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Emerging data suggests the COVID-19 crisis exacerbated preexisting, long-documented gender inequities among U.S. faculty in higher education. During the initial Spring 2020 'lockdown' in the U.S., 80 students conveyed their experiences with faculty across 362 courses. We evaluated whether students' reports of faculty supportiveness, accommodations granted, and pandemic-impacted, anticipated grade outcomes differed according to faculty gender via mixed linear models (data on 362 courses were nested within 80 student reporters). Students perceived their women instructors as more supportive, accommodating, and anticipated lesser course grade decreases across the semester than in courses taught by men. Accordingly, we interpret that amidst the 'lockdown' crisis, women faculty earned higher perceived supportiveness and positive student outcomes than their male counterparts. Further, the data likely reflects women faculty's greater conscription into demonstrated care work, despite the coding of such labor as "feminine," thereby rendering such work devalued. To reframe, to the degree that students expect more 'intensive pedagogies,' which invites faculty and administrators to gender disparate demands, such pressures likely translate to 'hidden service' burdens, and correspondingly, less time for career-advancing activities (such as research). Broader implications are discussed, alongside women faculty's documented experiences of acceleration in career and work/family pressures in pandemic-times, which combine to exacerbate long-standing, yet now-amplified penalties, potentially driving a widening, gendered chasm in academic career outcomes. We conclude by offering constructive suggestions to mitigate any discriminatory impacts imposed by students' gendered assessment inputs and expectations.

Extensive research has explained women's pandemic‐related workforce exodus as driven by the presumed pressures of gender disparate private, domestic burdens. The impact of gender asymmetries in academic labor on faculty well‐being is less understood. We examined the effects of job‐related factors on faculty mental health, a critical measure of precarity during the initial Spring 2020 "lockdown" and transition to remote work. Faculty (n = 345) were recruited via social media to participate in a survey on their work/life pandemic experiences. Women were over‐represented in our sample, yet respondents at both the highest and the most tenuous ranks were underrepresented. Gender, teaching load, having dependents, and greater financial concerns were associated with higher depression and anxiety. Critically, women's heightened mental health risk was not explained by the other predictors. Results indicate women faculty's well‐being and career advancement are threatened by disparate, obscured service burdens both within the academy and at home during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) occupy a very ambiguous role in society. Historically, NGOs have been both heralded as democracy in action and criticized for being complicit supporters of neoliberalism. Now, in certain contexts, they are rendered as enemies of the nation. In this article, we examine the evolution of nongovernmental organizations in Hungary, a nation where this transformation is exceedingly clear. Hungary provides a pertinent case example to explore the manner in which civil society as an amorphous, ill-defined category becomes a stand-in for whatever the state needs to protect its interests. The current discourse on NGOs in Hungary plays out during and in the aftermath of what has been dubbed the "refugee crisis" of the summer of 2015. Therefore, in this article we explore how the civil sector evolved in Hungary following the end of the Soviet era, the nongovernmental response to the refugee crisis, and the manner in which NGOs and individual volunteers have been characterized in political discourse as "enemies of the state," due to the government's anti-migrant stance. As a result of public rhetoric and policy changes, the civil sector in Hungary has no choice but to either shrink considerably or reframe their activities as decidedly anti-government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]