Female Academics’ Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This edited book encompasses themes related to resilience during the pandemic with a special focus on what female academics did to hone their resilience. It addresses issues of resilience related to mental health, care and well-being, leading, teaching, and learning. The book offers the reader a glimpse into the academics’ lived experiences and shows how they negotiated and navigated the pandemic. Each academic discusses challenges and triumphs such as wellness, leadership, work-life balance, and workplace burnout.The information contained in the book is significant to different parts of the world such as Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, Ireland, England, USA, US Virgin Islands, India, Tanzania, Philippines and China. The authors come from various backgrounds with experiences that add to the multi-cultural and multifaceted nature of resilience. They are leading practitioners who have been involved in face-to-face and online teaching, leading and learning for many years. The book brings with it the experience, enculturation, and wealth of knowledge which is of value to academics, researchers, and policy makers who wish to interrogate and understand the concept of resilience.   

Charmaine Bissessar is the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Interim Director of Educational Onlining Support Services. She is also Senior Lecturer with the University of Guyana where she lectures in Educational Leadership at the Masters and Post-Graduate levels. She has always been interested in the softer skills having published research on motivation, emotional intelligence, psychological capital and now resilience. She has collaborated with others in writing three peer-reviewed articles and a chapter in a book directly related to resilience found in psychological capital in 2014, 2016, 2020 and 2021. Her previous edited book focused on emergency remote teaching, leading and learning from global perspectives. The issue of the pandemic and the gains made via softer skills are reflected in this book which merges her interest in the effects of the pandemic and the softer skills. She is a passionate researcher who enjoys conducting research as a hobby.