Burnout is the word on every tongue in 2025. Gurus of self-care extoll us to practice self-care specifically to mitigate burnout on social media platforms, oftentimes with the goal of selling us quick and simplistic fixes. Employers seek to prevent burnout among their workforce by providing increased access to support resources, often with limited effectiveness.
Clearly, burnout is a significant contributor to dissatisfaction and employee turnover in the American workforce, and higher education is no exception.
The challenges posed by burnout in higher education are unique. The loss of a qualified instructor or a decrease in student outcomes is a risk that an institution of higher education just cannot afford. However, the causes of faculty burnout are complicated and involve a myriad of factors. Instructional Connections explores the causes of faculty burnout and what institutions of higher education can do to mitigate or even reverse its effects.
1. Uncertainty
The modern age is nothing if not uncertain. Across various industries, business and community leaders are assessing the evolving situation and seeking to determine the best way to position their sphere of influence for optimal results. Higher education, in particular, is a uniquely situated industry. The political and economic uncertainty that has become the prevailing theme of 2025 is particularly pronounced within higher education circles. New legislation concerning institutions of higher education, as well as media controversy surrounding campus decisions, can all contribute to an increased sense of stress among faculty members and administrators.
Additionally, budgetary concerns have a significant impact on many faculty members. Funding cuts, grant loss, and stricter review due to budget size all negatively impact many course leaders. This sense of palpable uncertainty and listlessness leaves a mark on campus instructors and exacerbates burnout. The political and funding landscape may change for better or worse, but the damage is certainly not going anywhere in the short term. Administrators should not expect positive changes to reverse this feeling of uncertainty in the meantime.
2. Evolving Technology
Every new technological medium comes with a learning curve. This was as true of the printing press as it was of the Internet. In the same vein, instructors will need to invest some hours to become proficient in a new technology to remain relevant to their students. While this has always been the case, generative AI, in particular, poses unique challenges. Many instructors are now finding themselves at the forefront of the collision between generative AI and higher education, often without much AI experience of their own. Instructors are now spending more time on plagiarism checks, revising lesson plans to accommodate shorter attention spans, and struggling to incorporate AI into their courses. What’s more, they often confront these challenges without much guidance or framework from their institution of higher education. The technology of AI has progressed much more quickly than the campus bodies that guide institutional policy on its use.
This tension between confronting AI in the classroom and doing so without much institutional support can be a massive catalyst for burnout. Administrators must do everything in their power to support faculty members as they navigate the evolving world of AI.
3. Increasing Class Size
The shift to online education has massively increased the number of students that many instructors teach in any one course. While new technologies supposedly make instructors more efficient, the increasing number of students in any one course is accompanied by a parallel rise in routine maintenance work. With each additional student, the number of emails, questions, and papers to grade rises. Faculty members can do their best to keep up, but there is only so much they can do to support their students.
Support and technological advancements can help, but many faculty members still struggle to keep pace with the increasing class sizes. There is no one-size-fits-all model for solving this conundrum, but administrators would do well to be aware of the impacts of increasing the student-to-instructor ratio before it’s too late.
Prevent Burnout With Instructional Connections
Faculty burnout can have serious consequences and dramatically impede student and campus outcomes. Administrators should work to address burnout within their departments as soon as possible. There are several methods that campuses should consider deploying.
- Monitor Classroom Size: The ideal number of students per instructor varies by department, but administrators should still be aware of and monitor classroom size for sudden spikes.
- Offer Artificial Intelligence Upskilling: Access to training and educational resources can mitigate burnout and frustration with unfamiliar technologies.
- Address Funding Uncertainty When Possible: While this may be easier said than done, administrators should strive to be open and honest with faculty members about financial and grant funding.
While these are all noble initiatives, institutions may need to offer additional course support to reduce faculty workload. The Academic Coach model from Instructional Connections is one research-proven method for improving both faculty satisfaction and student outcomes.
Our Academic Coaches are experts in their field with years of experience. By deploying Instructional Connections Academic Coaches, institutions of higher education offer their instructors additional support.
The addition of the Academic Coach allows routine tasks like grading, course maintenance, and student correspondence to be taken off the instructor’s plate. This, in turn, will enable instructors to focus more on higher-level work and strategic initiatives. Call now to discuss our Academic Coach model and how it can help reduce faculty burnout at your institution.