https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1571-3700
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ABSTRACT
In recent years, multiple studies have called attention to the mental health of scholars across the academy. And yet, the mental health of communication and media scholars specifically has not received the focused attention it deserves. In their recent Journal of Communication article, Thomas Hanitzsch and colleagues begin the process of remedying this omission, providing important data on communication and media scholars’ mental health and its correlates. Hanitzsch and colleagues stress that their work is a starting point only, and call for their fellow communication and media scholars to engage in discussion about potential solutions. In response to their call, this essay provides four structural recommendations aimed at improving the mental health of early and mid-career scholars.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Some funding opportunities, of course, are associated (either directly or indirectly) with intellectual discovery. And some researchers are lucky enough that their own intellectual interests align with the priorities of funders. I have been in this fortunate position in the past (e.g., Wright et al., Citation2021, Citation2022, Citation2022a, Citation2022b and were made possible via private funding) and am in the present (e.g., Wright et al., Citation2023, Citation2024 were made possible via federal funding). But more often than not, funders’ primary goals are applied and scholars have to revise or entirely shift their research interests to funding agencies’ priorities in order to be successful.
2. A reviewer of this essay said that in their experience the “devaluation of service” is even more likely than the devaluation of teaching and scholarship in the modern university environment. It is important that senior faculty and faculty in administrative positions (myself included) do more to relieve the service load of early-career scholars and to thank and directly award our peers for their vital service work. For instance, a few years ago I created the Communication Science Service Award to honor “a unit member whose prior year service activities were truly extraordinary and above and beyond the already high expectations the unit has for its faculty” (The Media School Report, Citation2023; see also The Media School Report, Citation2024).
3. It is important to acknowledge that publication output expectations vary across departments and schools housed within research-intensive universities and that some communication and media units may already have adopted policies in line with the spirit of my suggestion. The suggestion of a “50% reduction” should be seen more rhetorically than empirically. A 100% reduction would equate to the erasure of any expectations. A 0% reduction would maintain the status quo. The 50% figure should be seen as an attempt to strike a balance, not a numerical prescription.
4. A reviewer of this essay made the case that three and four-year external reviews are especially counterproductive. My unit does not engage in mid tenure clock external review. But I am inclined to agree with this position, as such reviews would appear to run counter to my suggestion that we “adopt a long view perspective on early career productivity.” Further, if (as in the experience of the reviewer), associate professors are disproportionality called on to conduct these reviews, they also add to the service work of mid-career scholars.
5. I would also encourage scholarship and discussion to improve the mental health of the hardworking staff who support communication and media scholars and the students we teach (e.g., administrative assistants and coordinators for chairs and directors). A suggestion that follows from my own conversations with staff as well as recent research on the labor conditions of communications workers is to allow for a hybrid work schedule among staff who have this preference (Harrington & Kahn, Citation2023). This is especially important for categories of marginalized workers who have and continue to face structural challenges to labor force entry and continuance. From a recent New York Times article, for example: “For decades, a working mother’s schedule has felt like an equation that won’t balance. Many women are expected to still be at their desks at 5 p.m., and simultaneously at school pickup. They’re supposed to be in an office, and also available at home when their children are coughing and turned away from day care (Ample data shows that this bind tends to constrict mothers more than fathers). Remote work slightly eases that conundrum” (Goldberg, Citation2023, para. 16). How many days remote? I recommend a case-by-case evaluation with staff and their supervising faculty. But according to Mull (Citation2021), “there’s a perfect number of days to work from home, and it’s 2” (see also Kaplan, Citation2023).