The Five Stages of Academic Grief Regarding the Current Socio-Political Landscape

I took a break from posting and have also avoided social media (I didn’t delete accounts—just removed them from my devices and don’t open them on my laptop). In my role as a college educator, I struggle with being villainized—this whole “professors are the enemy” does, in fact, come into our classrooms, and students do sometimes become combative and disrespectful in a way that makes many of us feel unsafe from time to time. The widespread misunderstanding of CRT and DEI still shocks me; these aren’t difficult topics to read about and understand.

In my role as an English professor, I also struggle with AI-plagiarism issues. So many students are submitting work that is so generic and subpar that we often feel pressure to negotiate because we have been taught—as educators—that if the majority of a class fails, that’s a reflection on the instructor. It’s our fault.

To me, these two issues are intertwined because ultimately, I’m realizing the underlying element to both is grief.

I am realizing that so many more students than I ever realized—when given the opportunity—will just cheat. And why shouldn’t they? Cheaters make it to the highest places in our society right now—earn the most money, obtain the highest positions, drive the nicest cars, own the nicest homes. (To be clear—and fair—I know not everyone who has those things cheated to get there, but enough have to warrant others attempting to replicate the pattern.)

When I reflect over why the anguish right now, why this feeling of despair, I think many academics are grieving the loss of the students we thought we had, just as so many across the country are grieving the friends and family they thought they had, as well.

Empty rows of chairs and desk in a classroom.

Denial

Many professors were in denial at the start of the AI-panic: “Oh, this will pass! Another trend, another phase. Math survived the invention of calculators, surely we’ll be okay!” AI-seminars and keynotes swept the conference scene.

Similarly, many thought the antagonism against educators and intellectuals would dissipate over time; it hasn’t. Many educators were proud of it: “That’s right! We’re nerds AND revolutionaries!”

Anger

Then, many educators moved on to anger: “How dare students cheat! How dare they waste my time!”

In the humanities classrooms, “Why would they take a class on something they hate? How dare they insult me and try to take over my class—again! And why the fork are they complaining about the reading? They signed up for a LITERATURE class!”

And we watch our class enrollments drop lower and lower as we are told again and again that literature isn’t important—sometimes even by our own colleagues in other fields with larger budgets and nicer offices (I still remember being appalled in grad school when I saw that one department’s professors had massive offices with windows, sky lights, and brand new furniture, while our English faculty with scores of high-level publications and books to their names were crammed into tiny, window-less, cement-block cells with swivel chairs from the 60s and lop-sided metal desks from the 50s—they couldn’t even keep their nicer books in their campus offices due to the mold and mice).

Bargaining

Some educators moved quickly into bargaining: “Well, AI’s here, so we best figure out how to incorporate it into every assignment, every unit. I’ll just show students how to properly use it!”

Or again, in the humanities classrooms, “I’ll just add very selected readings to teach folks other ideas! I’ll make this a teachable moment, and everyone will learn and be better humans!”

Depression

I think I am here, in the depression stage, though sometimes I surge ahead to acceptance and back to anger (the stages are not necessarily linear, remember). When discussions of AI came up in the past, I often replied that AI is only doing for everybody what rich kids had all along: someone else to do the work for them.

But I didn’t realize HOW MANY students would take that option—and this is depressing. So very many are not the people I thought they were—with good intentions and solid ethics. I give my self, my time, and my energy completely to my students. I worry about them, I wonder where they go after they leave, I tailor materials to meet their needs, I go above and beyond to meet accommodation requests. I dim the lights when I know someone has a migraine that day. I announce when a loud sound might happen (the printer kicking on or the projector screen going up), so as not to startle anyone. I open windows and doors, give a polite nod when someone is feeling anxious and needs to be nearer the door. I upload files in multiple file types, because not everyone has learned how to change the types yet. I upload my lesson plans and notes to our LMS. I schedule Zoom meetings outside of my office hours, answer email on the weekends (though I tell people I don’t), and give extensions when needed.

And some students still cheat with AI. And it’s not just that SOME students still cheat—it’s that A LOT of students are cheating now. I just didn’t realize how many truly selfish people there are in the world—and I consider plagiarism to be a very selfish act that insults all of the energy and effort I put into my job—as well as insulting to the rest of the class, who now have less of my time because I’m dealing with Chester Cheater over here and the plethora of paperwork that comes with it…

I’ve been drawn to critical pedagogy since I first read about it decades ago—use your teaching to help strengthen others so they can climb the socio-economic ladder. Build stronger careers. Raise the statistics that their kids will also go to college—therefore continuing an upward cycle—and have even more financial and societal stability. It’s quite literally WHY I do what I do—why I prefer teaching at a community college. (Again—to be fair—I am fully aware that some folks can earn a solid income without a college degree.)

But now, that makes me “the elite”?

Many humanities educators feel attacked by their admins (spending cuts to humanities, pushing faculty into moldy offices, etc.), by society (telling us repeatedly that college is useless and that we’re enemies for being educators—not to mention, “Nobody reads anymore!”), by other educators (“Psh, English, you’re not even teaching them to write! What are you even DOING in your classes?”), and now even by some of our students—and it’s just too much.

Many educators continue on “for their students”—through the political strife, through banned books, through the assessments, and red tape—for them. We cried over empty desks and campuses during the pandemic (how many times was that picture of Mr. Feeny in the empty classroom circled?). We learned Zoom and Teams and did our best to fight for our students. We continue to train—attend seminars, read new studies and texts to stay abreast of advances in our fields, spend thousands of dollars attending conferences—for our entire careers to give the best support and education we can to our students.

And now, even many of those students see no value in us or what we do—and it’s painfully clear—and utterly depressing.

Acceptance

All of this—the anger, frustration, depression—leads to acceptance, but acceptance can look like a lot of things. For many educators, it looks like retirement—in many cases, early retirement. For others, it’s becoming complacent—and developing perhaps some callousness (or maybe it’s resilience?). For still others, it means changing careers and leaving education or academia altogether.

We’re grieving.

Do some of us still show up? You betcha. There’s still a few students in those classes—those precious few—that make eye contact. That nod in understanding, scribble away notes, and—prepare yourself—read the assigned texts and are ready and excited to discuss them. That’s who we’re showing up for—but we can still grieve for those we feel we’ve lost.