Managing Emotions, Setting Boundaries, and Getting Support: Professor Anita Brown

By MEGAN WILLIAMS/Staff Writer

Anita Brown enters a dimly lit classroom filled with computers. The lights create a soft, dusky glow that illuminates the room.

She makes her way to a Mac computer keyboard.

Click, click, click. Tap, tap, tap.

In the time before the semester starts, she is readying the content for the multimedia production course she teaches at UT Tyler.

“It’s my most … like prep heavy and not my most thought-intensive class,” Brown says, deep in thought. “But because of how much goes on in there, it’s my heaviest course load as far as preparation.” 

Being prepared and using time wisely are two strategies Brown relies on to manage the mental, physical and emotional demands of being a professor with a busy home life. 

ASPIRATIONS

Brown did not set out to become a professor.

 “Growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer,” she says. “And not because I specifically loved the idea, but I am bad about not wanting to let people down, since I have high-functioning anxiety. And I had to figure out how to live my life according to how I wanted.”

Becoming a lawyer seemed like a good idea.

“My parents always used to talk about how stubborn I was and how I could argue with a brick wall and win,” she says. “And [they said] that I’ll make a great lawyer.”

Her plan was to get a bachelor’s in criminal justice and get into law school. However, she found criminal justice, which required a lot of learning about laws, boring. 

“Nothing against those who love it, because there are people who love studying law, but for me, it just didn’t hold my interest,” she says.

Instead, Brown left college to gain work experience.  

A one-year break from college turned into seven years. During this time, she pursued a career in freelance photography and public relations. However, after several years in the business, she made the difficult decision to go back to school.

“I finally decided to go back to get a degree, because to do public relations at that point you needed one,” Brown says.

She went to graduate school at The University of Texas at Tyler and became a teacher’s assistant for Dr. Marsha Matthews, a veteran professor.

Brown loved teaching. She earned a master’s degree and was hired by the university to teach undergraduate students.

MANAGING EMOTIONS

However, even after Brown finished her degree, not everything was easy.

“My first year or two as a professor, I spent so much time trying to wrangle students into caring more about their grades,” she says.

The effort took its toll. 

“First off, you can’t care about the student’s grade more than the student cares about their grade,” she says.

She has learned to manage her emotions when students don’t do their best.

“I still get frustrated, because there will be assignments that I set up requiring students to give me their thoughts on a topic, as opposed to right or wrong,” she continues. ” I know how deep they can go into talking about it, but they will submit stuff that is brief.”

However, she tries to put things in perspective.

“And I have to remind myself not to get frustrated with them because they haven’t learned it the same way that I have,” she says. “I forget that undergrad students aren’t taught to think deeply and critically, and that’s something that comes with grad school.” 

SETTING BOUNDARIES

Brown sets clear boundaries between her personal life and work life. She used to give her personal phone number to students.

“For the most part it was O.K. I would have students text me and I would respond, but then I had two parents call me,” Brown says. “One of them called me upset that his son wasn’t graduating the semester the adviser had told him.”

A mother called Brown wanting to know how to help her daughter get better grades. 

“I told her that if you want to help her, help her stay on task,” Brown says.

After giving students her cell number for some time, Brown now no longer gives away her number. 

“I learned that there are boundaries about how much I share about myself and giving away personal numbers,” she says. “[However], there’s general stuff I don’t mind sharing, like music I listen to and stories about my daughter,” Brown says.

Brown purposely divides time between work and home life.

“I use an app on my phone to block out times on my calendar where a specific thing will be dedicated to work, [and] this chunk of time is dedicated to my daughter, because we homeschool her,” she says. “And this chunk of time is dedicated to housework, then self-care.”

Some tasks get prioritized over others.

“If something is a higher priority than my other tasks, it will get put on the list immediately, like at the top, and I just work down each chunk of time,” Brown says. “I have a tendency to ignore my other tasks, so I keep doing work and then things tend to get pushed back which is usually self-care.”

GETTING SUPPORT

Although Brown says that at first she had trouble delegating tasks to others, she has learned to let that go. Now, Brown is grateful to have graduate student Noah Tew as a teaching assistant. She also relies on support from family and colleagues.

“I have mental support when it comes to my husband, and support from coworkers,” she says. “I know that they would have no issue at all with helping me, for instance [colleagues] Dr. [Terry] Britt and Danny [Mogle].” 

Brown also uses her time away from the classroom to manage work stress.

“During summer and Christmas break, I do schedule times. … where I do not work at all,” Brown explains. “Like during Christmas break, I won’t do anything.”

Time off helps her reset. According to her, taking time to relax helps everything stay organized.

“You have to take breaks to rest your brain,” Brown says. “Write everything down that you must do. Just write everything down in a big running to-do list, that way you’re not relying on your memory. We accomplish more when we can see the task that we have to accomplish, so write stuff down.”

Finally, Brown says that if we’re going to take time off, we have to be purposeful about it.

“Schedule time to zone out. Schedule time to do nothing,” she says.