3 Budget-Free Ways to Support Faculty

As many other articles have discussed, faculty members in higher education have continued to face burnout, disengagement and low morale, resulting in resignations or strong feelings of wanting to leave academe. Yet some evidence exists to suggest a disconnect between the state of the faculty workforce and the perceptions of upper administrators. Whether this disconnect is real or a result of administrators also suffering burnout, disengagement and low morale, and therefore struggling with what to do, change is needed.

In a recent study that we conducted of faculty members across various institutions and career stages, we heard from faculty members about what they found most challenging in their jobs as well as learned how administrators can better support them in some small yet impactful ways. After describing the major findings, we’ll describe three of those ways in hopes of encouraging administrators to consider them at their own colleges and universities.

In our survey, only 45 percent of respondents agreed that they feel supported by their college or university, and only 55 percent agreed that they feel like they belong at their institution. When asked about the difficulties they’ve experienced in their time working in academe, they specifically identified stress (95 percent), fatigue (88 percent), burnout (74 percent) and general job dissatisfaction (60 percent).

We also asked respondents to identify sources of their most significant professional frustrations. Excluding mentions of COVID-19 and budget concerns (which can be very difficult to change), they identified workload inequities (51 percent), the campus culture and environment (47 percent), campus communications (44 percent), and the current campus leadership (42 percent).

Finally, we asked participants to identify changes that would enhance their work motivation. Excluding mentions of budgetary changes, the respondents said “increased transparency in department/college/institutional decision-making” (45 percent), “increased recognition of the time and energy teaching a course involves” (44 percent), “addressing misperceptions about the time and energy teaching a course involves” (38 percent), and “recognition that faculty work 12 months a year” (34 percent), even if their official, contractual appointment is for nine months.

Avenues to Pursue

From these survey results and our years of experience as faculty, faculty developers and administrators, we suggest three particular avenues that administrators can pursue to help support faculty.

• Improved communications. The survey findings suggest that administrators should work to make their decisions more transparent to faculty members, ensuring that the faculty understands the decisions and is included in making them as much as possible. A major aspect of such transparency is clarifying the why behind decisions. Those whys include why a certain decision was made, why quick decisions were made or why decisions may have been made without extensive external consultations. Communication about why administrators may not be able to be completely transparent can also be beneficial. Without transparency or clear communication, faculty members easily make their own conclusions about why decisions were made even if those conclusions aren’t accurate, which can result in negative feelings.
• Greater recognition. The data we gathered in the survey suggest that another simple way for administrators to increase faculty support is to increase recognition of the work that faculty do, notably the time and energy teaching requires and that faculty work all year, not just when classes are in session. For example, when administrators check in with faculty members as they prepare for teaching, making simple comments and observations such as “excellent progress” or “these changes have great potential to help students” can have a significant impact on how supported faculty members feel.

Administrators can also host small events to show their appreciation to faculty members. The purpose of events can simply be to be in community with each other and to show the value of people to the institution. This type of management—just showing up—costs very little time but can have a huge impact on how faculty members feel about their work.

Related to the need for recognition, 38 percent of our survey respondents chose “addressing misperceptions about the time and energy teaching a course involves” as a change that would improve their motivation. Teaching is often not valued to the same degree as faculty research. But, as we mentioned in a previous article, our results suggest that faculty members want administrators to recognize the scholarly work that goes into teaching. Beyond just presenting student-facing content, teaching involves the design of syllabi and course materials that faculty constantly author, revise and implement. If administrators truly value teaching, as a recent survey from Inside Higher Ed suggests, then administrators need to put more effort into acknowledging and recognizing it.

• A culture of civility. Our third suggestion for administrators to consider as a way to support their faculty comes in the form of cultural change. Changing culture demands more work and time than improving communication and recognition, but it can also have a very positive impact on faculty. In fact, as many as 47 percent of our survey respondents identified campus culture and environment as a cause of significant professional frustration.

Moreover, when respondents shared their own short-answer responses to our questions, bullying and incivility unfortunately appeared as a common theme. Over all, such responses suggest that administrators need to consider the campus cultures at various levels and the impact of those cultures on faculty members.

One accessible approach to moving toward a culture of civility is to help faculty set stable boundaries for themselves with both their students and their colleagues. Administrators should work with faculty members to consider which boundaries to set and why and ensure that those boundaries are supported when pushed up against. Such boundaries might include, for example, how responsive faculty members need to be to students and colleagues on email after traditional working hours or on weekends. They can also include respect for requests to relinquish time-consuming and time-limited roles such as program head or department chair, especially when such requests come with complaints of burnout. That show of care from administrators will create a broader culture of support and civility and help faculty members feel safer and more secure in their positions.

While perhaps uncomfortable, administrators can also address complaints of bullying and incivility in individual conversations that highlight the behavior and clearly state that it’s unacceptable. Furthermore, enforcing standards of civility while choosing to hold meetings in public places where uninvolved persons can see and hear goes a long way toward reducing and making incivility unacceptable.

In conclusion, previous research has shown that institutional support is one of the biggest factors in determining whether faculty members choose to leave or remain at their college or university. Combined with our data showing that faculty do not feel supported and other evidence of growing numbers of resignations from academe, it’s clear that now is the time for administrators to start acting. (It is also worth noting that it’s not just faculty members who are leaving—key staff members are also looking for exits.) Our three non-budget-related suggestions are highly doable and can help administrators provide the institutional support that will retain faculty members at their institutions over the long haul.