What's Next?

Probably a bit of a shorter post this week because I am in the middle of family responsibilities. However, I have been reflecting a lot this week about the conversations I have had over the last 2 weeks or so with folk who have either been laid off from their HigherEd role or decided to leave their positions because of the unsustainability or toxicity of the spaces they found themselves in, or are extremely close to leaving for exactly the same reason. One of the podcasts that I often try to have time in my week to engage with is Tea for Teaching and the hosts end their episodes by asking the guests "what's next?" Often the answer to this question is yet another book they are working on, or maybe (but very rarely) the kind of care modelling that Tolu gave in the last episode which is taking a break from all the productivity the systems demand.

The thing is that often in HigherEd when you ask folk what is next or ask them to project some sort of next steps type thing, often the suggestions given are things around consulting, like consulting is the only other logical or possible step after a career in academe. And I can understand why consulting has an appeal. Often institutions will not listen to the folk who are actually employed there when a thing needs doing, and would rather spend lots of money hiring folk from outside because they have some sort of magical cachet or perspective. Often consulting is a name game. Is your name recognizable in the field? Are you geographically positioned to be relevant to others (which often does not work out well for Canadians)? And often you can come in consult on a thing and leave, so that it is no longer your responsibility, in a way that it becomes the responsibility often of a multi-marginalized person at an institution.

But it also depends on what kind of work you do. If your consulting would be in areas of equity or inclusion when the world seems very not interested in either of those things, you are probably going to be consulting into the void. And consulting, until you become well established, does not have the kind of stability that pays bills unless you have another income coming in in your house. Therefore, consulting in some ways is a privileged kind of what's next that is not available to the many folk who find themselves in unknown work space right now.

Depending on your area, some folk can readily transition to industry, especially if you are in tech, or design, or even corporate training if that is something you are interested in. The thing I have been reflecting on in the what's next question is how there are very little what's next spaces for folk who try to live their ethics except for say non-profit work. And non-profit work is often the kind of work that right now does not have the kind of funding that can support financially unless again you are not doing this life with a single household income. 

So I often wonder what spaces exist for folk whose work is deeply engaged with ethics, values, and a socio-cultural way of being that causes them moral injury in HigherEd spaces we find ourselves in in 2025. HigherEd spaces that are often focused on profits, scaling up spaces, and scaling down supports and human connection. I am seeing some success in the kind of grass roots and mutual aid type connections that allows folk to have the supports they need (financial, moral, emotional, etc). I will never forget however, the time where I was in a meeting at one of my former institutions where they were talking about the UN sustainability goals (that was the whole point of the meeting, how to roll some of those goals into the curriculum) and I mentioned grass roots community work in relation to the point we were discussing and the look of real distain a guy in a suit gave me over the Zoom call like I was calling in from 1960; he just gave me the cut eye and went on to some other topic, pretending I never said a thing. 

I often wonder if this is a lack of imagination on our parts in terms of being able to think of a space or thing that would fit morality and ethics, but then I realize that cis-ableist-hetero-white-patriarchal-capitalism deeply does not want imagination, it wants a certain type of normativity and perpetual complicity. There is something very necessary about being in community with people who share your worldview, just as there is something very harming about being in spaces with people who would rather not engage, mention, or support folk who are impacted by the state of the world right now. I can't believe that we are at a time where a simple question like what's next could be so complicated, but here we are. And for those of you deep in reflection on your what's nexts, know that you are not alone, and I look forward to continuing to have these meaningful conversations with folk as we try to imagine futures that are meaningful to us and folk we care about.