A First Look at a New Resource to Help Faculty Protect Their Time and Energy
In Wednesday’s post, I wrote about the uneasy mix of exhaustion and vulnerability that often shows up at the end of the semester—especially when preparing for student evaluations.
What I didn’t say in that post, but many of you mentioned in your emails and comments, is that the pressure surrounding evaluations isn’t happening in a vacuum.
It’s unfolding in a moment when students are navigating college with very uneven levels of preparation.
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
The Hidden Curriculum Gap Has Widened
Many students have never been taught how:
college communication works,
faculty roles differ from high school teachers,
academic timelines function, or
when and how to raise a concern at the appropriate level.
At the same time, faculty are encountering a rise in behaviors like:
bypassing the professor and going directly to the dean,
emailing with a level of informality that feels jarring in a professional context,
expressing frustration that stems more from disorientation than defiance,
needing repeated clarification on basic course processes.
This isn’t about generational decline or “kids these days.”
It’s about a widening gap in the hidden curriculum of higher education—and the fact that faculty are the ones filling that gap, semester after semester, often without support or shared language.
Why This Semester Made It Harder
When you layer this hidden curriculum gap onto:
A semester shaped by national crisis,
Increased classroom tension, and
Chronic institutional overstretch,
…it makes sense that faculty are feeling depleted.
It also makes sense that evaluation season might feel heavier than usual. Misunderstandings around norms, roles, and expectations often show up, most visibly, in student feedback.
A Small, Practical Tool I’ve Been Building
So I began working on a resource I wish I’d had when I was full-time faculty—something small, clear, and usable across disciplines:
👉 A two-page student-facing guide that covers communication norms, expectations, and appropriate channels for resolving concerns.
It’s a tool faculty can use to reduce repetitive questions and help students learn how to navigate the course—and the institution—with greater clarity, confidence, and fewer unwarranted escalations.
The goal is simple: support students and protect faculty energy at the same time.
A preview for you—and an invitation
I’ve created a short Loom video walking through the draft version of this guide. I’m sharing it here with paid subscribers before making it publicly available because I want this resource to be genuinely useful for faculty—and for the colleagues who support them—across a wide range of institutional contexts.
Your classrooms, your students, your structures, and your expectations look different from mine, and that diversity matters for a tool like this.