Why do we need happy professors

International Day of Happiness & Happy Professors

March 20 is celebrity dance International Day of Happiness. Around this time this is lot of interest and discussion on the topic of happiness particularly also due to the release of world happiness report in which different countries are ranked based on their happiness.

While all professions are important and happiness is a legitimate goal for life for almost everyone this article looks at why do we need happy professors for taking on the challenges of the world and education.

Why do we need happy professors

First, the world and education system needs more innovations

The world is going through a lot of changes such as geopolitical conflicts, emergence of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence with its challenges, social media and its impact, and various problems such as loneliness, stress, sustainability challenges and so on and so forth. And professors also have an important role to play as higher education has a key responsibility of creating new knowledge.

The education system is at crossroads as it was developed for a certain era and context and it needs to innovate and come up with better ways to educate to face the emerging challenges and opportunities.

Second, research in happiness shows that happiness helps in creativity and innovation.

Professor Barbara L. Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill developed the Broaden-and-Build Theory, which states that positive emotions promote open, flexible, and creative thinking. Teresa M. Amabile at Harvard Business School found that employees experiencing positive emotions at work demonstrated greater creativity. Similarly, Matthijs Baas from the University of Amsterdam reported in a large meta-analysis that individuals in positive moods were more creative than those in neutral moods.

Combining reason one and two can be a good enough argument. To further build the case, in informal discussions over the years at many places, unhappiness, stress and lack of innovation come across as some of the major challenges faced by professors which is not good for higher education. To make it stronger, one can add that happiness also helps in good physical and mental health and relationships including team works and pro social behaviour.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Happiness is the main goal and the oxygen for a good life for almost anyone. Professors have an important role of creating new knowledge and tacking emerging challenges at least in education, if not other fields, and for creativity and innovation, better mental health and teamwork is needed more than ever, and happiness has a proven track record with these things.

This International Day of Happiness, lets look at happiness as an important tool for professors, and let’s do focus on creating happy professors!