Speaker: Staci Zavataro
We are often told to avoid rejection. To fear failure. To be our best at all times. But in reality that can never happen. We are going to fall. Often. It is how we handle that failure and rejection that shapes us as a leader. As a professor, I am expected to know everything, to succeed at every turn. In this presentation, I will walk listeners through my CV, showing the rejection and failure behind each success. I will be candid about what has worked and where I stumbled on the journey through graduate school and now as an associate professor. The presentation will creatively weave stories of my personal experiences with images of my academic path. Listeners will learn, through this narrative tale, strategies they can adopt for facing failure and rejection head on and learning from them. An Ode to Rejection brings to life a chapter from my latest co-edited book "Reflections on Academic Lives: Identities, Struggles, and Triumphs in Graduate School and Beyond."
Bio: Staci M. Zavattaro, Ph.D., is associate professor of public administration at the UCF School of Public Administration. She serves as a research associate for the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management and interim track chair for the Public Affairs PhD program at UCF. She has written books on place branding and marketing at the local government level, and on social media use by public sector agencies. Her latest book is an edited volume on finding your heart and success in graduate school and beyond. She serves as editor-in-chief of Administrative Theory & Praxis. In her free time, she runs slow half marathons and bakes a mean cake.
Read More