Martyrdom is Always an Organizational Liability (Part II)

Universities are breeding grounds for martyrdom. More than other organizations, universities create conditions through which individuals are more likely to perceive themselves as martyrs. Even with increasing constraints resulting from larger workloads, accreditation standards, and shrinking discretionary space regarding curriculum and instruction, faculty still have opportunity and motivation to define themselves, and those who cannot develop a strong professional identity in the midst of current challenges often define themselves as martyrs. This entry examines four factors that make this more likely in a university setting: isolation, intensification of work, role ambiguity, and competition.

Isolation

The academy is a very isolating place. Faculty, for the most part, work alone. This is particularly true as we see more and more programming going on-line. Not only are faculty working in isolation, but they rarely interact with one another. In many ways, this is connected to the second factor, intensification of work. Rarely do faculty spend time engaging in meaningful conversations about ideas. If it is not driven by leadership providing time and expectations for these conversations, then it does not happen. When faculty are together, it is most often to conduct business related to university, programming, or accreditation needs. Otherwise, most engagement is through email or other remote means. This creates conditions through which, in the best scenario, understanding of one another is absent. In worse cases, given the degree to which faculty maintain strong positions regarding issues, email becomes a weapon – with faculty lashing out at others because they disagree with positions/proposals. While technology may not negatively impact how we interact socially as some have indicated, it does impact how individuals engage in a professional context like a university This is particularly true when universities have not changed the way they support faculty even though the nature of work expected of faculty (shifting from teaching face-to-face to teaching on-line) has changed dramatically. As a result, the shifting nature of work has changed the nature of relationships among colleagues in a department/college. When faculty lack understanding of one another, when they have not developed a sense of empathy for their colleagues, then it is much easier to fall into the role of martyr. Many perceive themselves as working much harder and doing more than their colleagues.

Intensification of the Professoriate

Seven years ago, I wrote a chapter about the intensification of the professoriate. Since that time, things have grown even worse. As more tenure lines disappear, those faculty remaining must do more and more. In addition, partnerships in professional schools as well as accreditation responsibilities have significantly increased the amount of work that must be done in universities. For individuals who are working to earn tenure and/or promotion at prestige-seeking universities (See the work David Callejo-Perez and I did in Red Light in the Ivory Tower: Context and Implications of Entrepreneurial Education ), they must work to publish in top tier journals in order to appear as successful as their counterparts in prestigious institutions who have far more capacity to achieve success with lighter teaching loads and research support. When researching the phenomenon for the chapter on intensification of work, I discovered that most faculty spend at least sixty hours a week working, and academic couples spend, on average, eighty hours a week working. Others who have researched this found similar results. For example, Ziker found that faculty spend about sixty hours a week (including time on the weekends) working, and most of this time is spent teaching. This intensified work environment breeds martyrdom. As the New York Times found, people rarely take time off, and they view their busyness as a badge of honor. The authors of the piece also noted that while supervisors indicate that taking time off is important, they do not talk about it to those whom they supervise. Similarly, I cannot recall an instance when an administrator has worked to ensure that faculty set personal boundaries and take time off.

Higher education is certainly different than most organizations. After all, we have “vacation” built into our schedules. Yet, most faculty members rarely see down time. They spend winter breaks preparing for the next semester or getting caught up on research. In summer, many faculty take on as much teaching as possible to earn additional income and to make up for the fact that most academics have seen very little in terms of raises over the past decade. Even without teaching, research often gets relegated to those summer months. Further, the ambiguity of academic work makes guilt an inherent part of most “down time” with faculty members thinking about what they should be doing to prepare for the next semester or to make progress on a writing project.

Intensified work environments are breeding grounds for martyrdom. There is always too much work to be done, and like the supervisors in the New York Times article, most university administrators do not make sure individual faculty do not take on too much. While they may recognize that an individual should not take on an additional teaching or committee responsibility, they nevertheless let the individual step up and take on more work because so many others around them do not. For example, I remember when I was teaching at one university, and the day before I was supposed to give birth to my second daughter, the program coordinator called me and asked me to take on an additional course. Keep in mind, I was not taking time off with a 13-month old at home and another due any minute, and now I was expected to take on an overload in my teaching. I did, and I was in the classroom teaching one week after my daughter was born. As I noted in the earlier entry about martyrdom, simply working too much does not necessarily result in martyrdom. However, when the work environment remains intensified, and an individual seeks his or her worth and identity within that environment, then it is far more likely that he or she will fall victim to doing too much and allowing this personal and professional sacrifice to define him or her.

Role Ambiguity

Researchers have found that role ambiguity leads to stress in the academy. Faculty are typically left to determine how they balance the multiple demands of a tenure-track position. Further, the kind of feedback they typically receive is rarely helpful in their own development of a professional identity. As Rowley noted, faculty must often choose between quality of work and managing all the demands placed upon them. Again, this is a breeding ground for martyrdom. When faculty struggle with feeling inadequate because too many demands are being made, and when the feedback a faculty member gets is limited, he or she is left to forge his or her own identity. It takes a strong sense of self to move beyond the institutional challenges in order to develop a professional identity in spite of conflicting demands. Particularly in regional institutions and teaching institutions, developing an identity in the field may be more challenging. In these cases, faculty often let their institutions define them, and as a result often fall prey to martyrdom.

Competition

Even when faculty members manage to escape being defined by their institutions, they may also be vulnerable to comparing themselves to their peers. Even though many universities have stopped ranking individuals for merit pay, faculty still compare themselves. They judge the degree to which they publish more and publish in more prestigious journals. They often find comfort in students’ complaints of other faculty because it means they are better teachers. With tools like Rate My Professor, faculty can see how they compare to their peers. Sadly, in the six universities where I have worked, I rarely witnessed genuine and authentic celebration of another’s success. Rather, I heard faculty members comment that teaching awards were given simply because the faculty member was willing to endure all the paperwork, publications were a result of connections – not quality research, and high marks in teaching were a result of only working with graduate students in their respective programs (“They wouldn’t get those scores if they had to teach required courses”). Defining one’s self by being better than another also breeds martyrdom. It is a way to distinguish how much more one does than another.

Conclusion

It is important for faculty to recognize risk factors for falling into academic martyrdom. These factors can wreak havoc with the pane of the Johari window regarding what we do not know about ourselves. For those entering the academy (or considering this move), it is important to examine the degree to which they may be susceptible to martyrdom. For current professors who feel burned out and stressed, it is important to examine whether these factors play a role in their professional quality of life. Equally as important, administrators need to recognize these signs among their faculty. When they witness faculty members who appear to be experiencing academic martyrdom, they need to find ways to intervene. Most importantly, leaders need to examine the conditions within their realm of influence to determine whether the conditions make martyrdom more likely. If so, they need to work to change those conditions. This is critical because martyrdom hurts more than the individual martyr. I will address the costs of martyrdom and means through which leaders can impact the conditions causing martyrdom in the next two entries.