Health Experience Design 2022

Background: Nearly 70% of faculty experience very high levels of stress and 25% experience burnout. This results in high turnover, poor student experiences, and decreased faculty health and wellbeing. Integrative Nurse coaching (INC) can help address faculty burnout by assisting clients in establishing goals and embarking on new lifestyle behaviors that help to achieve work life integration and satisfaction. 
Aims: Our goal was to evaluate a faculty coaching and fellowship program to support faculty health and wellbeing while creating innovation competency and enhancing a culture of innovation.

Methods: We employed an INC paradigm and used the Theory of Integrative Nurse Coaching and a Holistic Transcendental Leadership Model for Enhancing Innovation, Creativity and Well-being, to coach 5 junior faculty to build confidence and competence in innovation and enhance wellbeing. We also equipped faculty with the skills to coach one another and utilize what they learned in the program to enhance their work community. We offered monthly group and individual coaching and used a qualitative research thematic analysis to determine themes important for the fellow and group experiences, identify outcomes, and create recommendations for the future.

Findings: Over the course of one year, fellows self-reported higher levels of life satisfaction and wellbeing. We identified the following themes. 1. Enhanced connection, comradery, and support; 2. Increased confidence and competence in navigating academia; 3. Shift to an Innovation Mindset; 4. Increased ability to identify and manage stress and burnout. An unexpected outcome of this program was that fellows experienced a shift, and transformation from focusing solely on individual needs to addressing the needs of the collective community at the college.

Conclusion: Nurse coaching is an effective strategy to address faculty burnout. Additional research is needed to evaluate the Innovation Faculty Fellowship program and its impact on the academic community.