[Mid-Career Series] 5 Myths About Your Post Tenure Career (Re-Release EP 49)

This episode is part of our Mid-Career Series, where I discuss what life really looks like post-tenure. 

Too often, scholars expect tenure to mean lighter workloads, more freedom, and clearer direction. In reality, many find themselves juggling even more demands with fewer guideposts for what comes next. 

I unpack five common myths about the post-tenure career stage and reveal what’s really waiting on the other side of promotion. You’ll hear why tenure can feel both more demanding and more liberating, and how to approach this stage of your career with clarity and purpose.

If you’re post-tenure or preparing for it, don’t miss this myth-busting conversation. Listen now for a fresh perspective on shaping your next chapter in academia.

The Five Myths of Post-Tenure Life

Tenure doesn’t magically deliver freedom, balance, or clarity. In fact, many of the challenges you faced pre-tenure show up in new ways afterward. I challenge five common assumptions that so many scholars carry into this stage of their careers, including:

• The belief that your workload decreases after tenure.
• The expectation that you’ll finally focus only on your own work.
• The assumption that your pay will suddenly reflect your effort.
• The idea that what got you tenure will carry you to full professor.
• The hope that your next steps will be obvious.

I debunk each myth with stories, examples, and insights from years of working with post-tenure faculty, giving you a clear-eyed look at why tenure isn’t the endgame, and how to approach it as a launchpad instead.

Finding Support and Creating Your Own Next Steps

Post-tenure life can feel ambiguous, but that uncertainty is also an opportunity. If you’re ready to move past frustration and design a career that actually serves you, structured support makes all the difference. 

Tenure isn’t the end; it’s the beginning of a new chapter. With the right tools and support, you can turn your academic career into what you really want it to be.

“If you haven’t been flexing your ‘say-no’ muscle pre-tenure you are going to have to radically change and develop that muscle post-tenure. If you haven’t practiced saying no, your workload will continue to suffer from what I like to call creep activities, things that somehow seem to keep getting added to your plate without you noticing. Then, before long, your plate is completely over full. Saying no pre-tenure is a good way to practice saying no post-tenure because your workload definitely does not decrease when you get tenure. That is absolutely a myth.”

“Whether you’d hope someday to be post-tenure or not, every stage along the academic path needs to see you get better at your systems and processes. Maybe getting better isn’t the way to talk about it. It is actually changing your systems and processes and practices.”

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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