How do you make time for the gym while still being an academic?
#HistGym discussions with Dr. Vanessa Miller and Dr. Pat Wyman
I get a lot of questions about how I am able to devote so much time to the gym while still being an academic, running HATM, working at the Forest Service, and most importantly, being a parent. Folks, it isn’t easy. But I’m always surprised that I get these kids of questions because I don’t consider myself particularly athletic, in shape, or some kind of influencer. The truth is, I go because at this point in my life, not going to the gym or not weight training would be antithetical to the way in which I live.
But I’m just a single guy and it’s hard to give anyone a real idea behind gym and academic life from a mid-40s dude’s perspective. So I invited on Dr. Vanessa Miller and Dr. Pat Wyman to the pod to talk about their experiences in the gym as academics. As you’ll hear, the three of us have wildly different experiences in academia and in the gym. Pat has been lifting for over 20 years; Vanessa starting weight training about 3 years ago. I’m somewhere in the middle.
In this discussion today we talk about our experiences balancing gym and academic life, the differing experiences men and women have in the gym, our takes on social media, how to get started at the gym, and how exercise makes us better scholars. Our guests today are two people who I deeply admre and we had a lot of fun in this pod. I hope you like it, and if you’re interested in the gym but don’t know how to start, maybe you’ll find something that helps.
About our guests:
Dr. Vanessa Miller (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Education Law. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work is centered on exploring critical aspects of policing, surveillance, race, and crime situated within the education system. She uses legal and empirical methodologies to address systemic biases fixed at the intersection of criminal law, criminal procedure, and education. She is particularly interested in the experiences of Latina students impacted by the school-prison nexus and the broader criminal legal system.
Dr. Miller earned her J.D. and Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University, where she was awarded the Dr. Macia Clarke-Yapi Dissertation Memorial Award for her dissertation relating to educational equity. Prior to joining the faculty at Indiana University, Dr. Miller was the inaugural Postdoctoral Associate at the Race and Crime Center for Justice at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and worked at a leading education law firm in California. She is an Education Law Association Early Career Fellow and was selected as a leading woman in higher education by Diverse.
Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in the Buffalo Law Review, Denver Law Review, Missouri Law Review, Journal of Law and Education, Washington & Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, and the Rutgers Race & Law Review, among others.
Dr. Patrick Wyman holds a PhD in history from the University of Southern California. He previously worked as a sports journalist, covering mixed martial arts and boxing from 2013 to 2018. His work has been featured in Deadspin, The Washington Post, Bleacher Report, and others. He is currently host of the podcast, Tides of History, and previously the host of Fall of Rome.
Find the pod here:
See ya at the gym.
Jason