As faculty members, we often discuss the pressures of the classroom and research; yet, the demands of service remain largely overlooked. Junior faculty, in particular, can feel compelled to join committees, spearhead university initiatives, lead student organizations, and foster community partnerships. This burden is even heavier for those from marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds, who often find themselves conforming to molds not built for them. Whether joining prestigious but unfulfilling committees or executing a senior faculty’s community project, these performative tasks often lead to burnout and isolation. Ultimately, these systemic pressures drive talented faculty to leave their universities-or higher education all together.
Cultivating Professional Ecosystems
In their book, Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet, Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmhalyi, and William Damon pose a question that sparked a transformative journey for me: What can people do when conditions threaten a harmonious alignment? Reflecting on this prompted me to interrogate my own burnout and reimagine how to nurture my love for the academic community around me. From this experience, I developed the Professional Ecosystem Framework. This framework is designed to guide faculty in cultivating their own service focus by emphasizing belonging, reclaiming, and healing. It consists of three strata – a term chosen over “components” or “elements” to evoke the geological and ecological layers that inherently support one another. The three strata that intertwine to create the Professional Ecosystem Framework are:
- Living Arbors: Unearthing Radical Belonging with Ancestral Roots – This stratum of the framework moves beyond the idea of a network and encourages faculty to see themselves as a canopy. Within this stratum, we create shade for others while ensuring their own roots have the space to drink.
- Un-Grafted Seeds: Nurturing Self in Sovereign Soil – In horticulture, grafting forces a vine onto foreign roots. However, this stratum of the framework is about embracing your ancestral soil, nurturing your lived experiences, and showcasing your unique strengths.
- Reciprocal Harvests: Envisioning Praxis as Medicine – Work that feeds the community must also feed the worker. This stratum redefines productivity as a cycle of communal empowerment and personal healing.
Theoretical Foundations
The roots of the Professional Ecosystem Framework are planted within two theoretical perspectives. The first theoretical perspective shaping the framework is Chicana feminism. This theoretical perspective guides the framework’s emphasis on the collective, spiritual, and familial aspects of service (Anzaldúa, 1987; Garcia, 2014). Within this also exists a heightened awareness that our experiences are often rooted in resistance that is gendered, racial, and class-based (Bernal, 1998).
The second theoretical perspective nurturing the framework is the Relational Indigenous Leadership Philosophy (RILP) developed by Hardison-Stevens (2022). This philosophy has tribal ways of knowing affiliated with the Omushkeg Cree-Metis, Ojibway, Cowlitz, and Stilacoom peoples. The RILP first acknowledges that our sensory awareness guides us through spaces not created for us. Rather than focusing on authoritative hierarchies or Eurocentric views of knowledge, RILP emphasizes self-advocacy, community well-being, and stewardship.
Developing Your Own Professional Ecosystem
Stratum 1: Living Arbors
My grandmother once spoke to me of human towers or castells, which come from a Catalonian tradition where humans stand on the shoulders of others in order to create a tower that stands over a hundred feet tall. She reminded me that the most important part of the tower is not the victorious individual at the top; rather, it is the people who are at the bottom. Starting the journey to build my own ecosystem required a re-evaluation of my human tower. My colleagues often looked upward towards those at the top with institutional power, but I knew I had to return to my roots and pay attention to those at the foundation of my tower. I had shamefully neglected my relationships with aunties, cousins, or fiends who lacked formal university educations. In healing those connections, I discovered that their insights are as essential to my academic journey as any institutional guidance or alliances.
As you reflect on your human tower, consider reflecting on the following: Who is woven into your ecosystem and who has been overlooked? As a faculty member, you know that having a department chair or dean in your corner is powerful. However, when you tap into the ancestral roots of your background and invite individuals from your past into your current academic life, new growth begins. This new growth creates a canopy of protection not only for yourself but also for others who come from similar backgrounds.
Stratum 2: Un-Grafted Seeds
The next stratum of the framework was more challenging for me. I was caught up in the comparison game and compared my service and leadership to colleagues around me. I finally engaged in introspection and identified unique skills I bring to the table. For example, I had been a single mother, and I had lived on government assistance. These aspects of my life had cultivated unique skills many of my colleagues did not have.
As you reflect on your uniqueness, consider reflecting on the following: What lived experiences have cultivated strengths, and how might these strengths serve you in academia? If you are struggling to answer some of these questions, considering exploring the community cultural wealth model (Yosso & Burciaga, 2016). Her model considers different aspects of capital that are often overlooked in Eurocentric spaces. As you explore this second stratum of the framework, remind yourself that the goal is not to graft onto a foreign root but to allow your unique lived experiences nurture authentic strengths.
Stratum 3: Reciprocal Harvests
Reflecting on the first two strata solidified my decision to change my service focus. I began to envision my own praxis as medicine for myself and others. While the other service areas at my university were worthwhile, they did not resonate with me. I sought out initiatives that promoted healing myself and others, leading me to establishing a campus clothing closet for students, assisting parenting students, and developing a mentorship program for Latinas.
As you cultivate this stratum of the framework, consider asking yourself- How can I advocate for students in ways I wish someone had advocated for me, and how can I turn that into initiatives that nurture my academic community? As mentioned earlier, work that feeds the community must also feed the worker. This last stratum of the framework allows you to still be productive but within communal spaces of care.
Conclusion
We must move from a culture that consumes its members to one that cultivates them. Like the strata of the forest or the earth on which we stand, having a professional ecosystem creates an intertwining layer of support. Rather than engaging in the competitive nature of higher education, which can often make you feel like you are being eaten alive, we can shift the culture to one of curious cultivation. By modeling our own professional ecosystem, we do more than just survive the pressures of higher education, we become a part of the transformation for others.
Aimée Myers, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Literacy and Language at Texas Woman’s University. She also serves as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Professional Education. Her teaching specialization focuses on culturally responsive-sustaining practices. In her research, she works to utilize social constructivist, decolonized approaches with underserved populations. Her current studies include visual testimonios with immigrant and refugee students and community cultural wealth with graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds. She is the coordinator of the COPE Clothing Closet, the founder of the Latinx Juntos Mentorship program, and the facilitator for the Urban Education Microcredential.
References
Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Boderlands, la frontera: The new mestiza. Aunt Lute Books.
Bernal, D.D. (1998). Using a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research. Harvard Educational Review, 68(4), 555-583.
Gardner, H., Czikzzenthmihalyi, M., & Damon, W. (2002). Good work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet. Basic Books.
García, A.M (2014). Chicana feminist thought: The basic historical writings. Routledge.
Hardison-Stevens, D. (2022). Learning with each other: A relational Indigenous Leadership Philosophy. In C. Peweward, A. Lees, and R.Z Minthorn (Eds.) Unsettling settler-colonial education: The transformational Indigenous Praxis Model. (pp. 135-145). Teachers College Press.
Yosso, T.J., & Burciaga, R (2016). Reclaiming our histories, recovering community cultural wealth. Center for Critical Race Studies at UCLA. https://ccrse.seis.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Issue-5-Recovering-Community-Cultural-Wealth.pdf