Faculty Focus

The purpose of this article is to discuss our observations and insights into the challenges many doctoral learners face in writing their dissertations. In more than 30 combined years of mentoring doctoral learners, teaching content courses and chairing dissertation committees, we have experienced that doctoral learners seem to lack the basic skills to craft their dissertations. We refer to this as writing critically.

Higher education faculty are increasingly asked to design learning environments that support not only academic achievement but also belonging, engagement, and student well-being. One instructional lever that directly influences these outcomes is how intentionally instructors structure collaboration.

The contemporary faculty workload is both visible and invisible. Visible are the courses, the syllabi, the scheduled advising hours, and the committee meetings. Invisible are the hours of discussion facilitation, emotional labor in student emails, feedback that stretches late into the evening, and the cognitive fragmentation caused by digital availability. In online teaching environments especially, work expands quietly and persistently.

If you’re teaching in STEM, you probably love your discipline. Teachers want others to experience the joy we have experienced as you marvel at the world through our discipline. Unfortunately, this isn’t always what happens. It’s not fun to stare out at a sea of laptops and blank faces and ask yourselves why all your skill and passion are seemingly falling on deaf ears. Student motivation is a vital factor in students achieving learning goals (Taurina, 2015).

Multipurpose tools, especially the Swiss Army knife, have sustained their popularity over the years, namely for their size and versatility. Snag a fingernail? Got broccoli in your teeth? Screw came loose? Need to cut off a tag? With one tool, numerous problems can be solved. As educators, we are subject to myriad situations in our courses that need a solution. For some, it’s the dreaded silence, where we expect vocal contributions from our students but are met with crickets instead.

Multipurpose tools, especially the Swiss Army knife, have sustained their popularity over the years, namely for their size and versatility. Snag a fingernail? Got broccoli in your

I’m going to be an adjunct for the first time at my graduate alma mater. Talk about pressure, anxiety, and a dash of imposter syndrome. Though all these emotions are normal, they tend to make the job more difficult. Ironically, we usually tend to think about all the negative possibilities when called for a great opportunity, instead of enjoying and wondering about the good this could bring for our growth.

Writing is the currency of higher education (Mazak, 2024) and is often a heavily weighted factor in the tenure process. And yet, the task of writing for publication is often not a top priority for faculty. Lack of time is the primary impediment, but confidence, affective, and physical barriers all stand in the way of getting started. In truth, writing is relegated to spare time that we never have. If a pocket of time becomes available, we have plenty of unfinished business to catch up on.

In the era of digital education, faculty teaching online courses may find it difficult to establish meaningful connections with their students. As a faculty member who teaches primarily in-person undergraduate students, I spend lots of time curating my classes to encourage connections among my students. I encourage them to work collaboratively on projects and provide feedback to one another regularly.

Graduate and professional students who aspire to academic careers often tell mentors that they are eager to teach but unsure how to gain experience or show it on a CV or dossier. Because TA opportunities vary across programs and budget cycles, departments and teaching centers can create equitable on-ramps by structuring small, credible experiences that convert directly into evidence.