How the Coronavirus Pandemic has Affected the Mental Health of University Faculty
A life of isolation and precariousness isn’t a healthy way to thrive. For many academics, however, this is the norm.
Job insecurity, isolation, and the culture of the institutions themselves have all played a role in what is seen as a mental health epidemic in academia. While the coronavirus pandemic has created challenges for all staff, many of these issues were pre-existing and are simply magnified by COVID-19.
The inequalities and stress that are now coming to the forefront are just the tip of the iceberg. To truly see how academia got here — and how the system needs to change — we need to go back to the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s.
Underlying Issues
Academia wasn’t always a high-stress profession. Historically, academic work was seen as highly satisfying and relatively stress-free.
It wasn’t until the early 1980s and the introduction of neoliberal ideology — the theory that the free market is the best way to regulate human activity — that these characteristics changed. With the implementation of neoliberal ideology, universities were encouraged to find ever increasing sources of private money and compete for funding.
Neoliberal ideology is also related to the New Public Management (NPM) model, which proposed a simplistic and flawed formula: free market = competition = best value for money = optimum efficiency for individuals as consumers and owners of private property. High risk in the hope of even higher rewards became valued over stability. Implementing this model creates a worsening faculty/student ratio, an increase in the implementation of online learning, and an alarming growth of precarious workers in academia.
With the competitive nature of academia and declining government support, university professors and researchers are under suffocating pressure to constantly produce knowledge, develop technical capacities, and collaborate across various sectors to transform knowledge into something that has public and/or financial value.
The high-risk, high reward attitude of institutions places more stress on the individuals within the system. Pressures for faculty to obtain prestigious grants and funding, slow career advancement, and academia’s inadequate salaries all have an indirect impact on the performance of an individual via physical/psychological factors, motivation, and inter-personal factors.
With less external support, untenured faculty are being placed into precarious work situations. The rise in part-time faculty is seen as a more viable option by universities — if an academic program fails, letting go of part-time faculty is easier and quicker.
Tenured faculty, in turn, are forced to conduct more research and get respected grants to create the illusion of a more prestigious institution. Teaching is no longer the focus: a study conducted by the University of Virginia found that the top reasons instructors do not change how they teach is due to the little time to plan on top of their other responsibilities.
Like other professionals, professors and university staff are under a great amount of pressure — in fact, the stress levels current professors face is comparable to “high risk” groups like healthcare workers. With the pressure placed on academics — to publish, secure grants, teach, research, and fulfill administrative responsibilities, as well as maintain a work/life balance and deal with job insecurity — there is a higher rate of burnout.
Faculty of colour also note that their cultural, racial, or ethnic backgrounds are often met with a disproportionate number of personal requests from BIPOC students, as a result of the rising diversification of the student body. This invisible labour — especially when faculty are not trained as counsellors or may be facing similar conflicts — can potentially worsen pre-existing mental health issues.
One of the major reasons for unnoted mental health concerns of professors is due to the stigma in their workplace. The culture of academia expects staff to be bulletproof, with mental illness being seen as an attitude problem, as opposed to an illness.
This is not just a North American problem — it’s an international concern. In the U.K., only 6.2% of faculty disclosed their mental illness, but around 37% had a common mental health disorder. As illness and disease are often associated with death, interacting with those who are ill can elicit strong negative emotions or fear of one’s mortality. Once the disclosure of a mental illness is made, staff may feel more inclined to avoid associating with those who are ill, which diminishes the quality of their social and professional life. Faculty also fear judgement and compromising job security if they disclose their mental health concerns.
Neoliberalism is not the sole reason for this mental health crisis in academia — rather, it merely intensifies existing inequalities. The hierarchical nature of institutions and the competition for students and funding is only heightened through this model.
The tip of the iceberg
The isolation of the pandemic hasn’t been easy. In October 2020, Morneau Shepell’s Mental Health Index — a measure of mental health of working Canadians — sunk to the lowest point since the beginning of the pandemic. Additionally, 40% of people with anxiety and depression did not seek medical health due to the stigma associated with mental health issues.
The pandemic has contributed to feelings of loneliness, isolation, and depression throughout large portions of the population. These factors are often associated with poor mental health and professional performance. In addition to faculty having the same stresses and uncertainties as the rest of the community in regards to the pandemic, they also dealt with communication issues intensified by the transition to online learning, resulting in a third of university faculty wanting to switch professions within higher education, retire, or quit.
In a survey of over 570 full- and part-time faculty at two- and four-year colleges and universities, 74% of participants reported significant stress caused by challenges using new modes of teaching. In Canada, the pandemic has impacted the livelihood and research activity of faculty employed by public universities, disproportionately affecting faculty of colour and women — 79% of faculty reported a pandemic-related disruption in their work-life balance.
The emotional and mental health needs of students have greatly contributed to faculty’s increased stress.The invisible labour of caring for students is known as compassion fatigue, with 84% of staff finding that their increasing workload was due to more time supporting students than before the pandemic.
The precarious nature of academia has also impacted the health and safety of non-tenured faculty. Without access to the health benefits of tenured faculty, non-tenured faculty are less likely to get tested for coronavirus infection, even if they are symptomatic. Part-time instructors represent 40% of all faculty in U.S. colleges and universities, with much of their income coming from teaching at multiple schools, not allowing them to hit the threshold for any particular institution even if they are working similar hours.
What Can be Done Better
As the issues of the pandemic and the mental health of staff is a major concern, it’s imperative that universities seek out options to make changes. While some may be more drastic and harder/longer to implement than others, the discourse around mental health needs to change.
Mental health, as noted, is shown to have a legitimacy issue in post-secondary institutions. In order to find out why, universities have to take the responsibility to systematically assess why faculty, staff, and students experience so much stress and normalize the conversation about mental health.
Students will still seek out the guidance and mentorship of faculty mentors. If an institution were to provide additional training for their staff, professors may be able to notice when a student is suffering and direct them to the proper resources. Institutions should also diversify their faculty in order to alleviate the disproportionate amount of personal requests faculty of colour receive.
The individualistic mindset of academia and the competition it creates is not a healthy environment to work in. The implementation of more collaboration will benefit the changing nature of post-secondary education, adapting to globalization, technological changes, and the shift in economic and cultural realities. The collaborative aspect would allow better communication and camaraderie amongst staff, with collaborative projects also potentially enhancing the careers of academics.
One of the bigger issues in academia is shifting away from neoliberal ideology. There would need to be a societal shift away from the free market to a situation where post-secondary education is prioritized as a valuable public benefit, and not merely as the means to a more profitable end.
It would be naïve to say that this possible shift is imminent and would be an answer to everyone’s problems in academia. However, if governments were to place more funding into post-secondary education, universities could support faculty better and minimize the need for precarious workers.
The pandemic has shown that the status quo established and maintained by post-secondary institutions is failing its faculty members, and the wider university community as well. If the institutions are unwilling to change the culture they perpetuate, these concerns will only get worse and drive more people away from academia.
