Drawing the Line: Faculty Perceptions of Their Role in Student Emotional Support

While post-pandemic higher education discourse has largely emphasized digital transformation, less attention has been paid to the parallel shift in faculty–student relational dynamics. This qualitative pilot study explores how university faculty perceive and negotiate their role in providing emotional support to students following Emergency Remote Teaching. Adopting a phenomenological approach, the analysis examines open-ended responses from a purposive sample of four faculty members across Southern Europe. Findings reveal a pronounced role conflict: faculty widely acknowledge students’ heightened emotional needs, yet struggle to define the boundaries between pedagogical responsibility and psychological care. Three relational stances emerge—The Anchor, The Boundary Architect, and The Bystander—reflecting varying strategies for managing emotional labor and professional identity. Participants describe developing informal “triage” practices, offering empathy and structure while deliberately avoiding clinical intervention. Interpreted through Transactional Distance and sensemaking theory, the results suggest that faculty became an untrained front line for student mental health during the crisis. The study argues that sustainable post-pandemic policy must move beyond digital skills training to include guidance on pedagogical care, emotional boundaries, and institutional referral mechanisms. Although exploratory, the findings illuminate a critical and often invisible dimension of academic work in the post-emergency university.