Introduction

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, universities had begun experiencing rising issues with student well-being (Lipson et al., 2019, 2022); however, the need for well-being support rapidly increased with the onset of the pandemic (Lederer et al., 2021; Pandya & Lodha, 2022). It is unsurprising, then, that many institutions have turned to classroom well-being interventions to support their students. Integrating well-being pedagogy into the classroom can provide faculty opportunities to both support their students’ well-being and to help them achieve their learning outcomes. As such, centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) should consider their role in supporting faculty to integrate different strategies related to student well-being. To support the creation of relevant and manageable professional development opportunities, we—two CTL staff members—have undertaken a research study to understand faculty attitudes toward our university’s chosen well-being model, how faculty operationalize that model, and what obstacles they face.

At the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, an R1, flagship, and land grant institution, our CTL and Division of Student Success (DSS) have partnered together to support faculty with integrating well-being pedagogy into the classroom. More specifically, based on recommendations from a faculty and staff task force, our university chose to focus on Martin Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model of well-being. PERMA focuses on Positive emotions, Engagement, (positive) Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment as a holistic well-being model to help people thrive. While various models for well-being exist, research suggests that PERMA is a particularly good fit for the university context, both in terms of its flexibility and applicability to the classroom and curriculum space (Oades et al., 2011) and in terms of measuring student well-being (Butler & Kern, 2016; Chaves et al., 2023; Coffey et al., 2016; Kovich, et al, 2023; Umucu et al., 2020; Weiss et al., 2024). As such, our university has chosen PERMA as our model for defining and measuring students’ well-being related to their academic experience.

As the CTL introduced the PERMA model to faculty, our goal was to assist them in integrating pedagogical strategies and interventions that support students’ well-being. Additionally, we sought to gain a better insight into how faculty were reacting to this well-being model and what changes they were implementing in their courses as a result of faculty development programming. Although there has been an increasing number of well-being initiatives across the nation, research has not yet explored faculty attitudes toward these initiatives or faculty’s willingness and ability to integrate these initiatives into their classroom. This gap led us to undertake a research project to answer the following questions:

  1. What are faculty attitudes toward PERMA?

  2. How do faculty operationalize PERMA?

  3. What obstacles do faculty have to integrating PERMA strategies into their courses?

Based on the answers to these research questions, we hope to provide recommendations to better design professional development opportunities that meet faculty where they are, by providing practical and actionable strategies for supporting student well-being.

Literature Review

Well-being and Learning

Research focused on well-being and education has shown that students with higher levels of well-being are better able to learn course content and succeed in their courses. This correlation has been well-established in K12 literature. In an article that tested a well-being intervention in the K12 space, Seligman et al. (2009) has argued very straightforwardly: “More well-being is synergistic with learning.” In a recent metanalysis of the 137 studies on academic achievement and well-being in the K12 space, Wong et al. (2024) found a strong, statistically significant correlation between these two. This finding extends to higher education as well. Geertshuis (2019) looked specifically at university students and found that higher levels of well-being helped students be more actively engaged in their learning and that the opposite was true as well: Students with lower levels of well-being were less engaged. In another study that looked at a wide range of health behaviors and those behaviors’ relationship to academic achievement, Lerderer et al. (2024) found a strong relationship between mental health distress and grade point average (GPA). This research then suggests that institutions that support students’ well-being will also support their learning.

Faculty Role in Student Well-being

As faculty have significant contact time with students, they are positioned to play a crucial role in well-being support. Many well-being initiatives, however, fail to capitalize on this potential. A variety of general campus well-being initiatives have been shown to positively affect students’ well-being, but most initiatives take place outside of or adjacent to the classroom. Worsley et al. (2022) reviewed articles from 1999 to 2020 to discover what kinds of well-being initiatives were most effective; only one of the reviews, Fernandez et al. (2016), focused on “academic-based interventions.” Specifically, Fernandez et al. emphasizes that:

Universities are unique places of learning where the setting has a strong focus on teaching, learning and research to support students to develop, thrive and graduate. It is these areas in which [wellbeing] interventions can impact the whole student population. (p. 805)

Because faculty are the frontlines of student learning, they have a unique opportunity and perhaps even an obligation to integrate well-being strategies into their courses to help their students succeed (Ibaraki, 2024; Riva et al., 2020), and research has shown that students expect faculty to support their well-being (Baik et al., 2019). When faculty do integrate well-being support into their courses, these interventions have proven useful to student success. One study, conducted at an Australian university, where students completed a well-being intervention as part of their course requirements, showed gains in student well-being that were maintained after completing the interventions (Young et al., 2022). Multiple studies have shown the importance of faculty in supporting the well-being of students, throughout their college career (Bowman et al., 2019; Seifert et al., 2007; Trolian et al., 2022). Research suggests, then, that if we are able to support faculty in integrating well-being strategies, the potential for positive impact is high.

Faculty Attitudes

While the review of literature suggests that well-being-oriented interventions in the classroom space are likely to improve student learning, there is a dearth of literature on faculty attitudes toward such interventions. As we see an increasing number of well-being initiatives across the nation, research has not yet explored faculty attitudes toward these initiatives, especially related to their willingness to implement different strategies in their courses. Faculty resistance has been cited as a primary obstacle to institutional change (Jiang, 2022). Without understanding how faculty perceive these interventions, what their willingness and ability to integrate these strategies are, and the obstacles that may prevent them from integration, educational developers will struggle to create timely and actionable programming that meets the needs of our faculty and supports the success of our students. Our study then seeks to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the faculty experience of participating in professional development on the PERMA model and their attempts to integrate PERMA strategies into their courses.

Program Description

Student Success Grants

To answer our research questions, we studied a Student Success Grant (SSG) program with faculty from the General Biology (GenBio) department at our university. The SSGs are a collaborative initiative between the CTL and DSS to work with departments that have high-enrollment courses with high DFW rates (the number of students who receive a grade of D or F or who withdraw from the course) on the following three goals:

  1. Reduce the DFW rates in the course(s);

  2. Integrate PERMA strategies into the classroom to enhance student well-being; and

  3. Narrow academic achievement gaps across various demographics.

Departments can apply for these grants of up to $30,000 over 2 years. DSS used institutional data to create a list of high-enrollment, high DFW courses to target for these grants. Based on this list, DSS and the CTL specifically reached out to GenBio to invite them to apply as the first grant recipient. GenBio was, then, awarded an SSG to focus on their introduction to the major sequence, which comprises a course on organismal and ecological biology and a course on cellular and molecular biology. In collaboration with the Director and Assistant Director of Teaching and Learning for GenBio, the CTL created professional development opportunities related to student well-being. Although the focus was on the introduction to the major course series, GenBio designed their grant to provide professional development opportunities related to PERMA for all GenBio faculty, which includes tenure and non-tenure track faculty who are teaching 100- and 200-level courses, most of which are taught in large, lecture-style classrooms.

Inaugural Retreat

For professional development, the CTL worked with GenBio leadership to design a GenBio retreat for January 2022, which was mandatory for all GenBio faculty. Non-tenure track faculty received a small stipend for attending this retreat as it occurred during the university’s winter miniterm and was outside of their contracted working time. Because the PERMA model was new to all GenBio faculty, prior to attending the retreat, they were asked to complete two modules from an asynchronous certificate about PERMA created by the CTL. They completed an introductory module that provided an overview of the PERMA model, the exigency for focusing on well-being inside the classroom, and the connection between this initiative and the university’s strategic plan. Then, faculty were assigned one of five additional modules that each corresponded to a letter in PERMA. Faculty could opt to complete all the modules and receive a certificate of completion. The goal was to ensure that everyone began the retreat with the same baseline knowledge about why we were focusing on PERMA and in-depth knowledge of one element to encourage peer-to-peer learning. We were able to monitor faculty completion and provide reminders to ensure that faculty completed their assigned modules.

The CTL designed Day 1 of the two-day retreat to build on that baseline knowledge and brainstorm classroom strategies that would support student well-being. First, we divided faculty into “letter groups” so that everyone who completed the same module worked together and asked them to come up with

  • a concise, two-sentence definition of their letter of PERMA;

  • a brief overview of other relevant information they believe is necessary to explain their letter; and

  • one example of how they have or could support this area of well-being in the classroom.

The goal for this exercise was to have faculty teach one another about the different elements of PERMA rather than having the CTL team do it to build community and facilitate peer-to-peer learning. The second activity used was the jigsaw active learning technique. One faculty member from each “letter group” joined together in a new group so that each group had an “expert” on each letter. In these new groups, we had faculty begin by making a “PERMA Inventory” and listing all the strategies they already use in their classroom to support each PERMA element. We then asked them to come up with two new strategies for each letter of PERMA that they might consider implementing in their classroom. Our goal with this exercise was to emphasize that faculty were likely already implementing strategies that support student well-being. New initiatives and pedagogies can often feel overwhelming to educators and cause initiative fatigue (Jones et al., 2023; Reeves, 2006). We wanted to emphasize that this was not something that would require major, radical changes to their classroom but was something many faculty were already doing, and this retreat was an opportunity to be more intentional about how they support student well-being. Additionally, by sharing ideas, faculty could learn new strategies from their peers that they might want to implement with the confidence that such a strategy was already working in a course similar to their own. We left faculty with the homework assignment of reviewing their syllabus and considering three places they might be able to integrate new or new-to-them PERMA strategies, whether that be into the design of the syllabus and course policies or in the actual course itself.

Day 2 of the retreat focused on curricular changes to the major sequence, such as aligning student learning outcomes and considering common exams and textbooks. We did not require faculty to do any direct exercises related to PERMA during the second day, though they often referred back to what they learned in Day 1 on their own.

Retreat 2023

In January 2023, we held the second GenBio retreat. Because there were only a few new faculty members, we did not provide an in-depth activity related to the basics of PERMA. Instead, we provided a brief PERMA overview, as a refresher for those who attended the previous year and to provide context for new faculty. We then engaged faculty in a gallery walk activity. During this activity, we placed six large Post-it notes on the wall around the room. Table 1 highlights the questions for each Post-it note and examples or common answers from the 22 faculty participants who attended the retreat. Faculty walked around the room and answered as many questions as they were able in the given time, and the CTL staff facilitated a debriefing after this activity.

Table 1. PERMA Galley Walk Activity

Question Example/Common Answers
1. What successful PERMA interventions have you introduced in your classroom? flexible deadlines, video syllabus, real-world applications
2. What unsuccessful PERMA interventions have you used in your classroom? trying to learn names, no-questions-asked make-up exams
3. What obstacles are there to integrating PERMA interventions in your classroom? time, large class, students refuse to engage
4. Which PERMA letter do you find most useful or relevant to your class? E (Engagement) and M (Meaning)
5. Which PERMA letter is (or seems) most difficult to integrate/support? R (Relationships)
6. What PERMA interventions have you wanted to try but have been unable to? exam wrappers, real-world examples, and regular and timely feedback

Retreat 2024

In January 2024, we held the third GenBio retreat. No new faculty had joined the department, so we did not provide an overview of PERMA. Similar to 2023, we took time to focus on reflection so that faculty could consider and discuss different strategies they had implemented. The CTL facilitated an exercise where we asked faculty to reflect on the following questions:

  • Think about something new that you tried in your course this semester

  • What was the result?

    • Consider things like student engagement, assessment results, student evaluations, etc.

  • How might you change your teaching practices next semester with this result in mind?

    • If the results were good, this could mean doing this new thing more! If the results were not great, this could mean either not doing the new thing or thinking about how to alter it.

  • Why did you choose to do this activity?

    • What values or beliefs about teaching do you have that informed this choice?

  • How might the result influence your values or beliefs?

The CTL then facilitated a discussion based on faculty responses.

Because of the positive feedback they have received from faculty, GenBio administration has decided to continue these retreats moving forward, even though the SSG has ended.

Methods

Recruitment of Participants

In this study, we recruited participants using purposeful sampling to identify and select individuals who could provide insights into GenBio faculty members’ experiences integrating PERMA strategies in their classrooms and participating in well-being-focused professional development. To be recruited, participants had to:

  1. identify as a faculty member who teaches GenBio courses at our university;

  2. teach one of the introduction-to-the-major courses during the academic years of 2021–2022, 2022–2023, or 2023–2024;

  3. attend at least one GenBio retreat between 2022 and 2024; and

  4. be willing to participate.

Data Collection

To gain a better understanding of the participants’ experiences, cultures, and values, semi-structured Zoom interviews were used. In this study, one CTL member conducted two rounds of Zoom interviews. The participants had the opportunity to participate in two sessions, which were held in May 2022, December 2023, and May 2024. The initial session, averaging 45 minutes, explored participants’ views on the impact of GenBio retreats on their professional development and the challenges and ease of integrating PERMA strategies into their teaching. The follow-up session, averaging 40 minutes, delved deeper into participants’ experiences with implementing PERMA strategies in their teaching. While not mandatory, each participant elected to have their cameras on, fostering a more engaging and interactive environment. In total, six of the eight participants completed both interview sessions, yielding 14 individual interviews. All eight participants submitted an informed consent form. Table 2 shows the participants’ pseudonyms, academic ranks, and the number of years of teaching at our university at the time of their first interview session.

Table 2. General Biology Faculty Participants

Pseudonym Academic Status Years Teaching at the Institution
Holly Non-Tenure Track more than 5
Janet Non-Tenure Track more than 5
Jonathan Tenured more than 5
Milton Non-Tenure Track 3 to 5
Pamela Non-Tenure Track less than 3
Phillip Non-Tenure Track more than 5
Lucas Non-Tenure Track 3 to5
Kenneth Non-Tenure Track less than 3

Table 2 highlights the variety of teaching experience of our participants and their employment status. Out of the eight participants, seven were in non-tenure track positions, while only one—Jonathan—held a tenured position. This indicates a strong representation of non-tenure track faculty within the sample. The university’s publicly available timetable indicates that this balance is reflective of those who taught the introduction-to-the-major courses during the time of the study, with four to seven non-tenure track faculty and only one to two tenure-track faculty teaching those courses each semester.

Data Analysis

While the data collection was an individual task, the two authors and CTL members were actively involved in the data analysis. We applied Braun and Clarke’s (2006) approach to thematic analysis, which provided a flexible and systematic framework for interpreting the data and uncovering underlying patterns and meanings. The process involved six key steps:

  1. Familiarization with the data. In this step, each author immersed themselves in the data. We read the data multiple times, becoming more familiar with its content as well as identifying and jotting down first impressions.

  2. Generating initial codes: In this step, each member reduced the data in manageable chunks to identify and label meaningful text in response to our research questions. Due to the wealth of meaningful codes (e.g., words, phrases), we agreed to use pre-assigned categories to group-related data

  3. Searching for themes: For this step, each member organized their codes into potential themes by looking for patterns and connections across the data. Rather than viewing codes as separate pieces, we grouped similar or related codes together to form broader categories that captured shared meanings. We carefully reviewed the codes and looked for common ideas, experiences, or concepts that could be grouped under a single theme. This step was flexible and ongoing. We moved back and forth between the codes, the data, and the emerging themes to make sure the themes made sense and reflected what participants were saying.

  4. Reviewing themes: While we worked separately during the first three steps—reading the data, coding, and searching for themes—we came together at this stage to review and refine the themes as a group. We compared our ideas, discussed the themes, and checked that each one was clearly supported by the data. If themes overlapped or didn’t fit well, we revised, combined, or removed them. This helped make sure the themes were clear, meaningful, and accurately reflected what participants said. Working together at this stage allowed us to bring different perspectives and reach a shared understanding of the final themes.

  5. Defining and naming themes: After finalizing the themes, we worked on clearly describing what each theme was about. We made sure each one had a specific focus and did not overlap with others. We then gave each theme a name that was clear, descriptive, and reflected the main idea of the theme. These names helped to capture what participants were saying and made the overall findings easier to understand.

  6. Writing the report: In the final step, we put together our findings in a clear and organized report. We described each theme and used direct quotes from participants to support and illustrate the key points. These examples helped show how the themes were grounded in the data and gave voice to the participants’ experiences.

Findings

Having conducted a thematic data analysis, three themes emerged to help us answer our research questions: (1) “PERMA-fying” for intentional growth and cultural integration, (2) operationalizing the natural, and (3) difficulty connecting through time and space.

“PERMA-fying” for Intentional Growth and Cultural Integration

Related to our research question about faculty attitudes, we found faculty attitudes toward the PERMA framework were positive. The interviews revealed a unanimous appreciation among faculty members for the PERMA model as a cohesive framework that aligns with their current educational values and practices. Moreover, it revealed that faculty members actively sought, as Holly dubbed it, “to PERMA-fy” or intentionally establish a PERMA culture in the GenBio department. Lastly, they showed a commitment to personal and professional growth, marked by a growth mindset and an openness to continuous improvement through professional development with respect to PERMA.

Appreciating an Integrative Framework

Participants expressed that they appreciated the integrative PERMA model because it provided a valuable framework for them to “put it all together,” offering structure to their diverse teaching approaches and validating their work by naming what they were already doing intuitively. Faculty knew that they engaged in practices that promote well-being; however, these efforts have been disparate and unrecognized as part of a broader strategy.

What I liked about PERMA was that it allowed me to meld all of those individual theories into sort of an application right away to say, Okay…how can I take little bits and pieces of everything that I like and appreciate and sort of say, Okay, this is my teaching philosophy. Okay, so I don’t have to go 100% in the growth mindset or 100% into metacognition. Yes, but with the PERMA, I sort of felt a little bit more comfortable with like, all right I’m doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Holly

I like the whole, I guess, PERMA framework…a lot of…ideas, you know, from the training we’re familiar with but packaged sort of together in a way that I think was a little bit new…I think this is a good and interesting approach. Lucas

I think that I probably just inherently do some things that fall under PERMA, but I had never heard it formalized like PERMA does. And so I think that opened up other aspects of how I do my class for me to think about. Jonathan

Participants’ attitudes suggest that PERMA validates their intuitive practices and enhances their sense of purpose. Recent literature further supports this notion, demonstrating how positive psychology frameworks like PERMA can significantly impact educators’ professional experiences, such as self-efficacy. Building upon Bandura’s (1997) work on self-efficacy, Barni et al. (2019) indicate that when educators see their current pedological practices are validated, they experience a greater state of optimal well-being or flourishing and greater level of job satisfaction.

Intentional Culture Shift: “PERMA-fying” the Department

The participants also explained that integrating the PERMA model often required an intentional shift in their departmental culture, adapting PERMA as a verb or “to PERMA-fy.” This process entailed taking deliberate steps toward embedding the five pillars of PERMA into everyday practices.

Another thing, I’ve heard a couple of people talking about basically like we started to use PERMA as a verb. How can I promote this? Like, if I do this, like, is that a great way to enhance it? Holly

PERMA is really actually quite all encompassing, which is good, I like that…Yes, I do like PERMA as a verb. Maybe that needs to become our slogan. Holly

Holly’s statements highlight that PERMA is not merely a set of guiding principles but a philosophy that can be actively practiced by faculty. In addition, embracing PERMA as a verb suggests that it is a dynamic process rather than a static condition. According to Kern et al. (2015), institutions that have successfully adopted similar well-being models have seen improvements in staff morale and student outcomes. For faculty, adapting PERMA as a verb could serve as a constant reminder of their commitment to active engagement with these principles.

Continuous Improvement Through Growth Mindset

Seeking continuous improvement emerged as a central theme from interview one to interview two. Participants displayed growth mindsets by showing openness toward professional development related to PERMA. The concept of growth mindset—the understanding that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—aligns closely with continuous improvement principles (Dweck, 2006; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Although the retreats were required for participants, their interviews consistently showed enthusiasm for the opportunity to meet together and discuss PERMA. This enthusiasm suggests an adaptive attitude among these faculty who aim not just for personal betterment but also for enhanced collective efficacy within their departments. In conjunction with previous studies indicating that instructors’ participation in well-being interventions leads to better classroom environments (Roffey, 2012), our findings suggest that this openness can be beneficial across wider institutional contexts when anchored around a framework like PERMA.

Meeting with your peers …and talking with them about similar challenges and finding ways that maybe seeing their perspectives and hearing ways that you might not have thought about…It really opens your eyes and gets you kind of thinking…[Before the retreat], I just was ignorant of some of the ways…our practices were even affecting students. Janet

From a professional development point of view, I always learn something new [at the retreat]…[PERMA] really opened up things that I hadn’t thought about before. Jonathan

When we do all sit down to talk about ways that we are increasing, kind of, student success or student engagement in the classroom. I do enjoy hearing the ideas that people use. And some of those I have been able to implement. Pamela

The above narratives highlight how the retreats provided an invaluable opportunity to engage with peers, revisit their teaching practices, reflect on broad goals, and apply ideas from colleagues to boost student success and engagement. These experiences foster a culture of continuous improvement and professional growth.

Strategies Faculty Used to “PERMA-fy” Their Classrooms

As faculty considered which elements of PERMA were most natural, all of them were committed to “PERMA-fying” their classrooms through actionable strategies. The following list highlights the practices they implemented.

  1. Reducing exams/high-stakes assignments. Understanding that high-pressure assessments can lead to stress and anxiety, many faculty members shifted toward more frequent, lower-stakes assignments. This approach helps to alleviate the intense pressure students may feel and supports positive emotions and achievement by providing more opportunities for success (Bean & Melzer, 2021).

  2. Using clicker questions/active learning. Faculty used interactive technology to make lectures more engaging. Previous research (e.g., Bruff, 2019) suggests that active learning techniques encourage participation and help build connections as students work together, boosting both engagement and relationships.

  3. Connecting to the real world. To enhance meaning and relevance, faculty often related course material to real-world contexts. Aligned with previous work (e.g., Bain, 2022), this strategy helps students perceive their education as valuable beyond academia, strengthening their sense of purpose and application.

  4. Learning from one another. While not a specific, in-class strategy, faculty highlighted how they learned new ways to support student well-being by sharing best practices with one another. Peer-to-peer learning allowed faculty to highlight successful strategies in building positive relationships and creating engaging experiences for students.

Operationalizing the Natural

When considering the question, “How do faculty operationalize PERMA?,” we found that faculty consistently identified positive emotions and relationships as the two most “natural” elements to operationalize in the classroom.

I’ve seen myself as a very sort of positive person and then sort of very enthusiastic, right? So a lot of my students really appreciate it, my enthusiasm and it was infectious… so I think [positive emotions], for me, comes naturally. Milton

Maintaining a positive attitude has always been just something that I feel like I’ve always done and so I’ve always again felt that…you need to come into a class smiling. I’m excited to do this today; I’m excited to be here, and it doesn’t matter if I had a flat tire this morning…so [positive emotions] was probably the easiest just because I feel like I’ve already done it. Phillip

I have always tried to be like open and approachable, and talk about things to make myself more approachable, more human to my students. So I’ll talk about like a hiking trip that I took, or I’ll show the students a poem that I particularly like that has some connection to biology. And so I’ve always tried to foster relationships with my students that way. Jonathan

I think I’m okay at [building relationships]. That comes more natural to be kind of more receptive in the classroom to your students and, you know, just viewing them kind of respectfully as individuals. Janet

These perspectives show that focusing on authenticity can make certain elements of PERMA easier to implement. Rather than forcing faculty to adopt specific interventions or focus on specific aspects of the model, faculty gravitated to what felt most comfortable and natural to them, creating an exciting and greater willingness to adopt PERMA interventions. Milton’s experience of enthusiasm enhancing student appreciation of biology is supported by Fredrickson’s (2001) work that explains how positive emotions can broaden an individual’s thought-action repertoire. Jonathan spoke about being open and sharing personal interests, which helped him connect with students. This authenticity fosters stronger relationships between teacher and student, as literature suggests that authentic connections within higher education settings build a sense of belonging and improve learning engagement (Andrews, 2018).

When considering the most challenging elements to implement, interview participants identified achievement, engagement, and meaning.

I think it’s engagement. At least for me because, again, it comes, stems from…the way the courses are laid out…We aim to deliver and to cover our topics, right, which leaves very little time for flexibility as far as engaging students. Milton

It’s hard giving feedback and trying to [build their sense of achievement]. And it’s mostly just because of the number of students. Phillip

My biggest thing…is trying to make sure that material and concepts and assessments that I’m doing are somehow connecting to students…while meeting the rigor of the course…and learning goals and stuff like that [and] still, being able to build the meaning and engagement for them. Janet

Faculty connected these most difficult elements to the obstacles discussed in the section below, specifically time and class size.

What is particularly noteworthy is that these perceptions remained consistent between initial interviews and follow-up interviews. This unchanging view suggests a stable understanding or experience with applying PERMA over time. The continuity implies that while faculty might grow more adept at using strategies for fostering positive emotions and building positive relationships, they may still encounter systemic or pedagogical barriers when it comes to cultivating the other elements.

Difficulty Connecting Through Time and Space

While excitement around the individualizable and all-encompassing PERMA model encouraged faculty to make changes, they still identified challenges that prevented them from implementing certain PERMA strategies, which often connected to the elements they found most challenging. Specifically, what made full-scale implementation of PERMA strategies difficult were challenges related to time—whether lack of time to plan PERMA activities or the time period between generations of faculty and students—and challenges related to space—whether the physical space of a large classroom or the empty spaces due to student absences.

Time and Class Size

The most referenced obstacle for implementing PERMA strategies was the intersection of time and class size. Each faculty member with whom we spoke mentioned the time–class size combination as a major obstacle, and it was mentioned in relation to all elements of PERMA except positive emotions.

This is tied to the problem of the large class size. So I would love to give individual feedback to every student on what they missed on the exam. But you can’t do that. I mean, there’s just no way…. With a class of 225 students, it’s really difficult to give individualized feedback, so I feel like I’m trapped in this cycle where I want to help students understand what they got right and what they got wrong and why they got it right, or why they got it wrong, but I don’t feel like I have great tools to do that. Jonathan

Other instructors do a lot with discussion boards and that’s interesting to me. I love the idea. It comes down to time right. The ability to be able to look at that and make it worthwhile, provide the feedback that it needs, provide the grading that it needs. That’s typically not something that I will have time for. Holly

As education literature on math and science has worked to move more faculty toward active learning in the classroom, class size is often cited by faculty and studied by researchers as a barrier for this kind of engagement (Henderson & Dancy, 2007; Macdonald et al., 2005; Michael, 2007). As these faculty narratives suggest, they were not resistant to engagement activities; rather, they felt hampered by the size of the classroom.

Balancing time and class size also made building relationships with students difficult, particularly as these faculty struggled to balance relationship-building time with other responsibilities.

There are some weeks where I feel like I get nothing done because I run 8 hours of office hours…I think part of it comes down to the size of the classroom. I just can’t figure out how to scale that out. Pamela

We are missing out a lot on relationships. And it’s primarily…because the classes are just so big. And we have very, very limited time essentially to engage with students. Milton

A lot of times in class, when I’m doing these active worksheets or something, I’m running around the classroom trying to help students. And it can, I can feel a little overwhelmed if I’m like one person. Janet

There’s 225 [students]. I know the names of, you know, a dozen of them, and I’ve talked to, I don’t know, maybe 25–30% of them in those meetings when I wander around the classroom and talk to students. But that still leaves a good 150 or so students that I probably have never actually had a conversation with so just the size of the classroom makes it difficult to build relationships. Jonathan

In addition to time and class size creating obstacles, finding time for intentional lesson planning and course design also presented an obstacle, especially related to the “M,” or meaning, which many found difficult to integrate.

It seemed like with the PERMA framework, there are a lot of really cool ideas but there’s things that they would take me time…if I’m going to do them, I want to do them right. Kenneth

[Building meaning] takes time for me to figure out how to relate each of these topics to the students’ lives. Holly

It would always be fun to spend, you know, five or ten minutes going through…an interesting case study, you know, where you’ve got sort of like this mystery that they have to follow through. But building that takes a lot of time. Lucas

In much the same way that class size has been cited as prohibitive to integrating active learning techniques, so has lack of time been cited as an obstacle for integrating changes to course structure and delivery methods (Riihimaki & Viskupic, 2020). Even if faculty’s perception of these barriers is not completely accurate (Michael 2007), they will continue to dictate faculty behavior unless faculty developers are able to provide solutions or new ways of viewing these barriers.

The Students Themselves

The next most common obstacle that the faculty mentioned was the students. Students’ lack of willingness to show up in the classroom space, either physically or metaphorically, limited faculty’s ability to support student well-being through PERMA interventions, particularly relationships and engagement. Multiple faculty members referenced the low attendance rates not only during actual class sessions but also at office hours and exam review sessions.

This semester was again very, very disappointing in terms of, you know, students not coming to office hours, even to review sessions. It was, it was abysmal. We, honestly, we have no idea how to improve on that. Milton

It’s frustrating and it reduces my ability to be positive. When you know students come in and there’s only you know 50% of the class or something like that, because it shows me that they don’t feel like they need to be there, to engage. Phillip

So the issue is getting students to like attend class and…be like actively engaged during it. Lucas

When students do show up, many will not participate actively in the exercises designed to support engagement and peer-to-peer relationship building.

It depends on them engaging with me, too. Because if I walk up to them working in a group, and they all get quiet, and I can’t pull anything out of them. Phillip

I could do more [active learning]. The problem with that is that the elephant in the room, is how are they going to do that. Right now, unfortunately what I’m finding too is the students expect to be served all the content. Kenneth

What the GenBio faculty are experiencing related to student engagement is part of not only a national but also an international trend. The decrease in engagement as a result of the abrupt shift to online learning during the pandemic seems to have lingered even as students have returned to the classroom (Hendrick et al., 2023; The state of the student 2022, 2023; Tice et al., 2021).

The Age Gap

Finally, one additional obstacle, also related to time, arose from our interviews: the growing age gap between faculty and their students. Faculty claimed that the farther removed they are from their students’ age, the more difficult it is to connect with them and support their well-being.

I’ve come to realize that as I’m getting older, I think [relationship building] becomes more difficult to implement…Maybe as the as the age gap becomes larger and larger. Yes, the generational gap might increase so maybe that contributes [to the difficulty]. Milton

As I’m getting older, it’s hard to keep those relationships. When I first started teaching, it was a lot easier. They didn’t see me quite as much as that old guy that’s out of touch. Phillip

Milton and Phillip’s statements echo research that has suggested that a large age gap between faculty and students can make students more likely to rate their faculty as less effective (Horner et al., 1989), though research has countered this finding and shown that students may learn even better from older faculty who identify as female (Joye & Wilson, 2015), or it may be that role rather than age is the factor causing the disconnect. Research has suggested that faculty and students view the role of faculty differently (Lopez & Fontela, 2024), which could contribute to faculty’s sense of losing touch with students more so than any specific age gap itself.

Implications for Faculty Development

Based on our findings, we make the following recommendations for faculty developers, or those tasked with faculty development, who want to support faculty in implementing strategies and practices that support student well-being:

  1. The PERMA model can be used effectively in professional development spaces to help faculty improve how they support student well-being. Each of the faculty interviewed connected with the PERMA model in a different and personal way, and each of these connections resulted in the implementation of evidence-based practices that support student well-being and success.

  2. PERMA can be useful as an all-encompassing framework for faculty to name and organize their work around student well-being. Faculty in this study particularly appreciated having a name and structure to help them contextualize strategies they were already doing inside of a framework and be more intentional about it.

  3. Beginning PERMA conversations with what faculty are already doing may result in higher levels of buy-in. As we see more research emerging about faculty burnout in the wake of the pandemic (Boamah et al., 2022; Daumiller et al., 2021; Pope-Ruark, 2022; Taylor & Frechette, 2022), it is unsurprising that our participants appreciated the emphasis on what they were already doing rather than an insistence on a complete pedagogical overhaul.

  4. Professional development opportunities related to PERMA should lean on peer-to-peer learning. Having faculty discuss what they are already doing allows them to learn from one another. This facilitates peer-to-peer learning, and many of the ideas our participants implemented were ideas that they learned from one another. Leveraging the experience of the faculty in the room is an excellent way to begin the conversation about PERMA.

  5. Focusing too narrowly on one element of PERMA before at least presenting the entire model may limit buy-in from faculty. Our participants articulated how they gravitated toward the element that felt most natural to them. Providing faculty with the whole model and allowing them to do the same may result in a greater willingness to adopt new teaching strategies.

  6. Strict delineation, tying specific interventions to specific PERMA elements, is unnecessary. Our participants often used the same evidence-based practice but connected it to a different letter. For example, some participants who connected their content to real-world issues reported doing so to enhance “M” (Meaning), while others described the same strategy as a way to increase “E” (Engagement).

  7. Faculty development around PERMA should be tailored to confront specific challenges and contexts. Although participants indicated that peer-to-peer learning was the most useful way for them to gather suggestions on PERMA strategies, their concerns about time and class size confounded all our participants, as did some questions around student engagement. Thus, these obstacles are a useful place for faculty to collaborate with their institution’s CTL to get evidence-based practices to confront obstacles to supporting student well-being.

Limitations and Future Research

This study is limited by its focus on an individual department and subset of that department’s faculty, the majority of which are non-tenure track. Further research should examine these same research questions across a more discipline-diverse and appointment-type-diverse group of faculty. Jonthan served as the only tenured track faculty member in this study, and we cannot assume that his perspectives represent the views or experiences of tenure-track faculty members more broadly. Additionally, the concerns about large classrooms, common among this group, are unlikely to be of concern for certain departments or for faculty who exclusively teach small courses; other concerns that are not relevant for GenBio may present large obstacles for faculty in different disciplines. A quantitative approach to studying faculty attitudes and operationalization of PERMA might provide an opportunity to gather data from a larger number of faculty and examine these questions across disciplines and classroom contexts.

Finally, future research should investigate the impact of operationalizing PERMA on faculty’s own well-being. In our faculty development work on student well-being, we are often asked by faculty, “What about our well-being?” It seems that faculty feel left out of the well-being discussion when the primary emphasis seems to be placed on the students. As Holly put it:

yeah, we need to do PERMA on the students, but what I’m looking for is how do I create wellbeing amongst the faculty? How do I create our positive relationships? How do I create meaning in our jobs? with the hope that’ll trickle down to the students, of course.

Researching how we might support student well-being while also supporting faculty well-being through faculty development programs would provide essential insight into how we can help both students and faculty thrive.

Biographies

Virginia Stormer is the Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives and Senior Advisor to the Vice Provost for Student Success at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In this role, she supports the Division of Student Success in addressing emerging trends and challenges in higher education so that we can best support student success and well-being. She earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville focused on medieval and Renaissance drama.

Josie L. Andrews, PhD is a Faculty Consultant with Teaching & Learning Innovation at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Andrews earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology and Research from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, focusing on Adult Learning. Her research interest includes professional identity development, adult learners of color, and dignity and bullying in learning spaces.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the Division of Student Success for their financial support of the Student Success Grant Program; all the wonderful General Biology faculty who participated in retreats and interviews and were incredibly welcoming to us; and Drs. Randy Small and Caroline Wienhold for their willingness to collaborate on the Success Grant.

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