Hi Professors,
For those of you who have been listening to the Rise with Clarity Podcast from the very beginning, I wanted to thank you sincerely for all of your support and for subscribing! Creating and developing a podcast has been an unexpected and a really fun learning experience for me.
For those of you who are new to listening to the podcast, I wanted to warmly welcome you! Thanks so much for tuning in. And I hope you continue to tune in. For this sixteenth episode, I’ll be presenting an encore broadcast—the very first episode that I released called: Learning the Lessons of Tenure as a Woman of Color Faculty.
This is the most downloaded episode of the Rise with Clarity podcast. I present a little bit of information about myself, and I also explain why I decided to walk away from my tenured faculty position last August.
A few weeks after my resignation, I launched Rise with Clarity–a coaching and consulting business for women of color faculty in higher education. I help WOC faculty to advance their careers with clarity and with confidence. I also started to release podcast episodes on topics like: How to Manage Your First Semester as a Woman of Color Faculty and Crafting Your Tenure Self-Statement in a Meaningful Way. You can find all of my episodes and their full transcripts at RisewithClarity.com/podcast.
So, it’s now been seven months since I started my business. Sometimes I get questions from people asking if I regret having left my tenured faculty position. The answer is: While I do miss certain aspects of academia like teaching and mentoring my students and conducting my own research on a regular basis, I really have no regrets whatsoever.
Leaving a toxic and dysfunctional work environment was the right decision for me, and I feel confident in knowing that my career pivot to coaching was grounded in my core values of autonomy, freedom, creativity, integrity, and service that I can define on my own terms. And knowing that I’m helping women of color faculty who are often not supported in their own departments or institutions is incredibly meaningful work for me.
I also learn so much from my clients, since they are all brilliant scholars and thinkers! It’s been a real privilege and a gift to partner with my clients on their own journeys in academia and beyond.
So, if you’re new to listening, and if you are interested in better navigating the tenure track or designing a sustainable path forward in higher ed or beyond, and you need a thinking partner feel free to check out my website at Rise with Clarity. And you can reach out to me through the website and I would love to hear from you!
So now, getting back to what I promised: here is the very first podcast episode that kicked it all off.
Learning the Lessons of Tenure as a Woman of Color Faculty in Higher Ed
In this very first episode of the podcast, I’m going to tell you a little bit about my personal journey and share with you why I decided to launch Rise with Clarity to help women of color faculty like you.
My Academic Career in Music
To begin, I am the daughter of immigrants from South Korea who settled in the state of Michigan. I have been in music my entire academic career. First as a Piano Performance and Musicology double major at the University of Michigan, and then as a graduate student in Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington and at Harvard University.
In between the University of Washington and Harvard, I actually lived in South Korea for close to 5 years, where I studied the language, traveled extensively, and worked for an artist management company. I was very fortunate in that I started my first academic position at an R1 university in the state of California immediately upon graduating with my Ph.D. in 2012.
I worked as an Assistant Professor for 5 years, and then started at another R1 university in 2017. I published a book, called Dynamic Korea and Rhythmic Form, which won a prize from the ASCAP Foundation. I went up for promotion to Associate Professor in my second year and earned tenure in 2019.
To outsiders, it probably appeared that I had all of the signs for a lifelong career in academia. I was a tenured faculty member in the flagship department of my discipline of Ethnomusicology. And I was at an institution where there is a robust Center for Korean Studies.
But the truth was, I was deeply unhappy. And at the end of December 2021 during a holiday break in Michigan, I developed excruciating stomach pains and was hospitalized for four days. I had never been so sick before. Although the diagnosis was for acute enteritis, I somehow knew that long-term stress was connected to this. The health scare made me realize that my tenured position was coming at the cost of my physical and mental health.
Letting Go of my Tenured Position and the Toxic Baggage that Came with It
Earlier this month, I decided to walk away from my tenured faculty position. Why? Because I was in an environment where I believe I could not thrive as a scholar or as a human. I decided that I needed to walk away from a toxic and dysfunctional work environment that did not serve me in the way that I had served it.
I felt like I had done all of the hard work to achieve success by:
- Landing two tenure track positions
- Publishing articles and an award-winning book
- Winning fellowships
- Designing new courses and receiving good teaching evaluations
- Hosting a lecture series at my first job
- Mentoring undergraduate and graduate students
- Serving on numerous qualifying exams and dissertation committees
- Performing a lot of service
But after earning tenure at my second job and finally having the ability to vote on personnel matters, I was asked to change my vote by three faculty members on a very contentious search for a faculty position. I did not comply and I voted my conscience.
Initially, the repercussions for not changing my vote were subtle. And keep in mind that retaliation comes in many different forms. By last year, however, it became clear to me that I was not useful if I didn’t align with a certain agenda in my department. And it also became clear to me that my privileges of tenure were constrained for me. After all of my hard work, was tenure in this department really worth it for me?
Helping WOC Faculty Members Manage the Tenure Track and Navigate Politics
Once I explored viable career options and I made the decision to leave my job, I gained clarity in knowing that my path forward would involve helping women of color faculty like you.
I know that so many of us feel alone in our departments and that we face different hurdles on the tenure track. It’s hard to talk about racialized aggressions and microaggressions that you are experiencing from your colleagues or in the classroom. And It’s difficult to find allies in this environment, especially when promotions are on the line. How can you navigate these situations, rise above the fray, and maintain focus on your milestones for academic success?
I recently became a certified higher ed coach & career strategist and launched Rise with Clarity, after resigning from my tenured faculty position.
In my 4-step program, I help women faculty like you reclaim time and set priorities, navigate politics and racialized aggressions, speak up and gain recognition, and design a sustainable plan forward. Listen for the next episode, where I will give you some tips on how to address feeling behind in your work and how to carve out more quality time for your writing.
