Younger Faculty Are Leaning Out. Is That a Bad Thing?
Younger Faculty Are Leaning Out. Is That a Bad Thing?
The debate over work boundaries rolls through higher ed
Today, in place of a Friday thread, I am sharing the third in my series for The Chronicle of Higher Education about the state of academe. You can read the essay in its original form here. My agreement with The Review grants them exclusive rights to the article for thirty days, after which all rights revert back to me. To access today’s post, as well as the full archive and podcast, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
Also check out Tuesday’s essay by
at on cherry blossoms and Jakuchū’s scrolls. Simply gorgeous.Sarah Trocchio recalls a moment during her mid-tenure review when she could no longer ignore the contradiction between her research as a scholar of inequity and the ways that her contributions to the academy were being measured. After a dispiriting meeting about her research productivity, she took out a Post-it note and wrote “I am done.”
Trocchio is an assistant professor of sociology and criminology at Rider University, and she began her position in 2019, shortly before the Covid shutdowns. Like other parents with young children, Trocchio and her partner struggled to keep up with work while sharing child care. But despite reporting by The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education about the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on working women generally and on women’s diminished publications in academe specifically, Trocchio felt that her institution ignored these inequities and penalized her for them during her mid-tenure review, when her research productivity came under scrutiny. In light of pandemic disruptions, faculty at Rider University were given the option of a one-year extension. But taking it came with financial consequences, since a faculty member who the reviewers determine is on track to tenure also receives a raise. What was intended to be a compassionate solution, Trocchio believed, perpetuated inequity by delaying promotion and a pay increase for those already bearing the pandemic’s brunt.
But “I am done” did not mean that Trocchio was leaving higher education, at least not yet. It meant that she was done living at odds with herself. Done fretting about standards that didn’t align with her own values. “I can’t be someone who is arguing for systemic reforms,” she told me, “and then not at least attempt to take in some of that messaging when thinking about myself as a professional.”
Much of the recent reporting on academic burnout features mid-career or senior faculty members who are either leaving or contemplating it. Since she has not resigned her position and is not actively planning an exit, Trocchio might seem instead to illustrate Kevin R. McClure and Alisa Hicklin Fryar’s definition of disengagement: “withdrawing from certain aspects of the job or, on a more emotional level, from the institution itself.” (This emotional withdrawal sometimes goes by the name quiet quitting.) Such malaise might seem less remarkable in faculty members who are one or two sabbaticals removed from retirement — but if such withdrawal persists among early-career faculty over the next two or three decades, it could erode the culture of higher education substantially further than the pandemic already has.
Yet Trocchio remains highly engaged with her institution as a mentor, teacher, scholar, and activist. She loves her students, worries about their own signs of post- pandemic disengagement, and considers it her mission to be their advocate. Some experts believe that scholars like Trocchio represent a healthier future for higher education: one in which faculty members define clearer work/life boundaries and advocate for themselves before they feel exploited or become burned out. Is Trocchio’s “I am done” an ill omen for the future of higher education or a sign of emerging resilience among early-career professors?