one of the reasons that, you know, we are kind of cost as a deterrent. And then sponsorship is also I gather is a challenge. Yes. So with all that, would it help if these organizations if they either offered some concessions to academics, because we have to have that give and take away? Not

Kim Campbell: 43:03

really, it seems really important to me and STC, you know, they do have a lower membership rate. I mean, they do have an education, right. But I can tell you, their education rate is way beyond what we pay for an academic conference. So it's just a mess. The two industries are very different in terms of what kind of money you have for what our money all goes to students, basically, I mean, it all goes to teaching related things. Research is if you can compete for federal funds, which is very difficult for us to do, we do have one faculty member in our department who had an NSF grant. But it's very hard to get your own funding. One of the things that we've done with for example, big design in Dallas, is they have given us some student tickets sometimes so that students I've taken students down to Dallas to do the conferences. So eye opening for these are undergrads. I mean, they're it's so eye opening for them to go to even one session.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 44:16

Right. So may I ask you this question, Kim. I'm the current, like, I'm actively involved with the local chapter. And I know that the STC Summit is looking for volunteers, student volunteers, and my chapter has done everything to spread the word about it, in your opinion, have students taken advantage of this, especially given that it is a virtual conference? At this point in time? I have really I have noticed I've observed that whether we like it or not. I think we have to put it out there that some of the students that I have mentored have been introverted, or they're not serious about the profession either. So, as a practitioner, I'm trying to elevate the value of my profession. And I'm trying to see that my students benefit from it. So I'm just trying to bring a perspective from my end. And I think we need to help our students recognize that when you get these opportunities, you grab them, you got to step up, and not to feel like you said not to feel scared about it, and you find your value. When you do, you will automatically give, and most students actually need that uplifting

Kim Campbell: 45:26

could, let's see, could I agree with you 2,000%. I don't want to be too negative. But perhaps my greatest disappointment, in coming to my department, I came wide eyed and ready to like, Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna elevate, and I use the, the analogy of, or the metaphor, whatever of so the faculty and I, and the staff prepare this incredible banquet, and we predicted what the like and what they won't. And we've, you know, and we lay it in front of them, and they say, I'm not hungry. It's like, okay, like, really. So I totally get the disappointment. Now, it is definitely not all students, we have some who are firecrackers. And they do take their development seriously. And they take advantage of every opportunity. And you know, it's everybody's dream to have that student, right, because you lay it in front of them. And for someone, I think it's true, most faculty, sure, it's great to have smart kids. But if they're motivated, I really care how smart they are, I can help them overcome whatever challenges they have in terms of what they don't know. But I can't, I can't really give them the desire, the passion to do something they care about. So one of the things that I did a lot when I was an undergraduate teacher, and especially with business students, who are perhaps the least engaged, well, I don't know, they're probably equally unengaged in their education. But I would give them this little, I don't think of myself as a motivational person at all. It's just not my how I'm wired. But I would give them this. Remember, Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers, where he talks about the 10,000 hour rule and how it takes so long talks about the RHIT, he talks about the Beatles. And the reasons they became so good is because they worked in a strip club in Germany and had to do three sets a day for like a year. Well, of course, they got good, because like, like, practice together constantly. And so you know, part of what I tell students is, so in order to get good at anything, you're gonna have to put in all law, the time and effort.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 47:55

What this conversation is sort of, again, shining a light on is the fact that one, there is definitely that challenge in the K to 12. Right. So when students enter the field, let's say even intentionally considering this, this career path, they're not as motivated, title problem, which we can fix overnight, and not definitely through this podcast.

Kim Campbell: 48:19

Absolutely not. It's one of the reasons that we instituted that. But I kind of think of as the boot camp course, at the undergraduate level, where they have to work incredibly hard. And it's not easy to do good work. And and one of the reasons we chose to do that is because we really want to dissuade people who don't like this. Like if this is not for you, I get it. It doesn't need to be. But if you think you want to do this, you have it, you have to at least enjoy some parts of this.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 48:53

This conversation actually brings something to my mind that Addison mentioned. He happens to go to all these hackathons. Yes. And I learned so much from that conversation. I've never been to a hackathon, because I'm questioning even as a as somebody who's been in this field, a long time, what value can I bring? And Addison mentioned about his experience where he was assigned to a team and he had to communicate about the product. Right? I want to end on a good note about our discussion, right. But as much as there are challenges, there are a lot of opportunities out there for our students, especially those who are motivated about the field. It is important, you got to be motivated. If you're not, then this field is probably not for you. But even if you think if you're slightly invested, there are opportunities out there one, of course to internships, through pro bono opportunities, you know, finding mentors, I just some talks about that. You reach out you have you have to be access these days, and the practitioners will rarely turn you away because you We'll always find some help.

Kim Campbell: 50:01

The local STC chapter has been awesome about offering our students mentorship, and a few have taken up or have taken

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 50:10

on a path to leadership, Kim, which I'm so proud, personally to see them doing so well. Yeah. So and then doing these hackathons and these boot camps that you talk about, and I think probably, for academia, I'm not proposing a solution. It's just a thought of mine that based on what Addison said, I think there are these free hackathons that are happening. And I think our students probably even STC as an organization probably should consider to partner right. And this is one way for us to

Kim Campbell: 50:41

great idea of great idea. I have always shared those, the fact those events are happening. I'm guessing that that's how Edison knew about it. I don't know. But I've always shared those opportunities with our students so that they know that they're there specifically, the organizers tell us no, we want your students to,

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 51:00

is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Kim Campbell: 51:02

I will say that one of the things that I loved most, in listening to Addison's episode with you was, you notice his ability to think strategically. And that makes me really happy. I had Addison and several courses. So I know Addison, we, you know, from a different perspective, right. So I'm really glad to see because that's what we write, it's a master's program, we want our students to be able to think strategically, so that he brought part of that with him. But I'm glad that we did our part to help him grow. And also to make them collaborate, they work in teams all the time, whether they like it or not, we give them not just, we don't just assign teams, we actually do training, about how to be a teammate, you know, how to deal with conflict, how to be a leader, all those kinds of things. So that makes me feel really good. And the last thing I'll say is, we require every master student to have a web portfolio, they have to defend to the faculty instead of a thesis. So we don't have students do a thesis, we have them create a web portfolio. And I know that from talking to Anderson, that one of the reasons that he got his first gig is because of the kind of projects that we have them work on while they're in our program, because they're real world projects. And so he could put those on his portfolio. So not only did he have a portfolio that had gone through many different faculty members review, but he had things to put in it. And so I think that I really do believe that we we do the I don't know if there's anybody better if there is there are very many, maybe there's five departments that have tech comm programs that are really world class. I know ours is one. That's why I came here five years ago. And I seen the success of Addison and seeing him get involved in STC and take advantage of all the things that are available. It makes me happy about the future.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 53:12

You know, Kim, I want to first of all, thank you for grooming such an amazing student. And definitely Addison has a great role model. And he shows he thought of our chapter, but I've also gotten to know him offline. And I think he brings amazing that those leadership qualities, some of it is definitely innate. He is a very motivated learner. And I think that is what Kant, you know, speaks to his ability to just, you know, bite so well. So, thank you for grooming. Addison, personally and and contributing so much to the field. This has been such a fantastic conversation, Kim,

Kim Campbell: 53:51

I have thoroughly enjoyed talking to you, Zara. Me too.

Zohra Mubeena-Mutabanna: 53:54

Thank you so very much. subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app, such as Apple, Google, or Spotify. For the latest on my show, follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or visit us at www dot insight tech comm dot show. Catch you on another episode.