Step Back to Lead Forward: Women of Color, Burnout, and the Cost of Higher Education Leadership
- Menah Pratt
- Mar 27
- 7 min read
Overwork has become one of higher education leadership’s most normalized expectations – particularly for women of color navigating systems that demand more than is sustainable. Many leaders find themselves pushing past exhaustion, carrying institutional responsibility, and wondering how much more they can give. But what if this pattern of burnout and self-sacrifice is not a personal failing, but the predictable outcome of systems built on extraction?
In this powerful essay, Menah Pratt reflects on the cost of leadership for women of color in academia and the urgent need to step back – not as retreat, but as an act of self-preservation, clarity, and sustainable leadership.
Almost 11 years ago, on my way to work at the University of Illinois, I heard a voice say, "Simon Says, Take Two Giant Steps Backward."
I was almost always the first car in the parking lot in front of the administration building, pulling into my assigned space next to the Chancellor's. Getting to work at 7 am, after dropping my two young children off at school. Staying until 6 pm. Working at home until the wee hours. I was the only Black woman in senior administration. I had worked my way up to Associate Chancellor and Associate Provost. And still — when I brought the salary discrepancy to the attention of the Chancellor, I was put on pause. Given excuses. I never received an increase. Yet I continued, for several months thereafter, to show up early, leave late, and do the work.
The voice was odd but relevant. It was loud. Repetitive. Insistent.
And I was obedient to it.
I started doing what other folks did. I started arriving between 8 and 9. If I got to campus early, I went to a nearby church and played piano. I started leaving at 4 or even 4:30. When I got home, I stopped doing work until the wee hours for administration. What didn't get done, didn't get done.
It felt liberating.
I have reflected often, since, on why we — the proverbial we, often Black women, women of color — work so hard. I know that I was told as a child that I had to work twice as hard and be twice as good, and even then it might not be enough.
There is also a long legacy of Black women's community uplift — "lifting as we climb" — that runs through us, through the NACW, through the sororities and The Links, through the sheroes who shaped us: Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary Church Terrell, Dorothy Height. This commitment is a gift and a burden. And the anti-DEI climate creates an even greater sense of urgency for those of us who are committed.
But here is what I know with certainty: the institution goes on without us.
When the Academy Takes All We Have, and Keeps Going
Dr. Orinthia T. Montague. President of Volunteer State Community College. Fifty-six years old. She said, "I'm the kind of leader who will volunteer to help. I'm going to lead by example. If you want people to work alongside you for a common goal, you have to be all in." Four days before she died, she posted a position for a chief of staff. We must take care of ourselves as best we can, because no one can do that but us.
President JoAnne A. Epps spent nearly forty years at Temple University working her way up from the campus bookstore, to dean of the law school, to executive vice president and provost, and finally acting president. She was a fierce advocate for educational access and affordability. When Temple's first Black president resigned amid controversy, she answered the call coming out of her planned retirement because she loved the institution and its students. She was not a candidate for the permanent position. She was just doing the work, as we always do. On September 19, 2023, she fell ill during a memorial service and was carried out of the room. She was 72 years old. The memorial service where she was honoring someone else continued after she was rushed out. The institution went on.
Then there is Dr. Antoinette "Bonnie" Candia-Bailey. For twenty years, Candia-Bailey had worked to climb the professional ladder in academia. She was hired as vice president for student affairs at Lincoln University — her own alma mater — in May 2023. She was fired nine months later. In a message she wrote just before she died, with instructions for it to be circulated by her colleagues, she described herself as encountering bullying and harassment, compounded by the refusal of the president and the board to allow her time for necessary medical treatment. She died by suicide on January 8, 2024, in Illinois. She was 49 years old. She spent her career studying the very forces that took her life.
And now, Laurie Lee Brogdon. Born in Bluefield, Virginia, Laurie was a proud Virginia Tech graduate — a student leader active in the NAACP, who went on to a distinguished career in alumni relations and advancement. She was the visionary creator of the Virginia Tech Influential Black Alumni Awards, and served as the inaugural president of the Black Alumni Society building the very infrastructure through which our community finds and honors itself. She was bold, opinionated, generous, and deeply faithful. She was 43 years old. She passed just this week on March 23, 2026.
Four Black women. Different institutions, different titles, different circumstances. The same weight. The same exhaustion. The same academy that too often takes everything we have to give, and keeps going when we are gone.
This is why I say: let's be "all in" for us, too.
What Stepping Back Actually Means
"So what does stepping back actually look like?"
It begins with clarity of purpose. Remember and remind yourself of the why of the work. Is it a calling? Is it a job? While I would love to be at a beach, breathing in the ocean, I know that this work of social justice is my calling. I have a deep and unflinching commitment and a steely determination to use my power, privilege, and positionality to empower others. That is my why. When you can name your why, you can step back from the institution without abandoning the work. Because the work lives in you.
It also requires community. As faculty, administrators, and students, we cannot be an island. Now more than ever, it is important to reach out and touch somebody's hand. We must resist the temptation to hunker down and keep our heads down. We must be in community with others who are also in the struggle. We need to be with people who remind us that our scholarship matters, that we make a difference, that our presence is not incidental but essential.
And it requires, perhaps most radically, self-commitment. The best quote I have heard in years came from a five-day self-compassion course: "I stay committed to my own damn self." I laughed out loud. I remind myself of that daily.
Go find beauty and spend time in it. Move your body. Eat well. Meditate if you can. Find your recess: the piano, the paint class, the walk where the deer hang out. Take a nap. Often. As Maya Angelou said, every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. My girlfriend told me to focus on the woman in the mirror. I do and I encourage you to do so, too.
A Space to Step Back, and Return to Ourselves
I founded the Faculty Women of Color in the Academy National Conference, now in its 14th year, precisely because I needed a space where stepping back was not just advised, but modeled, practiced, and community-reinforced.
When I watch women of color walk into the FWCA conference, I feel the heaviness of being alone, of struggling without mentors, of walking blindly but trying to project a confidence and conviction of belonging. And then, it happens. The shift. We see them coming, slowly and then in droves — hundreds of women of color, Black, Asian, Indigenous, Latina, LGBTQ+, Muslim. Backs begin to straighten. Shoulders stop sagging. Eyes begin to lose the glazed look. Smiles begin to appear.
We come to FWCA with our bruises and our brilliant selves. And we leave fed, loved, affirmed, and sent back out to continue the good work. Whatever you are carrying in your heart, in your mind, in your spirit, in your body, there is a space for it at FWCA. More importantly, there are women who will carry it with you for a few days, and then send you back stronger.
This is the shift that leaders are being called to make, stepping away to replenish ourselves, so that we can work in ways that are sustainable and human.
In the game of Simon Says, one person is chosen to be Simon — and everyone else obeys. But here is what I want you to remember: you are Simon. You give the commands. Stepping back is not retreat. It is how you gather the strength to lead.
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Menah Pratt, JD, PhD is a senior administrator, full professor, and scholar-advocate for the most marginalized populations in higher education. Follow her on LinkedIn.
The 14th annual FCWA conference, “Liberation in Practice: Healing, Justice, and Imagination in Higher Education”, will take place April 9-12, 2026. Register here with code SPARKFWCA2026 for a $100 discount.
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If this reflection resonates, you are not alone. Many of the leaders we work with are navigating this exact tension between commitment and sustainability, between saving our institutions and saving our lives. Through coaching at the Center for Liberated Leadership, we support leaders in stepping out of overwork and into more sustainable, strategic, and human ways of leading.
Learn more or set up a Leadership Clarity Call to explore how coaching can help you transform your leadership and take back your life.
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About the Center for Liberated Leadership
The Center for Liberated Leadership connects and supports BIPOC, women, LGBTQ and transformational leaders so that they can lead with authenticity, purpose and joy. The Center's executive coaches help leaders navigate uncertain contexts and relentless workloads, beat burnout and maintain sustainable work practices.