Institutional betrayal in the age of coronavirus
These reflections were written in early April, 2020. In the wake of the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, & Tony McDade, and the numerous inadequate responses from institutional leadership, institutional betrayal has become an even more salient and important issue to which higher education and student affairs practitioners and university leaders must attend. The concept of institutional betrayal has been used to describe the experiences of faculty Women of Color, denying the reality of police brutality, and pervasive microaggressions, among others. Institutional courage requires addressing racism and white supremacy. Resources for my white colleagues to start taking action can be found here, here, and here.
Like many of my colleagues who work in student affairs and higher education, I’ve spent the last three months in what has felt like a precarious juggling act, balancing support for my students and my team, a rapid adjustment of my office’s engagement strategy, setup of a home office, family responsibilities, and some semblance of care for my own well-being. It’s not lost on me how incredibly lucky I am to be juggling these particular balls and not those being faced by my friends who are small business owners, contractors, gig economy employees, and food service workers.
Still, I’ve been overcome by a sense of grief that has felt deeper than what can be explained simply by the uncertainty and loss that COVID-19 has brought into all of our daily lives. I’ve struggled to find the words for this as I’ve maintained (remote) connections with my practitioner colleagues, scrolled through the SApros page, and read foreboding article after article of the ways that this virus is upending higher education as we know it.
I’ve been dismayed by the institutions that lagged in their responses to COVID-19 for staff members, feeling deeply for my colleagues who felt (or still feel) like an afterthought. I’ve felt disheartened and even disturbed by the ways that some of us who are working remotely are being held to expectations of increased productivity and are even being surveilled by our institutions to ensure we are delivering on those expectations. And, perhaps most troubling, I’ve resonated with the anticipatory fear of furloughs or layoffs for university employees, especially those who are considered “non-essential” (read: hourly or administrative).
So many of us engage in this work of student affairs and higher education with a deep sense of conviction and commitment; we devote far more than 40 hours a week to our institutions, and rightfully expect that our labor will be at the very least recognized, if not implicitly valued, by our workplaces. We work to advance the educational mission of our colleges and universities, and often do ample additional labor supporting marginalized and minoritized students who our campuses laud as diversity benchmarks.
And yet, COVID-19 has revealed underlying truths for many of us: we are not seen as valuable, trustworthy, or important to the functioning of our institutions. It’s those revelations that carry their own particular kind of trauma: institutional betrayal.
Institutional betrayal refers to “institutional action and inaction that exacerbate the impact of traumatic experiences” (Smith & Freyd, 2014). This phenomenon can be perpetuated by both actively (laying off and furloughing workers) and passively (not prioritizing the safety of staff members), and can be systemic or individual in nature. Often discussed within the context of campus responses (or lack thereof) to sexual assault and sexual abuse, institutional betrayal exacerbates situations that are already incredibly traumatic for survivors. Indeed, some argue that those of us within the United States are experiencing the effects of institutional betrayal at the highest levels of government. Institutional betrayal is correlated with higher rates of anxiety & dissociation (Smith & Freyd, 2013; Smith & Freyd, 2017); in a time when these are already rampant, it is no wonder that I and many of my colleagues are particularly struggling.
Undoubtedly, COVID-19 is placing incredible financial strain on colleges and universities. It is precisely during these times of challenge and strain that our institutional leaders should be called upon to act according to their espoused values. Radical transparency, open and honest communication, and care for people above profit are needed now more than ever if higher education is to maintain its integrity as well as its survival.
These principles are echoed in the concept of institutional courage. An antidote to institutional betrayal, institutional courage prioritizes accountability, transparency, and trauma-informed care. It requires institutional leaders to courageously invest in the well-being of their people rather than guard their reputations.
What could institutional courage look like in the time of COVID-19? I was told once that we all are in a constant state of juggling our priorities. Some of the balls we juggle are rubber, while others are glass. Rubber balls will bounce back when they are dropped; glass balls, on the other hand, will be damaged, perhaps beyond repair. All of us within higher education are being tasked to determine which of our balls are rubber (such as traditional grading systems), and which are glass (such as student housing, health & well-being). For many of us within student affairs and higher education, this is a seminal moment; will we be treated as rubber balls, or as glass ones?
Institutional courage calls us to critically consider how we might be leaving behind members of our campus community, and what is at stake when we do so. Brené Brown calls courage “a heart word,” and that is exactly what COVID-19 is demanding from institutions of higher education: wholehearted, vulnerable leadership.
