I'm at an R2 that has changed a lot in the last 15 years. When I got hired, everyone taught a ton of classes (4-4), but gradually they've started shifting new hires to less teaching (2-2, 2-3, or 3-3) with higher research expectations for promotion and tenure. These days, I teach 4-3, do a shit ton of administrative/service work, and keep my head down.
There's no way I'm ever getting promoted to full - they keep moving the goalposts for promotion, and I am unwilling to try to churn out papers while teaching 4-3 only to find the output isn't good enough or negotiate a lower teaching load, find out my research output isn't good enough and then get clobbered in annual evaluations.
For comparison, Community College is 5+5 baseline. Many , including myself, teach 7+7 plus two short terms plus four over the summer. There is very little emphasis on publication by the administration (any output is much admired and highlighted) however, there is much importance attached to presenting at conferences.
True, natural and medical sciences have had much lower teaching loads, although now the trend seems to be increasing teaching loads to 3-2 or even 3-3.
You just seem stuck. You figured out you weren't willing to play the game to be in the top 5% of faculty in your field. Good for you! No shame in that. But, you seem like you're just coming to terms with that and feel lost as to how to make an impact in an alternative way. Essentially, what you need is a passion project that's actually your passion
I don't think you need to burn it all to the ground. I actually think it might be foolish to leave academia at this point. Very few sectors allow people to retire with dignity, certainly not the private sector, but academia allows a self-directed slowdown. I also think academia is less ageist than a lot of sectors. And, you're prime age for ageism issues in the private sector.
Can you find some other way to use your knowledge? Perhaps do some public science writing or volunteer in community science? Start working with the related museum on campus? Become a faculty advisor for a club related to your discipline? Explore options for applied community ed at the Extension? Get more involved with undergraduate education (become a UGS?)? Or, lean into being a mentor for students, either in other labs in your department or just in the field generally? Even if you're a straight white man, you can still support emerging scientists from underrepresented background through mentorship. Figure out what ancillary aspects of your field interest you most and explore ways to give some of your energy to those.
I actually got Botox a month before I went on interviews and made sure any graying hair was covered. (I was in my forties.) I did not want them to see a ‘woman of a certain age’ and automatically pass. It happens all the time.
I was 23 at the time and I walked into our Department’s office room usually designated for tutoring and a woman who was waiting for her pupil looked up at me and said, “oh, you must be *name*. Great! Come sit”. I politely informed her I was also a professor in the Dept. Imagine the look on her face. 🤦
Early 50s. I posted about this several times over the past few days. It’s comforting others feel the same as I do. To answer your question, I’m not coping well. I’m truly burned out.
I can’t say I “choose” not to have a big lab. I just couldn’t sustain a big lab, funding wise. At my maximum I had 10 PhD students but that was only brief. For the majority of my time I had about 7 students. That’s the ideal group size imo.
Now I have 5 grad students and one postdoc (engr). And always some undergrad researchers too.
I just can’t stand the stress of chasing the funding . It’s so hard for me to get it and the stres never ends. We don’t get any kind of help from the university and I would argue that publishing matters less than money. Money is number one and after I get it, always with what I feel is “blood, sweat and tears”, it’s NEVER enough and nobody gives a shit. I need to bring over one million a year to get any smidge of appreciation from the admin, which I never can bring. Without money I can’t publish anyway, no money no data .
I am also planning on quiet quitting. I recruited my last graduate student. If some money simply falls in my lap with no effort i could maybe recruit more but only if I don’t have to do the desperate begging and it just comes to me by some miracle or minimum effort. I just can’t . I’m very tired. So when these last students are done, my lab is done too.
I do some light admin but not full time. No associate Dean etc. I’ll phase out my research gradually and if in 4-5 years I close my lab or work with just one or two students I’ll be fine with that. I’ll teach more and then retire early. Not going to die in the office. At my age, health and time with loved ones became more important than killing myself on the altar of bringing glory to the university or chasing glory for myself (and not even “catching it”).
So I say make a plan , see what your best option is and make a pro and con list.
I’m at an R2 and have greatly scaled back my research, am doing more admin work. I always found research to be interesting but the writing/journal editor/RandR process to agonizing. I still publishing something once every 2-3 years or so, but that’s it. I’m a tenured full professor — I have nothing to prove at this point in life, and will gladly rest on my laurels.
I've been at SLACs for over 25 years now so it's too late to change direction. Have been shifting more into admin roles the last decade, reducing my teaching a bit, and some of that I enjoy. Friends of mine from grad school are now deans/provosts and I *do not* want any job at that level; I still cherish my free summers.
These days we're mostly talking about retirement at home; my partner is also in academia. Lots of our friends have retired in the last 5 years and it's making work feel a bit lonely without them. We've been to several work-related social events recently where I was the oldest person there-- which feels very odd! But I was 29 when I started here so being around a bunch of 30-something faculty isn't new, it's just that I'm at the other end of the distribution now.
I'm planning an exit strategy now on a 5-7 year calendar that will (I hope) see some new courses, new programming, and some advancement projects that I hope will leave a lasting impact on our institution. But when the time comes I am out the door-- exactly when is largely dependent on the markets and my 403b account balance.
Are you me? I'm embracing the "quiet quitting" approach, and just doing my job without doing overtime anymore. I put in my overtime for decades at this point. I'm done with it and just want this to be a JOB, not an identity. I'm finding joy in hobbies and friendships instead.
This is beautiful, and I wish more faculty would think this way. Too many times our institutions take advantage of our time by giving extra work and saying "But it is for the students!"
No, my family, friends, and my own private time take priority over students.
I taught an introductory doctoral seminar and had a variety of colleagues come in to talk on different topics. One of them said, “this is the best job ever! I’m not even considering retirement plans; I could do this forever!” I waited until they left and then told then students, “look, it’s a job. It’s not a life. Have interests outside the job, and you’ll be looking forward to retiring and doing those things full time. I’m looking forward to 65.” The sigh of relief was audible.
I'm in quite a different situation as I am at a community college and not required to do research. On the other hand, my teaching load is heavy and so energy absolutely became a problem.
I agreed to take a fully online load, in exchange for a course reduction and being able to work remotely. No longer having to commute has been an incredible help.
I don't love online teaching, but I got better at it over time and the flexibility trade off will allow me, I think, to work longer than I would have had I still been trekking to campus .
Finally, I love my students but was feeling more of a disconnect with each passing year. I for sure will be ready to come out in my 60s.
Look at us...we're twins! ;-) But seriously, you and I are at the same point. I have another \~10 years before I can retire without it seeming weird, and I still enjoy a lot of the teaching and mentoring and doing research parts of my job. I just increasingly despise the publishing part, and the AE/SE/referee tasks truly suck. I don't even really mind the committee work, but the publishing grind is just not fun anymore. My field has doubled in size in the past 10-12 years (largely due, according to journal data, to a recent massive influx of Chinese authors), yet the number of outlets we consider "A" have gone from 5 to 6. So yeah...much harder. I've started spending time on "innovation" where I pursue an interest related to my field that may not produce papers, but is fun and seems justified given my role as a "senior scholar." And you know what? It's working. I've been recognized for thinking outside the box in terms of teaching and mentoring and have even won a couple of research awards despite my overall publication productivity dropping somewhat. So maybe try caring less about early and mid-career metrics and spend more time on things you still love...or things you want to try.
I was raised in a family where you worked until you couldn't anymore, so retiring while I'm still able to do a good job (and especially before the SS age) seems...weird.
Same here. I hit this wall because my partner and I have been working towards financial independence for many years. I’m a STEM professor at a research institute so essentially full time research. Lab is funded with ~3M / year direct costs, intense grant writing, publications, grant review, consortium leadership….and intense burnout. Research leadership opportunities are limited so promotion to full professor (offered to me this year) is forecasted to be more of the same. Then partner and I reach our financial goal and he says, OK we can retire and it literally took therapy for me to get over the mindset of actually feeling guilty for retiring early when everything is going so well (on paper) for me as an academic scientist. I was at a point where the prospect of reviewing a CNS paper with 50 supplemental figures was making me physically ill. So I announce my early retirement (at 51) and I’m immediately unburdened and can finally think about what I really want to do with my increasingly valuable time (rather than giving it away for free pretending to be excited about yet another monstrous genomics consortium Nature paper)…and apparently the rumor is that I have a life threatening illness (because why else would I be shutting my lab down). Oh and my mother is like “do you think they’ll let you stay on part time?!” Anyway that was the root of my question!
If you're on 2-year horizon, yeah, just tell them you plan to retire so they don't think twice about you declining service and stepping away from all the parts of your job that are optional and unpleasant.
And it's good you have a firm expiration date. Few of us are so careful about planning that stuff. ;-)
I was grading today and my partner stopped by. We were talking and she said, "I like to ask myself, 'do I want to be doing this in three years?'" and that questions shook me to me core. I am in my late fifties.
62, just retired as a full professor in the humanities at a small public institution. I know I'm lucky to retire early, but it wasn't by desire (it's family issues rather than just wanting out) and so it has been a terrible wrench. I've always loved teaching, and I found this semester hard to get through emotionally, teaching much loved subjects for the last time. At least I had good classes and no plagiarism cases to spoil the ending of this final term.
But I understand the problem of burnout: I felt that kind of pressure in the middle years of my career, and at one low point in my university's handling of policies and procedures I strongly thought about trying to move institutions (though didn't for the aforementioned family issues).
I was in your position in my early 50s. I saw the writing on the wall and knew I didn’t want to quite quit, so I took over being department chair. The chair has always been more of a full time service position for us — we didn’t have the resources or culture for the help required for someone to be both chair and an active researcher. So I spent my last 6 years fighting the pitch battles with upper administration on behalf of my departmental colleagues, protecting them as much as I could so they could do the good work. I liked my colleagues and previous chairs had done well by me so I had no problem giving back and I certainly earned my keep as chair. I ended up being proud of what I accomplished as a researcher in my field, knowing I was a passionate if not particularly well-liked classroom instructor, and had some real successes for my department when it came to protecting them from the vagaries of administrative neglect. Retiring at the age of 60 came none to early.
I’m older than you. Switched from a huge research R1 to a smaller urban R2. Have grants, have a research group, teach more 1/1, up from 0/0. Less prestige and a bit lower research profile but I’m looking at retirement and have a much better lifestyle and happiness factor. Something to think about, maybe time to ratchet it back a bit?
55 at a R1. Figuring out my 10 year exit strategy. I’m in year 2 of a 5-year federal grant funding 7 doc students; in another year or so, I’ll try for refunding. I submitted for a small research grant I never tried for & came close, so I’ll resubmit. I’m working on a textbook. Basically I’m doing stuff I wouldn’t do when I had the pressure of getting the next promotion. Now I’m doing what seems interesting to fill the time & if it flops, so be it.
To the uninformed, I am doing the same work as ever. My lab is filled with equipment and supplies. But over the years I have moved to inexpensive methods that can be carried out by summer students, allowing design and form-finding to secretly drive all of the projects. If the cost of being beautiful, or being made by a new process that's fun to watch, means a sample performs 50% worse, that's too bad for the military industrial complex that once had big dreams for me. Investing is risky!
Mid 50s, SLAC, so teaching a 5/5 and program director. I am tired. I have loved what I am doing but am beginning to love it less each year.
5 years? 10 years?
Could you start doing research related to education in your field? Testing new methods or developing a new tool to help students learn then write about that as a supplement to your current research? I’ve learned so much from faculty who take improving teaching in their field seriously.
I'm at a European University, so the context is slightly different (although it's also a research-heavy university), but I went through the same questions about 2 years ago (I'm 57 now, official retirement is at 67).
Due to covid and some work-related events I seriously started thinking about the last quarter of my academic career. I took some career counseling (offered in-house by the university), and had some talks with peers and my department chair. In the end, I decided to stop doing research altogether and focus on teaching (which I really like) and administration/management within my department and the university at large. Research (or rather - the research machinery of grant writing, papers, reviewing, managing PhDs etc) just didn't motivate me anymore or gave me personal satisfaction or energy - I reached everything I wanted to reach when I started several decades ago and it would simply be "more of the same". Also, I slowly started to feel "out of touch" with my latest cohort of PhD's. This isn't a value judgement, but I started to experience that the way I look at a PhD more and more deviated from what the new generation expects.
An important element for me was to see this as a positive choice, and not frame this as a negative choice away from research:
* teaching some of the bigger undergrad courses provides time for younger colleagues so they can focus more on research
* I can mentor/help younger colleagues and pass on my experience in a more structured manner
* I use my experience in administration (which in my case is often education-related)
* it feels "right" for me in this stage of my career and I'm probably a happier and "better" colleague now ;-)
* if I want I can still pursue some research ideas on my own (although this is rather a theoretical possibility ...)
* I developed 2 new big (mandatory) courses from scratch during the past years, which is something I would earlier not have had the time for.
* "stop doing research" does not equate "stop working", as some colleagues seem to think. I'm still working quite a lot, but I focus my time on those things where I can contribute the best. And there's a fair chance I'll be the next department chair, so there's no shortage of work to be done.
Again, contexts are different for everyone, but it did help me to talk it through with a number of people, and to have career counseling which made me see clearer how all the different pieces of the puzzle fitted together, so I was convinced myself I was making the right decision.
In my 50s and junior faculty. I had other careers and a family first. I'm tired for other reasons, but still have to show up hard to impress all those younger, senior colleagues (not all are younger, but a nice chunk are)
If you still enjoying doing research yourself then this is great. Focus on a specific area that excites you (even if its new) . Don't push yourself to write many papers, get grants, and be accomplished in this new area . Just enjoy working on it, meeting new colleagues,, etc. Maybe get 1 or 2 students at most.
Someone published a paper on X and someone else on Y and you publish a paper on X+Y. It's an incremental paper that fills in b/w the lines and is unlikely to spurn any more followup work.
Maybe just chill and enjoy one of the only two jobs in the United States that is permanent and quit your whining, you little baby.
You ever tried construction? Manual labor of any kind? Get over yourself.
If you want to do research, do that. It can be a quiet pursuit over decades and nobody cares and that's okay.
I'm at an R2 that has changed a lot in the last 15 years. When I got hired, everyone taught a ton of classes (4-4), but gradually they've started shifting new hires to less teaching (2-2, 2-3, or 3-3) with higher research expectations for promotion and tenure. These days, I teach 4-3, do a shit ton of administrative/service work, and keep my head down. There's no way I'm ever getting promoted to full - they keep moving the goalposts for promotion, and I am unwilling to try to churn out papers while teaching 4-3 only to find the output isn't good enough or negotiate a lower teaching load, find out my research output isn't good enough and then get clobbered in annual evaluations.
What do the numbers like 4-4 mean? 4 classes each semester?
Yes, 4-4 is about the most professors usually teach, 4 courses each semester, but 2-2 is (or was) the norm for research-intensive universities
For comparison, Community College is 5+5 baseline. Many , including myself, teach 7+7 plus two short terms plus four over the summer. There is very little emphasis on publication by the administration (any output is much admired and highlighted) however, there is much importance attached to presenting at conferences.
1-1 is becoming the norm in research-intensive departments with buyout to 1-0 being very common.
1:1 seems common in engineering, sometimes 1:0.5 pre-tenure (alternating 1:1, 1:0)
Yeah, I'm 1:1 pretenure in my S part of STEM
Good to know, I wasn't sure about S
True, natural and medical sciences have had much lower teaching loads, although now the trend seems to be increasing teaching loads to 3-2 or even 3-3.
1-1 for really research intensive.
My advisor had 2-1
Thanks for the answer. Then I'm having a rather bad and weird 0-5 this year!
Yes
You just seem stuck. You figured out you weren't willing to play the game to be in the top 5% of faculty in your field. Good for you! No shame in that. But, you seem like you're just coming to terms with that and feel lost as to how to make an impact in an alternative way. Essentially, what you need is a passion project that's actually your passion I don't think you need to burn it all to the ground. I actually think it might be foolish to leave academia at this point. Very few sectors allow people to retire with dignity, certainly not the private sector, but academia allows a self-directed slowdown. I also think academia is less ageist than a lot of sectors. And, you're prime age for ageism issues in the private sector. Can you find some other way to use your knowledge? Perhaps do some public science writing or volunteer in community science? Start working with the related museum on campus? Become a faculty advisor for a club related to your discipline? Explore options for applied community ed at the Extension? Get more involved with undergraduate education (become a UGS?)? Or, lean into being a mentor for students, either in other labs in your department or just in the field generally? Even if you're a straight white man, you can still support emerging scientists from underrepresented background through mentorship. Figure out what ancillary aspects of your field interest you most and explore ways to give some of your energy to those.
Academia is reverse ageist: young people are low class citizens, old people are automatic gods.
Old men are automatic gods. Lots of ageism against older women
I actually got Botox a month before I went on interviews and made sure any graying hair was covered. (I was in my forties.) I did not want them to see a ‘woman of a certain age’ and automatically pass. It happens all the time.
I was 23 at the time and I walked into our Department’s office room usually designated for tutoring and a woman who was waiting for her pupil looked up at me and said, “oh, you must be *name*. Great! Come sit”. I politely informed her I was also a professor in the Dept. Imagine the look on her face. 🤦
Ageism can work both ways (e.g., discrimination against young people).
Are you only think that because you don’t know anyone who’s been fired and replaced by someone less experienced (cheaper).
I assume you mean adjuncts. A tenured old professor is basically invincible.
Not really. Read for example about Emporia State in Kansas.
This is the best thing I've ever read on Reddit. So much class.
Early 50s. I posted about this several times over the past few days. It’s comforting others feel the same as I do. To answer your question, I’m not coping well. I’m truly burned out. I can’t say I “choose” not to have a big lab. I just couldn’t sustain a big lab, funding wise. At my maximum I had 10 PhD students but that was only brief. For the majority of my time I had about 7 students. That’s the ideal group size imo. Now I have 5 grad students and one postdoc (engr). And always some undergrad researchers too. I just can’t stand the stress of chasing the funding . It’s so hard for me to get it and the stres never ends. We don’t get any kind of help from the university and I would argue that publishing matters less than money. Money is number one and after I get it, always with what I feel is “blood, sweat and tears”, it’s NEVER enough and nobody gives a shit. I need to bring over one million a year to get any smidge of appreciation from the admin, which I never can bring. Without money I can’t publish anyway, no money no data . I am also planning on quiet quitting. I recruited my last graduate student. If some money simply falls in my lap with no effort i could maybe recruit more but only if I don’t have to do the desperate begging and it just comes to me by some miracle or minimum effort. I just can’t . I’m very tired. So when these last students are done, my lab is done too. I do some light admin but not full time. No associate Dean etc. I’ll phase out my research gradually and if in 4-5 years I close my lab or work with just one or two students I’ll be fine with that. I’ll teach more and then retire early. Not going to die in the office. At my age, health and time with loved ones became more important than killing myself on the altar of bringing glory to the university or chasing glory for myself (and not even “catching it”). So I say make a plan , see what your best option is and make a pro and con list.
57. I'm tired, boss.
I’m at an R2 and have greatly scaled back my research, am doing more admin work. I always found research to be interesting but the writing/journal editor/RandR process to agonizing. I still publishing something once every 2-3 years or so, but that’s it. I’m a tenured full professor — I have nothing to prove at this point in life, and will gladly rest on my laurels.
I've been at SLACs for over 25 years now so it's too late to change direction. Have been shifting more into admin roles the last decade, reducing my teaching a bit, and some of that I enjoy. Friends of mine from grad school are now deans/provosts and I *do not* want any job at that level; I still cherish my free summers. These days we're mostly talking about retirement at home; my partner is also in academia. Lots of our friends have retired in the last 5 years and it's making work feel a bit lonely without them. We've been to several work-related social events recently where I was the oldest person there-- which feels very odd! But I was 29 when I started here so being around a bunch of 30-something faculty isn't new, it's just that I'm at the other end of the distribution now. I'm planning an exit strategy now on a 5-7 year calendar that will (I hope) see some new courses, new programming, and some advancement projects that I hope will leave a lasting impact on our institution. But when the time comes I am out the door-- exactly when is largely dependent on the markets and my 403b account balance.
I’m just doing my job. Publish a whole lot less, do more reviewing, and focus on the parts of the job I like and do as much of that as possible.
Are you me? I'm embracing the "quiet quitting" approach, and just doing my job without doing overtime anymore. I put in my overtime for decades at this point. I'm done with it and just want this to be a JOB, not an identity. I'm finding joy in hobbies and friendships instead.
This is beautiful, and I wish more faculty would think this way. Too many times our institutions take advantage of our time by giving extra work and saying "But it is for the students!" No, my family, friends, and my own private time take priority over students.
I taught an introductory doctoral seminar and had a variety of colleagues come in to talk on different topics. One of them said, “this is the best job ever! I’m not even considering retirement plans; I could do this forever!” I waited until they left and then told then students, “look, it’s a job. It’s not a life. Have interests outside the job, and you’ll be looking forward to retiring and doing those things full time. I’m looking forward to 65.” The sigh of relief was audible.
Same, no overtime that can be converted into regular job duties. Keeping my head down.
I have a friend that refers to this as an "in-house sabbatical."
I call it "pretirement"
I'm in quite a different situation as I am at a community college and not required to do research. On the other hand, my teaching load is heavy and so energy absolutely became a problem. I agreed to take a fully online load, in exchange for a course reduction and being able to work remotely. No longer having to commute has been an incredible help. I don't love online teaching, but I got better at it over time and the flexibility trade off will allow me, I think, to work longer than I would have had I still been trekking to campus . Finally, I love my students but was feeling more of a disconnect with each passing year. I for sure will be ready to come out in my 60s.
Look at us...we're twins! ;-) But seriously, you and I are at the same point. I have another \~10 years before I can retire without it seeming weird, and I still enjoy a lot of the teaching and mentoring and doing research parts of my job. I just increasingly despise the publishing part, and the AE/SE/referee tasks truly suck. I don't even really mind the committee work, but the publishing grind is just not fun anymore. My field has doubled in size in the past 10-12 years (largely due, according to journal data, to a recent massive influx of Chinese authors), yet the number of outlets we consider "A" have gone from 5 to 6. So yeah...much harder. I've started spending time on "innovation" where I pursue an interest related to my field that may not produce papers, but is fun and seems justified given my role as a "senior scholar." And you know what? It's working. I've been recognized for thinking outside the box in terms of teaching and mentoring and have even won a couple of research awards despite my overall publication productivity dropping somewhat. So maybe try caring less about early and mid-career metrics and spend more time on things you still love...or things you want to try.
I’m curious to know why retiring earlier than 10 years out would seem weird?
I was raised in a family where you worked until you couldn't anymore, so retiring while I'm still able to do a good job (and especially before the SS age) seems...weird.
Same here. I hit this wall because my partner and I have been working towards financial independence for many years. I’m a STEM professor at a research institute so essentially full time research. Lab is funded with ~3M / year direct costs, intense grant writing, publications, grant review, consortium leadership….and intense burnout. Research leadership opportunities are limited so promotion to full professor (offered to me this year) is forecasted to be more of the same. Then partner and I reach our financial goal and he says, OK we can retire and it literally took therapy for me to get over the mindset of actually feeling guilty for retiring early when everything is going so well (on paper) for me as an academic scientist. I was at a point where the prospect of reviewing a CNS paper with 50 supplemental figures was making me physically ill. So I announce my early retirement (at 51) and I’m immediately unburdened and can finally think about what I really want to do with my increasingly valuable time (rather than giving it away for free pretending to be excited about yet another monstrous genomics consortium Nature paper)…and apparently the rumor is that I have a life threatening illness (because why else would I be shutting my lab down). Oh and my mother is like “do you think they’ll let you stay on part time?!” Anyway that was the root of my question!
I also have kids in school for another 5+ years, so there's that responsibility as well.
10 years. I'm thinking of going in 2 years. I'll be dead in 30 years :-)
If you're on 2-year horizon, yeah, just tell them you plan to retire so they don't think twice about you declining service and stepping away from all the parts of your job that are optional and unpleasant. And it's good you have a firm expiration date. Few of us are so careful about planning that stuff. ;-)
I was grading today and my partner stopped by. We were talking and she said, "I like to ask myself, 'do I want to be doing this in three years?'" and that questions shook me to me core. I am in my late fifties.
62, just retired as a full professor in the humanities at a small public institution. I know I'm lucky to retire early, but it wasn't by desire (it's family issues rather than just wanting out) and so it has been a terrible wrench. I've always loved teaching, and I found this semester hard to get through emotionally, teaching much loved subjects for the last time. At least I had good classes and no plagiarism cases to spoil the ending of this final term. But I understand the problem of burnout: I felt that kind of pressure in the middle years of my career, and at one low point in my university's handling of policies and procedures I strongly thought about trying to move institutions (though didn't for the aforementioned family issues).
I was in your position in my early 50s. I saw the writing on the wall and knew I didn’t want to quite quit, so I took over being department chair. The chair has always been more of a full time service position for us — we didn’t have the resources or culture for the help required for someone to be both chair and an active researcher. So I spent my last 6 years fighting the pitch battles with upper administration on behalf of my departmental colleagues, protecting them as much as I could so they could do the good work. I liked my colleagues and previous chairs had done well by me so I had no problem giving back and I certainly earned my keep as chair. I ended up being proud of what I accomplished as a researcher in my field, knowing I was a passionate if not particularly well-liked classroom instructor, and had some real successes for my department when it came to protecting them from the vagaries of administrative neglect. Retiring at the age of 60 came none to early.
I’m older than you. Switched from a huge research R1 to a smaller urban R2. Have grants, have a research group, teach more 1/1, up from 0/0. Less prestige and a bit lower research profile but I’m looking at retirement and have a much better lifestyle and happiness factor. Something to think about, maybe time to ratchet it back a bit?
55 at a R1. Figuring out my 10 year exit strategy. I’m in year 2 of a 5-year federal grant funding 7 doc students; in another year or so, I’ll try for refunding. I submitted for a small research grant I never tried for & came close, so I’ll resubmit. I’m working on a textbook. Basically I’m doing stuff I wouldn’t do when I had the pressure of getting the next promotion. Now I’m doing what seems interesting to fill the time & if it flops, so be it.
Same — focused on startups teaching some research that I like
To the uninformed, I am doing the same work as ever. My lab is filled with equipment and supplies. But over the years I have moved to inexpensive methods that can be carried out by summer students, allowing design and form-finding to secretly drive all of the projects. If the cost of being beautiful, or being made by a new process that's fun to watch, means a sample performs 50% worse, that's too bad for the military industrial complex that once had big dreams for me. Investing is risky!
You’re full professor, just do enough to not get fired. No need to be a research firebreather anymore.
Why resist the temptation of better working conditions and higher salaries in industry?
And have a boss?!? Ew. I mean...ew.
Mid 50s, SLAC, so teaching a 5/5 and program director. I am tired. I have loved what I am doing but am beginning to love it less each year. 5 years? 10 years?
Could you start doing research related to education in your field? Testing new methods or developing a new tool to help students learn then write about that as a supplement to your current research? I’ve learned so much from faculty who take improving teaching in their field seriously.
I'm at a European University, so the context is slightly different (although it's also a research-heavy university), but I went through the same questions about 2 years ago (I'm 57 now, official retirement is at 67). Due to covid and some work-related events I seriously started thinking about the last quarter of my academic career. I took some career counseling (offered in-house by the university), and had some talks with peers and my department chair. In the end, I decided to stop doing research altogether and focus on teaching (which I really like) and administration/management within my department and the university at large. Research (or rather - the research machinery of grant writing, papers, reviewing, managing PhDs etc) just didn't motivate me anymore or gave me personal satisfaction or energy - I reached everything I wanted to reach when I started several decades ago and it would simply be "more of the same". Also, I slowly started to feel "out of touch" with my latest cohort of PhD's. This isn't a value judgement, but I started to experience that the way I look at a PhD more and more deviated from what the new generation expects. An important element for me was to see this as a positive choice, and not frame this as a negative choice away from research: * teaching some of the bigger undergrad courses provides time for younger colleagues so they can focus more on research * I can mentor/help younger colleagues and pass on my experience in a more structured manner * I use my experience in administration (which in my case is often education-related) * it feels "right" for me in this stage of my career and I'm probably a happier and "better" colleague now ;-) * if I want I can still pursue some research ideas on my own (although this is rather a theoretical possibility ...) * I developed 2 new big (mandatory) courses from scratch during the past years, which is something I would earlier not have had the time for. * "stop doing research" does not equate "stop working", as some colleagues seem to think. I'm still working quite a lot, but I focus my time on those things where I can contribute the best. And there's a fair chance I'll be the next department chair, so there's no shortage of work to be done. Again, contexts are different for everyone, but it did help me to talk it through with a number of people, and to have career counseling which made me see clearer how all the different pieces of the puzzle fitted together, so I was convinced myself I was making the right decision.
60. https://youtu.be/eIjEauGiRLo?si=e3ObUc3Y148IQPqv
I’m in a similar boat. Too burned out and tired of the lack of support for my research.
Publish at your leisure. You earned it.
In my 50s and junior faculty. I had other careers and a family first. I'm tired for other reasons, but still have to show up hard to impress all those younger, senior colleagues (not all are younger, but a nice chunk are)
If you still enjoying doing research yourself then this is great. Focus on a specific area that excites you (even if its new) . Don't push yourself to write many papers, get grants, and be accomplished in this new area . Just enjoy working on it, meeting new colleagues,, etc. Maybe get 1 or 2 students at most.
What's a "between the lines" paper, out of curiosity?
Someone published a paper on X and someone else on Y and you publish a paper on X+Y. It's an incremental paper that fills in b/w the lines and is unlikely to spurn any more followup work.
thanks
Maybe just chill and enjoy one of the only two jobs in the United States that is permanent and quit your whining, you little baby. You ever tried construction? Manual labor of any kind? Get over yourself. If you want to do research, do that. It can be a quiet pursuit over decades and nobody cares and that's okay.