Episode #162

“$4,500 Is Too Much to Spend on Professional Development”

“4,500 is too much to spend on professional development.” This is the sentiment we sometimes hear from our community members.

MORE DETAILS

In this episode, I share with you a mindset shift that can help you see an investment in your professional development in a new light. If you want to do academia differently, if you want to disrupt the status quo, then receiving support and coaching is necessary. The pressure from institutions to do more and work harder is not sustainable for ongoing career growth, so how do you grow and develop as a scholar while maintaining your sanity and health? By investing in your professional development. Think of this investment not in relation to your salary, but in relation to your university’s budget. Compared to those budgets, $4,500 is a small investment that will drastically increase your total value and impact on the world.

Overcoming Obstacles for Success

The traditional professional development academic institutions provide to professors are one-off programs that preach success in academia that is based on doing more and more work. Institutions are not motivated to embrace workshops that support you as an individual. Despite this traditional messaging ingrained in academia, success in academia is not predicated on being busy. This mindset leads to burnout, unattained goals, and stifled career growth.

Why Professional Development is a Must-Have in Academia

If you want to do academia differently, you need coaching that addresses personal and professional development. Outstanding academics need outstanding support to overcome obstacles, create everlasting change, and build sustainable careers. Experiencing your journey in academia alone is not sustainable. Instead, when you lean on a curated community of support and leverage investment in yourself, you can publish more articles, complete more research, and build a career that aligns with your goals.

$4,500 vs. the Value of Your Career

Your value as a professor exceeds your monthly salary. You impart immeasurable value to students, mentors, departments, and universities. An investment in professional development isn’t comparable to a monthly paycheck or a mortgage payment. When you compare the entire value of your career to $4,500, the professional development program is a drop in the bucket. The lasting knowledge, community support, and growth opportunities carry through your tenure.

“If you want to do academia differently–which is what we’re all about here– a new and different way to do academia: one that doesn’t burn you out, one that gets your voice heard in the world, one that creates a sustainable career, not a career built on overwork and exhaustion. If you want to do academia differently, then professional development is not a ‘nice to have’. It’s not an extra. It’s a must have as you’re trying to create a meaningful sustainable career”.

“I want you to think about that $4500 in relation to your entire salary, and more because the value you bring to the world and to many people around you is so much more than even the sum of all of your paychecks. The value of your career includes all the value that you bring to students by delivering amazing courses, teaching and learning moments, and research opportunities for them”.

We’ve opened the waitlist for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and sign up on the waitlist to be notified when applications open here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors with a disruptive perspective on their field to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Get on the waitlist here!
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!
Want to train with us for free on your campus? Now you can when you recommend our Scholar’s Voice Faculty Retreats to a decision-maker on your campus! Download the brochure with the retreat curriculum and both in-person and online retreat options here.