Dear Reader,
The Faculty Uplift summit starts tomorrow—have you registered yet?
It’s a free online event for academics, with short pre-recorded sessions you can watch on your own schedule.
The summit runs July 13 to 16, and my session goes live on Thursday, July 16. (Yay!)
My talk asks a question that sounds simple, but can be surprisingly clarifying:
What would it mean if postdocs and professors treated academia like a job?
Not a stand-in for your identity.
Not the only way to lead an intellectual life.
Not proof that you were smart, serious, rigorous, worthy, or successful.
Just a job.
Maybe a good job.
Maybe even a great job.
But a job nonetheless.
Because here’s the thing:
You can know the academic job market is brutal and still feel like academia is the only place you’ll find meaningful work.
You can know tenure is less secure than it used to be and still feel like leaving would be wildly irresponsible.
You can know you’re overworked and underpaid and still worry that any other job would be worse.
And you can know the “dream job” isn’t what it used to be and still make decisions as though academic success is the only kind that really counts.
That’s the stuff I’m talking about in my Faculty Uplift session.
Because, wherever you take your career, you deserve to make career decisions based on your actual values, needs, priorities, strengths, and life circumstances now.
Not based on whatever academic culture trained you to want ten or twenty years ago.
If you haven’t yet, go ahead and register for the Faculty Uplift summit before it launches tomorrow.
It’s free, and each day’s sessions are available for 48 hours.
There’s also a US$79 VIP Pass if you want longer access to the recordings, transcripts, and three live sessions on Friday, July 17. Totally optional.
Cheers,
Jen
Jennifer Polk, PhD
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