Dr. Brielle Harbin helps educators prepare to practice civic courage. She supports faculty and leaders that it’s okay to feel discomfort. Learn why it’s necessary to practice ‘civic courage,’ a term she coined.
Discomfort and difference is a natural part of the learning process. Dr. Brielle Harbin found ‘civic courage’ better emphasizes the importance of embracing that discomfort instead of minimizing or avoiding it.
Yes, it feels safer to retreat from discomfort, feelings like:
- Racing heartbeat
- Your body tensing up
- A feeling in your stomach
- Rolling your eyes
- A tinge of irritation
Dr. Brielle Harbin says, “You have to acknowledge the idea that it actually feels safer to retreat, but decide to not do it anyway.”
When people embrace the power of connection, when we share our ideas and engage in conversations, we can help more people. I’m delighted to share this conversation about civic courage with you. This is The Social Academic podcast with Jennifer van Alstyne. Thank you!
P.S. After we recorded this episode, Brielle and I met up in San Diego, California while she was here for a conference. We had so much fun and enjoyed delicious Thai food. I’m so glad we met. And our new friendship? All sparked from a social media post I put into the world and she was open enough to comment on. Delightful.
Timestamps
0:00 Dr. Brielle Harbin on Civic Courage for Educators
1:37 Dr. Harbin’s Path to Empowering Educators and Recognizing Burnout
6:04 Coining Civic Courage: Leaning into Discomfort for Growth
10:02 Building Community Through Substack (Notes From A Work Friend)
15:57 The Power of One: Amplifying Voices and Serving Others Online
26:32 Developing Civic Courage: A Journey of Worthiness and Unlearning
30:42 Embracing Authenticity and Engaging with Dr. Brielle Harbin
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Meet Brielle Harbin, PhD
Jennifer van Alstyne: Today I am talking with Dr. Brielle Harbin about courage, civic courage, and what it means to be authentically you online, in the classroom. Brielle, would you introduce yourself for folks?
Brielle Harbin, PhD: Yes, I am Dr. Brielle Harbin, and I am the CEO and founder of Your Cooperative Colleague LLC, where I work with individual faculty members and institution leaders who are interested in helping both educators and students prepare to practice civic courage.
I know we’ll probably talk about what that is, but what does it look like to actually lean into discomfort and difference and think about how to do it in intentional ways so that some of the other issues that we know can come up when we lean into difference or disagreement aren’t distracting. And then also, so we aren’t asking faculty members to do just another thing without actually investing in them. That’s the bigger piece of it cause I think for me, I don’t think that I’m necessarily new in talking about the idea of we need to teach civic skills, but the idea is that you can’t have educators think about doing it if they aren’t, if institutions aren’t investing in them, learning how to do it first and actually aligning institutions in terms of incentives with what it looks like when you do this kind of work.
Jennifer: How did you get into this? Could you share your story with us?
Brielle: Yeah, so I would say, so origin story with business is a little bit different than life. I’ll give you the bullet points in life. I think I’ve just, I grew up in the Bay Area. I’ve always been around a lot of different kinds of people. I moved around a lot as a kid. I’ve lived in, on four continents. I’ve traveled to every continent except Antarctica. I just have really lived a life that has helped me see how powerful it is to see how other people think about things and to not just assume your lens is the only one. And so I think that’s just kind of a life journey I’ve had. And then as an educator, I have taught topics that just lean into people could have very different viewpoints on them. And so I’ve really had to invest and I have been investing since grad school in what does it look like to actually do pedagogy, right?
To have pedagogy, not just list of things or ideas, but what does it look like to have a coherent pedagogy? And then what does it look like when you have a coherent pedagogy, but then you actually go into the classroom and you get punched in the face with reality of the books. What’s in the books is not necessarily how it’s going to play out when you’re dealing with real people. And so for me, a lot of what I have done, especially as I’ve pivoted out of my faculty job into business, is just wanting to make it so that faculty members and educators in general aren’t having to reinvent the wheel every time. I think we can do things better. Some of us have things to say so that we can focus on different kinds of problems, not just all trying to solve the low hanging fruit in our respective classrooms.
Jennifer: Oh, I’m curious now that you say that. If I’m a faculty member who’s listening to this and I am right in the middle of one of the busiest parts of the semester, how can I notice, how can I be more aware of my own goals or needs or thinking that, “Oh, this is something that I want to be paying attention to and focusing on.”
Brielle: I mean, I don’t think that we even necessarily have to think about it always because we can feel it, right? That feeling when you walk into class and people, like students don’t really greet you how you would want to be greeted or when you ask a question, it’s silent and you have to keep, it feels like pulling teeth in a conversation. And that’s just showing, not that there’s anything wrong with what you’ve done, but that there just needs to be some capacity building. And so I think for me, it isn’t a big sign. It’s more so maybe the thing that you had in mind when you initially decided you wanted to be an educator is just not your day-to-day reality and the work is feeling draining as a result.
Jennifer: What you say about recognizing that day-to-day reality, but the feelings and emotions of being drained. Do you still teach? Have you left academia?
Brielle: Yes. I did resign my tenured position, and that in and of itself is a whole separate conversation, but I am still teaching just not full time. I’m always going to because I’m an educator at heart, I realize it have a foot in the classroom, but where I’m really excited to be right now is helping other faculty members. I think we’re kind of in an inflection point in higher ed, and I’m just really excited to be able to harness my skills and to be able to help leaders right now who are trying to reimagine higher ed in a way where we can fill some of the gaps that we know are very, very plain for us right now when it comes to just what it means to be in a community, to be in a democracy. And so that’s where I’m spending the lion’s share of my energy. But I am teaching an online class next semester, and we’ll likely have experiences like that, but it’ll just be one off.
What is civic courage? Why should educators practice it?
Jennifer: Absolutely. Oh, I would love to talk more about civic courage because I’ve seen you talking about it on LinkedIn, and every time I read one of your posts I’m like, “Oh, that really connects with me.” But I hadn’t heard the term civic courage before you said it. And so I would love to hear more about what civic courage is. How can we recognize the things that we’re maybe already doing with it and maybe embrace it further to create change in our communities?
Brielle: Several people have said that to me, that they haven’t heard the term before. And I kind of made it up and I made it up because I wanted to name what it is that I was feeling dissatisfied with existing work. There’s so much on civil discourse, on conflict management, civic skills. And for me, when I was thinking about some of the ways that I was feeling dissatisfied with how conversations were happening, I realized that there wasn’t enough emphasis on what it looks like to just do discomfort, not minimize it, not avoid it, not manage it, but to just lean into it as a natural part of the learning process. And because I’ve done research on affective, both cognitive, the cognitive aspects of learning, but also the affective. So the fact that we feel as well is just, to me, that never made sense to me. And so, I mean, I went to all the workshops and I listened and all that, but when I was in my own classroom, I was like, I don’t want to just manage. I want to help students to learn how to feel differently about what discomfort is signaling to them or what the story around discomfort is in the first place.
Jennifer: What can that look like for different people? What can that discomfort feel like in the body?
Brielle: For me, I always notice it can just be, and I talk to my students about it too, it can be your heartbeat racing or just that feeling where you just get tense. Your body tenses, something in your stomach. If you find yourself kind of rolling your eyes or just feeling a tinge of irritation, those are usually signs of something has made me feel more than neutral about it. And so then the next step is like, ‘Okay, you’re not neutral. Is it positive or is it negative?’ Of course, it could be in both directions, but in the context of thinking about civic courage, because it’s about leaning into discomfort, it’s usually some kind of negative emotion that might come up.
Jennifer: And so when negative emotions come up, that idea of leaning into it, because there is more on the other side, there’s more that we can understand about ourselves and the decisions that we can make in relation to it. Is that right?
Brielle: Or just, yes, and more precisely about the idea, the realization that we as human beings, when we think about change or moving out of what is our daily routine, the idea of something being different or disrupting the status quo is actually something that just our biological response would make us go into flight, fight mode. You have to realize, and one of the reasons why courage is the word that I landed on, is because you have to acknowledge the idea that it actually feels safer to retreat, but decide to not do it anyway.
Jennifer: It feels safer to retreat and decide not to do it anyway. That reminds me of my discussion with Dr. Monica Cox about standing up to racism and discrimination at her university.
Notes from a Work Friend on Substack
Jennifer: When I think about the civic courage it takes to face what’s happening in higher education, in research, in the country, in the world right now, what can we do? What is first step? What are the first steps folks can take towards this for themselves?
Brielle: Yeah, I think just even having these kinds of conversations. Because I think that’s a very first step because some of the ways that academia operates, we often kind of think about these things and think we’re the only one. We think about them in isolation. And I think even just having conversations to realize, “Oh, we all are thinking about this thing,” even if we’re thinking about it differently, rather than it being a private conversation. I think creating that space, and of course I wouldn’t just say that we should just, because we’re excited jump into that conversation. There needs to be some stuff in between there to make sure that it’s a conversation that’s generative. But I think that’s a really important step. Even this idea of problem recognition. I think that there are some people who don’t might not even be thinking about the fact that is a thing that needs to be talked about right now.
Jennifer: One of the places where you’re talking more about civic courage is LinkedIn, but you also have a new Substack series about it. Tell me a little bit about what prompted you to write about it, to create more space around a topic you care about.
Brielle: I wanted to start my Substack, which I started last year. I think I just had my one year anniversary. It’s so exciting. I love it. I am by nature a writer. When I was a little kid, I wrote stories and poetry and all that. I always knew that writing was a thing that I wanted to do. And the idea of writing things down is that one, it allows me to get out of my head and I would have honestly a lot of one-off conversations with people where they would say, “Oh, you’re doing this thing,” or, “I heard you mention this in a meeting,” and it became easier to write about it and say like, “Hey, here’s the thing, and you can go and read it here.” And then an unintended thing that happened because when I originally conceptualized the Substack, I thought it was going to be once a month,
it’s now twice a week, is that it puts me in conversation with so many faculty members and it forces me to think about all the different ranges of experiences that faculty members are having. What’s happening? What are educators thinking about in general? I’ve now been tapped in more to K-12 people because they’re thinking about some of the same things. Really it was the idea that I know that there’s so much power in just writing things down, and then people comment, they react, they send me messages, and then it just keeps my mind buzzing as well.
Jennifer: Can I ask, what prompted you to start writing more? If you were at monthly and went up to twice a week, what was that change like for you?
Brielle: When I started monthly was, I will say I originally started thinking about doing my Substack in 2023, and I had a lot of anxiety about what it looks like to write every week, because your academic brain, there’s so much anxiety with putting words on the page because you’re always thinking about reviewer number two and all that. And so I was like, “Okay, I’m only going to do it once a month because that is manageable.” I was still on the tenure track at that time, and it wasn’t the thing that was my biggest priority. It was just something that I was kind of doing alongside my academic position. But then I realized it was really energizing to put an idea out in the world, have people react to it and to want to say more about it. And I just found myself, I want to say something about this, I want to say something about that.
And so it just became more so, rather than an obligation, it became an outlet. And then I also, I moved this summer to a twice a week model because I wanted to, equity is at the center of everything that I do. And so I know for me in my coaching, my workshops, not everyone is going to be able to afford to hire me to come and deliver a workshop or to participate in one of my offerings. And so the Substack paid tiers like $50 a month, I think it’s like $180 a year, and I give you a template or more so of the, I say Wednesday’s The What. And the Friday is The How. And here, let me just give you a template so you can run and do it [yourself] kind of thing. It’s kind of a thank you in a way for me to think about what it looks like to be principled. Even in my consulting work.
Jennifer: Oooh, I think that space is so powerful because there’s so many people who are at the start of that journey who are like, “Oh, there’s something that I care about that deeply that I would like to write about, but maybe I don’t want to a whole website. Maybe I don’t want to manage something that feels larger than what I need, but I need a regular communication.” I like that Substack has been a good platform for you.
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How can we amplify each other? Beyond the power of one
Jennifer: I’m curious about other ways that you connect with people online. I know LinkedIn, you mentioned before we started our live that you have YouTube as well. Is that right?
Brielle: That is my Q4 goal, to build out my YouTube because I know I love writing, but I really just enjoy talking to people. This for me right now is really energizing, and I actually learned that from Substack Live because Substack has that go live function. And once I got past all the issues of “I don’t want to be on camera now,” I’m like, “Oh, I could absolutely do it!” My goal is I want to be able to make it so that some of the lower hanging fruit things, like what’s the definition of civic courage? What are some quick wins that faculty could get that’s on YouTube, because I want it to be easy for people to do this work.
Jennifer: I really appreciate that. And when I think about that term civic courage, that’s something that can be understood by a lot of different age ranges too. That’s something that can be taught in classrooms, in facilitated leadership workshops. It can really help people at all stages of their career. The more accessible that you can make it, the more people it can help. And I want people to know that you were the one who coined that term. You originated civic courage.
Brielle: Yeah, I was like, should I trademark it? And I was like, you know what? That’s okay. I don’t need to do it.
Jennifer: I mean, that would be very cool, but I really like the idea of YouTube and creating homes for it and oh, that’s just amazing. Any other online presence things?
Brielle: I would say, Substack is really where I spend the most of my time. And then my secondary social media platform right now is LinkedIn. I try and spend at least 30 minutes a day interacting with people and talking about these topics online just because I think that is part of the work as well.
Jennifer: That’s really interesting. The time that you have for engagement, it’s kind of like planned time every day, is that right?
Brielle: It’s more a rule of thumb. It just depends on the day. If I find, the main thing is to find some time to do it, and I mentioned after we talk, I’m going to dinner with someone. That’s actually someone I met on LinkedIn who’s very aligned, and I’ve had several in-person, let’s just go and have dinner with people who are like-minded by just being myself and talking online and sharing my ideas and finding kindred spirits. And I mentioned that because I think that it can be really easy as somebody who is a media scholar, as a political scientist, that’s work that I did. And I understand it well to be doom and gloom if you’re just looking at the news cycle. But I have met so many people who are doing such good work, who have such great ideas by just talking online and you just kind of attract people to you that way. And so I think in this moment in particular, us realizing that, ‘Hey, power of one,’ and then one becomes two and two becomes three is really powerful because I do believe that the solution to a lot of problems that we’re dealing with right now, it’s in somebody’s head. We just need them to have a microphone to share it with us.
Jennifer: Or to be asked the right question to spark the conversation that creates that solution. What you said about the power of one reminded me of when I first was like, “Oh wait, we have to schedule a time to do this podcast episode together.” And that’s when you said, I’m just going to read it, that after a talk that you gave, someone tweeted your presentation and that was really impactful for you and helped you build momentum. I’m curious about what that power of one meant for you?
Brielle: The year that I went out on the job market, I was giving a talk. I believe it was at Harvard. It was a pre-conference for something, and it was a pretty small room that I was in, but one of the people who was in the audience was a person who was very active on social media and he was also a more senior scholar who was really in his mind, to speak of this idea of the power of one, was wanting to give a platform to junior researchers and what are their ideas, and so what’s some of the newest work that’s being done. And so he live tweeted my presentation and it was on a timely topic, and it just more than anything, it helped me. And at that point. I was not on social media. I tend to be like a, I’m growing into my online presence, but for me it’s always kind of a back and forth with the internet is terrible and then it’s a great thing.
It’s hardly any in between. I had a lot of anxiety around showing up on Twitter because I didn’t know what, I couldn’t figure out how to do it in a way that didn’t feel stressful. And so anyway, we can talk about that if that’s a place that you want to go. But he live tweeted my paper and people responded to it, and it helped me, one as a junior scholar realize, okay, that confidence boost because it was my job market paper and it was my job talk that I had been practicing. It was a truncated version of it, but I don’t know, it just gave me a little bit of confidence boost that I needed at a really critical time. And then I do believe a lot of things are in terms of what we do, are shaped by how we feel about the thing that we’re doing. And so I just had to feel differently about it. And that’s not to say that you can imagine your way into an academic position. That’s not how that works. I’m just saying my part, for my part, I needed to feel less like a postdoc grad student and more a professor step into owning this new identity that I really wanted.
Jennifer: I want to keep talking about this, but before I do, I want to mention for everyone who’s listening that I do have resources on The Social Academic blog that are about if you’re going to events, if you’re going to be the person in the audience, here are some things that you can do to help the people in the room, to help the conference and the research that’s happening be better shared. While I’d love for you to post about your own talk, and there is resources to help with that too, I want you to know that talking about your students, talking about the people who you really admire that are presenting like Dr. Harbin, this makes a difference for the entire scholarly community, not just the individual. And so I really encourage you to check out The Social Academic blog if you are heading to a conference in the next month, especially check it out now because there’s things you can do before, during, and after the event. Yeah, okay.
Brielle: Wait, can I just double tap on that a little bit? Because I think that even if people aren’t just the generous kind who want to just do service work, if you think about it just from the perspective of when you share your papers, if people are used to coming to you to learn about research, then they’re going to be reading when you talk about your work too. I actually think when you take the approach of not just focusing on yourself but, focusing on amplifying other people, then you’re just creating an energy around who you are and what you do. That is something that is just, it’s not quantifiable. You can’t ask for those things. I’m just wanting to double tap again on what you just said. It’s so important and there’s so many people, when we think about equity issues of whose ideas get heard, that there’s so many people doing good work who just don’t have the resources to be in every room and travel. And even if they could, would we want everybody to be taking a plane flight in this time? It’s really powerful what you’ve put together. And so I just love that. And I wanted to echo what you were saying.
Jennifer: Thank you. Your online presence can help your students, it can help your colleagues, it can help your research, it can help your community, but it can also just really help with these kind of one-on-one conversations where so much change can happen and transformation and understanding. I have so many clients who I feel have had a spark or a moment of better understanding themselves because a question is asked. And so when I think about what that means for online presence and what it means for someone like you who’s being quite intentional with how you approach LinkedIn and wanting to show up on YouTube in Q4, these are things people sometimes feel they don’t deserve to create space for or to think about for themselves. I really appreciate that.
Brielle: Well, that is, I’m sure a whole separate conversation about what it looks like to talk about that. But I absolutely agree with it. And I guess the one bullet point I wanted to say about it is just for me, the biggest thing that I heard from someone was the idea of when you think about talking online or presenting on a stage in a spotlight way, then that is where your ego is driving how you feel about it. That’s where you can feel nervous, but if you think about it as you were serving other people, as you have gifts that can help other people and you’re just the vehicle, that information is being shared, then now it’s not an ego thing right now, it’s just about sharing a message. And so I think it’s really powerful and it has been for me to think about it in that way.
Jennifer: Before we talk about a new topic for a sec, I wanted to ask, is there anything about civic courage that we haven’t touched on that you want folks to be sure to know about?
Brielle: I think the biggest thing that I want to say is that civic courage isn’t a trait, like you’re born with civic courage or not. It’s something that is a muscle that has to be developed, and it’s something that has to be exercised, and it’s something where you can expect to stumble and fall, and that’s just part of the journey.
Developing courage and embracing authenticity
Jennifer: I probably should have prompted you with this question in advance, but can I ask, is there something that you’ve recognized in yourself that you’ve developed more civic courage with over the last few years?
Brielle: That is a deeper question. In the last two years, I think I’ve just been on a journey more generally around worthiness and honestly unlearning all the stuff that academia put on my shoulders that weren’t things that I naturally had. And so I think it was really just my desire to just be more joyful and happy and satisfied with life and to figure out what one, at a certain point, I think a lot of times when you’re a junior person, you always think it’s you. And then when you start realizing, “Oh no, there are other people who are having the same exact experience and they’re in a different institution.” They are not with the same people. And so for me, when I was doing that work because I wanted to live a happier life, it made me realize that part of me being able to have that was me just naming what I was experiencing and to be okay with that.
Jennifer: I’m kind of curious, would you be open to sharing?
Brielle: I mean, there were just a lot of different things. One of my posts in Substack when I got tenure, I talked about a trusted advisor that I had when I was in grad school, who sat me down at her desk and asked me after I had failed one of my comp exams, if I had what it takes to be a political scientist. And when I said, yes, but I’m having trouble. I was going through a medical issue, I talk about it in the blog post, but her response to me was, “Do you want to rethink that?” And it was someone who I really admired, and it was devastating and it killed my courage. I mean, my confidence for several years, because when somebody who you respect says something like that to you with such clarity, it was a gut punch. For me, one of the things that when I was thinking about just academia and knowing that person not only said something like that to me, but other people was just . . . there’s something wrong with the fact that I know that people knew that this person had done this, but nobody was saying anything or doing anything about it.
I hadn’t really thought about that through line until you just asked me that. But yeah, there’s so many people. We’ve written all The [Higher Ed] Cron, op-ed pieces about toxic mentors and all these kind of things, and yet we still have people who are in positions of power. And it’s kind of like why, when everybody’s talking about it in whispers. But, yeah.
Jennifer: That kind of whispering, I feel like you’re not doing that in any way. I love all the pink. I love that you show up online as authentically you. What are some ways that you’ve embraced you in kind of entrepreneurial life?
Brielle: Even just wearing pink. In my senior year of high school, I was the person known for, I literally wore pink every single day. Pink is my favorite color. When I thought about my branding, I, I just want pink because I like how it makes me feel. I want it to be soft, chic, sophisticated, things like that. I like what pink makes me feel like. I don’t want it to be hot pink. I want it to be a rose gold pink. And I also am just learning and I won’t say that I’ve achieved this yet, but still figuring out how, what do I want to share about my life? How transparent do I want to be? Does that change based on how much processing I have done? All these kinds of things. There are a lot of things, but to have the thought that I want to do it is a big thing because I was someone who, I never was an active person on Twitter.
The fact that I post every day on LinkedIn and true, it’s not documenting my life or anything, but I’m saying things that I’m sure a lot of people disagree with or are just like, “Oh, okay, well,” we can think about other things right now. I don’t know, I’m feeling good about leaning into that. And then also, I was having a conversation yesterday with talking about what it looks like to change my mind online. If I feel strongly about something on Tuesday, but I read something on Wednesday, what it looks like to actually say that on Thursday? I’m actively thinking about that right now.
Jennifer: I love it. I love it. How can people work with Dr. Brielle Harbin? How can they connect with you and really engage with your offerings in deeper ways?
Brielle: I always tell people to go to my Substack, Notes From a Work Friend. It’s a no cost thing. Once a week, I’m coming into your inbox and I engage with people in comments, and I go live once a month too. I really enjoy connecting with people. And some of my best ideas have come from that. And so I will say, I mention when I have something going on, I mention it in my Substack post. That’s a way to kind of tap in and get value, but not feel like it’s another email. I would say my Substack is the best way.
Jennifer: Amazing. And then if I’m at a university and I’m a decision maker, I need a civic courage lesson or workshop at my campus. Are you someone that they can call?
Brielle: Yes, I have connection calls that, I’ve had several with faculty deans, department chairs who are thinking about this. Just emailing me, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Brielle Harbin.
Yes, and I call it The Grounded Leader Series. It’s a series of faculty workshops that are highly interactive. And it’s not just me coming and talking at people, it’s someone who has a lot of experience being a faculty member and really just thinking through what does this look like in your institutional context and adapting it. I ran the pilot of the current version this summer, and it was just such a great experience to work with faculty members and see, “Okay, this is a thing that can help!” I would love to do that with as many faculty members as possible.
Jennifer: Yay. I’m so glad I asked. Brielle, is there anything that we haven’t chatted about today that you want to be sure to add before we wrap up?
Brielle: I think we’ve hit the high points. I really appreciate the invitation, and I really appreciate all the work that you are doing. And again, this is us meeting as a LinkedIn connection too. So this is another add for, “Just be online, somewhere.”
Jennifer: I know. The connections that can happen because Brielle commented on my post. Like, this is real and public. People can watch this conversation today or tomorrow or a year from now, and maybe it can help them find civic courage too. If you are watching this, please like please subscribe, but also please connect with Brielle. This is someone who can help you and can help people that you care about too. I appreciate you so much for coming on The Social Academic.
Brielle: Thank you so much.
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Bio
Dr. Brielle Harbin is a political scientist, award-winning educator, and keynote strategist who helps colleges and faculty cultivate civic courage and sustainable academic systems. As the founder of Your Cooperative Colleague LLC, Brielle partners with higher education leaders to move their institutions from compliance and burnout toward belonging, creativity, and care. Her work centers nervous-system-aligned writing, ethical leadership, and faculty well-being as catalysts for innovation.
Through her flagship programs—Faculty Writing Rituals Unlocked, Steady Strides, and Steady in the Storm—she helps educators build restorative, purpose-driven writing practices that last beyond the semester.
A former tenured associate professor and public scholar, Brielle’s research and consulting focus on civic courage as a framework for leading change inside systems not built for everyone’s thriving. Her weekly newsletter, Notes From a Work Friend, offers practical and soulful reflections for faculty navigating the realities of academic life.
You can learn more about her work at YourCooperativeColleague.com
Or, on Substack at NotesFromAWorkFriend.substack.com