Earlier this spring, I gave my department chairman a letter of resignation that took him and the rest of my colleagues by surprise. In the weeks since, the fallout has taken me by surprise.
Most importantly, I have been pleased to find that I do not regret my plan to leave academe at the end of the spring semester for an uncertain future in the nonacademic world. One of the greatest obstacles I faced in deciding to give up a plum tenure-track job at Nearly Ivy University was my fear that as soon as the letter was delivered, a flash of light would illuminate the room, sudden clarity would prevail, and I would realize the error of cutting the cord. This did not happen. The more that time passes, the more certain I am that I could not have continued to pursue a faculty career.
During the weeks leading up to my decision, I worried that colleagues would respond to it with anger, since I make up 50 percent of the faculty in my specialty and the department had lobbied for years to obtain the position. In the short term, my resignation means the department must find someone to cover my three courses next fall; in the long term, it means hoping that the dean will maintain the tenure line and grant permission to conduct another search in this era of reduced hiring.
Although these administrative details have caused my chairman some consternation, anger has not been among the responses to my announcement.
The most pervasive response, coming almost exclusively from male faculty members, is the assumption that my resignation is due to "the tug of family." My husband, Will, and I became parents three years ago, the summer after our first year at Nearly Ivy. At the time, I was one of only three female faculty members on the tenure track in my department, out of a total faculty of 12. My two female colleagues, also at the junior level, had no children. Most of my male colleagues were fathers to children approaching their teens.
It is true that becoming a parent helped nudge me, finally, to consider alternative careers. My responsibility to be a good role model for my son has made me more keenly aware that I also have a responsibility to honor my own aspirations.
One senior colleague, a parent himself, long tenured and with several distinguished publications to his name, asked me if I really thought I would be happy staying home all day with my son. I had never suggested this was what I intended to do (indeed, it is not), and I was startled by the assumption that the only pursuits that could possibly be of interest to me were either doing what he did (being a career academic) or realizing that old model of feminine fulfillment (being a stay-at-home mom). I pointed out that his own spouse was neither an academic nor a housewife but a highly successful professional.
A second colleague asked me out of the blue if leaving Nearly Ivy meant I was getting divorced. When I asked him to clarify his comment, he explained that leaving a job as desirable as mine was unheard of and surely indicated turmoil in all of my relationships. In other words, he implied, as long as I was throwing my life away, why not go whole hog? I assured him that leaving a job and leaving a husband are not mutually dependent acts.
Divorce proved an apt metaphor for the suspicion of another colleague, who was convinced I was leaving Nearly Ivy for a different, presumably wealthier, and more attractive university.
"Who's the Other?" he asked.
"There is no one else," I told him. "The Ivory Tower and I simply have irreconcilable differences."
I had expected my colleagues to find something wrong with me, but instead many have asked what I find wrong with the department, and others have asked what I find wrong with them. While my academic family certainly has its share of dysfunctional relationships (whose doesn't?), I have been careful to emphasize its positive attributes in discussions with my peers. I wish no one ill.
Some colleagues have avoided speculation and have been more genuinely interested in hearing my reasons for resigning. When I explain my objections to the monastic lifestyle that academe demands, they have responded with sympathy (and sometimes, I think, with a touch of envy). I have received a handful of spontaneous and sincere hugs recently, and feel both valued as a colleague and supported in my decision to leave. I have had frank discussions about institutional inner-workings that would have been unimaginable had I been committed to attaining tenure here. I consider it unfortunate that such dialogue is suppressed under more routine circumstances.
Rumors that oversimplify my reasons for resigning circulate back to me on a regular basis from professors, staff members, and graduate students. I've been told that I'm leaving because, alternately, I don't want to write a book, the faculty don't socialize enough together, I want to stay at home with my child, and my department alienates women.
The first two rumors have some truth to them: I don't want to dedicate the next three years to writing a highly specialized book for a niche academic audience, and our faculty could in fact benefit from more frequent social interaction.
The third rumor is more troubling, because it suggests that women make unreliable colleagues and that motherhood is incompatible with academe. I can't imagine anyone jumping to the conclusion, were Will to resign, that his fatherly instincts were pulling him away from academe toward hearth and home. Instead, there would be speculation that he were going into industry, starting a business, or perhaps pursuing his lifelong dream of sailing around the world. It stuns me that it is so difficult for some academics to comprehend that mothers (and there are many of us among Nearly Ivy's faculty) think about more than motherhood.
The third rumor surely feeds the fourth -- that my department is unfriendly to women. Female graduate students, feeling a lack of tenured women as role models, seem to be the most convinced that a misogynist work environment is pushing me out of academe. Although this was not the primary impetus in my situation, I understand their uneasiness and can only hope, as my colleagues become increasingly aware of this concern, that it will be treated as more than a temporary glitch in faculty-student relations.
I expected our students to view my departure with curiosity, discomfort, and perhaps nervous speculation -- as an anomaly in the academic narrative on which they themselves have recently embarked. Yet one student's response has been particularly enlightening.
The same day that I announced my resignation to my faculty colleagues, I also told my teaching assistants individually; I wanted them to hear the news from me rather than from the gossip mill.
"Wow, good for you," said one, privately confessing, "I guess I can tell you, I've decided not to apply for academic jobs after I finish my Ph.D."
The declaration took me by surprise. After taking a moment to recover, I realized that I had presumed of our students what my colleagues had presumed of me -- that all who get this far are wholly invested in the traditional academic career path. We discussed the pros and cons of a life in academe, and as our conversation ended, my teaching assistant requested, "Please don't tell anyone else about this."
Regrettably, this is another instance where much-needed dialogue will have to wait.
