Battling the Currents: New Faculty Experiences in the Covid-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Faculty: Battling the currents and reimagining "normal"

Proposal

According to Malisch, et al. (2020) the Covid-19 pandemic impacted every aspect of academia. Travel restrictions and social distancing hampered new faculty’s research work due to limited opportunities of funding, collaborations, and interactions with colleagues (Lowe-Power et. al., 2021). Furthermore, the overnight shift to online teaching and learning gave faculty little to no time to adjust to these changes (Malisch, et al., 2020). Since the start of the pandemic, researchers, and scholars have examined the impact of the pandemic on scholarship and teaching, however, there are no empirical studies which show how new faculty learned their roles during this time. In this paper, we will focus on how new faculty learned about their jobs during the global pandemic. Our main research questions are what were major challenges faculty faced in understanding their new institution and how did these challenges impact their teaching and research?

Theoretical Framework

To understand new faculty’s experiences we used T.D. Wilson’s (1981, 1997) model of information behavior because faculty success depends on the successful learning of their students and their own successful learning to create scholarly knowledge. We rely on models for learning in this paper to understand faculty work during a time of crisis and resource scarcity. T.D. Wilson’s (1981, 1997) model of information behavior suggests that learning depends on an individual’s physiological, cognitive, and affective needs. All these needs were impacted by the health risks, altered availability of learning resources, and social distancing caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This model is important because it shows how context affects information seeking behaviors.

Methods and Analysis

We used a phenomenological interview method to investigate new faculty experiences during Covid-19. This study was conducted at a research university in the midwestern United States. For this paper, we included interviews of 10 new faculty members, 3 males and 7 females. Participants were selected through purposeful sampling since we actively sought out participants new to their institution. Purposeful sampling helped us to represent diversity in terms of gender, subject area, and tenure status of our participants.

Findings and Discussion

Teaching Changes

According to T.D. Wilson (1981, 1997) contextual factors shape information seeking behaviors. Faculty reported that teaching was much more work and more time consuming than it had been before the pandemic. The shift to online and hybrid teaching did not allow them to incorporate their normal method of experiential learning into courses and students were not able to do hands-on projects. They reported that they would not keep that transformation long term because they did not feel it was delivering high quality learning. This means faculty have to learn both how to teach remotely at their institution and how to teach in person. Faculty who had been working for more than a semester still had no idea how their teaching evaluations would be used.
According to T.D. Wilson (1981, 1997) psychological, demographic, role-related or interpersonal, and environmental factors impact information seeking behaviors. Dealing with student mental health issues was a large burden of time and emotional labor during the pandemic. This aligns with Wilson’s (1981, 1997) assertion that our emotional state influences our capacity to absorb information. Furthermore,students were not engaged in zoom classes, didn’t turn their cameras on, and didn’t ask questions when they had them. This aligns with learning theories that point to the importance of instructional tools in learning (Nardi, 1996). Participants reported that visiting lecturers were a great loss to inspiration because they got students excited about research and helped build networks. This aligns with information transmission theories showing that learning is facilitated by interpersonal relationships (Nardi, 1996; Krikelas, 1983).
For fields where in person instruction had to continue, issues of orchestrating classroom safety were time consuming. Fields in the fine arts which required new equipment to facilitate distancing in performances had to struggle against limited budgets and staffing for installing equipment. As Lattucca and Stark (2009) point out, educational outcomes are dependent on the instructional resources available.

Research Changes

The pandemic limited the amount of faculty orientation which was possible. There was less opportunity for informal conversation and the increased workloads and stress made new faculty feel guilty about seeking help from their busy, anxious colleagues. Participants did not know what level of research output was expected of them, despite having to submit reports on their first year at the institution.
Some participants reported that the most difficult challenge they faced was making connections and finding research collaborators because of the lack of face to face meetings. Participants reported that faculty morale was lower because of the pandemic and the budget cuts associated with it. As information intake and output depend on affective factors (Wilson, 1981), this affected the research output of faculty.
Some participants reported that their plans to gather research data were put on hold due to the social distancing restrictions. Fine arts faculty reported that their capacity to perform creative activities was limited. Participants reported that their presentations at conferences were dramatically reduced due to the pandemic. This was especially problematic for scholars in disciplines where conference presentation is particularly important as a scholarly output. Participants reported that grant funding was even more competitive due to budget constraints in the pandemic, limiting their ability to meet departmental expectations. Another challenge faced by participants was long waits for grant review due to fewer available reviewers and increased workloads.
Contributions to the Field
This study explores some of the ways the introductions to faculty work have been shaped for faculty members who started new roles during the pandemic. These factors may have implications for their careers for years to come as their understanding of their roles and their research outputs have been delayed by social distancing restrictions and budget constraints. Departments and universities will need to consider these challenges as they evaluate the performance of these faculty and plan to support them going forward. It will be important to continue to study this cohort of faculty as they apply for tenure and progress through their careers.
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Authors

• Sara Bano, North Dakota State University

• Sarah Rose Fitzgerald, University of Massachusetts Amherst