Although the term joy stealing was essentially coined by Heinrich (2007), the symptoms are identifiable to most faculty. Joy stealing has been defined as “experiences that rob others of their zest, clarity, productivity, feelings of worth, and desire for more connection” (Heinrich, 2008, p. 148). Once joy stealing behaviors/games become ingrained in the culture, faculty find little to celebrate in each other’s accomplishments.
Tenure line faculty enter the academe with knowledge that they must engage in teaching, scholarly activity, and service. According to the “The Core of Academe” (AASCU, 1987), most universities use these three activities as the foundation of the professorate and for evaluation of faculty. However, the addition of non-tenure line faculty in full-time roles often results in confusion and divisiveness between the research focused tenured/tenure line faculty and the teaching focused non-tenure line faculty, due to very different role expectations. Many non-tenure line faculty come from clinical practice and may or may not hold a doctorate. Non-tenure line faculty frequently do not have programs of research, as their previous positions did not include an expectation of scholarly productivity. The definition of scholarship and expectation of scholarly production can be intimidating for non-tenure line faculty, while also producing challenges for the more original research focused tenured/tenure line faculty. Non-tenure line faculty transitioning from the clinical setting to the academe may lack the understanding of how to develop a program of scholarship, while tenured/tenure line faculty may not value the scholarship of teaching and learning. This difference in scholarship expectations can create a divide between faculty and result in joy stealing.
Situation: Joy stealing was occurring in a new school of nursing where a mixture of tenured/tenure line and non-tenure line faculty were trying to form a cohesive work group. The expectation to increase scholarship occurred in the face of this forming and storming work environment (Tuckman, 1965). Although the school was not losing many faculty, there was a culture of infighting, icy stares during faculty meetings, arguments over workload and expectations, and little commitment to each other’s feelings, much less scholarship.
Understanding the causes of incivility can lead to interventions to foster a culture of support and civility (Peters, 2014). Thus, in 2013, when one of the non-tenure line faculty introduced the director of the program to a consultant who was helping the faculty member build scholarly best practices, the director’s interests were piqued. This faculty member wanted all faculty colleagues to learn the strategies and tools she was learning. While the work groups were still forming, the University was transforming to a research-intensive institution and all full-time faculty were being encouraged to develop and produce scholarship. The faculty in the school of nursing were also charged with revising a faculty evaluation tool to reflect the expectation of scholarship from both the tenured/tenure line and non-tenure line faculty. The program director developed a plan with the consultant and the school of nursing entered into a 3-year partnership to encourage faculty to learn alongside each other and improve scholarly productivity, while building new, collegial relationships between faculty at all levels.
Result: The result has been an engaged faculty who understand their role, embrace their knowledge, share their scholarship, collaborate on projects, and are civil to one another. Scholarly production by non-tenure line faculty doubled and collaboration between tenure-line and non-tenure line faculty resulted in new grants and presentations/papers. The faculty now actively seek opportunities to collaborate on presentations, posters and research.
Purpose: The purpose of the presentation is to describe how a culture of scholarly caring can be formed to allow all faculty to successfully produce scholarship and sharing instead of joy stealing.