April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: Communicatively Enacting Resilience in Higher Ed: How College Educators Experience and Manage Burnout in Their Work
Burnout can be described as “a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion resulting from chronic job stress and frustration” (Zhang & Sapp, 2009, p. 87). Although previous research has identified burnout among college educators (e.g., Azeem & Nazir, 2008) and more recently a survey from The Chronicle of Higher Education found that faculty members were “very” or “extremely” stressed or fatigued in the first year of the pandemic (McMurtrie, 2020), there is a gap in understanding how college educators experience and manage burnout.
Resilience has been identified as an effective way to prevent burnout, among other positive outcomes (Buzzanell, 2018; Kim et al., 2022). Resilience is the ability to “‘bounce back’ or reintegrate after difficult life experiences” (Buzzanell, 2010, p. 1). At the college level, research has explored resilience but mostly among college students, in contexts such as in first-generation college students during Covid (Scharp et al., 2022), during transitions (Frisby & Vallade, 2021), and in how campus student-support leaders can support resilience in college students (Rossetto & Martin, 2022). Resilience research is gaining recent support in communication scholarship as a contrast to “‘positive’ movements in other fields” such as positive psychology, because “communicative theorizing on resilience does not reside in the individual. It is fundamentally grounded in messages, d/Discourse, and narrative” (Buzzanell, 2010, p. 2). Buzzanell’s (2010) communication theory of resilience (CTR) explains how individuals enact resilience through five interrelated processes including crafting normalcy, affirming identity anchors, maintaining and using communication networks, putting alternative logics to use, and downplaying negative feelings while foregrounding positive emotions.
The objectives of the current study are to understand 1) how college educators experience burnout and 2) how they communicatively manage it through resilience. We conducted interviews with 21 college educators, with interviews averaging 28 minutes in length. All authors engaged in a theoretical/deductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify specific experiences of burnout among educators and practices of resilience. We then developed memos (Tracy, 2013) from emerging themes. Several themes appeared in the ways in which college educators experience burnout which include aspects of work-life balance, job uncertainty, and working with students. Additionally, college educators enacted resilience in several ways that align with all five CTR processes.
This project provides several contributions to theory and practice. It identifies the ways in which college educators are experiencing stress and burnout in the current landscape of changing and uncertain times in higher education. This research builds our understanding of communicative resilience and explores this phenomenon through a new context of college educators. Additionally, because resilience is not necessarily a trait but rather an ability that can be fostered (Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015; Kim et al., 2022), we also identify ways in which higher education institutions can help reduce educator burnout and support resilience.
Resilience has been identified as an effective way to prevent burnout, among other positive outcomes (Buzzanell, 2018; Kim et al., 2022). Resilience is the ability to “‘bounce back’ or reintegrate after difficult life experiences” (Buzzanell, 2010, p. 1). At the college level, research has explored resilience but mostly among college students, in contexts such as in first-generation college students during Covid (Scharp et al., 2022), during transitions (Frisby & Vallade, 2021), and in how campus student-support leaders can support resilience in college students (Rossetto & Martin, 2022). Resilience research is gaining recent support in communication scholarship as a contrast to “‘positive’ movements in other fields” such as positive psychology, because “communicative theorizing on resilience does not reside in the individual. It is fundamentally grounded in messages, d/Discourse, and narrative” (Buzzanell, 2010, p. 2). Buzzanell’s (2010) communication theory of resilience (CTR) explains how individuals enact resilience through five interrelated processes including crafting normalcy, affirming identity anchors, maintaining and using communication networks, putting alternative logics to use, and downplaying negative feelings while foregrounding positive emotions.
The objectives of the current study are to understand 1) how college educators experience burnout and 2) how they communicatively manage it through resilience. We conducted interviews with 21 college educators, with interviews averaging 28 minutes in length. All authors engaged in a theoretical/deductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify specific experiences of burnout among educators and practices of resilience. We then developed memos (Tracy, 2013) from emerging themes. Several themes appeared in the ways in which college educators experience burnout which include aspects of work-life balance, job uncertainty, and working with students. Additionally, college educators enacted resilience in several ways that align with all five CTR processes.
This project provides several contributions to theory and practice. It identifies the ways in which college educators are experiencing stress and burnout in the current landscape of changing and uncertain times in higher education. This research builds our understanding of communicative resilience and explores this phenomenon through a new context of college educators. Additionally, because resilience is not necessarily a trait but rather an ability that can be fostered (Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015; Kim et al., 2022), we also identify ways in which higher education institutions can help reduce educator burnout and support resilience.