Aerial view of the Campanile and Fraser Hall at sunset

COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey 2025

KU's Office of Faculty Affairs has partnered with the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) at Harvard Graduate School of Education to administer its Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey in the spring of 2025.  

The COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey is a national survey that assesses faculty views on a wide range of aspects related to academic life at their institution. With over 300 participating institutions, KU receives results for our institution as well as comparative benchmarking data that helps the institution identify strengths and areas of concern to inform the development of programs and policies that support faculty in building rewarding careers. 

The last administration of the COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction survey was the spring of 2022

Campanile

Why should faculty participate?

Your responses enhance the faculty experience for all at KU by highlighting areas in need of improvement and informing changes to programming and policy that will most improve faculty job satisfaction and retention.

Fraser Hall

Why does KU participate?  

To ensure that the university makes strategic decisions based on feedback from our faculty and their experiences with the institutional environment, policies, and practices. By administering the COACHE survey every three years, KU can assess the effectiveness of recent initiatives and new trends in faculty needs.

The COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey is administered at KU every three years and is one of KU's Campus Constituent Surveys for the Lawrence and Edwards campuses. Since 2022, these surveys follow a consistent process of planning, administration, analysis, engagement, and the creation of actionable recommendations. A Campus Constituent Surveys Implementation Team is then tasked with reviewing, prioritizing, and communicating updates on recommendations three times a year.  As a KU Campus Constituent Survey, the COACHE survey is a key process for assessing the success of Jayhawks Rising, the strategic plan for the Lawrence and Edwards campuses.  


Timeline

Feb-Apr 2025
Survey Data Collection
AY 2025-26
University & benchmarked reports are made available
AY 2026-28
Implementation team reviews all recommendations & provide regular updates

COACHE 2022 Informed Improvements

Enhanced new faculty orientation and onboarding

Enhanced new faculty orientation/onboarding resources, increased communications, trainings and opportunities to connect, and expanded new faculty orientation to include spring session. This includes expanding the monthly New Faculty Foundations events to serve the first two years in a faculty career.

Expanded faculty development tailored to all levels

Faculty Affairs has developed programming that focuses on all faculty at various levels of their career and emphasizes strategies around planfulness and balancing work.

Increased wages for UCPT promotion process

For faculty who go through the UCPT promotion process, promotion wage increases for assistant to associate rank ($6,500 minimum increase or 9% annualized rate) and associate to full rank ($12,000 minimum increase or 12% annualized rate).

Annual State of the University and Campus Presentations established

State of the University Address and KU Lawrence and Edwards State of the Campus presentations are now annual events which share broad University updates.


FAQs

The COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey is a national survey administered by the Harvard Graduate School of Education that assesses faculty views on a wide range of aspects related to academic life at their institution. With over 300 participating institutions, KU receives results for our institution as well as comparative benchmarking data that helps us identify strengths and areas of concern to inform the development of programs and policies that support faculty in building rewarding careers. 

The questions cover a wide range of aspects of the academic workplace and are clustered into the following key areas: 

  • Nature of Work: Overall, Teaching, Research, and Service 
  • Resources & Support 
  • Benefits 
  • Interdisciplinary Work and Collaboration 
  • Mentoring 
  • Promotion, Tenure, Retention, and Negotiation 
  • Leadership and Governance 
  • Departmental Engagement, Quality, and Collegiality 
  • Work & Personal Life Balance 
  • Appreciation & Recognition 
  • Global Satisfaction and Improvement 

Learn more about COACHE or refer to the COACHE FAQs

Data privacy and security are top-most concerns when administering a survey of this nature. COACHE will not use any name or email address for any purposes except for this research. The confidential data collection process is approved by Harvard IRB; identities are only used to send reminders and are not released to KU.

Data are analyzed by the COACHE team at Harvard and aggregate reports are issued by COACHE; deidentified, anonymized data is shared with Analytics, Institutional Research, & Effectiveness (AIRE) at KU.

The data provided to KU is received and kept on a secure server by the Chief Data Officer at KU. No other administrators, staff, or faculty members in positions to make or influence individual faculty personnel decisions will have access to the unit-record data. In order to protect the identities of individuals and departments, no results will be reported with fewer than five respondents. 

Preliminary reports will be shared via campus email and on AIRE’s website in the fall of 2025.

An advisory team will share additional analyses and host engagement sessions on the results to gather recommendations from all faculty during the spring of 2026.

A recommendations report based on the results will be shared with all faculty by the summer of 2026 and the Campus Constituent Survey Implementation Team will provide regular updates on progress in identified areas for improvement.

The COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey is administered at KU every three years and is one of KU's Campus Constituent Surveys for the Lawrence/Edwards campuses. Since 2022, these surveys follow a consistent process of planning, administration, analysis, engagement, and the creation of actionable recommendations. A Campus Constituent Surveys Implementation Team is then tasked with reviewing, prioritizing, and communicating updates on recommendations three times a year.  As a KU Campus Constituent Survey, the COACHE survey is a key process for assessing the success of Jayhawks Rising, our strategic plan.  

If you have questions about the survey administration and data, please contact the Office of Analytics, Institutional Research, and Effectiveness at AIRE-help@ku.edu

All other questions should be directed to the Office of Faculty Affairs at facultyaffairs@ku.edu