"Grittier" in Mid-Career: Vital Faculty Self-Rate Grit and Narrate Stories of Passion and Perseverance

• In Event: 16.061 - Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: 16.061-16 - Understanding Faculty Throughout Their Life-Span

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of grit among vital mid-career faculty at public comprehensive universities. Grit, a combination of passion and perseverance, is the trait or disposition that appears to be synergistic with how mid-career faculty are portrayed in the literature. The 30 interviewees included 15 associate professors and 15 full professors, and 15 men and 15 women. In the interviews, the stories they told about their lives personified grit as a factor that motivated mid-career work and, in some instances, positively changed the landscapes of their work.

Authors

• Anne M. DeFelippo, Salem State University

• Jay R. Dee, University of Massachusetts Boston