Higher education faculty faced multitudes of challenges in both their professional and personal lives during COVID-19. From an abrupt move to online teaching, to interrupted research projects, to family illness and caregiving responsibilities, faculty found their lives upended on multiple levels. For many faculty, the pandemic meant isolation from peer networks and university communities (Pololi et al., 2021), increased workload and stress from teaching online, and work-life imbalance and interference (Boamah et al., 2022). This study explored the values and motivations of faculty during this fraught time. The purpose of our study was to understand faculty career values and how faculty values and priorities were potentially affected by COVID-19.
Disruptions to Faculty Life
It is important to consider the context in which faculty make career decisions and keep career values—namely the university setting. The university is a socialized and systematized institution, particularly for early-career faculty, who are navigating the socialized constructs of university expectations. Building a supportive network of colleagues is important to their success in gaining tenure, receiving continuing contracts, and being awarded promotions and salary adjustments (Pifer & Baker, 2013). Faculty satisfaction and success within the institution are determined by work-life integration, transparency in the evaluation process (specifically for pre-tenured faculty), support for research and teaching, and culture, climate, and collegiality (Trower, 2012). Gonzales and Terosky (2018) observed that faculty rely on informal and formal collegial networks for mentorship and collaboration in research and teaching, and they also use those same networks to develop close friendships. Although collegial networks can and do happen online, for many faculty, on-campus networks were severely disrupted by the pandemic and left them isolated from their colleagues and friends. Meaningful work, relationships, and research productivity are motivating factors in faculty success and satisfaction, and the absence of these motivators due to COVID-19 caused stress and burnout (Pololi et al., 2021). These factors ultimately impacted how faculty managed pandemic changes to workload.
Teaching workloads and time devoted to attendant responsibilities increased because of the abrupt move to online instruction during the pandemic. A 2020 Chronicle of Higher Education survey of 1,122 professors at colleges and universities revealed 50% of faculty reported a decrease in their enjoyment of teaching (Tugend, 2020). Cordaro (2020) noted that some faculty may experience compassion fatigue from supporting students who experienced pandemic trauma. This increased emotional labor and workload interfered with faculty personal lives, creating work-life conflicts that affected faculty burnout and job satisfaction (Boamah et al., 2022). Similarly, a survey of 307 faculty in business and behavioral science disciplines found faculty experienced higher levels of technostress, the negative effects of technology on mental and physical health, due to the pandemic (Boyer-Davis, 2020). Although increased, time-sensitive, and altered workload caused fatigue and emotional labor for many faculty, some experienced technostress more severely than others.
For faculty populations already affected by systemic inequities, the pandemic exacerbated the situation. The work lives of women and faculty of color were affected more adversely by the pandemic than others (Pereira, 2021; King & Frederickson, 2021; Berheide et al., 2022; Porter et al., 2022). Gender disparities in manuscript submissions increased early in the pandemic in the sciences (King & Frederickson, 2021). Squazzoni et al. (2020) posited that since scholars were working from home and day cares and schools were closed, familial responsibilities may have limited the productivity of caregivers while faculty with fewer caregiving responsibilities may have gained an advantage. Berheide et al. (2022) attributed a reduction in research productivity to the increased emotional labor spent in caring for students’ needs during the pandemic and noted the increase in emotional labor was felt more deeply by women of color, as they faced higher work demands because of cultural and identity taxation.