“I Have No Time for Anything:” Differences in Faculty Research Productivity during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Research investigating the impact of the pandemic on university faculty has highlighted the extreme time and energy demands that have negatively affected scholarly productivity (Krukowski et al., 2020). The present study examines barriers to scholarly productivity that faculty at three small liberal arts colleges in New York State encountered during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results suggest that women and parents of children 18 and under living at home encountered more barriers to scholarly productivity than men and participants without children in this age range, signaling potentially devastating long-term career outcomes, especially for pre-tenure mothers of young children. Considering this rapidly worsening equity issue, recommendations are made for considering an achievement relative to opportunity policy for tenure and promotion reviews.