rethinking your expertise 

This unit challenges you to expand your understanding of your own expertise, in order to establish and leverage your credibility outside the academy. Part of going public with your scholarship is learning how to communicate the things you know to non-academic audiences and show why you are someone the public should trust. We’ll encourage you to reflect on, expand, and translate your expertise for the public.

OBJECTIVES

  • Reflect on your expertise: you don’t have to know everything to know something worth sharing.

  • Expand your expertise: you know more than you think you do–and what you know matters.

  • Translate your expertise: you should communicate your credibility differently to different audiences.

WAYS TO LEARN

We’ve designed this training curriculum so you can get the entire content of a lesson just by listening to that lesson’s podcast episode on the audio player below. You can listen all at once, or click on the “list” icon to use chapter markers to navigate to a specific part of the conversation.

If you prefer a multimedia approach to learning, you can watch a slideshow version of this content.

You’re also welcome to simply read through the transcript for this episode.

However you choose to learn, we encourage you to pause and reflect when prompted to do so, and to take notes to share with your fellow trainees, if and as that’s possible for you.

And don’t forget to check the top of this page for essential resources, and the bottom of the page for additional resources.

LISTEN & LEARN

Read the transcript.

GUEST VOICES

Andrew Aghapour​

Consulting Scholar of Religion and Science

Smithsonian National Museum of American History

@andrewaghapour

 

​Rebecca Epstein-Levi​

Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies​

Vanderbilt University

@RJELevi

WATCH & LEARN

READ & LEARN

Read the transcript of this episode’s podcast.

APPLIED LEARNING: Credibility mad libs

Practice framing your expertise or credibility for different topics, audiences, and goals.

  1. Find three headline-level keywords in your CV, or exchange CVs with a colleague.

  2. Using the following template, draft three brief non-academic introductions, one for each topic.Which of your shiny baubles are important?

  3. How can you describe your personal or research experience related to each? 

  4. My name is _____ and I am an expert in/on _____ because _____. 

  5. Practice stating your expertise out loud without any notes.

  6. Use your phone or laptop to record these “credibility mad libs” for each of the topics you’ve selected​.

DISCUSSION PROMPTS

When you meet with your colleagues, we encourage you to discuss the following questions: 

  • How might sharing your work with the public allow you to lift up the voices of other kinds of experts?​

  • Have you ever been asked to comment on a subject that you felt was too far from your own field?

  • What happened, and would you answer differently now? ​

  • How do you best translate your credibility from academic to public scholarship? How does that process change with different topics? ​

  • How has this conversation encouraged you to rethink your potential contributions to public conversations about religion?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

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