Yes, you read that right, after getting tenure Ann Daly realized that the Academy wasn’t offering her acceptable options for personal and professional growth. Now a career coach, she has written several books and articles, including a column in The Huffington Post and a much-shared piece on breaking through the glass ceiling. She lives in Austin but does much of her coaching by telephone, and has a great deal of experience coaching academics (you know, just in case anyone’s interested). Want to know more? Hop on over to her website to check out her bio, videos, blog, and e-letter!
Q: Was there a definitive moment that made you decide to leave academia? If not, what were the general reasons you left?
A: No, there was no lightning-bolt moment. I was dissatisfied and bored for a long, long time before I made my escape. My reasons were several. First, academia wasn’t a good fit for me. I’m a high-autonomy person, and UT-Austin had become increasingly bureaucratic and committee-obsessed over the years. Second, my foundational intellectual questions about women and culture were leading me outside into the “real world.” Third, I got bored in such a static environment. Seventeen years is a long time to be teaching the same thing in the same classroom and discussing the same problems in the same faculty meeting room. Fourth, I wanted to learn something new! The supreme irony is that my core desire, to constantly learn, was thwarted within the very institution that is supposed to advance learning.
Q: How did people (colleagues, family, etc.) respond to your decision?
A: It varied. My sister, for example, who had been downsized out of job several times in several years, thought I was crazy to give up lifetime tenure. Others counseled me to take a leave before making a definitive break. My then-recent husband wasn’t thrilled about me giving up my paycheck. But in the end they all realized how much happier I’d be elsewhere.
Q: I’ve gotten many comments from grad students and professors on the fence about their career. What advice would you give to anyone who plans on leaving?
A: It’s a big, beautiful, exciting world out there! I highly recommend it. Despite the bad rep that the business world has in academia, I have found more support and kindness there than I ever did within the university.
Q: How did you choose life/executive coaching as an alternate career?
A: Coaching kind of chose me. When I started to hear about this new phenomenon called coaching, I got what I now call “the flutters.” At some visceral level it called to me. I wanted to do that! Coaching is a continuation of my favorite part of teaching, which was advising. I loved coaching graduate students to find their own research agendas. Also, coaching is an extension of my research and commitment as a feminist. I use all that abstruse post-structuralist theory to help real women in their everyday lives. Today I found myself talking with one client about the fluidity of power. It’s a total rush. I have the best job in the world. Did I say ‘job’?
Q: Anything you’d like to say to the Academy at large? What can it do if it wants to retain creative, talented people like yourself?
A: Several of my clients are academics, and it becomes increasingly clear to me that the lack of a career path is a problem for academia. What happens if your curiosity exceeds your initial research area, as mine did? What happens if you want to stretch your capacities beyond teaching and publishing, but you don’t want to become an administrator, as I did? The old notion of the cloistered academic who’ll die with her nose in a book (or iPad, as the case may now be) is no longer sustainable. Academia needs to find structural ways to develop its professorial talent.
Ed. note: Amen to that! Let’s hope they figure something out soon, and in the meantime, thanks to Ann for sharing her vision of how theory can inform practice to help women advance in the real world.
I love the main point here: academia can be stultifying: yes, yes, and yes. And to the last point — that academia “needs to find structural ways to develop its professorial talent” — also a big yes, although that’s clearly the hardest part of the “fix.”
I’ve been thinking about that part lately. Thanks to outlets like Twitter and Facebook, I’ve met so many (mostly young) academics who are squirming against the constraints of the system. I suspect that will only become more problematic with time, as more and more people who’ve grown up with broad definitions of “learning” and “knowledge,” enter academia. Let us all hope that eventually the “squirming” erupts into outright rebellion and that the inmates take over the asylum.
Hmmm, in my case I think it was more like “kicking like a mule” than squirming
But I agree, there’s a a storm a-brewin’ and social media is letting people voice their criticisms and share their frustration more than ever before — younger profs just aren’t willing to put up with the monkish lifestyle anymore.
Well, if it could happen in Egypt…
“I wanted to learn something new! The supreme irony is that my core desire, to constantly learn, was thwarted within the very institution that is supposed to advance learning.”
Ironically (at least it seemed to me), the further I progressed up the academic ladder in my “field”, the less I was encouraged to learn about anything outside of it. Throughout my graduate career, I was overly encouraged to specialize; in contrast, my favorite undergrad professors (in a different field, mind you) encouraged me to branch out and learn about anything and everything that interested me.
As someone who continually jumps from subject to subject depending on my mood, the weather, and whatever I feel like learning that day, I found that being confined by my professors to the same section of the library day after day to be incredibly monotonous and a kill-joy to my love of learning.
Congrats, Ann, on finding a job/career that makes you so happy and that you’re so passionate about!
Thanks! You bring up a good point: “interdisciplinarity” was a hoax. We could never even figure out how to let two professors from different depts (let alone the same dept) team-teach a course and both get teaching credit.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ann Daly and Lee Skallerup, AK. AK said: The Professor Who Left After Tenure: Interview With @anndaly http://wp.me/pUuAw-O1 [...]
Ah, yet another kindred soul. Great thoughts Ann. I continue to enjoy the classroom almost all of the time, but I could see that wearing off. Getting bored in a static environment as you say. And that’s besides my resentment towards administration.
Actually, I did enjoy the classroom teaching part. I continue that high with professional speaking engagements. And I don’t have to grade anyone!
PS–Speaking of administration, it’s telling that the increase in higher ed costs in the past decade has been due to increase in admin costs, not faculty or facility costs.
The most stultifying part of academia is the writing. Who wants to produce the lame academic prose that is more or less required for publication in the journals one has to publish in? That’s enough in itself to inspire an exit.
I applaud Ms.Daly’s courage leaving the position after investing so much into it. I left academia “proper” before finishing a PhD mostly because I realized that I was just not good at playing that game. I definitely respond better to a more autonomous life, but the intensity of intellectual interaction and comraderie (at least amongst fellow suffering grad students!) has never quite been the same and I miss that at times. I also have found myself intensely bored at other jobs I’ve tried, and trying to make up for it with studying on my own time just hasn’t been enough. I guess I miss the stimulation of a ready community around me. So now I am “slumming it” at a community college. I’ve enjoyed it so far because for the most part, I’m not involved in the politics and can focus on just me and my students. As long as I continue to be stimulated by my work here, I’ll stay, and so far, I still have enough teaching high moments and outlets for creativity to keep me satisfied. It’s as close I’ve come to fitting anywhere.
Brava to you. I think community colleges are the hope of our country’s future. And I must say, I was deliriously happy in grad school. Being on faculty was a real bait-and-switch.
Have you ever considered a Meetup group or anything? My boredom has been curtailed by the few that I am a member of. Perhaps that will bring you the stimulation you need.
I’ve only recently become aware that these Meetup groups exist. After grad school, I moved around a lot before I ended up back in the NY area. I have been back for 7.5 years and I’m only now accepting the idea that I’m maybe staying this time! (It took me that long to be okay with the fact that I own anything, too
) I think the Meetup idea is a good one and might even be viable now that I’m (probably) not a vagabond anymore. Thanks for the suggestion!
Thanks for the great interview! And for adding that the business world beyond the academy isn’t a pit with spikes. There are jerks out there, sure, but you have more mobility, which means it is easier to escape the jerks than it ever is in academia, which can be a small world.
Academia is a small world after all, that’s for sure. And only getting smaller.
Huge high five to a woman with a lot of courage!
No courage required. I was DONE.
[...] And if our Tea Party overlords don’t believe me, there is always another way to go… [...]
Interesting blog post. Thank you!!
http://www.unileaks.org/
the wikileaks of academia – care to explore?
Ahh, posts like these remind me that I made the right decision. Even though job hunting is quite the scary thing to do right now, I’m liking oh so much better. Thanks!
Break a leg! I’m sure you’ll find the right position.
Thank you for posting this. I’m doing a master thesis in astronomy and I found out I’ve pretty much never been happy since I started it. There is only one chapter left to do but I have difficulty finding motivation to finish it.
I’m thinking of quiting everyday. Maybe start my own business or something.
The most difficult part is the feeling that you might have done all those studies for nothing.
It’s fun to know I’m not the only one
I’d say that education is never for nothing. It just requires us to think more broadly about how that learning is deployed and applied. If you can just hunker down and finish your thesis, you’ll be free to start the next thing. Why not start a business? I read the business literature constantly. Business fascinates me as a quite intellectual game. I admire entrepreneurs for seeing things other don’t, putting together unlikely things, and being sharp strategists.
Ironically, AD could find herself a full-time job back in academia–if she wanted it–coaching all those soon-to-be-unemployed PhDs into finding uses for their seemingly useless degrees! I’m yet to burn mine, but . . .
Don’t burn it! I’ll say one thing, people are impressed with that “PhD” after my name, even if it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. You’ve trained your mind and showed super-human persistence. Those are highly desirable traits in today’s workplace. Believe it or not, some employers really do want the hire the smartest chick in the room.
[...] on learning something that’s hard for you, you can model that for the students. Or that if you, like Ann Daly, are intellectually curious (which teachers are supposed to be, right?), you can model the ability to find and research new [...]
[...] keep an eye out for the link to the interview with Ann Daly. It’s also controversial (and, in my view, a bit counterproductive), but Daly, too, offers [...]