Goals and Areas of Focus

Our goal in this initiative is to improve in our support of faculty across career phases and for all demographics by examining the data and understanding faculty experiences through the lenses of equity and excellence.

The COACHE Advisory Team has been working with available findings and planning campus engagement opportunities for additional data sharing. While the topics explored in the survey are familiar ones, the data illuminates more detailed dimensions of problem areas that help facilitate targeted recommendations for action steps. We are centering the scope of our efforts on the focus areas described below, which reflect categories from the survey where faculty expressed the most significant dissatisfaction. We recognize that these areas are not exhaustive and expect engagement opportunities with diverse groups of colleagues across campus to elicit further nuances.

Compensation

Most qualitative feedback from faculty zeroed in on better compensation as an area needing immediate attention. Compensation goes hand in hand with equity, which will be a topic that the group will also consider closely.

Working Group Members: Donna Ginther, John Colombo

Leadership and shared governance

The survey asked faculty about institutional leadership in the context of decision-making, faculty input around decisions, priorities, and the communication of priorities. These topics will be considered alongside a series of questions about how the university is governed, how shared governance holds up in different circumstances, how faculty leadership is cultivated, and how we build consensus around key decisions.

Working Group Members: Ani Kokobobo, Nate Brunsell

Nature of work

The nature of faculty work comprised another set of questions, focused on research supports at the university, as well as on the distribution of research, versus teaching and service duties. We will compare levels of satisfaction and consider ways in which tenure-stream faculty and nontenure stream faculty can be supported around workload distribution and balance. In this section, faculty also expressed concerns regarding support for interdisciplinary work in research and teaching: its evaluation, reward structures available, and recognition. 

Research Work and Interdisciplinary Work Working Group Members: Megan Green, Prajna Dhar, John Colombo

NTT Support Working Group Members: Thomas Allen, Lou Mulligan, Kris Pederson, Lonna Rocha, Lee Stuart, Kristin Villa

Personal and family policies

Additional findings focused on personal and family policies such as childcare, eldercare, spousal/partner hiring programs, housing benefits, dependent tuition assistance, work/life balance, workplace flexibility and health benefits. These topics will be considered in tandem with the nature of work and compensation.

Working Group Members: Jeff Chasen, Prajna Dhar, Kristen Helling, Victor Gonzalez, Lou Mulligan

Appreciation and recognition

Another area of concern for faculty is appreciation and recognition, for teaching, advising, scholarship, as well as general inquiries around recognition of individual faculty and their departments from different levels of leadership: from chair, to dean, to senior leadership. These concerns lend themselves to questions of climate, equity, and how can we foster a culture of recognition on campus.

Working Group Members: Ani Kokobobo, Jeff Chasen, Kristen Helling, Nicole Hodges-Persley