Professorial Workloads and Emotional Labour

Abstract

The neoliberal university has transformed professors into front-line workers and their students into consumers of higher learning. Research has shown there is a positive correlation between a student’s perception of supportive faculty and the completion of a degree. Professors are expected to support their students and to engage in emotional labour, labour that tends to be invisible and, thus, often unrewarded for faculty members. An online survey of professors - contract, tenure-track and tenure at three southwestern Ontario universities - indicates that many professors perform affective work as they mediate increasing institutional and student demands on their time and emotions. Data, from the survey and semi-structured interviews, highlights how emotional labour is not just about meeting student expectations, but also about dealing with job insecurity and institutional pressure to provide an educational product where the emphasis is on student satisfaction. The result is that many professors experience high levels of stress and burnout.