Higher Ed’s Troubles Are Affecting Its Workforce: The Key

As colleges across the country cut staff, implement hiring freezes and slash budgets, fewer people could see higher education as a long-term career path, according to Kevin McClure, a professor of higher education and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

In a recent episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, McClure told IHE editor in chief Sara Custer that in the current environment, demoralization is high among faculty and staff. “It’s just really difficult to do good work. There’s a significant amount of uncertainty, there is stress, there is trauma that people are still living through from COVID and the great resignation … and there is no doubt that the workforce in higher education is struggling,” he said.

“It’s not the case that across the board every institution is in this scenario …but every single institution is being cautious right now, and there is enough uncertainty and enough question about multiple revenue streams coming into institutions that there are cascading effects for working conditions.”

McClure said he’s concerned institutions are not doing a good enough job of articulating their values. This, he said, is what colleges should “double down” on to combat the demoralization he’s observed in current employees and to show future talent “what they’re all about.”

“In the current environment, I think we have seen some backsliding, some backtracking, some revisions of our websites—all of these signposts suggesting to people who work here that the things we stand for are actually maybe flexible and can be modified as the political winds blow.”

Listen to the full episode of The Key.