Join author Leela Viswanathan, to celebrate her new book The Deliberate Doctorate: A Values-Focused Journey to Your PhD, and for lively conversation with Beverley Mullings and Sheila Stewart, about making your PhD a journey of self-discovery rather than simply a destination.

The Deliberate Doctorate is an uplifting and honest guide to using personal values to navigate the universe of possibilities encountered while pursuing a doctoral degree. It sets the decision to pursue a PhD within each student’s individual contexts their supports, overall wellness, and long-term plans. Enriched by the author’s experiences as a PhD student, associate professor, and supervisor, this book is alive to the typically unexamined hierarchy of the academic PhD experience.

Dr. Leela Viswanathan is the principal and founder of Viswali Consulting, Dr. Viswanathan is also an adjunct associate professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning in the Department of Geography and Planning at Queen’s University. She is an accomplished and innovative educator, mentor, and researcher. The Deliberate Doctorate is her first book.

Dr. Beverley Mullings is a professor at the Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto. Much of her scholarship is located in the Caribbean and its diaspora. She has a longstanding commitment to the promotion of structures to support mental wellness in the academy and currently co-chairs the American Association of Geographers’ Mental Health in the Academy Affinity Group. She has authored numerous academic publications.

Dr. Sheila Stewart is a writer and adult educator. She taught at University of Toronto’s New College Writing Centre, the Women and Gender Studies Institute, and the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy. Her publications include poetry collections, A Hat to Stop a Train and The Shape of a Throat, and a co-edited anthology of essays and poetry, The Art of Poetic Inquiry. Sheila’s Ph.D. investigates the relationship between writing, authority, and shame, using arts-informed research methods.