CTE Initiatives for Supporting Faculty and Coping with Burnout
Have the last few years left you feeling stressed, exhausted, and generally burned out? You’re not alone. This has been an unprecedented time of upheaval and change, and higher education has been forced to adapt through a number of rapid and dramatic changes with far-reaching (and not yet thoroughly understood) consequences. Most educators agree that higher ed will never (and should never) return to what was considered “normal” before the pandemic, and faculty and students alike are now trying to figure out how to define our “new normal” and what teaching and learning can and should look like in a post-pandemic world.
The CTE is sponsoring several initiatives designed to help faculty cope with the stress and turmoil of the past few years and to share strategies and resources for coping with burnout, rebuilding resilience, and re-energizing your teaching.
Join the CTE Book Club: Unraveling Faculty Burnout
by Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark
Join the CTE in the Spring 2023 semester for a book club consisting of a series of moderated discussions scheduled to take place over a period of eight weeks (this will allow us to focus on one chapter per week, plus one additional week for a final discussion and wrap-up).
Participants will decide whether the book club will take place virtually (in Teams or Zoom), face-to-face in the CTE, or in some sort of hybrid combination of both formats.
The CTE will provide copies of the book to the first 12 faculty who sign up. All other participants will need to purchase their own copies.
Moderators: Jessica Estep (English) / Michael D. Smith (CTE)
Timeline / Schedule:
Jan 13 – Feb 03: signup period (see the form below)
Jan 17 – Feb 03: books for the first 12 faculty to sign up will be available for pickup in the CTE.
Jan 23 – Feb 03: polling of participants to determine format
Feb 06 – Feb 10: Week 1 (reading time)
Feb 13 – Feb 17: Week 2 (discussion of introduction, Chapters 1 and 2)
Feb 20 – Feb 24: Week 3 (reading time)
Feb 27 – Mar 03: Week 4 (discussion of Chapters 3 and 4)
Mar 06 – Mar 10: Spring Break
Mar 13 – Mar 17: Week 5 (reading time)
Mar 20 – Mar 24: Week 6 (discussion of Chapters 5 and 6)
Mar 27 – Mar 31: Week 7 (reading time)
Apr 03 – Apr 07: Week 8 (final discussion – takeaways, next steps, and wrap-up)
Book Club Sign Up Form: https://forms.gle/cRVBXofgED3zvFTdA
For more information, contact Michael D. Smith (mdsmith@ggc.edu)
Join the CTE’s Burnout Support Group
The CTE’s Burnout Support Group is intended to provide a safe and welcoming shared space for faculty to connect with colleagues, share experiences, and discuss strategies and practices for coping with burnout. As a part of the CTE’s Teaching and Learning Community (TLC), the support group will be facilitated and maintained by the CTE, but the participants will determine how, how often, and in what format(s) the support group will take place (asynchronous discussion forums and/or synchronous f2f/virtual meetings). Respect for group members’ privacy will be a primary focus.
The Burnout Support Group will discuss the strategies presented by Dr. Pope-Ruark, and will also explore Dr. Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion as an antidote for burnout. In two studies with healthcare professionals, Dr. Neff found that a self-compassion program significantly increased self-compassion and well-being as well as significantly reducing secondary traumatic stress and burnout. Dr. Neff, the author of the book Self-Compassion, believes that a regular self-compassion practice can greatly benefit educators.
“With the burnout issues teachers face, taking care of themselves through work/life balance is important, but it isn’t enough,” says Neff, “Teachers need to give themselves permission to be self-compassionate for the stress they’re under.” She describes the practice as a way of reining in our inner critic, replacing it with a voice of support, understanding and care.
The potential benefits of self-compassion are huge. Neff has found that people who practice self-compassion experience fewer negative emotions and stay emotionally balanced in difficult situations—both of which, according to another study on emotional exhaustion among teachers, help prevent teacher burnout.
A note about the stigma associated with faculty burnout: as Dr. Pope-Ruark points out, there is a certain amount of shame attached to a diagnosis of burnout in higher education; because of this stigma, it is not something that faculty generally talk about. If burnout is discussed in business and higher ed, it is often treated as a badge of honor, perpetuating a culture of stress that ignores the problem rather than trying to find a solution. Burnout was a significant problem among faculty members before the pandemic, however, and has only gotten worse over the past few years. Obviously, this is something that we need to start talking about. The stigma associated with burnout is similar to the stigma associated with seeking therapy for depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues, even though almost 40% of workers in a survey from one insurance company reported suffering from some sort of mental health issue before the pandemic began (and as of 2020, that number had increased to 46%). There is a growing recognition that therapy is beneficial for everyone, however, and more and more people (including celebrities) are beginning to talk about mental health. As burnout, anxiety, and depression often go hand in hand, we need to provide more opportunities for frank, open, safe, and non-judgmental conversations about these issues and work together to find effective solutions.
Burnout Support Group Sign Up Form: https://forms.gle/NWn18z4pCDykid2b9
For more information, contact Michael D. Smith (mdsmith@ggc.edu)
Join the CTE’s Teaching and Learning Community
After the turmoil of the past few years, some GGC faculty have expressed a need for a “back to basics” approach – an effort to reform, regroup, and rekindle the spirit of teaching. What are your core beliefs about teaching? Do they look the same as they did three years ago? Or do you feel a need to redefine what teaching and learning means for you, personally, today, to re-discover your guiding principles?
The Teaching and Learning Community (TLC) is intended to provide a space for faculty to have some of these crucial conversations and to do the necessary work of renewing and reforming together as a community. Our goals include:
- Providing a virtual space for ongoing community discussion and support
- Facilitating (re)connections with colleagues – sharing stories, experiences, and examples (both within and across disciplines)
- Renewing faculty energy and motivation / rekindling the spirit of teaching (and learning)
- Working collaboratively to redefine teaching after two and a half years of upheaval and to relearn how to teach in whatever the new (ab)normal ends up looking like
- Going back to the basics
- Identifying proven best practices
- Defining our “new normal”
- Providing resources and workshops on a variety of topics, including:
- The importance of wellness, well-being, self-compassion,
and self-care - Dealing with burnout
- Teaching through trauma
- Best practices for hybrid and online teaching and learning
- Best practices for engaging students
- The importance of wellness, well-being, self-compassion,
The extent of your participation in the TLC is completely up to you, of course – lurk in the background and observe; take part in any of the discussions that seem relevant to you (or start your own!) whenever you have some free time; take advantage of community resources as needed; and / or participate in as many of the self-paced / face-to-face workshops as you like. Whatever your level of participation, YOU can help to shape the nature, scope, and future of the community, explore what teaching and learning look like now, and define what sort of support you and your colleagues need now in order to move forward into the new normal.
TLC Sign Up Form: https://forms.gle/c8mNu1owEe5p3K7G9
For more information, contact Michael D. Smith (mdsmith@ggc.edu)