A new Chronicle of Higher Education report puts a number on something many campus leaders have suspected for a while: when tenure-track and tenured faculty were recently asked what should define institutional success over the next five to ten years, the largest share — 62 percent — pointed to reducing burnout and improving morale, ahead of enrollment or revenue goals.
The report’s researchers are candid that daylong wellness workshops rarely move the needle. What helps is structural: clearer tenure expectations walked through in person rather than buried in a handbook, better-matched mentoring, department chairs empowered and supported rather than left to absorb every frustration alone, and leaders willing to set visible limits on email and meetings rather than modeling the very overload they’re asking faculty to manage. As one researcher put it, faculty don’t need to know how to do chair yoga — they need the people and infrastructure to do their jobs well.
