LELA House

Tag: education

  • Three Ways to Work with Dr. Roshaunda

    Three Ways to Work with Dr. Roshaunda

    Hi y’all,

    I’ve got big news!

    I am an Author Accelerator certified book coach!

    So what does that mean? Let me tell you.

    Author Accelerator is a year-long (approximately) course that trains people to become book coaches. Per the Author Accelerator website, a book coach is an editor, a mentor, and a cheerleader; a sounding board for creative ideas; a committed partner; an independent expert; an entrepreneur; a human.

    That last one–human–is very important in today’s world of AI. I’m not an AI detractor. I think it can be a great tool, but AI cannot write or read like humans do. AI cannot respond to a writer or their manuscript with expertise and compassion, with creativity and insight, with grace and accountability, with passion and love.

    And that’s what I do as a book coach: respond to you and your writing with expertise, compassion, creativity, insight, grace, accountability, passion, and love.

    So how is that different from what I’ve been doing? Let me tell you.

    It’s not so much different from what I’ve been doing as a coach for Black women in higher education as it is a beautiful expansion of the coaching I do for Black women in higher education.

    To my decades of experience in supporting academic writers, I’m adding dozens of practicum hours in fiction coaching: including how to move from idea to outline, from outline to draft, from daft to manuscript, and from manuscript to pitch package. And friends, these lessons do not only apply to fiction; they apply to academic writing as well.

    Not only can I now support you in your fiction writing, I can also help you bring the possibilities inherent in fiction into your academic writing. You want to work on the narrative arc of your nonfiction? I’ve got you. You want to narrate your nonfiction through the lens of a protagonist? I’ve got you.You want to frame your nonfiction in such a way that one scene causes the next? I’ve got you.

    My new certification as a fiction book coach enhances my ability to support Black women in higher education in all the ways. In other words, I’ve got you.

    So, my beautiful Black sistahs in higher education, there are three ways to work with me: SDJ, Dissertation Deliverance, and Strategic Semester. And you don’t have to choose just one. I recommend SDJ for everyone and then add Dissertation Deliverance or Strategic Semester, depending on what kind of writing you’re doing. Of the three options, choose one or two to best support your current needs and your future aspirations.

    SDJ (Sistahs on the Doctoral Journey) is a community of Black women in academia (from ABD through senior leaders), who support, celebrate, encourage, connect, and build together.

    Dissertation Deliverance: Weekly Accountability Coaching is private, personalized 1:1 coaching to help you navigate your doctoral journey once you’ve completed your coursework. You may be doing self-directed work, but you don’t have to work in a silo.

    Strategic Semester: From Idea to First 100 Pages in 16 Weeks is a 16-week cohort for Black women in higher education. You will go from being unsure of how to start your book project (fiction or nonfiction) and struggling to create a writing habit to having dedicated writing time, a blueprint for your book, and your first 100 pages.

    So what should you do right now, now that you know all of these wonderful things about my business and book and writing coaching?

    • Hug a human who means a lot to you, being grateful you get to exist in a world of beauty, writing, and humanity.
    • Sign up for at least one of the following: SDJ, Dissertation Deliverance, and Strategic Semester
    • On the off-chance you don’t sign up for any of my services, share this post with your network. You can repost on your various platforms; send the link to a friend, family member, or colleague; or even become a financial sponsor for someone you know who needs my services.

    Happy writing, and may God bless you on your journey!

  • Celebrate Executive Coach Day with SDJ

    Celebrate Executive Coach Day with SDJ

    Hello and Happy Executive Coach Day!

    I’ve created something new to celebrate Executive Coach Day, and I want to share it with you. I hope you’ll love it and spread the word.

    I’m launching a community for Black women academics, from ABD to senior leaders. I call this new community Sistahs on the Doctoral Journey (SDJ), and it’s a space where we support, celebrate, encourage, connect, and build together.

    Imagine:

    • Celebrating your wins, big and small, with women who truly understand the magnitude of your achievements.
    • Finding profound encouragement when imposter syndrome rears its head.
    • Connecting with a powerful network of Black women, from ABD students to senior administrators, who are ready to share wisdom, resources, and unwavering support.
    • Discovering the intellectual and spiritual sanctuary you’ve been craving within our dedicated space for growth and connection.
    • Building your legacy while benefiting from the methods and mindsets of the 19th Century Black women who came before you.

    We will do this through…

    • Pillar channels. Through these channels, you’ll connect with other women in the same stage of the journey as you and tackle the real issues you face day to day.
    • Recorded readings from 19th Century women. I post a weekly video of a reading from a 19th Century text. After watching the video for the week, you can join an asynchronous community discussion on how the lessons from the lineage apply to your work and legacy.
    • Monthly open houses. We have a live virtual meet up once per month to connect with one another, decompress, and build toward our next.
    • Match-ups. You will be matched with another sistah in the community either weekly, biweekly, or monthly (based on your preferences). These match-ups lead to mentorship, collaboration, friendship, and connection. You’ll get to know other community members beyond surface level and form bonds that help sustain you on your doctoral journey.

    The community will launch on July 1, 2026 for $97/month, but if you join the wait list between May 1, 2026 and June 30, 2026, you can unlock the $77/month Founders Rate for as long as you stay in the community. You just need to use the following Coupon Code: FOUNDING77MON.

    You can find out more and sign up at this link.

    There is no pressure for you to join SDJ (although I hope you do, because I think you’ll find it valuable).  Please check it out at the link below and be sure to use the following coupon code, which is good through 6/30/26. 

    FOUNDING77MON

    Sistahs on the Doctoral Journey

    Thank you! I can’t wait to see you inside SDJ! And please share with whoever you think would love this, too!

  • Duolingo to Doctoral Journey

    Duolingo to Doctoral Journey

    My aunt and I were discussing our Duolingo progress the other day. She is studying Spanish, and I’m studying German, and neither of us is anywhere near fluency, despite impressively long daily streaks.

    I like Duolingo for what it is. It’s a fun social app that challenges me to learn a new language. I’m not expecting to gain fluency from it. I’m expecting to learn a little German. To gain fluency, I would need to spend time working on German with other people, especially people fluent in German.

    And if I had my druthers, I’d sit and talk with Dr. Georgiana Rose Simpson, the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in the US. She earned her doctorate in German in 1921 from the University of Chicago, at the age of 55. Fifty-five! She is proof you are not too old to follow your dreams. I won’t dive into her fascinating story today, but I encourage you to check it out here.

    What I will dive into is contemplating how difficult it had to have been for Dr. Simpson. Earning a doctorate is difficult under the best of circumstances. Earning one during the Jim Crow era had to have been unspeakably challenging. Yet she persevered.

    I wonder who supported her on her doctoral journey. I wonder what strategies she used. I wonder who she cried with when the road seemed impossible. I wonder what wellsprings of strength existed inside of her.

    And I wonder what it was like for her to be one of the first Black women on this doctoral journey. Two other Black women also earned Ph.D.’s in 1921–Dr. Sadie T. M. Alexander (the first National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.) in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Eva B. Dykes (another member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.) in English from Radcliffe College. All three women graduated in June 1921, within days of each other

    I know what my doctoral journey was like. I felt alone and in the dark about many things. I earned my Ph.D. in English in 2009, 88 years after the first trio of Black women to do so, but I wonder if they felt much like I did. I wonder if they had anyone to talk to who really understood what they were going through. I think we too often travel this journey alone when we don’t have to.

    So if you are a Sistah on the Doctoral Journey, please know that you don’t have to travel alone. I’m here to support you and bear witness to all that this journey is for you.

    And I’m here to offer a little help. I’ve been helping people on their doctoral journeys for years, and I’ve created a workbook of strategies and coaching questions to help you navigate your own journey.

    Please click to purchase 10 Strategies for Navigating Your Doctoral Journey + Coaching Workbook. And leave a comment to share how the stories of these Black doctoral pioneers resonate with you.

    Onward.

  • College Chronicles with the Cades – Social Security Cards and Adult Decisions

    College Chronicles with the Cades – Social Security Cards and Adult Decisions

    So I decided to begin a series chronicling the college journeys of my children TG and TB. We’ll see where this ride takes us. Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy!

  • New Year, New LELA House

    New Year, New LELA House

    Greetings!

    I promised you some new LELA House offerings for the new year, and I have a bunch to share with you.

    If you’re an educator feeling burned out or looking for a way to accomplish your goals or just in need of some long overdue self-care, then LELA House is for you. Imagine who you can become by investing in yourself.

    Read on to access all the information you need. To be sure to stay up-to-date with LELA House, please subscribe to receive emails from me. When you subscribe, you will receive a link to a downloadable PDF of 140 journaling prompts to jumpstart your self-care journey.

    Short Version

    You can learn about all of my offerings on my website. You can subscribe to my email list and receive a free PDF of journal prompts. You can even purchase services. Check it out at the link below. Feel free to stop reading here.

    lela-house.com 

    Long Version

    I offer services to individuals and institutions. I believe each educator owes self-care to themselves, and I also believe the institutions where we serve must invest in the well-being of their educators. I’m here to help with both.

    • Individual Experiences
      • Breakthrough Session – This is a free 30-minute coaching session to see if LELA House is for you.
      • Email Coaching – This is 30 consecutive days of email coaching. You can email me as much as you like, and I will reply up to 3x per week. We can discuss any areas of your life where you desire transformation.
      • IDEA (Innovate, Dream, Energize, Activate) Coaching – This is a one-time coaching session where we meet to help you break through in one particular area where you are feeling stuck.
      • Confident & Courageous Coaching – This is 3 months of biweekly coaching sessions where you discover the confidence and courage to explore limiting beliefs that hold you back from being who God created you to be and develop the mindsets and habits to make and sustain powerful change in your life. 
      • Self-Care Sundays – On the third Sunday of each month, educators meet to devote time to reading, writing, creating, or Christian meditation.
    • Learn more about 1:1  individual experiences by clicking here.
    • Learn more about Self-Care Sundays by clicking here.
    • Experiences for Institutions
      • Community Writing Workshops – Participants explore topics salient to your institution through writing and reflection (75 minutes).
      • Values Workshops – Participants determine their values and how to activate them in daily decision-making. This workshop uses writing, reflection, and connection and can be useful to determine individual values or collective values (ie: of a department) (75 minutes).
      • Powerful Question Workshops – Participants break down and respond to a question about your institution’s impact and future. Then participants support each other in plotting a course forward. This workshop uses writing, reflection, and small and large group work (90 minutes).
      • Common Reading Sessions – Help your educators learn together by offering common book studies (60 minute sessions).
      • Executive Coaching – Provide ongoing executive coaching to your educators (45-60 minutes per session).
    • To learn more about the experiences for institutions, click to fill out the contact form.

    Lastly, since I’m a writing person at my core, I’m also available to work with you on grant proposals, ongoing grant write-ups, reviewing articles for submission, and other sorts of writing contract work. If you’re interested in that, please email me, and we will set up a conversation to discuss collaboration possibilities.

    Thank you for your interest in LELA House and for supporting me. It means the world to me. 

    Please share this post with anyone you believe would be interested in and benefit from LELA House services.

    Oh! Also, if you’re interested, I’m challenging myself to write more and to publish what I write. Please check out my Patreon page at the link below. When you land there, you’ll be able to read the first chapter of a novel I’m working on that tells the story of the fall of Jericho from the perspective of Rahab. If you like what you read, please consider becoming a patron.

    patreon.com/RoshaundaCade

    And for making it all the way to the end of this post, you get a bonus!

    I’ve curated some of my favorite blog posts, which you can find at the link below. I hope you enjoy them!

    Curated Blog Posts

    Ok, I’m done now. 😀

    Have an amazing day!

  • College Chronicles with the Cades – Light My Scholarship-Seeking Fire

    College Chronicles with the Cades – Light My Scholarship-Seeking Fire

    So I decided to begin a new series chronicling the college journeys of my children TG and TB. We’ll see where this ride takes us. Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy!

  • College Chronicles with the Cades – Underwhelming Campus Visit

    College Chronicles with the Cades – Underwhelming Campus Visit

    So I decided to begin a new series chronicling the college journeys of my children TG and TB. We’ll see where this ride takes us. Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy!