Introduction to Special Issue on Navigating Academic Life (Part 2): Responding to Change

The landscape of academia is changing. Since the Great Recession of the late 2000s, there has been significant restructuring of the purpose and function of institutions of higher education, precipitating shifts in the roles, responsibilities, and experiences of faculty. Part 2 of this Schole Special Issue on Navigating Academic Life, Responding to Change, takes a deeper dive into the contemporary challenges of higher education and the varied experiences that faculty members in recreation and leisure are confronting as they face increasingly managerialist cultures, continued drives towards efficiency and production, diversifying student and faculty populations, and furthering commitment to industry needs in a competitive global workforce. The articles offered here provide diverse illustrations of the nuanced changes of faculty life that are prompted by these complex and interlinked socio-cultural, political, and economic factors. Similar to the first part of the special issue, perspectives and reflections from a diverse array of scholars representing various academic career stages and contexts are provided. The end result is a collection of insights and recommendations that illustrate the variety of ways that scholars can adapt and respond to the changing landscape of higher education in the 21st century.

To begin with, Kumm, Harmon, Evans, Plunkett, and Widuch situate the readers into the context of modern higher education that is largely being driven by neoliberal ideology. The authors describe how their much-needed curriculum revision and redesign project generated some unexpected results, including cultivation of a larger community of practice that prepared faculty to address other challenges beyond the curriculum. In reflecting on their experience, they illustrate how benefits of such a collaborative process afforded more than just tangible outputs and outcomes; it became a conduit for self-awareness, community, and belonging. By revealing heuristics that can enhance group functioning in all types of situations, the authors argue that collaboration is more than just a means to achieve specific ends.

Greenwood, Greenwood, Hendricks, and Bruther-Blakely also address the need for adaptation. They focus on a programmatic name and curriculum change in response to the shifting industry trends that leisure, parks, recreation, tourism and related fields are facing by embracing the ideas of the experience economy. In this article, faculty at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo discuss the planning process that inspired a transition from a Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration to Experience Industry Management. This case highlights how higher education programs might respond to industry needs and the pressure of serving the market economy.

Building on existing scholarship that examines the unfavorable effects of the increasing pressures of the academy on faculty members, Oakleaf, Burk, and Mausolf provide a critical review of academic life, focusing on a specific group: academic mothers. In their qualitative study looking at work–life balance within an emerging corporate university culture, they find that mothers face unrealistic expectations, unsupportive colleagues, and conflicting workplace policies. They assert that of all people, leisure scholars should know better when it comes to finding balance between work and leisure.

Mowatt uses a very candid account of his own experience to explore the impacts of the shifting academic landscape on another group: faculty of color. He offers us the often nuanced—but at other times very explicit—role that his Blackness plays in the classroom. He considers the growing literature on the ineffectiveness of student course evaluations and their inadequacy as a single performance metric. But he also explores how this process intersects with race as a form of racialized intellectual violence and the subsequent professional and psychological impacts that it has on faculty of color. Mowatt’s reflection underscores continued concerns about the lack of faculty diversity within the leisure field, noting that we rarely consider the experiences of faculty of color in our programs.

Following this, Sharaievska, Kono, and Mirehie offer an exploratory study that employed collective memory work to investigate the experiences of international students in North America. The authors recollect experiences that were shaped by cultural, linguistic, structural, and social challenges that they encountered during their time as students. Their study offers practical recommendations to prepare potential international students for overcoming these additional challenges they may have.

Finally, this special issue ends with an article that critiques the changing notion of shared governance within the academy. McGuire considers the historic underpinnings of such an idea and how it is fairing in the contemporary landscape. He concludes with a strong call for increasing faculty engagement and withstanding further weakening of the role faculty play in governing these institutions, particularly as they are driving towards corporate business models. That is, faculty should be focusing on ways to leverage the power of shared governance to take action and shape the narrative of academic life ourselves.

Evident across these articles is a reflection of emerging issues in the contemporary landscape of higher education for leisure scholars. The articles illuminate some of the underlying pressures, such as the growing corporatization of higher education and the intensifying focus on how universities adapt and respond to market needs, that catalyze change. They also highlight the increasing diversity of students and faculty, setting the stage for interactions that mirror larger socio-political discourses and the unique challenges facing students and faculty entering leisure programs from different cultural backgrounds. Overall, these articles reflect on how academic life is rapidly changing and acknowledge that this requires new ways of thinking and preparing for what is to come. Responding to change in the shifting academic landscape is absolutely essential. We hope this collection of articles offers insights into how recreation and leisure scholars might begin to answer that call.