How Do Mid-Career Faculty Wait Our Turn?

Large brown dog lying on sidewalk.

I help mid-career researchers develop sustainable, impactful research programs designed for the next phase of their careers. Click here to find out more.

Waiting for institutional permission or a formal title to lead is a recipe for stagnation. Mid-career faculty must shift from passive waiting to active positioning and build their own parallel circles of influence.

Being mid-career has given me a new appreciation for the struggles of middle children. As post-tenure/promotion faculty, you can’t play the “newbie” card anymore. The shine and excitement of the new assistant professor have worn off. Your department “knows” you and your ideas now, and you have enough institutional knowledge to get roped into lots of service. You have become like the furniture, barely noticed, but useful.

At the same time, you aren’t senior enough. Your ideas for change aren’t as ill-informed as they once were, but they still require significant buy-in and support from your senior colleagues. This is the trouble with bureaucracies: they are designed to maintain homeostasis, even when it might be harmful in the long term.

The Waiting Room Dilemma:

So, we wait. We wait for someone to listen to our ideas for improvement, while watching seemingly foolish decisions be made. At the same time, we are tasked with more responsibilities because we can lessen the burden from both our junior and senior colleagues.

I am not naive to the reality that this system has been in place for longer than I have been alive, but it is no less annoying when you are stuck in the middle of it. 

Some people leave the academy citing administrative burden and service responsibilities; others search for greener academic pastures at new institutions; while others “quiet quit.” These are certainly real and possible decisions, but I increasingly feel like they are just kicking the can down the road.

Relinquishing the Hope of Institutional Fairness:

What do I mean when I say we’re kicking the can? Well, these various forms of leaving force no changes and reinforce the idea that the problems lie with individuals rather than the larger system. If we have any hope of beginning to change the larger systemic issues in higher ed, we need to understand it as a self-reinforcing system. As such, the first thing you need to do is let go of the idea that this system is fair to individuals. The system is fair to the system, not to anyone else. Now, I am not saying we shouldn’t strive for fairness for people, far from it. But the reality is that right now it is not strictly fair.

So let it go.

Furthermore, we need to remind ourselves that nothing that most faculty are dealing with is that urgent. Most public institutions in the US were established somewhere between 130 and 180 years ago. This means they existed long before we arrived and will likely continue to exist long after we leave or retire. But as we’ve talked about before, our careers can be long as well, so there is time. 

This means we get comfortable playing a longer game. Eventually, the senior faculty will retire and be replaced, leadership will transition, and your opportunity to be heard will come. The question then becomes: what do you do while you wait?

Building Autonomous Authority:

You continue your work, but you do it smarter.

Being smarter about your work means, first and foremost, getting CLEAR on the relationship between what counts to your department, school/college, and institution, and the work you’re doing. It means getting good at advocating for the value and contribution of your work using institutional language. It means getting comfortable doing the work because it is important to you.

Getting clarity means you can:

1. Be proactive about service requests – Service is non-negotiable, but you can choose your service. Don’t wait to be assigned something that doesn’t align with your work.

2. Continue to build your research program – Get ruthless about the future of your research. What has real potential? What excites you when you get to read about it? Choose 1 or 2 ideas and move those forward. Let go of everything else.

3. Document, document, document – Bureaucracies love data and evidence. Track everything and squirrel it away for future reference. I still struggle with this one, but I can point to numerous examples of when I pulled out a document that either made my case or saved my butt.

I know you were hoping for a hack to make this part of your career smoother. There isn’t one. It will take time, effort, and patience. But turning your back on this part changes nothing. We’ve got this! If you're looking for a pep talk or some help getting clear, click the link below.

(Words: 767)

Not sure what you need? Complete this 3-minute survey to see if I can help.