University faculty experiences: Workplace and personal stress, stress management, and coping

ABSTRACT

University faculty have work responsibilities and duties that encompass teaching, research (scholarship), and service and experience pressure from administrators, students, institutions, and disciplines. They also have expectations placed on them outside of their institutions by their families, peers, and communities. A gap exists in the literature regarding the workplace and personal stressors that university faculty experience including the coping strategies they employ to manage stress. This qualitative study utilized a general strain theory framework for guidance and modified informal conversational interviews with University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock) faculty. Interview questions were about the lived workplace and personal experiences that contributed to their stress and the coping strategies used. Workplace themes included campus-specific stressors, workload aggregation, tenure and promotion, and emotional labor. Personal stressors were COVID-19 and family responsibilities. The coping strategies used were primarily pro-social including exercise, getting outdoors, reading, and meditation with increased alcohol consumption being the only anti-social coping theme to emerge. This study contributes to strain literature in that university faculty have never been the focus of general strain theory studies. This study also contributes to literature on faculty stress because of its qualitative design, the significance of the retrenchment experience for UA Little Rock faculty, and experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Practical implications included the need for a professional faculty counselor on university campuses, incentivizing education on self-care, and informing doctoral students of the realities of academic careers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)