Exploring Faculty Satisfaction Derived From Community-Engaged Teaching in the COVID-19 Era

Abstract

This exploratory, phenomenological study explores the impacts of community-engaged teaching on faculty satisfaction. It finds that community-engaged teaching contributes to a sense of satisfaction across five distinct modes—pedagogical, professional, emotional, intellectual, and relational—both pre- and post-COVID-19. Interviews suggest that the satisfactions derived from community-engaged teaching speak to faculty desire to achieve coherence across multiple identities of instructor, researcher, colleague, and human. Given the ongoing conversation around job satisfaction post-COVID-19, the research generates timely findings with implications for faculty and campus community engagement professional staff.