Compassion Fatigue

Why Zoom isn’t the only reason we’re feeling exhausted

By Amber Foster, Assistant (Teaching) Professor, The Writing Program – March 30, 2021

Since the start of the spring semester, I’ve noticed an uptick in posts like these in my social media feeds[1]:

Their words resonate with me. In my small, seminar-style classes, I have the advantage of having more one-on-one time with students. I work closely with them to help them improve their writing, which means checking in with them regularly to see how they’re doing.

During these conferences, students have confessed to feeling the impacts of our protracted state of uncertainty. Many talk to me of mental health issues; anxiety and depression are common. I’ve been told of deaths of family and friends due to complications of COVID-19. Three of my students contracted the virus and spent ten days Zooming in to class from quarantine. Thankfully, none became seriously ill, but the isolation took a toll. It was hard to concentrate, they said. There was no one to talk to, nowhere they could go. My international students tell me they’re still not sure when they’ll be able to get their visas and start their real college lives. And there have been other traumas, ones too personal to recount here.

I do what I can to keep an upbeat attitude and show my students that I care. When they’ve been absent, I check in. In conference, I listen. Whenever appropriate, I refer students to campus resources. After each of these conversations, however, I feel a little more drained, a little more helpless. As the semester has worn on, it’s become more difficult to maintain my characteristic optimism. I live in fear that my capacity for empathy is wearing thin.

I know I’m not alone in feeling this way.

Indeed, there has been growing concern about the role of compassion fatigue in faculty burnout, particularly since the onset of the pandemic. For example, in a recent study of compassion fatigue in higher education, psychologist Millie Cordaro found that compassion for students in a time of crisis may come at the expense of faculty well being. She notes that:

As faculty continue to practice varying degrees of social distancing around the world, they are also managing additional personal responsibilities: home-schooling children; added household chores; sharing home-based workspace with a spouse or partner; worrying over the health and well-being of aging parents and family members; or struggling with self-isolation. The pandemic has potentially affected faculty by compounding routine, job-related stressors with their students’ own traumas (18).

The “secondary traumas” (19) resulting from empathetic concern can subsequently impact mental health, productivity, and work-life balance.

Health care providers are already well-versed in this problem, and many of the online resources about compassion fatigue are aimed at those for whom compassion is a prerequisite for the job. Online advice ranges from connecting with a mental health care provider to incorporating self-compassion and self-care activities into one’s daily routine.

I don’t profess to have all the answers; I suspect we’ll be studying the lingering impacts of the pandemic on higher education for years to come. To be honest, I find it difficult to incorporate even the most well-meaning of self-care advice into my daily routine. After a trying day of online teaching, I am far more likely to eat a cookie and descend into the Netflix wormhole than to sit and practice “loving-kindness” meditation, as some experts recommend (Cordaro 21). Yet I do find the advice about seeking out social support useful, as I’m fortunate to have a circle of friends and colleagues, both online and off, that I can call upon to commiserate with.

Sharing our compassion fatigue may help us to understand that occasionally distancing ourselves from our students’ concerns doesn’t make us bad people, or bad instructors. We must continue to show compassion for our students, without forgetting to save some for ourselves.

[1] Excerpted anonymously, with permission from the authors.

Why Zoom isn’t the only reason we’re feeling exhausted

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