Katie Lee: All the "solutions" proposed in this involve more unpaid work from faculty to manage our own feelings about being overstretched. I don't want a training, a coffee group, or a paid external speaker about about compassion fatigue. I want higher pay, admin support, & actual vacation time.

All the "solutions" proposed in this involve more unpaid work from faculty to manage our own feelings about being overstretched. I don't want a training, a coffee group, or a paid external speaker about about compassion fatigue. I want higher pay, admin support, & actual vacation time.

“educators can’t be expected to be compassionate to students if they are not being treated compassionately themselves.”

Compassion fatigue is limiting academics’ ability to care for studentswww.timeshighereducation.com University managers must be committed to cultivating a compassionate culture and building trust in the workplace, says Andrew Woon

Love it. Outline a whole bunch of structural issues related to labor conditions and then conclude the solution is prodding faculty not to neglect the self-care they don’t have time for because of their working conditions. Not reducing admin, restoring autonomy, or revising workload expectations 🤦‍♀️

And of course the dude carefully avoiding any changes in working conditions is in “strategic management”

It’s like the suggestion that women faculty pay someone to clean their house when they don’t make enough to afford it

To be clear this was a real suggestion someone at my institution made

Several people have suggested this to me. I remind them that I pay rent at the current market rate, not the inflation-insulated mortgage payments they have

Sharing your pain on that one :-)

Nurses are being offered exactly the same things. Raises, no; painted affirmation rocks, yes.

I saw a conference presentation on stress management for nurses and the intervention they tested was nurses coming in early for guided meditation sessions before their shifts. Which... I'm not sure there was an actual nurse in the room when this was planned

The presenters would have been pelted with stress balls.

And possibly affirmation rocks. And it would be 💯 justified.

And some fucking semblance of job security.

Hear, hear!

It's exhausting how many problems we face as a society that would be solved simply by paying people more.

Or less hours, more employment, and for better pay.

classic that the study w/those it's-on-you-staff recs is coming out of QMUL frankly

Sounds like you want a union?

It helps, but not enough in itself.

Indeed. It’s not perfect but most of the things that need to happen won’t happen without better collective bargaining. The traditional power of faculty senate organs and the like have been severely eroded.

I HAVE a union. I’m also a state employee which makes it hard to strike.

Eek. Well, I hope your union can pressure some legislators to fix at least parts of the problem.

That's so cute. Our union hasn't even managed to get us raises that keep up with the rising cost of living.

Can you tell I'm both jaded and bitter?

The thought occurred. On the other hand, if you pay dues and don’t get anything of value, I’d be bitter too.

Ban the 4-4 and 5-5 load.

Actual academia doesn't need to be toxic but some departments are *so determined* to grind people down. Like the professor who expected me to still teach the day we buried a member of the immediate family - she was extremely upset when I refused.

And when I made suggestions for an actual bereavement policy that would encourage or guarantee that grad students have a few days off after a significant loss -- I was told they couldn't possibly make an actual policy.

Watch until the end youtu.be/Oi8fnQjo90E?...

The Cure for Burnoutyoutu.be Thank goodness the CEO was there

He's got others in the same vein youtube.com/shorts/MUVzR...

How to Fix Burnoutyoutube.com

"Have you checked out the new Mental Resilience Gym?" 🙃

Self-exploitation as vocation

The associate vice deanlet who arranges the training, coffee and paid speaker gets to write about their material contributions to campus climate in their year-end productivity report. It gets them their raise and promotion.

Giving faculty a raise or providing them admin support .... costs money and it doesn't provide credit and credence to the deanlets.

My apologies for not working "interdisciplinary" in there somewhere. I won't make a very good deanlet.

Amen, so say we all

Fuller employment sounds and feels right in this situation and a ton of the rest of society, industry, etc. Less capital mindset and a more relational mindset, too.

I fucking love teaching and I fucking hate everything that surrounds it. I’m never fatigued by the kids. I’m only ever stressed and exhausted by administrators demanding more and more of my time and energy for the same pay while they do fuck all to make the school better and make more money than me

Welcome to the club.

Any chance you have a paywall free version of this that is shareable?

You can paste the URL in here: 12ft.io

Thx!

Oh, amen. Paying a keynote speaker the equivalent of a student worker’s annual salary to come talk to us for two hours about doing more with less is in no way helpful. Cancel convocation forever and give faculty a 10% raise (since top admin just got a 50% raise).

Note: Compassion fatigue is being overwhelmed by secondary traumatization. What you’re describing here is burnout, which is caused by lack of what’s needed to do your job. This can be time (e.g. hours in the week), admin support as mentioned in the replies, etc. Framing it as C.F is gaslighting.

Note: I’m unsure why you felt a need to try to correct me here? It’s kind of a jerk move? I describe neither compassion fatigue nor burnout, I merely point out that the article recommends coffee chats & external speakers. Do you honestly not think faculty have secondary trauma AND burnout?

Nope, very sorry. I was not trying to correct you; not even speak directly to you. I was lazy in not reading the article, but didn’t see any mention of burnout in the replies, only burnout labeled as CF, so wanted to interject the concept so people who want to take action have useful terminology.

🎯

Employ. More. Humans.

Immunocompromised faculty also need accommodations.

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