Author: Carlita Favero, PhD
When I think back to 2009 or so when I was starting my first professional pivot, I was at a point in my career where I was transitioning into the next expected phase, a faculty position, but I was seeking employment at an institution very different from the ones I had trained in. Thus, I needed to reinvent myself career-wise. Since then, I’ve pivoted several other times—to different scholarship lines and administrative positions. In 2024, we’re all facing a profoundly different world after a global pandemic which has many of us longing for something new or different, but lacking clarity on how to begin. If you’re like me, this is compounded by feelings of burnout that make you feel like your shoes are weighed down in quicksand and any step forward would require immense effort and energy expenditure.
In academia, particularly, many of us are on finite paths with low ceilings and minimal opportunities for professional or financial growth. Kevin R. McClure wrote an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, titled “Higher Ed is a land of dead-end jobs”, where he talks explicitly about these limitations and how they lead to high turnover rate or deadbeat employees. For midcareer faculty this is particularly salient—there’s an understood folklore that once you’ve attained tenure or been promoted to full it’s nearly impossible to leave the institution and often internal candidates are overlooked for upper-level positions in administration or otherwise. The pandemic has further exacerbated this feeling of stuckness. The Chronicle did a study investigating faculty intent to leave academia or retire early and found that over 50% had considered it, particularly those who are women or people of color. Because of their intersectional identities, black women are the target of a unique form of discrimination in higher ed called academic misogynoir. “Black women do not walk through the halls of the ivory towers able to be women or Black – they walk in as survivors of the intersectional consequences of anti-blackness, white supremacy, and patriarchy” (Ain’t I a Scholar?).
Regardless of the reason for your professional pivot, you may find yourself in a space where you need to make substantial change in your occupational trajectory but without a roadmap for how to go about this. In this interactive webinar, I hope to inspire you, instill confidence as you chart your unique path, and leave you with tools that can help you get clear on what direction to go, how to move forward, and who to get help from along the way. We’ll break the process down to three essential steps:
Plan
In the first part of the webinar, I will explain the questions that underlie any professional pivot (why-where-who-what-how). We will engage in reflective writing exercises to answer these questions for ourselves in this moment as far as we understand it. We will then discuss and determine the unique planning exercises you need to engage in for your particular pivot. Again, we will use reflective writing practices to clarify our goals and internal challenges.
Professional
In the second part of the webinar, we will start thinking about the network and resources we need to cultivate to make our pivot successful. I will walk us through all the categories of needs we should consider as we’re making a substantial change in our occupational trajectory. We will talk about how these needs change over time and the importance of accountability as you’re progressing through a pivot.
Pivot
To close the webinar, we will discuss what to do when you stumble along the way. As you’re moving into something new, mistakes and conflict will ultimately happen. We will talk about how to be aware of perfectionistic tendencies or impossibly high standards, how to break non-productive cycles, and how to see setbacks as learning opportunities.
References
- McClure K.R. (2022, December 2) Higher Ed is a land of dead-end jobs. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/higher-ed-is-a-land-of-dead-end-jobs?sra=true
- Nietzel M.T. (2021, February 26) Pandemic Toll: More than half of college faculty have considered a career change or early retirement. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/02/26/pandemic-toll-more-than-half-of-college-faculty-have-considered-a-career-change-or-early-retirement/?sh=eab3afe12da6
- Asare J.G. (2024, January 16) Academia is failing black women: examining misogynoir within the academy. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2024/01/16/academia-is-failing-black-women-a-brief-examination-of-misogynoir-within-the-academy/?sh=3fbaa9443adc
- Cromartie S. and Hinnant-Crawford B.N. (2021, March 1) Ain’t I a scholar? Black women & misogynoir in the academy. Emerald Publishing. https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/opinion-and-blog/aint-i-a-scholar-black-women-misogynoir-academy