Faculty burnout is a pervasive concern for higher education institutions, with instructors reporting heightened exhaustion, increased cynicism toward the workplace, and reduced task efficacy. This study examines the potential of instructor-student rapport and out-of-class communication (OCC) as resources to mitigate faculty burnout, using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as a guiding framework. The results reveal that strong instructor-student rapport significantly reduces burnout, while OCC offers additional support. These findings highlight the importance of fostering relational dynamics between faculty and students as a proactive strategy to address burnout and elevate faculty well-being, satisfaction, and retention in higher education.

Using the Transactional Theory of Emotion and Coping (TTEC), this study examined college students' (N = 159) use of humor to cope with stressors in synchronous online courses. Participants viewed hypothetical scenarios detailing a common online stressor, and reported on humor to cope, anxiety, anger, and academic resilience. Humor to cope was a significant negative predictor of both anxiety and anger and a significant positive predictor of academic resilience. These results support humor as an effective coping strategy for reducing negative emotions and promoting the ability to overcome obstacles and adversity when faced with online learning stressors.

Guided by self-determination theory, this study explored the impact of students' peer network quality (i.e., student-to-student connectedness, loneliness, and peer relationship types) on resilience and likelihood to persist. Participants (N = 229) reported that they primarily developed collegial or informational peers in the university setting, that loneliness was negatively related to academic resilience, and peer connectedness was positively related to academic resilience, but there were no significant relationships with intention to persist. Although collegial and informational peers were most common, those with special peers were significantly more connected and less lonely. The indicators of peer network quality did not differ significantly based on the course schedule modality of students, but fully online students reported greater academic resilience.

Employing benign violation theory as a lens, this study (N = 148) explored full-time employees' perceptions of supervisors' likelihood to use sarcasm and engagement in self-disparaging and vulgar language based humor and verbal aggression (VA) in the workplace. In part, findings revealed that employees' perceptions of supervisors' VA positively related to perceptions of supervisors' likelihood to use sarcasm and inappropriate humor engagement.

Communication plays a central role in promoting effective condom use. In particular, women's humorous communication functions to facilitate condom use self-efficacy in heterosexual dating relationships. Results from 189 cisgender women revealed that an affiliative humor style was a positive predictor of willingness to talk to partners about using condoms despite potentially negative consequences and confidence in using assertive communication to bring up the topic of condom use. However, employing an aggressive humor style was a negative predictor of women's willingness to talk to partners about using condoms despite potentially negative consequences. Overall, greater understanding of humor styles as a means of understanding condom use self-efficacy has substantive pragmatic health-related implications.

Courses in gender communication are designed to enable students to examine the role of gender and gender identity in everyday communication. To aid them to understand gender communication, they should be exposed to at least three foundational areas and supporting content. Sex and gender differences, the social construction of gender, and theoretical gender lenses (biological, psychological, and critical/cultural) are critical foundations that students should grasp to recognize the complexity of gender and gender communication.

Abstract This study (N = 326) was conducted to examine the associations among instructor humor, inappropriate conversations, and instructional dissent. First, results showed students are more likely to employ rhetorical dissent when they perceive their instructors as humorous in the classroom. Second, using expectancy violations theory as a guide, results also indicated that students’ perceptions of instructor-relevant humor moderated the relationships between enactment of inappropriate conversations and students’ expressive and vengeful dissent. These findings support the importance of employing relevant humor in course instruction, especially when instructors engage in inappropriate conversations in the college classroom.

Maintaining positive alumni relations is crucial for any university. This study explored the long-term effects rapport and memorable messages can have on alumni beliefs and behaviors. Results highlight the influence of instructor-student rapport on university organizational identification and social expectations for alumni. Both positive and negative memorable messages alumni received from faculty members, and the influence of these messages on alumni behaviors, emerged. Practical implications related to all stakeholders-faculty, students, and fundraising and development professionals-are forwarded.

This study examined the extent to which college students’ perceptions of their instructors’ use of misbehaviors (i.e., antagonism, lectures, and articulation) is associated with students’ willingness to express academic performance concerns to their instructors. Undergraduate students (N = 173) completed a questionnaire in reference to their most recently attended class prior to the one in which the data were collected. Results of a multiple regression provided partial support for the hypothesized negative relationships between perceived instructor misbehaviors and students’ willingness to express academic performance concern to their instructors.

Framed by Tinto's interactionalist theory (1975), this study explored students' academic skills and social integration to illuminate students' communication with faculty and campus services. Participants reported on instructor rapport, self-regulated learning, self-management, out-of-class communication, and support seeking from campus resources. Results revealed that instructor rapport predicted out-of-class communication with instructors and student services, while self-regulated learning and self-management functioned differently to predict interactions with faculty and student services. The results offer insight into factors important to enhancing student academic success and persistence.

The purpose of this investigation was twofold: (a) from a dialogic pedagogy perspective, to determine the possible negative association between instructors’ compulsive communication and student communication satisfaction; and (b) using Expectancy Violations Theory as a framework, to test the extent to which instructor credibility mediated the negative association between compulsive communication and student communication satisfaction. We found that students’ perceptions of instructors’ compulsive communication is linked to lower levels of student communication satisfaction. Importantly, results also showed that instructor credibility tempers the negative association between instructors’ compulsive communication and student communication satisfaction.

Guided by social exchange theory, this article presents two studies examining relational baggage. In Study 1, individuals in romantic relationships reported they most often used overt information-seeking tactics to discover a partner's relational baggage, and relational baggage harm and third-party discovery negatively related to relationship satisfaction. In Study 2, unattached individuals reported that their own relational baggage was positively related to dating anxiety, and negatively linked with mate value and interpersonal communication competence. The results provide insight into relational baggage and the communicative processes used to negotiate romantic relationship initiation and development.

Frames and frame analysis examines the individual's constructions of reality instead of society's social constructions. The aim of this qualitative study is to explore college students' (N = 434) construction of involvement and noninvolvement in the classroom from a frame analysis perspective. Six themes emerged from students' descriptions of their perceptions of self and other students' in-class involvement (e.g., active involvement), and eight themes emerged from descriptions of self and other students' in-class noninvolvement (e.g., student passivity). Overall, students are likely to perceive themselves as involved and other students as noninvolved, even when the classroom behaviors are similar (e.g., listening, taking notes).

The aim of this investigation was twofold: (a) drawing from communication privacy management theory, we wanted to examine the associations between instructors' ineffective communication (i.e., inappropriate conversations, amount of disclosures) and student communication satisfaction; and (b) we wanted to determine if students' positive perceptions of instructor nonverbal immediacy mediated the negative influences of instructors' inappropriate conversations and amount of disclosures on student communication satisfaction. Overall, students reported lower levels of communication satisfaction when instructors engage in inappropriate conversations and frequent disclosures. Based on results, we also concluded that instructor nonverbal immediacy maintains students' communication satisfaction even when instructors engage in inappropriate conversations or disclose too frequently.

Drawing from Tinto's (1975) interactionalist theory, we examined academic and social integration in the basic communication course classroom and students' continued learning activities outside of the classroom, which Kuh (1995) identified as the other curriculum. A total of 427 undergraduate students enrolled in 24 sections of public-speaking courses reported on their perceptions of instructor clarity and rapport, classroom connectedness, out-of-class communication (OCC), and out-of-class self-regulated and peer learning. Overall, results revealed instructor rapport and connectedness were positively associated with students' OCC, self-regulated learning, and peer learning. In contrast, instructor clarity was negatively related to students' reports of OCC and peer learning. These results suggest social integration in the classroom may facilitate students' continued learning activities outside of the classroom.

From the frame of expectancy violations theory, we examined the associations between instructors' compulsive communication and three instructor misbehaviors: irresponsibility, derisiveness, and apathy. Results revealed that students who perceived their instructors as compulsive communicators also perceived them as misbehaving. Next, we determined if nonverbal immediacy mediates the associations between instructors' compulsive communication and instructor misbehaviors, as well as student affective learning. Results revealed that nonverbal immediacy partially mediated the relationships between compulsive communication and the misbehaviors of irresponsibility and apathy, and fully mediated the negative associations between compulsive communication and students' affect for instructor and course.

This study assessed students' (N=195) perceptions of instructors' relevant humor and inappropriate conversations in the classroom and used expectancy violation theory (EVT) as a lens to position instructor relevant humor as a moderator between instructors' inappropriate conversations and student communication satisfaction. Results showed a positive association between students' perceptions of instructors' use of relevant humor and student communication satisfaction, and in contrast, a negative relationship between perceptions of instructors' inappropriate conversations and student communication satisfaction. Consistent with the tenets of EVT, results also indicated that instructors who use relevant humor in the classroom may overcome students' negative perceptions of inappropriate conversations and maintain student communication satisfaction.

Expectancy violations theory (EVT; Burgoon & Hale, 1988) was the theoretical lens used in this study about perceptions of appropriate and inappropriate student disclosures in the college classroom. Participants (N = 211) were randomly assigned to report on either (a) an inappropriate or (b) an appropriate disclosure and the frequency, relevance, negativity, expectedness of the disclosure, and likeability and perceived academic competence of a student discloser. Results indicate that student disclosures are inappropriate when they happen frequently, are negative, irrelevant to course materials, or violate student expectations for classroom norms. Generally, disclosers who violate expectations are rated lower in liking and perceived as less competent students by their classmates.