Abstract
Higher education is navigating a tumultuous period marked by a mercurial environment imposing numerous stressors on faculty members. Resilience, the ability to adapt and thrive in adversity, is essential for surmounting challenges. As academia navigates increasing adversity, fostering faculty resilience to support successful adaptation and growth is necessary for institutional survival. Contemporary scholarship highlights leaders’ crucial role in fostering resilience across various disciplines, yet there remains a notable gap in the literature addressing faculty resilience within the context of higher education. Further evidence is needed to understand how department chair leadership fosters faculty resilience and creates supportive academic environments. This study uses a qualitative phenomenological approach to describe faculty members’ perceptions and lived experiences of department chair support, with a particular emphasis on elucidating how such support contributes to the cultivation of faculty resilience at a public institution in Southwest Florida. Through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, themes are identified, highlighting the support faculty consider most beneficial to cultivating their resilience. Understanding faculty perceptions provides academic leaders insight into creating new strategies to foster faculty resilience and illuminate the need to provide department chairs with the skills to build resilient academic communities.