Student stress in focus: Short-term fixes and long-term pedagogical change in business school curriculum

This paper explores course design and curriculum decisions made to acknowledge the contextual and personal stressors experienced by business school students. Business school professors have an opportunity to promote an active orientation to stress management, teach stress management skills, and link these practices to students’ lives beyond academia. We use a lens of intersectionality to understand the human experience of stress and coping, connecting research from the management, psychology, biology, and sociology literatures to reveal a more complicated picture of stress for students in the 2020–2021 academic year. We then examine recent pedagogical changes in two business courses, Personal and Professional Development I for first-year students and Organizational Behaviour for second year students, as we discuss how many stressors can be addressed at the course-design level (through principles of simplicity, predictability, and consistency) as well as through module design (by creating community and connections to services, societies, and supports). Rather than viewing pandemic-induced course modifications as a temporary “fix” for the current situation, professors can use this time to re-imagine the importance of student stress in the learning process. We offer recommendations for long-term change to business school curriculum to accomplish this goal.