If you work in higher education, you know the feeling even before you can name it: meetings one after another, an inbox that fills up faster than you can empty it, and the guilt you feel when there is a free hour in your calendar. There is a name for this constant rushing, and it is called hurry sickness.
The term was created by two heart doctors, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman. They described it as a constant struggle to do more and more things in less and less time; a feeling of time pressure even when there is no real reason to rush (Friedman & Rosenman, 1974). It is a pattern of behavior, not a medical condition. It shows up as constant rushing, impatience, and a feeling of urgency that never goes away. In higher education, it has quietly become part of everyday life.
How Higher Education Got Here
Hurry sickness did not appear out of nowhere. It grew as universities started to work more like businesses. With this change came “managerialism” — a way of thinking that judges staff by numbers and performance measures, not by the quality of their work with students (Mountz et al., 2015). The result is a work culture that runs 24/7, uses up limited resources, and creates time pressure that does not need to exist.
On top of this, there is the “ideal worker” idea, which is the silent expectation that a good professional is always available, has no personal life, and is always “on” (Acker, 1990; Sallee, 2021). A full calendar becomes something to be proud of instead of a warning sign. Add smartphones and laptops that erase the line between work and home, and you get a work environment that almost naturally produces constant hurry.
The result is a culture of “fast academia” that Berg and Seeber (2016) call the “culture of speed” in universities, where speed and output matter more than reflection, mentoring, and the kind of deep, careful work that really changes lives.
The Cost for Student Affairs & Services Professionals
Nowhere is this more visible than in student affairs and services (SAS), a field built on presence, relationships, and care; three things that simply cannot be rushed.
The numbers tell a sad story: research estimates that between 41% and 60% of new student affairs professionals leave the field within their first five years (Lorden, 1998; Marshall et al., 2016; Tull, 2006). When they leave, their work does not disappear, it lands on the desks of the colleagues who stay. This pattern is known as “departure contagion” (Felps et al., 2009). One person's burnout becomes the next person's overload, and the cycle of hurry gets faster.
This constant urgency is one of the main causes of burnout — the mix of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and the feeling that your work no longer matters (Maslach & Leiter, 2016). In fact, burnout was one of the main reasons given by professionals who left the field in Marshall et al.'s (2016) study. Residence life professionals are at special risk, because many of them live where they work, with no real line between job and home. And the weight is not shared equally: the “always available” expectation is harder on women and caregivers, who often feel they must hide their stress or family duties to look as capable and committed as their colleagues (Sallee, 2021).
The physical costs are real, too. Friedman and Rosenman's (1974) original research connected constant time pressure to heart disease. Chronic rushing keeps the body in a state of constant alert, which raises the risk of heart problems, high blood pressure, migraines, and poor sleep. This is not just a wellness slogan, it is a real health risk hiding in plain sight.
And here is the sad irony: the urgency that is supposed to make us more effective often lowers the quality of our work. Clear thinking and creative problem-solving need exactly the kind of space that hurry sickness takes away (Berg & Seeber, 2016). Overworked professionals struggle to give students the depth of care they need, which means the students we are rushing to serve are often the ones who lose the most.
The Solution Is Not a Better Planner
Here is the most important idea: burnout in SAS is created by institutions, not by individual failure (Sallee, 2021). This means the solution cannot be just a time-management workshop or another self-care webinar, it must be a change in structure and culture.
A few changes stand out:
Redefine success. Institutions need to stop treating a full calendar as a status symbol and start valuing the quality and impact of work over the amount of activity.
Break the “ideal worker” myth. Supervisors have to actively push back against the expectation of being available around the clock, and build new norms that respect boundaries instead of quietly punishing them (Sallee, 2021).
Build in margin. Planned free time in the schedule (even something like a weekly day of rest) should be valued for its own sake, not just as fuel to do more work (Berg & Seeber, 2016).
Hire and pay fairly. Filling open positions quickly, and paying salaries that match the education these jobs require, would help stop the departure-contagion cycle before it starts. After all, salary was one of the top reasons professionals gave for leaving (Marshall et al., 2016).
Practice synergistic supervision. Frequent, informal, and supportive check-ins — where supervisors help staff manage competing priorities — do more for keeping people than any policy manual (Winston & Creamer, 1997).
What Leaders Can Actually Do
This is where SAS leaders carry real weight, because culture change starts at the top and is felt at every level below.
Leaders can lead by example: actually taking their vacation time and disconnecting after work hours shows the behavior they want to see, not just asking for it. Something as small as scheduling emails to go out during work hours, instead of at 10 p.m., quietly removes the pressure on staff to always be checking their phones.
Leaders can watch over staff well-being: checking vacation reports and gently encouraging staff to use their time off, before burnout (and departure contagion) takes hold. They can move the conversation from being busy to producing good work, using supervision as a space for clarity, not control (Winston & Creamer, 1997). They can give real freedom, letting staff go to personal appointments or family events without having to explain every minute away from the desk.
And maybe most powerful of all, leaders can say it out loud: be a hero at home, not a hero at work. That simple phrase challenges the “ideal worker” myth directly and gives staff permission to build a sustainable life, not just a strong résumé.
A Field Built on Presence Deserves to Slow Down
SAS is, at its heart, a profession about relationships. Mentoring, advising, crisis response, building community — none of it works well when it is rushed. If we want our field to truly deliver on its mission, we must be willing to challenge the culture of hurry that weakens it one boundary, one policy, one good example at a time.
Take the Assessment
Curious where you fall on the hurry sickness spectrum? Take the free, five-minute Hurry Sickness Assessment.
About the Author
Enrique Ramos, Ph.D. is Senior Consultant at GSA Consulting Group, a small international consulting firm specializing in student affairs & services in higher education. Based in Monterrey, Mexico, Enrique brings more than 35 years of student affairs and services leadership from Tecnológico de Monterrey, including eight years as National Vice President overseeing 31 campuses, and is GSA's specialist in Latin America. GSA offers program review, executive mentoring, and strategic planning services to individuals and institutions globally.
References
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Lorden, L. P. (1998). Attrition in the student affairs profession. NASPA Journal, 35(3), 207–216.
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