Presenter: Matilde Sánchez-Peña, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences -  online only

While institutions of higher education in the U.S. are implementing strategies to address the mental health crisis of undergraduate and graduate students, the needs and beliefs of other institutional actors tend to be overlooked. To promote sustainable changes in academic cultures, however, we need to explore the views held by several key players of academic spaces—for example, faculty, who interact first-hand with students and whose perceptions and philosophies can propagate professional beliefs that our graduates reproduce. To start understanding how to develop a culture of health and wellbeing that permeates essential academic spaces like the classroom, we need to understand faculty conceptualizations of health and how they influence their interactions with students. My ongoing research project explores faculty conceptions of health and wellness in U.S. higher education, with a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math areas. I will discuss a content analysis of media portrayals of faculty health and wellness and then present results from an exploratory qualitative study based on individual interviews with faculty. These results are expected to contribute to meaningful, needed conversations about faculty wellbeing in U.S. higher education.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Engineering Education

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