Legacy Work, Unfinished Business, and the Senior Academic

If you happen to be a professor “of a certain age” (say, late middle age and beyond), then it’s likely that you’ve given some thought to the final laps of your career and when and how you might eventually transition into retirement. In my case, these contemplations seemed impressionistic at first, as if this stage of life was far off in the future. The pandemic didn’t help matters – even as Zoom teaching fatigue caused me to continuously check my retirement account balances! Now, however, as we settle into whatever the new normal happens to be, I’m focussing more clearly about planning for the years to come.

In this, my first post for The Faculty Lounge, I won’t pretend to know all the relevant factors towards planning the later stages of an academic career and possible retirement. But I would like to talk about notions of “legacy work” and unfinished business. I do so with a sense of purpose, for I believe that our later years can be highlighted by some of our best and most original work.

What is your “legacy work”?

I was introduced to the term legacy work by Chris Guillebeau, a writer and entrepreneur. In The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World (2010), he defined legacy work as using your own unique skills to create a lasting contribution to the world. Guillebeau posed two simple questions towards defining one’s legacy work: (1) "What do you really want to get out of life?," and (2) "What can you offer the world that no one else can?"

Guillebeau, a later Gen Xer (born in 1978), has been writing for a younger cohort and exploring paths towards an independent life. Senior faculty don’t exactly fit that profile. After all, we’ve opted to attach ourselves to institutions, in a vocation that creates certain expectations and hoops through which we sometimes must jump. However, we often enjoy a unique degree of independence in our jobs, and the concept of legacy work may resonate with those of us who are aware that, well, the clock is ticking.

Another way to look at legacy work is from the other, post-facto direction, asking what -- when all is said and truly done -- you would like your body of work to look like in the aggregate? Pamela Slim’s Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together (2013) invites us to imagine “the personal legacy you leave at the end of your life, including all the tangible and intangible things you have created.” She defines “body of work” this way:

Your body of work is everything you create, contribute, affect, and impact. For individuals, it is the personal legacy you leave at the end of your life, including all the tangible and intangible things you have created.

So, with those thoughts in mind, what is your legacy work?

You may already be doing it. In conventional terms, it may be via your teaching, scholarship, or service work. Or perhaps you’re leading a program or serving in academic administration. If so, then planning your late career path may involve variations on familiar themes.

If you feel like you haven’t defined your legacy work, then there’s no time like the present to start doing so. Asking yourself some of the questions posed by the likes of Chris Guillebeau and Pamela Slim may yield some exciting answers.

Unfinished Business

Whether you’re continuing the same path or defining a new one, I’m guessing that your legacy work aspirations include some unfinished business. It may be a unique course offering, some long-pondered writings, an interesting project (e.g., for fellow law professors, pro bono legal or policy advocacy), or a creative service contribution. It’s also possible that these pieces of unfinished business will follow you, in a good way, into a retirement that continues to engage your interests.

Especially if your legacy work and unfinished business do not require changing employers and you enjoy relative job security, or if you are transitioning into retirement while wishing to remain active as an academic citizen, then this is an opportunity to be intentional, responsibly bold, and driven by passion for your chosen focus. While the current state of academic freedom can feel precarious these days, at least you’re less likely to be pre-screening your activities for what members of a tenure & promotion committee or lateral hiring committee might think. Indeed, in terms of having a strong, authentic, and perhaps even courageous voice, there can be a freeing aspect to being closer to the end of an academic career than to the beginning.

I’ll close for now, with thanks for reading this far. Especially for those who, like me, have suddenly found themselves among the “senior faculty” at their respective institutions, I hope these observations have been thought-provoking and useful. You see, contributing to The Faculty Lounge is part of my unfinished business, for I have long wanted to write for a respected blog that allows me to cogitate about legal education and higher education, legal scholarship, and intersections between law and psychology, among other topics. With thanks to co-founder Dan Filler for graciously responding to my unsolicited inquiry earlier this spring, I look forward to making future contributions.

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A brief self-introduction: I’ve been a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston since 1994, where my current work is grounded in employment law and in the interdisciplinary field of therapeutic jurisprudence. In terms of social media writings, since 2008 I’ve been writing a blog titled Minding the Workplace, which explores the world of work and workers, workplace law and policy, and my niche interests in workplace bullying and therapeutic jurisprudence. I’ll be drawing on ideas from that blog periodically for forthcoming posts here. I can be reached at [email protected].

Comments

[Kimberly D Krawiec]

Nice post! I’m looking forward to more