Research
Research
My research examines how leadership, institutional structures, workplace conditions, and organizational change shape faculty resilience and success in higher education. I am particularly interested in department chair leadership, trust, professional identity, faculty workplace culture, and the conditions that enable faculty to adapt, grow, and thrive.
My work is grounded in the realities of academic life and reflects a broader interest in how higher education institutions can better support faculty amid change.
Current Research Agenda
My current research extends my work on faculty resilience and department chair leadership by examining the conditions that distinguish compensatory resilience from supported thriving. I am particularly interested in how trust, leadership legitimacy, organizational context, professional identity, and adaptive agency shape faculty responses to change.
Future studies will expand this work beyond the faculty perspective to examine department chair experiences, institutional conditions that enable or constrain supportive leadership, and the broader relationship among leadership, resilience, faculty success, and organizational sustainability.
Methodological Approach
My research is primarily qualitative and interpretive, with particular experience in phenomenological inquiry and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). I am interested in methods that preserve the complexity of lived experience and illuminate how individuals make meaning of leadership, relationships, identity, and organizational environments.
My dissertation used IPA to examine faculty members’ lived experiences of department chair leadership and resilience. My broader methodological interests include qualitative interviewing, thematic and interpretive analysis, research design, and inquiry grounded in meaningful problems of higher education practice.
Dissertation
Investigating a Pivotal Dyad: The Role of the Department Chair in Cultivating Faculty Resilience
My dissertation examines how full-time faculty members perceive and describe department chair practices as influencing their professional growth, adaptability, and capacity to thrive amid evolving demands.
Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the study highlights the importance of trustworthy leadership, relational validation and advocacy, adaptive agency, organizational context, and the ways faculty develop compensatory resilience when meaningful leadership support is absent.
Select Publications
Clemons, A., & Fulwider, J. M. (2026). Empowering change: Addressing workplace bullying in higher education through resilience. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2026.2700720
Clemons, A., & Aydin, H. (2026). New norms for international academics: Navigating the shoals of legislative changes and the reshaping of academic freedom in Florida. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 0(0), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2026.2629041
Clemons, A. (2025). Beyond the myth of the resilient faculty: Rethinking support in a time of constant change. Leading & Managing. 31(2), 130-33. https://journals.flvc.org/leading-and-managing/issue/view/6533/409
Clemons, A. (2025). Supporting faculty resilience: Department chairs’ role in community building amid trauma. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 9(1), 16–31. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/15877
Clemons, A. (2024). Exploring academic resilience: A phenomenological study of lived experiences during COVID-19 and Hurricane Ian. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2024.2334986
Clemons, A. (2024). Analyzing the upward trend in academic unionization: Drivers and influences. Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.58188/1941-8043.1922
Other Scholarly Work
Clemons, A. (2026). Building trust through collaborative change: A model for faculty affairs led transformations. In R. Zeineldin, Faculty affairs: Practices for holistic faculty success. (pp. 313–318). Higher Education Affairs.
Research profiles:
