Worried about the impact the demands of remote teaching are having upon the time, energy, and resources necessary for your scholarship? You are not the only one. Colleagues from Skidmore, St. Lawrence, and Union have data and ideas they will share on March 3rd (4 – 5 p.m.). See the following description for their session – “I have no time to do anything:” Barriers to faculty productivity and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic – and if interested, register here.
Session Description:
Join colleagues from the NY6 to explore research investigating the impact of the pandemic on university faculty scholarship. In the early months of the pandemic a study was conducted with faculty at Saint Lawrence University, Union College, and Skidmore College to better assess the impact of competing demands on faculty. Results demonstrate that parental status and gender had unique consequences for barriers to productivity, particularly for mothers of young children who were also significantly more likely to take on remote learning responsibilities for their children. Gender, caretaking responsibilities, and rank (i.e., Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor) also influenced emotional labor demands in various ways, including mother-scholars exerting significantly more emotional labor in their engagement with students. Furthermore, gender and parental status also had unique impacts on reported depressive symptoms and sleep quality. Importantly, while women faculty tended to report higher levels of depressive symptoms and poorer sleep quality regardless of parental status, men faculty who were parents of young children reported significantly higher depressive symptoms and worse sleep than those who were not parents. Qualitative data from this study provide further context for the disparate impact on faculty who require access to specialized equipment for their scholarship and/or creative work, as well as potential gender differences in devaluing one’s own scholarship. Join us as we discuss our research and the projected long-term effects on academia at large.
