College Faculty Member Grief Over Deaths of Current and Former Students

This article is an autoethnographic exploration of college faculty grief. Over a career, a college teacher is likely to encounter deaths of current and former students. The rich connections that can develop in a faculty–student relationship can make for strong grief. Issues that can complicate faculty grief include regrets that might be unique to faculty–student relationships and information about the deceased that the faculty member feels obligated to keep confidential and cannot mention while processing their grief with others. Faculty members may rarely have the benefit of attending funeral or memorial services for students and former students, but with the deaths of current or recent students, a faculty member is likely to have colleagues and students who knew the deceased with whom to talk. With deaths of students from long ago, a faculty member is likely to be limited to processing grief with people who never knew the deceased.

Navigating the Faculty–Student Relationship: Interacting With Nursing Students With Mental Health Issues

BACKGROUND: There is an increase in students enrolled in higher education diagnosed with mental illness or experiencing symptoms suggestive of mental health issues (MHI). This has a significant impact on the faculty–student relationship. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to identify the basic social psychological process that occurs when nursing faculty interact with students with MHI. DESIGN: Grounded theory methodology was implemented to identify the basic social psychological process that occurs when faculty encounter students with MHI. Thirteen nursing faculty were interviewed. Data were analyzed using line by line coding and constant comparative analysis. RESULTS: The resulting substantive theory, navigating the faculty–student relationship in the context of student MHI, is an iterative four-phase process: noticing, responding, experiencing, and reflecting. CONCLUSION: This theory provides a framework for understanding how nursing faculty recognize and address student MHI. The theory can be used to establish interventional strategies and best practice guidelines.

Addressing the Needs of Doctoral Students as Academic Practitioners: A Collaborative Inquiry on Teaching in Higher Education

This paper presents preliminary findings from a pilot study whose purpose was to explore how we, a tenure-track faculty member and a doctoral student, understood and developed our teaching practice when engaged in a formal faculty–student relationship. Using a hybrid of collaborative inquiry and collaborative self-study—which included verbal and written dialogue, interrogation, as well as observation—we sought to understand how that formal faculty–student relationship promoted the development of strong teaching pedagogy. The motivation for this study was a commitment to fostering high-quality teaching in undergraduate courses in our faculty of education. Driving this study was the research question: How are we investigating and improving upon our practices as teachers in post-secondary education?