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)

Mental health, motivation, and emotions

The true impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health has yet to be seen. This chapter explores how students did and did not thrive in college as a result of the pandemic's impacts on their mental health. It explores general findings, and then examines the unique experiences of Students of Color, who, in many cases, were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Student participants conveyed that their mental health declined, which resulted in diminishing motivation to complete schoolwork. However, emotional support networks, school resources, and therapeutic outlets assisted some students in overcoming the barriers to success. Although accessing counseling services proved difficult for some students, those who did have access felt these services improved their mental health. The online class format posed many challenges to students' motivation. While videos and taped lectures were easily accessible resources that professors were forced to utilize due to the abrupt shift to online learning, these students' statements illustrate that they were simply no substitute for inperson interactions. While peer interaction can serve as a catalyst to learning, the lack of it during spring 2020 proved an inhibitor to participants' thriving and motivation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)