Santoro, a professor at Bowdoin College who wrote a book on teacher demoralization, has explained that teachers of all kinds are facing stressors during the pandemic that put them at heightened risk for burnout and demoralization. People in higher education are using a new word to describe their experience: “demoralized.”ĭoris A. I’ve heard from several colleagues at multiple institutions that morale is the lowest they have ever seen. Stories have chronicled boycotts of in-person teaching, protests and die-ins to demand mask and vaccine mandates, faculty senate resolutions, and even faculty members walking away from jobs. Recently, I’ve seen an increasing number of stories about workers who aren’t just exhausted. I wrote about how college leaders should prepare for a wave of burnout as the pandemic brewed a potent blend of constant work and worry. There was considerable discussion last fall about burnout among college staff and faculty. Leaders need to be ready to put in the work, starting with admitting there is a morale problem and actively listening to what staff and faculty are saying. Morale can absolutely be improved in higher education, but it requires the type of sustained attention necessary to shift organizational culture.
#BURN OUT T SHIRTS FREE#
That’s because the root of many morale issues in higher education run deep enough that a free T-shirt will feel shallow and even insulting. More than a few, it seems, have turned to gimmicks that have little chance of meaningfully moving the dial on morale. We might wonder if we can still enact our values in higher education, given our employers’ leadership and decision-making.Īssuming that some part of the scenario above sounds vaguely familiar, college leaders may be casting about for ways to lift their employees’ spirits. Let’s say we’re not just physically and emotionally depleted, but we question whether our institutions have our best interests at heart. Maybe we have experienced a cruel deja vu, once again juggling hours of Zoom meetings with the needs of our unvaccinated children as the delta variant courses through schools and day care centers. Perhaps we allowed ourselves the faintest glimmer of hope for better working conditions compared to last year, only to be met by sterile emails enforcing inflexible personnel policies, signs about “masking up” on campus as hoards of unmasked fans descend on football stadiums, and pressures to pantomime normalcy for students when our own lives feel far from normal. Let’s say, hypothetically, that it’s been a difficult start to the fall semester for many of us who work as staff and faculty on college campuses in America.
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