You are a seasoned academic: skilled, experienced, dedicated. You’ve invested so much… and you still believe in the mission of higher education.
But let’s be honest:
Budget cuts. Expanded workloads. Increased mental health challenges among students. A global pandemic. Political headwinds. The rise of AI. It is a lot to navigate and to carry.
In your day-to-day work, you are overextended, exhausted, and discouraged, and you’re growing cynical and hopeless about the future of higher ed.
Your sense of purpose has ebbed away, along with time and energy for the things you enjoy.
You wonder, “Does any of this matter anymore? Is it worth it?
Hi, I’m Krista.
I support seasoned academics to restore their sense of calling and to craft a life that balances meaningful contribution with personal vitality, on campus and off.
How do I know these things? Because I have lived them. I have poured my heart, soul, and energy into teaching and advising students, supporting colleagues, designing and delivering programs, shepherding campus initiatives, presenting and publishing scholarship, serving on committees, managing grants, advocating for institutional change, and generally showing up to whatever work was asked of me 97% of the time.
Yet the yield always seemed so small relative to my mighty efforts. In fact, sometimes it went nowhere.
Even more painfully, I have witnessed these realities among treasured colleagues too many times to count. Some of these dedicated professionals continue to plod along, driven by duty but feeling exhausted and demoralized, while others have fled higher ed altogether in a move of self-preservation.
The system is broken. And it is also counting on our strong sense of duty and calling that locks us into contributing our time and energy past the point of healthy sustainability.
I believe another way is possible.
It involves, not a new productivity hack, but unraveling the tangled knot of calling, career, and institutional role and then figuring out how to braid these separate threads into something useful, sustainable…and possibly beautiful.
Higher ed has a unique industry culture that only insiders get. People outside our world might wonder why those of us who are so dissatisfied don’t just do something else. As a fellow academic, I know it’s not that easy. Here’s what I get:
Your work is more than a job: it is a calling (or has been until now).
Your sense of calling and of duty—to your students, your institution, your discipline, your colleagues—often leads to excessive self-sacrifice.
Even though you might understand the system is the problem, you likely engage in a lot of self-blame for not figuring out how to manage your workload and achieve some semblance of work-life balance.
The mismatch between your sense of calling and your current job realities leads to frustrations and also strong feelings of vocational confusion and maybe even grief.
For seasoned academics—who have invested time, energy, and your very identity into this work—pivoting out of higher ed is a difficult choice both emotionally and practically.
I support professionals in navigating all of these realities so they can show up to their work and their life in ways that are more sustainable and fulfilling.
Your sense of calling to higher education should be a gift, not a shackle.
You’re smart! You’ve tried lots of things:
Apps, calendars, and systems to manage tasks, time, and projects. But the math doesn’t add up: there is simply more to do than time and energy to do it.
Cutting back on contributing to institutional life but also letting go of things you enjoy, professionally and personally—too often the very things that make it all worth it.
Commiserating with colleagues. But this is a double-edged sword: it makes you feel less alone, but you’ve noticed that venting sessions tend to spiral into doom and gloom, and you leave feeling worse.
Of course, even if all these things worked, none of them would solve the cascading problems beyond your control.
It can feel like there is no escape from the stress.
I can help you untangle the knot that makes the threads of calling, job, career, and institutional role indistinguishable, so you can identify the distinct threads and craft a plan to braid them with intention and care.
From there, you might decide to pivot out of higher ed, or together we will discover and implement more sustainable ways to engage your work amidst a restored sense of purpose.
Why work with me?
Higher ed has been my world for over three decades. After lots and lots of schooling—with both the letters after my name as well as the student loans to prove it—I have worked as teaching faculty and as a center director, providing professional development to faculty and staff and advancing cultural change within and across institutions. All along the way, one of my core commitments has been to promote the vitality of higher education professionals. This is what led me to becoming an ICF-certified coach.
I have coached active teaching faculty, faculty whose positions have been eliminated, individuals who have voluntarily shifted out of higher ed, mid-level directors, and leaders both in and adjacent to higher education. [Pull brief quote from testimonial here?]
Have I mentioned my field? As a philosophical theologian, I have always gravitated toward “life’s big questions,” the biggest being—to paraphrase my jargony dissertation—how do we live most fully, joyfully, creatively, and generously into this wondrous yet imperfect life we have been given?
If I could invite you into my home for tea…
You would learn these things: Yes, I am a nerdy academic with books piled high in every room I regularly inhabit. I am also:
a cat whisperer and people-loving introvert—most days in that order;
a Capricorn perfectionist—the slow, messy, procrastinating, eventually-get-there kind;
a native U.S. Southerner, who proudly says “y’all” and insists upon the culinary brilliance of grits, boiled peanuts, and a juicy tomato sandwich in high summer—as well as the inherent dignity and worth of all people;
and—in case you hadn’t noticed—a lifelong, enthusiastic user of the em-dash in my 100% fully human writing.