I am about to take the plunge and hand my department chairman a letter of resignation from what, by all appearances, should be considered a plum job. It is the tenure-track job I trained for through six long years of graduate school; the job at the prestigious research university where I was invited personally to apply; the job that suggested I was a rising star.
In last month's Beyond the Ivory Tower column, Susan Basalla mentioned my plight and offered advice on the proper way to resign a tenure-track job. I thought I would tell you how I arrived at this point, in the hopes that it would help others in my position.
In the academic narrative that commences with coursework and culminates in tenure, my tenure-track job is one step shy of the coveted happy ending. So how did I end up about to knock on my supervisor's door and, more importantly, why did it take me so long to get here?
My resignation process began two-and-a-half years ago, when it dawned on me that I was spending an inordinate amount of time holed up in my office finding creative ways to avoid research and feeling vaguely unhappy. I told a friend about the funk I couldn't shake. "Well," she said, "if you're feeling depressed about everything, you should see a doctor. But if you're only feeling depressed about your work, you might think about finding a new job."
It sounded so straightforward. Upon reflection, I couldn't deny that it really was my job that had me down. I was passionate about most other aspects of my life. I lived in the same town as my husband, child, and cats (only an academic would think this warrants special mention), we were finally homeowners after years of renting, and I loved spending my spare time singing with friends, discovering our new neighborhood, and going for rare hikes on the weekends.
Although dutiful in satisfying the expectations of academe, I did not love working on my book proposal, preparing lectures, marking papers, or keeping up with the literature. But change jobs? That wasn't how the story was supposed to go. I was doing everything according to the established order: finish Ph.D. (check); get job (check); publish articles (check); establish reputation (check). I credited the immense appeal of my friend's idea to the perpetual misty grayness of that winter and filed the thought away.
Summer came, and I finally had a good long chunk of time to focus on my book without the distractions of teaching or committee work.
Summer went. A last-minute assignment from the chairman to organize our lecture series for the following year served as a convenient distraction from my research. By the start of the fall semester I had an exciting slate of speakers lined up, but had read little, written nothing, and was dreading the prospect of seriously hunkering down on my book. In sum, I was sabotaging my own career. It was time to take stock of my academic investment.
The first warning sign had come early on. With the exception of my first year of coursework, I had not particularly enjoyed graduate school, but I had concluded that graduate students were simply supposed to be a disgruntled lot. Who wouldn't be, given the growing pains of transforming from student to professional on a shoestring budget? My adviser took me under his wing, directed me to numerous CV-building opportunities, and helped me network with others in our field. My performance was rewarded with academe's motivational tidbits -- good grades and renewed fellowships -- and I basked in feeling smart.
Meanwhile, I also observed the department's reactions to the occasional students who decided to leave the program. The message was rarely stated explicitly but it was clear nonetheless: They couldn't hack it, they lacked drive, they failed.
This is the same message my current department perpetuates and one that I suspect is prevalent in academe. "She clearly doesn't have what it takes," the graduate committee agreed, after a student recently announced she wanted to take a year's leave of absence from our program. There is hardly acknowledgement that she might find pursuits other than ours valuable and rewarding. There certainly is little dialogue within the department about alternative careers, for our task is to train future academics.
Students who envision different trajectories are often treated as failures. "He couldn't find a tenure-track job," someone explains of the Ph.D. who has just jetted off to Europe to take a position in the arts. That kind of sentiment doesn't exactly encourage doctoral students to consider alternative careers.
I proved I could more than hack it in graduate school, and emerged on the other side with a "starter" gig at Big Rural U., a large state university in a pleasant small town. I happily abandoned my preconceived notions about prairie topography and moved to Bob Dole country, where I found my colleagues engaging and the students open-minded. With a real salary, status, and benefits, I was sure life would take a turn for the better.
On the bright side, I formed lasting relationships with other recent hires at Big Rural, and we gathered together every few weeks to share tales from the new-faculty front. Yet as a researcher in a humanistic discipline that frowns on collaboration, I also suddenly found myself very much on my own.
Gone were the daily interactions with other students in my field who eagerly shared ideas, concerns, challenges, complaints, research successes and setbacks, teaching techniques, responses to the latest journal articles. My departmental colleagues, though friendly, did not have the time or inclination to form a journal club or writing group. I no longer had an adviser who willingly read everything I wrote and offered profuse feedback in purple ink on the back of every page. Writing my dissertation had been a difficult venture even with these support networks. Without them, the path to tenure looked bleak and solitary.
Still, having told myself for years that this was the career I wanted, I avoided blaming the monastic nature of academe for my angst. Anyway, it was easy to pinpoint another explanation: My husband, Will, who had also just completed his Ph.D., commenced a job in Massachusetts, almost 1,000 miles from Big Rural. He too struggled with the culture shock of becoming a faculty member, and his apprehensions, like mine, were further aggravated by the stress of a long-distance marriage.
We both went on the job market the following year, and our stars aligned. Not only did we independently receive offers from Nearly Ivy U., but the move meant a significant step up in prestige (check) and salary (check) for both of us. It also promised maternity leave, and the summer after our first year at Nearly Ivy we became the proud parents of a baby boy whose birth was perfectly timed to the academic calendar (check -- and evidence that academe can invade every aspect of one's life, including the bedroom).
Will thrived, quickly finding a community of collaborators: graduate students who joined his lab, faculty members with whom he wrote grants, and a dean who took a particular interest in his work and became his mentor and advocate. I, on the other hand, foundered.
Nearly Ivy's publish-or-perish emphasis made me feel more isolated at work than before. I was surrounded by stressed-out, career-minded colleagues who never outwardly expressed doubts about their work and with whom I felt it strategically disadvantageous to express mine. I had neither the zeal nor the constitution to offer seven years of hermitary existence in exchange for promotion. While other junior scholars went in to work at night and on weekends, I atoned for not dedicating every free minute to the life of the mind by maintaining a nagging background level of guilt.
Wanting to connect with a community broader than my dissertation's niche audience, I started taking on more-general writing projects, including a solicited chapter for a book intended for an educated but popular readership. A well-meaning colleague warned me that only "solid" research would lead to tenure.
I relished my contact with students, but the administration made it clear that undergraduate teaching would not count for much, if anything, toward tenure. I took on more than my fair share of departmental service (as is often the case with female faculty members), not only to make a good impression but also for the social interaction it offered.
Thinking volunteer activity might relieve the lack of connection I felt at work, I joined my neighborhood association and worked a few hours every month toward reducing traffic on our residential streets. A colleague looked at me with confusion when, in the flow of a normal conversation, I spoke knowledgeably about local zoning ordinances. When I explained my involvement with the neighborhood board, she responded, "Wow, volunteering and being a parent must take a lot of time away from research. How do you do it?"
So there I was, caught in a job that made me miserable rather than excited, modeling for my toddler son a disheartening priority of rationalized duty over fulfillment, and apologizing to colleagues for the activities that energized me the most. I thought about spending the next 30 years or so of my professional life as an academic. I began imagining alternatives.
I started making lists of my transferable skills. I tested the freelance waters by sending out a few essays, some of which were accepted for publication. And, still convinced from years of academic grooming that one must be certifiably insane to leave a job like mine, I made an appointment with a therapist, courtesy of the generous benefits package provided by my university. She declared me of sound mind and recommended a career-planning seminar.
I have since arranged informational interviews with technical editors, writers, and college administrators, and I know that there are sufficient freelance opportunities in town to tide me and my family over until I figure out where to invest my energies next. I have built up a support network both within and outside the university, friends who know of my plans and who have only been encouraging.
I have persuaded Will and the rest of my family that leaving this job behind is the right thing to do. (My father, a professor emeritus, remains unconvinced.) Will and I went through the transformation from graduate students to faculty members together, and he has witnessed my successes and frustrations with academe. When I first broached the topic of changing careers, he urged me to hang in there, insisting, "It's what you're trained to do, and you're good at it." As I tried to forge ahead, he saw my dissatisfaction intensify. When I told him I wanted to resign, Will admitted that his discomfort had less to do with my career trajectory than with his own: If I wasn't going to make it to tenure, could he? He has since become my staunchest supporter and I, his.
Certainly, I have invested most of my mental energy this past year into convincing myself that moving on is the right thing to do. It is a terrifying leap into the abyss: At 36 years of age, I will finally be leaving school.
I take a deep breath and knock on the department chairman's door. Letting go will not be the end of my world, I remind myself, but the beginning.
