Abstract:

Faculty in higher education are currently being confronted simultaneously on many fronts. Pedagogical issues, both new ones and dormant ones that have been awakened, personal issues due to individual and family health/quarantine constraints, professional/academic issues that were present beforehand but are now even more acute. All these issues affect the emotional health of the faculty which directly affects both administration and students.

How do we give faculty that much-needed emotional support? How do we support/maintain social networking amongst academic and non-academic staff? How do we encourage and develop peer-support? These are some of the major questions that need to be addressed in these challenging times.

A possible approach to addressing these issues is using the fundamentals of social and emotional learning (SEL). SEL is the process of acquiring and applying knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel, and show empathy for others, establish, and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

The CASEL5 framework (casel.org) identifies 5 key areas within SEL:
• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills
• Responsible Decision Making

Using these guidelines can help develop interventions in supporting social and emotional issues of higher education faculty during these unique times.

Keywords:

Faculty Development, SEL, Emotional well being, Higher Education.