I’ve been remiss lately, not composing anything of my own for the blog… but I’m getting back on track and will let you know what I’ve been up to soon. The short version is: vacation! And continued coaching, learning, and fun.
In the meantime, I’m excited to share with you this wonderful Q & A contribution from Peter Larson, a former tenured professor who’s now a full-time blogger and running coach. Cool! Here’s a snippet:
What was the hardest part about giving up tenure?
The hardest part for me was that I didn’t hate my academic job, but there were parts of it that I didn’t enjoy. If I’d been miserable, the decision would have been a lot easier!
I love teaching. Working with students in the classroom and lab is what kept me going each day. While I published enough for tenure and promotion, I didn’t particularly enjoy writing scholarly journal articles — popular writing is more my style. I hated committee work. I despised being a department chair even though I had an exceptionally good department filled with colleagues who got along really well with one another. Dealing with academic and administrative politics drove me crazy. I think the latter combined with enduring several arduous years of curriculum change planning as a faculty senator did me in. I just wanted to teach my classes, but even there I saw it likely that I’d be teaching the same class every fall for the next 25 years if I stayed. I needed a change.
For the rest, head over to my University Affairs blog.