About half of new faculty want to quit: IHE article

[polly_mer]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/11/19/faculty-pandemic-stress-now-chronic

Some of wanting to quit is being in a pandemic, but that's not all of the pressure to do more with much less where urgent crowds out important nearly daily.

[Ruralguy]

Its very stressful. On top of that is the daily infighting now due to limited resources and conflicting goals (between and among virtually all stakeholders).

[marshwiggle]

Some interesing results from the study:

To improve their current level of job satisfaction, faculty named increased compensation (53%), modifications to teaching schedule or load (46%), new technology or better access to technology support (34%), and increased staff/teaching assistant support (26%).

The fact that more tech support and more staff/TA support rank lower than money is interesting.

While only 6% reported stress from the loss of a job and a majority report no concerns that their institution or department would close permanently as a result of the pandemic, more than 40 percent of faculty have considered leaving their positions as a result of COVID-19 changes/impacts.

I'm kind of curious what all these people figure they would do instead that would be more stable during covid.

[Caracal]

It seems like a meaningless statistic. I sort of want to quit by the end of every semester. Does it mean they are really seriously considering it?

[apl68]

Are there pre-pandemic figures for this to indicate any increases in desire to quit since the pandemic started?

Are there figures for the workforce in general to compare this to?  At any given time a lot of people, in lots of different occupations, feel like quitting.

[mamselle]

Probably all of us, at some time or another, if we're honest...

M.

[marshwiggle]

Are there pre-pandemic figures for this to indicate any increases in desire to quit since the pandemic started?

Are there figures for the workforce in general to compare this to?  At any given time a lot of people, in lots of different occupations, feel like quitting.

I have to say, I'm really not looking forward to going back to being in-person with 13 lab sections of the same course. The more things get adapted for remote delivery, the fewer of them I feel are absolutely necessary in person.

[Caracal]

Are there pre-pandemic figures for this to indicate any increases in desire to quit since the pandemic started?

Are there figures for the workforce in general to compare this to?  At any given time a lot of people, in lots of different occupations, feel like quitting.

Yes, exactly. "Considered leaving" is pretty vague and could cover everything from momentary thoughts of quitting to a desire to search for other academic jobs.

I find it useful to think about quitting when I'm feeling grumpy about work. It reminds me that I'm not actually stuck and could do something else. Once I've made that a real possibility, it helps me to put things in perspective.

If you just started a new position this year, it makes sense that you'd be feeling pretty down. You have all the normal stress of being new, but you're doing it in a pandemic. I'm guessing that most people who have "considered quitting" think about it and realize that it wouldn't make much sense to make decisions based on how they feel about their job now.

[Ruralguy]

And there's a lot of downsizing in these times even among skilled professions, so its not like you can really avoid going from the frying pan into the fire anyway, but particularly for newer academics, it might be useful to consider other options.

As far as the article goes, yes, without comparison data its hard to really get a solid measure of how much more people want to quit, but I think one major factor is that some of these folks think they may not have a job anymore anyway, so they are quitting in advance of being fired more than they are quitting because they inherently hate the job.

[fishbrains]

Anecdotally, I'm finding that the level of stress tends to be field-specific (keep in mind I'm at a CC). Humanities faculty like myself have been able to make the transition to online/Zoom/COVID courses far more easily than folks in the sciences, nursing, tech ed., etc. Some of these faculty probably could have been looking at online delivery a little more closely prior to COVID, but suddenly converting mid-semester was a bit much. Plus the frozen molasses responses from accreditation organizations, administration, and other entities over the summer weren't helpful.

At any rate, after talking to people I used to work with back in my foodservice days, I know I don't have anything to complain about. At all.

[teach_write_research]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/11/19/faculty-pandemic-stress-now-chronic

Some of wanting to quit is being in a pandemic, but that's not all of the pressure to do more with much less where urgent crowds out important nearly daily.

Hold on now. The data are from CourseHero?!?  CourseHero is a plagairism site. They tempt students with "scholarship" drawings in exchange for students uploading their work and instructor materials. They give a shiny statement of academic integrity while promoting misconduct. https://www.coursehero.com/academic-integrity-policies/

I see you CourseHero trying to ingratiate yourself to faculty with this (questionable) data. Not falling for it! The links I followed don't even get me to the data. Research Hub my a$$. https://www.coursehero.com/research-hub/

That is a new low for insidehigered.com.

[polly_mer]

At any rate, after talking to people I used to work with back in my foodservice days, I know I don't have anything to complain about. At all.

The choice for professionals is not faculty or foodservice.  Things aren't perfect here, but no one has cried in my office at all here, even during the current Covid problems, and I had faculty crying in my office weekly (students more frequently than that) when I was in academia and that was before I started having to bang the drum about how the college was going to close.

Per teach_write_research, CourseHero may not be the most reliable data source, but they wouldn't have had to cherry pick too hard to get their numbers based on other surveys in the past five to ten years.

Self report from late 2019: https://www.adjunctnation.com/2020/01/23/majority-of-adjunct-faculty-say-theyd-leave-academia-if-a-different-job-opportunity-arose/

Harvard has people who do faculty retention research as a paid service for an institution and for general research purposes( https://coache.gse.harvard.edu/research) because the issue of good faculty leaving academia is a thing and worrying even at good institutions.

Several years ago, academic quit lit was having a moment (one of many articles is https://community.chronicle.com/news/216-why-so-many-academics-quit-and-tell).  The quit lit is less in the spotlight right now, but it's still a thing.

[fishbrains]

At any rate, after talking to people I used to work with back in my foodservice days, I know I don't have anything to complain about. At all.

The choice for professionals is not faculty or foodservice.  Things aren't perfect here, but no one has cried in my office at all here, even during the current Covid problems, and I had faculty crying in my office weekly (students more frequently than that) when I was in academia and that was before I started having to bang the drum about how the college was going to close.

I don't think that's what I meant, but okay.

[bad_math_puns]

This is me! Newish TT faculty at a non-elite but still perfectly solid school. Loved my job as of March, now actively looking to quit. Industry may had a few lean years so I realize I may not get hired right away. But also, my current job will never be as good as (I thought) it was pre-COVID.

[writingprof]

It seems like a meaningless statistic. I sort of want to quit by the end of every semester. Does it mean they are really seriously considering it?

I agree.  This week: Professors all want to quit.  Next week: Professors refuse to retire.