Thriving Heroes: Constructing the Ideal Worker During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education workloads exploded, putting those employed in postsecondary institutions under significant mental, emotional, physical, and, at times, financial uncertainty. This strain has had clear consequences for the long-term well-being, productivity, and retention of employees in higher education, including in student affairs. This critical discourse analysis interrogates how emails from an alliance of 14 U.S.-based research universities discursively presented the ideal worker during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from analyses of 686 emails, the authors find institutional messages presented images of higher education employees as self-sacrificing heroes who were individually thriving despite, and at times because of, the pandemic. They problematize these findings in the context of employee well-being and productivity and in light of ongoing equity concerns in the higher education workforce. They conclude by making recommendations for how higher education institutions can disrupt ideal worker norms and transform organizational culture.