Exit Strategies Course Suite
I have identified three core challenges to quitting academia: FEARS (Mindset Matters), FINANCES (Money Matters), and FREEDOM (Magic and Manifestation)! With this in mind, I offer support to help you identify your core fears about quitting your professor job, assess your financial situation, and reflect on what freedom means to you. These reflections and insights better position you to map out your Exit Strategies!
My intention is not to pressure you to quit a job that you love! My intention is to support you if/when you are seeking to exit jobs that you do not love, jobs that no longer feel aligned, jobs that are draining you - by providing you encouragement and guidance for creating self-determined exit strategies and timelines!
NOTE: Access to Exit Strategies is included La Belle Vie WRITERS Membership.
My intention is not to pressure you to quit a job that you love! My intention is to support you if/when you are seeking to exit jobs that you do not love, jobs that no longer feel aligned, jobs that are draining you - by providing you encouragement and guidance for creating self-determined exit strategies and timelines!
NOTE: Access to Exit Strategies is included La Belle Vie WRITERS Membership.
My Story (short version)...
June 2023 marked the 20th anniversary of me earning my Ph.D. in Philosophy and the 15th anniversary of my arrival at Penn State University. After much reflection and consideration, including trusting and being guided by my intuition, I decided that it was time for me to transition out of academia full time.
The primary and crucial reason why I quit (with intention and purpose right before successfully going up for promotion to the rank of professor and walking away from a one semester administrative leave at full pay!) is that I trusted and followed my intuition telling me to “Get Out!” – or more accurately, “Get Out NOW!”
Any other reasons for my departure are already well known and understood by Black women and Women of Color in the Academy and would best be described as contributing but not determining factors in my decision to exit.
Celebrations on my way out of academia and into my next phase:
At this point in my life I have successfully quit a 17 year marriage (though the relationship was about 20 years total) #HappilyUnmarried. And I successfully quit my tenured associate professor/administrator job when I was at the proverbial "top of my game" and making "good money" at my "good job with benefits." These decisions were hard, but necessary, and ultimately proved to be two of my best quality of life decisions.
It has been about a year since I resigned/retired from my professor position and I have zero regrets about leaving! I am looking forward to sharing more about my experiences over the last year and what is on the horizon in an effort to encourage you to envision what you want your exitstrategy and your next chapter to look and feel like.
You can read my full published "Exit Interview" here!
The primary and crucial reason why I quit (with intention and purpose right before successfully going up for promotion to the rank of professor and walking away from a one semester administrative leave at full pay!) is that I trusted and followed my intuition telling me to “Get Out!” – or more accurately, “Get Out NOW!”
Any other reasons for my departure are already well known and understood by Black women and Women of Color in the Academy and would best be described as contributing but not determining factors in my decision to exit.
Celebrations on my way out of academia and into my next phase:
- My first book, Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question (Indiana University Press, 2014) was translated into French (Édition Kimé, 2023)
- My second book Beauvoir and Belle: A Black Feminist Critique of The Second Sex was published (Oxford University Press, 2024)
- I have expanded space and time to read and write more books in this next phase – luxuriating in the life of the mind without incessant emails, department meetings, etc.! (My next book is about Audre Lorde!)
- I can continue to be more intentional with my speaking engagements and coaching/course offerings (like "ExitStrategies")!
At this point in my life I have successfully quit a 17 year marriage (though the relationship was about 20 years total) #HappilyUnmarried. And I successfully quit my tenured associate professor/administrator job when I was at the proverbial "top of my game" and making "good money" at my "good job with benefits." These decisions were hard, but necessary, and ultimately proved to be two of my best quality of life decisions.
It has been about a year since I resigned/retired from my professor position and I have zero regrets about leaving! I am looking forward to sharing more about my experiences over the last year and what is on the horizon in an effort to encourage you to envision what you want your exitstrategy and your next chapter to look and feel like.
You can read my full published "Exit Interview" here!