Re-Crafting Careers for Mid-Career Faculty: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Mid-career faculty are a growing population within academia, and yet their career issues have been surprisingly under-researched. The purpose of this study was to conduct a rich exploration of the career experiences of mid-career faculty using the lens of job crafting theory. Interviews were conducted with 16 tenured professors at a mid-size public university. Faculty reported high levels of autonomy in their jobs and substantial flexibility in setting their long term teaching and research goals. For this reason, job crafting provided an excellent framework to understand how faculty are using task, relational, and cognitive strategies to shape their careers.