When you finally receive that long-awaited email announcing tenure, you expect it to change everything—less stress, more freedom, and the chance to finally pursue the big dreams you’ve been putting on hold. But what happens when the reality doesn’t live up to the hype? 

In this episode of the Mid-Career Series, I share my own post-tenure story. From the anticlimactic certification letter to the realization that tenure didn’t automatically bring clarity, impact, or balance. Instead, I found myself stuck at the top of the promotion ladder in the middle of a financial crisis, still overworked and unsure of what was next.

If you’ve ever thought tenure would be the turning point that finally allowed you to regain control of your academic career, this conversation may feel uncomfortably familiar. But it also opens the door to imagining something bigger for your career, on your own terms.

Listen now to hear my story about securing tenure and discover how you can start building the academic career you truly want now, without letting a prospective promotion hold you back. 

For full show notes visit scholarsvoice.org/podcast.

We're receiving applications for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and start your application process here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

1. Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Apply here!

2. Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing,and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!

3. If you would like to hear more from Cathy for free, please subscribe to the weekly newsletter, In the Pipeline, at scholarsvoice.org. It’s a newsletter that she personally writes that goes out once a week with writing and publication tips, strategies, inspiration, book reviews and more.

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