Connectivity, community, and sense of belonging

This chapter illustrates how the change to a virtual setting challenged students' social connectedness and sense of belonging. It demonstrates how students found a way to build social connectedness in a virtual setting that reinforced their sense of community. The chapter discusses how Students of Color experienced the COVID-19 interruption. It offers insights into whether thriving in college is even possible for students when their means of creating community have been disrupted. At the University of Utah, the detachment was experienced by students in their interactions with faculty and their relationships with their friends, peers, and classmates. The closing of campus and the shift to online learning also limited students' social connectedness with friends, classmates, and peers. Students also relied on new communities to gain motivation and achieve academically. University employees were also a part of students' relational communities. Some students created a strong emotional connection with staff members, such as advisors and student affairs professionals. The pandemic and the resulting educational changes added another layer of complexity to the academic experiences of Students of Color. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The burnout warning

This chapter covers three distinct themes that encompass the concept of burnout warning: inherent adversities in the modality shift, fear and ambiguity in higher education, and attempting to work in suboptimal conditions. While thriving represents a concept that denotes success and achievement, burnout represents exhaustion and fatigue. The behavior exhibited by staff and its correlation to burnout is best explained by the works of Maslach and Leiter using the areas of worklife (AW) model entailing organizational risk factors. The AW model explains how burnout is expedited when there is a disruption to balance in the following areas: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. The findings indicate that staff members at the University of Utah displayed early signs of burnout warning. The factors that contribute to early signals of burnout include resource shortages, an increase in overall workload-including persistent emotional labor-and a lack of acknowledgement. The chapter illustrates how stressors, aggravated by COVID fatigue, fostered an environment that mobilized the onset of burnout. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Loss of organic community and decentralized communications

This chapter explores the barriers and disruption to community and communication resulting from remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Utah's decision to abruptly transition to a fully online model resulted in several communication impacts for staff. First, staff participants received little and inconsistent communication from the University. This caused uncertainty within departments, which trickled down to the students staff serve. Second, this led to staff participants feeling disconnected from the institution and increased their concerns around misinforming students. At the same time, the move to online learning and work decreased efficient communication between colleagues. Casual interactions in the office became email threads and extended feedback processes. Third, staff reported that online communications with students became less personal, which created difficulty for building and maintaining rapport. Finally, staff members' overall sense of community consistently dropped as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on and they were forced to continue to work remotely. The discontent and apprehension felt by staff members around the communication provided from University leadership was compounded by the impact of working from home. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Online learning during COVID-19

This chapter focuses on the challenges unique to online learning environments, how students responded to the abrupt shift to remote learning, and how this impacted their ability to thrive in the midst of a global pandemic. It illustrates how instructors' ability (or inability) to smoothly transition from in-person to online environments impacted students' learning. The chapter examines some of the challenges students faced with online learning, including changes in learning environments, communication with instructors, and classroom dialogues. It explores instances of students thriving in online learning environments. The inherent unpredictability of the COVID-19 pandemic and some institutional inconsistencies created challenges to building an environment in which students could thrive. Although the University attempted to create an online environment that allowed students to continue their education during the pandemic, significant issues arose that forced students to teach themselves, often with little support from faculty. The challenges of learning online were compounded with the loss of on-campus resources such as access to quiet study spaces and the University library. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The creative container: Supervision and schools in a time of trauma

This article explores creative supervision with Headteachers and Senior Leaders following the Covid-19 pandemic. It examines the effects of a global trauma on schools and the need for effective supervision to provide a safe container for school staff. Different forms of creative supervision are considered, including the use of symbol and metaphor as well as working outdoors, in nature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Working from home challenges: Resources, tools, and quality concerns

This chapter provides a glimpse into the conversation around the resources that university staff need to thrive in their work both on campus or through telework. The COVID-19 pandemic and shifting to working from home exposed disparities in resources for staff at the University of Utah many of which existed in the on-campus work environment as well. Institutions of higher education were no exception;most non-essential employees made the change from working on campus to a teleworking environment. Because most colleges and universities still operate from a brick-and-mortar setting and primarily offer in-person instruction, this change to serving students and carrying out job responsibilities from home was a huge and unexpected shift, and very little infrastructure was in place for addressing needs and providing essential tools and resources for employee thriving in a work-at-home environment. It is found that the move to working from home revealed a broad continuum where on one end staff had access to essential resources for thriving as new telecommuters, and on the other end staff struggled from one day to the next to maintain quality services for students and co-workers due to the lack of basic resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The way forward

The profound sadness, anxiety, depression, and loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult to fathom. This chapter offers both scholars and practitioners the opportunity to reconsider the purposes and potential of higher education in a world after COVID-19. The importance of community and a sense of belonging, the power of learning new strategies during changing times, and acknowledging that the COVID-19 pandemic had significant consequences for individuals are themes that describe the experiences of the pandemic for faculty, staff, and students at the University of Utah. The University of Utah is offering most classes in an online environment and most students are not on campus, but students, their families, faculty, and staff are gathering for small, COVID-safe in-person graduation ceremonies. The chapter illustrates pockets of thriving across the University of Utah: students creating communities wherever they could to overcome lags in motivation;faculty feeling vitality as they learned new ways to teach and recognized their growth in this process;and staff realizing they could find new ways to solve problems with students. It offers broad recommendations for higher education with the intent that the findings may help others attempting to thrive or survive during times of crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Teaching online and caring for students and colleagues

This chapter explores how the University's decision to move all courses to an online format impacted faculty members. It illustrates the challenges associated with transitioning from a brick-and-mortar, four-year university that predominantly offers in-person classes into one that operated almost completely online. The chapter focuses on faculty and how different aspects of their pedagogy were immediately impacted by the pandemic. It addresses how faculty participants expressed their concern for students and colleagues as well as the initiatives and actions participants took to assist students and colleagues. The chapter discusses the impact of COVID-19 and the transition to online learning on a traditional institution of higher education. The experience of transitioning to online teaching varied widely for faculty and was dependent on the course and content delivery, experience with online teaching and online tools, and course context. All faculty made accommodations for students, whether at the behest of the University directive to accommodate student needs or because they felt it was in the best interest of the students. Faculty participants also adjusted their expectations for assessments and grading. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Community, communication and expectations for teaching

This chapter explores how communication during the COVID-19 crisis hindered and supported faculty performance and how they interpreted institutional communication and expectations around their teaching. It addresses the importance of community to faculty, both as they adjusted to online instruction and as a source of thriving in their work. Faculty are a key element in higher education institutions, and the findings show how faculty participants acted on the frontlines of the transition to online learning. Faculty participants consistently talked about the challenges of teaching students to the best of their ability during a global pandemic, and the importance of their communities for their success in this endeavor. They expected clear communication from the University and desired guidelines specific to each college or department. In the end, faculty relied on their community as a resource of knowledge and support during the difficult transition. Professional organizations and colleagues outside of the University of Utah also served as sources of knowledge for faculty as they adjusted to online learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Thriving as a lens for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on higher education faculty, staff, and students

This chapter provides details of both the student thriving model and the socially embedded model of thriving at work. Both models place an onus on higher education institutions for ensuring that members of the community thrive. The chapter considers how these models might apply to a clearer understanding of how students, staff, and faculty at the University of Utah managed the transition to online learning, teaching, and work during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the joint effort necessary for thriving to occur, the chapter explores whether thriving is even possible during a time of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes participants' experiences of loss of community;lack of information and acknowledgement of effort;deep learning and adaptation;anger, frustration, joy, and gratitude;and feelings of success and failure. In many cases, elements of thriving were present in these experiences, but the University of Utah was clearly limited in its ability to provide conditions for thriving as the entire campus moved to an online modality. Additionally, many participants experienced significant challenges to their mental health and well-being, in many cases breaking the cycle of sustaining thriving noted by Spreitzer. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Understanding individual experiences of COVID-19 to inform policy and practice in higher education: Helping students, staff, and faculty to thrive in times of crisis

Utilizing findings from more than 200 interviews with students, staff, and faculty at a US university, this volume explores the immediate and real-life impacts of COVID-19 on individuals to inform higher education policy and practice in times of crisis. Documenting the profound impacts that COVID-19 had on university operations and teaching, this book foregrounds a range of participant perspectives on key topics such as institutional leadership and loss of community, managing motivation and the move to online teaching and learning, and coping with the adverse mental health effects caused by the pandemic. Far from dwelling on the negative, the volume frames the lived experiences and implications of COVID-19 for higher education through a positive, progressive lens, and considers how institutions can best support individual and collective thriving during times of crisis. This book will benefit researchers, academics, and educators in higher education with an interest in the sociology of education, higher education management, and eLearning more broadly. Those specifically interested in student affairs practice, as well as the administration of higher education, will also benefit from this book. The chapters describe the experiences of students, staff, and faculty at the University of Utah as they adapted to the new COVID-19 reality in spring and summer 2020. The logistics of adjusting to online learning and working, the juggling act of managing their online learning and teaching while taking on responsibility for the learning of children in their homes, the reality of a struggling economy, and the social-political environment of a presidential election year and a burgeoning racial justice movement provide the backdrop for the experiences described in this monograph. This study has important implications for higher education leaders. It offers an in-depth and institutionally broad view of how different higher education stakeholders experienced the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Pandemic privilege

Many felt that the challenges related to COVID-19 were more difficult for students than for faculty and expressed concern for students struggling to manage the impacts of the pandemic. Pandemic privilege is illustrated several ways. First, faculty appreciated the privilege in the fact that, generally, their employment was not at risk. This was stronger for tenure-line faculty than for contract, clinical, and adjunct faculty. However, across the board, faculty expressed that they were privileged in their ability to continue working in meaningful employment and to do so from home. Second, faculty whose children were grown and more independent felt privilege related to the extra burden on colleagues with younger children at home. Additionally, many of the White faculty recognized a racial privilege, both in terms of the virus and more generally as a result of the racial justice movements across the country. And, faculty who were relatively healthy acknowledged the different impact of the virus for those with health-related complications or risk factors. Finally, faculty talked about their privilege in comparison to students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Effects of parenthood and gender on well-being and work productivity among Canadian academic research faculty amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought about enormous changes to all aspects of academic life. In spring 2020, we recruited faculty from Canadian universities who were asked to complete a survey about the perceived impact of the pandemic on aspects of their well-being and work productivity. Eight hundred ninety-nine academics from across Canada responded, reporting that the pandemic had had a significant negative impact on their mental health, work satisfaction, first-author publications, grants, and data collection. Overall weekly work hours dropped by 22% compared to prepandemic levels, from 45 hr/week to 35 hr. Though parents of children under the age of 13 managed to maintain an average of 30 hr/week despite juggling childcare and work duties, they nonetheless fared worse compared to nonparents and parents of older children on nearly all indicators of work productivity and well-being. Furthermore, mothers of young children reported having fewer uninterrupted work hours and spending more time as primary caregiver compared to fathers. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable negative impact on the self-reported well-being and work productivity of Canadian academics, and even more so among parents of young children. Mothers of young children may be particularly in need of additional support. These findings highlight the importance of adopting policies at the federal and institutional levels aimed at "leveling the playing field" for these groups as well as instituting creative childcare solutions that maintain health and safety while not further disadvantaging young parents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement Public Significance Statement: The current findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable negative impact on the self-reported well-being and work productivity of Canadian academics, and even more so among parents of young children. Mothers of young children may be particularly in need of additional support. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (French) La pandemie de la maladie causee par le coronavirus (COVID-19) a suscite d'enormes changements dans tous les volets de la vie universitaire. Au printemps 2020, nous avons effectue un sondage parmi les membres du personnel d'universites canadiennes afin de connaitre les repercussions percues de la pandemie sur divers aspects de leur bien-etre et sur leur productivite. Ont repondu au questionnaire 899 personnes de partout au pays, lesquelles ont signale que la pandemie avait eu d'importantes repercussions negatives sur leur sante mentale, leur niveau de satisfaction au travail, le nombre de publications comme premier auteur, l'obtention de subventions et la collecte de donnees. Dans l'ensemble, le nombre d'heures travaillees par semaine a chute de 22 %, comparativement a celui d'avant la pandemie, passant de 45 a 35 heures. Bien que les parents d'enfants de moins de 13 ans aient reussi a maintenir un horaire moyen de 30 heures semaine, jonglant les services de garde et le travail, ils ont des resultats tres inferieurs aux personnes sans enfants ou aux parents d'enfants plus ages pour presque tous les indicateurs de productivite et de bien-etre. De plus, les meres de jeunes enfants ont rapporte avoir un nombre inferieur d'heures de travail ininterrompues et avoir consacre plus de temps comme principaux fournisseurs de soins en comparaison des peres. Ainsi, la pandemie de COVID-19 a eu d'importantes repercussions sur les niveaux autorapportes de bien-etre et de productivite des chercheurs universitaires canadiens, en particulier parmi les parents de jeunes enfants. Les meres de jeunes enfants ont peut-etre particulierement besoin de soutien supplementaire. Ces resultats mettent en relief l'importance d'adopter des politiques federales et institutionnelles visant a egaliser les chances pour ces groupes, de meme que d'etablir des solutions novatrices pour la garde d'enfants qui assurent la sante et la securite, sans desavantager les jeunes parents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Promoting communal care for wellbeing in graduate education: Community building, belonging, and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic

Academia is a stressful occupation. Globally, faculty report stressors related to mounting expectations for research and scholarly productivity in the context of simultaneously increasing instructional workloads, administrative duties, and student expectations. As a result of these increased demands and expectations, faculty report experiences of intense stress, worry, depressed mood, emotional exhaustion, diminished self-care, and overall sense of compromised wellbeing. This chapter explores self-care within graduate education and argue for the inclusion of communal care practices to support wellbeing. It positions community building as a communal care practice that extends traditional notions of self-care. It also adopts reflexive ethnography to unpack the subjective experiences of wellbeing, including those incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter utilizes Bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological theory of human development to deconstruct the sense of belonging and efforts to build community within academia, reflecting on resulting impacts on wellbeing. It identifies microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem factors that facilitated or impeded the efforts to build community in context of the social-cultural locations as faculty. The chapter highlights the importance of modeling self-care through community building in graduate-level practice, scholarship, and policy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Building intercultural mentorship, wellbeing, and wholistic practice in graduate education: Scholarly reflections on playbuilding, storytelling, and the arts

Academia is a stressful environment for graduate students and faculty due to high expectations, comprehensive assignments, and diverse roles and responsibilities. Faculty report stressors related to high demands for scholarly productivity, teaching excellence, and administrative duties. These high expectations are often heightened by increasing class sizes, limited administrative support, decreased funding opportunities, and busy schedules. There are also increased pressures for racialized faculty groups. More recently, professors have also been facing an increasing number of COVID-19-related stressors, such as remote working, childcare obligations, research delays, secondary trauma, and mental exhaustion. Educational researchers suggest that in a context of an increasingly changing academia, mentoring and community-building have the potential to promote growth-fostering relationships while supporting individuals' sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and competency. Considering the importance of mentorships and wellbeing in graduate education, as well as artful practices for learning and teaching, the authors shares their perspectives of play-building as they continue to develop intercultural relationships through collaborative writing, storytelling, and understandings of the Creative Process, as well as two Indigenous pedagogical tools: the Medicine Wheel and the Two Row Wampum Belt. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Supporting student and faculty wellbeing in graduate education: Teaching, learning, policy, and praxis

Promoting and sustaining wellbeing have gained prominence in a globalizing world, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Higher-education institutions are increasingly expected to consider and support the wellbeing of their students, staff, and faculty. Within higher education, new understandings are emerging about the intricacies and intersectionalities of psychological, social, and cultural factors that impact wellbeing of diverse individuals, including Indigenous, international, refugee, immigrant, and other marginalized groups. There is growing recognition that learning and working within academia are stressful experiences for faculty and graduate students. The need to understand wellbeing in general and wellbeing in graduate education, in particular, is also evident in the reports and studies that indicate an emerging crisis of wellbeing among graduate students and faculty. This book recognizes new pressures impacting graduate students and their supervisors, teachers, and mentors globally. It provides a range of insights and strategies which reflect on wellbeing as an integral part of teaching, learning, policy, and student-mentor relationships. The book offers a uniquely holistic approach to supporting the wellbeing of both students and academic staff in graduate education. It showcases optimized approaches to self-care, self-regulation, and policy development, as well as trauma-informed, arts-based, and embodied pedagogies. Particular attention is given to the challenges faced by minority groups including Indigenous, international, refugee, and immigrant students and staff. Providing a timely analysis of the current issues surrounding student and faculty wellbeing, the book appeals to scholars and researchers working across the fields of higher education, sociology of education, educational psychology, and student affairs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Finding a way through the fog: School staff experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic

This exploratory study reports on interviews carried out with 19 staff in UK schools during the early phase of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The focus of this qualitative study was to consider the impact of the pandemic on participants' mental health and wellbeing, and to identify buffering mechanisms which may have mitigated against adverse effects. Participants were employed in a range of role types (including leaders, teachers and teaching assistants) in different educational settings (primary, secondary and alternative provision), and in different regions of the United Kingdom. A process of thematic analysis identified five key themes from the data set: change and adaptation;loss;impact on wellbeing;risk and protective factors;and opportunities to reflect. Data indicate that staff resilience during this time can be understood as emerging from a nuanced and complex interaction of internal and external factors, and thus conceptualised within a socio-ecological framework. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Indigenous and immigrant voices for healing and wellness in graduate education

The importance of healing and wellness is a local, global, and historical concern, especially for Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island/North America and across the world. Since the COVID-19 pandemic commenced in March 2020, the issues of sustainability and wellbeing have been shared intensely in virtual graduate classrooms by Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples. The space in which Indigenous Peoples and Settlers on Turtle Island/North America express intents for their education is uncomfortable. Decolonizing efforts to address systemic discrimination in graduate education require truths to be told and heard before there can be reconciliation for past and current injustices against Indigenous Peoples. Systemic discrimination is an impediment to Indigenous and Settler graduate students and faculty healing, wellness, and academic success as they pursue teaching, learning, and self-sustainability. Reading the literature on Indigenous and Settler voices in graduate education and discussing the emerging insights and reflections, this chapter identifies the challenges and the possibilities for graduate student and faculty healing and wellness. This spontaneous and honest atmosphere allowed to access the self of each other despite the diverse sociocultural backgrounds and experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Coaches' acquisition of sport science knowledge and the role of education providers

The aims of this thesis were to better understand how coaches perceived and accessed sport science knowledge and to determine the role of National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and further and higher education (FHE) in facilitating coach training and education in sport science. Additionally, studies sought to identify any barriers to more effective access and implementation to such knowledge within this population. Firstly, adopting a loosely structured interview approach, eight expert sport coaches were interviewed about their perceptions of sport science knowledge and practice. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed three first-order themes;knowledge acquisition (KA), knowledge translation (KT), and qualities of practitioners and coaches (QPC). Formal methods of KA included Higher Education and National Governing Body (NGB) training, whilst blind faith and mentoring were both revealed to be sources of informal KA. Conceding advantage and complexity of language (de-jargonising) were both revealed to be barriers to KT, whilst the use of virtual learning environments and traditional workshops were both favoured as means to disseminate and translate knowledge. Opportunity, research lag and accessibility, and casual employment were all identified as barriers to successful KT. The most valued QPC in practitioners were expertise, knowledge of the sport, building rapport and humility, whilst an open mindset and clarity of performance objectives were identified for coaches. Much of the findings from the first study corroborate previous research examining coach training and education and the salient characteristics of sport science practitioners that support successful translation of knowledge into sport coaching practice. In addition, these expert coaches displayed features of adaptive expertise in their decision-making and approaches to sourcing new knowledge. To understand these results in the professional domain, a larger sample of sport coaches was surveyed on the location of sport science topics and disciplines in coach training and education, actual and preferred sources of knowledge, and the role and function of FHE, NGBs and Continued Professional Development (CPD) in coach development. A mixture of mostly non-formal, online methods were identified as popular actual sources of sport science knowledge, whilst informal methods were the most popular preferred source. This may be in part owing to COVID-19 restrictions, but also substantiates previous research investigating learning in sport coaching. Sport psychology and skill acquisition were rated the most important sport science disciplines, with a number of statistical differences observed between routine (Level 1 and 2) and adaptive (Level 3 and 4) experts in the level of importance placed on key sport science topics. No differences were observed between expertise level and location of these topics in the coaching curriculum. A number of recommendations are made in accordance with recent policy initiatives to re-evaluate and professionalise sport coaching in the UK. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The Effects of Remote Work on Family Relationships

This chapter analyses the effects of remote work on family relationships during confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is centered on faculty and staff members from a private business school in Puebla, Mexico. The research was conducted almost five months after the university closed its doors and moved all its activities online, having participants time to adapt to the new normal. A scale was developed and validated, and later on, it was applied in a country where family values, cultures, and traditions are strong. The scale included five distinct areas of study: remote working conditions, time and task management, work performance, stress, and family relations. All the business school faculty and administrative staff were invited to participate in the study. Results show employees' perceptions about how working remotely positively or negatively affected their relationships at home and their productivity at work, leading to the design of best practices and useful guidelines that will minimize the adverse effects of remote work while enhancing the positive ones. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)