Letting go isn’t always easy or without loss. At times it can be graceful, like the golden Ash leaves here in Colorado right now. Other times it’s full of grief for what you’ve loved, or the future you thought you’d have. Some things we release are ones we imagined we’d keep, or that we wanted to hold on to. Sometimes we choose to let go, and sometimes that choice is made for us because it’s time, like autumn, or someone else decided. Whatever the conditions, letting go creates a space, and it’s up to you what you fill it with.
During the Ivory Tower Summit Q&A, someone asked whether I missed being a department chair.
My answer is never a simple yes or no. I loved parts of the work. The timing was right, and I felt ready. The responsibilities aligned with my values and how I wanted to engage and serve our programs and students.
But parts became increasingly painful as resources dwindled, institutional support fell short, and student and faculty care needs grew. I chose to step down from that role earlier than my term was to end.
I was single parenting and home/virtual schooling my then-2nd grader through the COVID pandemic. I had managed numerous student mental and physical health crises that were up against other students' pushback for being virtual before a vaccine. For the former, their health or loved ones were at risk, and for the latter, their dream of what their graduate school experience would be like was ruptured.
There was no win. We all have our versions of this type of time. It highlights the ongoing need for discernment in life and leadership. I had to discern what I was no longer willing to carry and let it go, so there was space for what mattered.
It wasn’t the title, or a seat at the overworking conference table in the Dean’s office, or the meager two-course release ‘compensation’ for the administrative responsibilities. I could love the work and still recognize that the conditions surrounding it had become untenable beyond my scope of work or power. That distinction matters.
Because when we leave something we love, we can be quick to make the story about our own limitations. Maybe I couldn't handle it. Maybe I needed better boundaries. Maybe I needed to become more resilient. But what if the problem wasn't that you or I couldn't do more? What if we were already doing too much to compensate for what the institution and systems weren’t providing?
I still channel the things I loved about chairing a department into my organizational work with higher education institutions, corporations, and leaders. I’ve said this before, and I will keep saying it: The academy was only one small way I expressed my interests and gifts, not the only way. I didn't have to abandon those gifts just because I left the institution where I'd been expressing them. And I didn't have to keep sacrificing myself to prove that I cared.
You might delete a committee you once loved. Close a program that mattered to you. Stop trying to rescue a field. Stop being the person everyone calls. Leave behind an identity that once gave you purpose.
But let's be clear: you shouldn't have to let go of meaningful work simply because an institution refuses to support it.
In the Grove this October, we’ve explored how letting go can be graceful and beautiful, and it can also hold change and loss. It asks you to stop trying to carry everything. And to practice discernment of what matters.
Then, in November, we’re asking: Why have I assumed that I am the solution to everything that's wrong?
November’s Grove Deinstitutionalizing focus is on The Myth of the Personal Solution (psst: it's systemic).
I know November is often marketed as the season of gratitude and harvest. And there can be genuine goodness in that. And it can be hard to cultivate gratitude when you're exhausted by (internal and external) systems that keep asking you to do more with less. It's hard to feel abundant when the conditions around you are designed to keep you scrambling.
One of the ways these systems sustain themselves is by turning systemic problems into individual assignments or solutions.
Watch for these gaslighty messages (and the sneaky part is they may be internal voices trained by external ones):
Burned out? Fix your nervous system.
Can't keep up? Get better at time management.
Career unstable? Upskill and enroll in more certifications.
Academic job disappearing? Pivot or start a side hustle.
Business isn't working? Build a better brand and hustle more.
Overworked? Set better boundaries.
Anxious about AI taking your job? Learn AI. Reject AI.
Can't afford enough? Optimize your finances.
Institution is collapsing? Become more resilient.
In November, we are directly and honestly calling out all this bullsittery so we can repattern new responses that don’t include trying to optimize yourself more.
Also, letting go isn't the answer to every systemic problem, either. You shouldn't have to leave meaningful work, abandon programs, or surrender identities because institutions won't change. Letting go can be an act of discernment, while the conditions that made it necessary still deserve to be challenged.
And in the middle of all that will be an invitation to sit with your career and collective grief expressions. Hold them gently and ask what your grief needs from you.
