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Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Employee Burnout in Higher Education

"Here鈥檚 a quote I once heard from a priest: If you don鈥檛 want to burn out, stop living like you鈥檙e on fire.鈥 -Brene Brown

The term 鈥渂urnout鈥 was first introduced in 1974 by American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger to describe the consequences of severe stress and high ideals in human professions (social workers, teachers, nurses, police officers, physicians, etc.). Freudenberger defined burnout as 鈥渢he extinction of or incentive, especially where one's devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results鈥 (1974). In 1989, Byrne and Hall explored the impacts of the three dimensions of burnout (exhaustion, depersonalization/cynicism, and reduced personal accomplishment) on teachers, including university instructors, as well as the work-related stress factors that contribute to burnout. Byrne and Hall found that a combination of personal traits and organizational factors directly contributed to feelings of burnout. 听

Research dating back to 1989 (possibly further) identified concerns about increasing employee stress levels occurring in higher education. As a result of the pandemic, numerous new studies on faculty burn-out have been initiated. A recent qualitive study by Koster and McHenry (2023) analyzed narrative comments on a survey assessing burnout and well-being to identify factors that contributed to faculty feelings of disengagement and exhaustion.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Research of the Month

This month we are featuring research on the impacts of sexism, discrimination, and exclusion on the experience of female learners. New research from Georgia State University explores the differences in gender-based discrimination between STEM and non-STEM programs. Co-author Leah Daigle, a professor in Georgia State鈥檚 Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, says, 鈥淚f you see an equal number of women and men in your classes, you might think that, by definition, the women are being treated fairly. But that鈥檚 not what our study shows. It should be a wake-up call for people to realize that even when people are not in the minority in a group, they can still be at risk for discrimination and harm.鈥

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Success is a marathon, not a sprint.

We all start the term running fast. We stay on top of classes, hang out with friends, go to the gym, and minimize our procrastination. We feel excited for a new period in our life; being able to get a fresh start at our goals can be very motivating to work hard towards them. The first 2, maybe 3 weeks of the term are often the best because we can stick with all the ambitious goals we鈥檝e set out for ourselves. We sprint -- and moving fast never felt so good.