Dear Reader,
tl;dr: Check out IMPACT 2026 (5 Mar, $49). More below.
One of my clients is a long-time tenured professor sorting out her next steps.
Recently, she’s been documenting her experiences.
She’s reflecting on what she’s done, and in particular on what it’s all meant for the people, processes, and products—to put it in more non-academic terms—around her.
Recognizing patterns in her career where she felt energized. Where she made a difference.
Now, this isn’t a rearranging of her academic CV, where the included activities and outputs are prized by academic culture and institutional committees.
Instead, she’s building up a different picture of her professional past, noting results and impacts of her work more broadly.
There are achievements to document.
Choices to honour.
Patterns to recognize.
She’s having fun with it. Really. (She’s told me this twice, on two different days.)
Witnessing her do this reminds me how rarely we pause to take stock in this way.
You know how we can be good about announcing new starts? A move to a different city, a new job, a promotion with a title upgrade.
You update your LinkedIn profile. Post the announcement to your feed. Revisit your About section.
There’s no shortage of commentary about leaving academia.
There’s #quitlit.
There are essays about burnout, mismanagement, toxic departments.
There are long threads dissecting everything that’s broken.
And much of that is warranted.
What’s often missing is something private and more powerful:
A deliberate inventory of what you’re carrying forward.
Not just what you’re escaping.
Not just what you’re done tolerating.
But:
- The strengths you sharpened
- The leadership you practiced
- The impact you had
- The patterns that energized you
Because leaving well isn’t only about closing a door.
It’s about choosing what travels with you.
This is the work I’ll be guiding folks through during IMPACT 2026.
On Thursday, March 5th, I’m participating in a four-hour virtual event focused entirely on transitions—specifically, how to leave well.
In my session, “Leave Toward Something,” I’ll guide participants through beginning what I’m calling a Leaving Inventory.
It’s a structured way to:
- Identify contributions that don’t appear on a CV
- Articulate the impact of your work in concrete terms
- Clarify what you want to carry forward into your next chapter
You’ll leave with a working draft. Something tangible.
Not just feelings. Not just “I think I did okay.”
Evidence.
If you’re in a transition—or even quietly contemplating one—this is work worth doing.
📅 Thursday, 5 March
⏰ 11:30–3:30 PM CST (12:30–4:30pm EST)
💻 Live + 6 months of recordings
🎟 US$49
You can register here: IMPACT 2026
You don’t have to rush into what’s next.
But you do want to be deliberate about what you’re bringing forward.
Cheers,
Jen
P.S. Most of us walk away without documenting what we actually built. My workshop will help you capture your impact. Join me at IMPACT 2026 on 5 March.
Jennifer Polk, PhD
Free Webinar Job search advice for professors, postdocs, and other PhDs ready to leave academia
