Tenured Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey (Pilot)
NATURE OF THE WORK
• Portion of time spent on: Teaching; Research; Service; Outreach; Administrative tasks
Follow up: Too much or too little time?
• Ability to balance teaching, research, and service activities expected of you.
• Number of; Attractiveness of committees on which you serve
• Discretion to choose committees on which you serve
• How equitably teaching workload; committee assignments are distributed
Follow up: Who benefits most in the distribution of course loads; committee assignments?
• Support for faculty who take on additional leadership roles to sustain other aspects of their faculty work.
• Number of; Level of; Discretion over content of courses you teach
• Number of students you teach; Quality of students you teach; Quality of graduate students to support your work
• Availability of course release time
• Amount of external funding you are expected to find
• Influence you have over focus of your research
• Institutional support for: Improving teaching; Obtaining; Managing externally funded grants; Securing graduate
student assistance; Traveling to present papers or conduct research
RESOURCES & SUPPORT
• Office; Laboratory/studio space; Equipment; Classrooms; Library resources; Computing support; Clerical support
• Salary; Health benefits for yourself; for your family; Retirement benefits; Housing benefits; Tuition waivers;
• Spousal/partner hiring program; Childcare; Eldercare; Phased retirement options; Family medical/parental leave;
Flexible workload/modified duties for parental or other family reasons
APPRECIATION & RECOGNITION
• Recognition for your: Teaching efforts; Student advising; Scholarly work; Service contributions; Outreach
• Recognition from your: Provost; Dean/division head; Department head/chair; Colleagues/peers
• My school/college/department is valued by this institution’s President and Provost.
MENTORING
• I have served as a mentor to: Pre-tenure; Tenured faculty inside; outside my department
• Being a mentor is/has been fulfilling to me in my role as a faculty member
• Importance of: Having a mentor(s) in your department; outside your department; outside your institution
• Effectiveness of: Mentoring from someone in my department; outside my department; outside my institution
• My institution provides adequate support for faculty to be good mentors
INTERDISCIPLINARY WORK
• Budget allocations encourage; Campus facilities are conducive to interdisciplinary work
• Interdisciplinary work is rewarded in the merit process; in the promotion process
• Department understands how to evaluate interdisciplinary work
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Tenured Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey (Pilot)
COLLABORATION
• Opportunities for collaboration with: Other members of your department; Faculty elsewhere within your
college/school; Faculty outside of your college/school; Faculty outside your institution
ENGAGEMENT
• Engage with faculty in department in conversations about: Undergraduate student learning; Graduate student
learning; Effective teaching practices; Effective use of technology; Use of current research methodologies
• Intellectual vitality; Research productivity of tenured faculty; pre-tenure faculty in your department
CLIMATE
• Amount of professional interaction; personal interaction with colleagues in department
• How well you fit in department
• Departmental colleagues “pitch in” when needed
• On the whole, institution; department is collegial
PROMOTION
• Departmental expectations for promotion from associate to full professor are reasonable to me
• My department has a culture where associate professors are encouraged to work towards promotion
• Clarity of: Promotion process; Criteria; Standards; Body of evidence considered in making promotion decisions;
Time frame within which I should apply for promotion; Sense of whether I will be promoted; Formal feedback on
your progress toward promotion
• When do you plan to submit your dossier for promotion [Already submitted/In five years or less/In more than five
years but less than ten years/In ten years or more/Never/I don’t know]
Follow up: What is your primary reason(s) for never submitting your dossier?
[Lack of support from my department chair; Lack of support from my colleagues; Lack of
time/support for research; Heavy teaching load; Administrative responsibilities; Family/personal
responsibilities; I have not been signaled to do so by someone in my department; Not interested
in promotion; I am planning to leave the institution; I plan to retire before promotion; I am close
to retirement; Other]
• Decision to remain at this institution depends on whether or not I am promoted to full professor
INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE & LEADERSHIP
• Confidence in the leadership provided by: President; Provost; Dean/division head; Department head/chair
• Institution's priorities are: Stated consistently across all levels of leadership; Acted upon consistently across all
levels of leadership; Changing in ways that affect my work
Follow up: In adapting to the changing mission, I have received sufficient support from:
[Dean/division head; Department head/chair]
• President’s: Pace of decision making; Stated priorities; Communication of priorities to faculty
• Provost’s: Pace of decision making; Stated priorities; Communication of priorities to faculty
• Dean/division head’s: Pace of decision making; Stated priorities; Communication of priorities to faculty; Ensuring
opportunities for input into school/college priorities
• Department head/chair’s: Pace of decision making; Stated priorities; Communication of priorities to faculty;
Ensuring opportunities for input into departmental policy decisions
© 2010, The President & Fellows of Harvard College, All Rights Reserved p. 2
Tenured Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey (Pilot)
RECRUITMENT & RETENTION
• Have you in the past five years: Actively sought an outside job offer; Received a formal job offer; Used an outside
offer as leverage in negotiations; None of the above.
Follow up: Which of the following were adjusted as a result? OR
Which of the following would you most like to adjust?
[Base salary; Supplemental salary; Tenure clock; Teaching load; Administrative responsibilities;
Leave time; Equipment; Lab/research support; Employment for spouse/partner; Sabbatical;
Other]
• Outside offers are necessary as leverage in compensation negotiations
• My department is successful at: Recruiting; Retaining high-quality faculty members; Addressing sub-standard
tenured faculty performance
WORK & PERSONAL LIFE BALANCE
• Ability to balance between professional life and personal life
• Institution does what it can to make personal obligations and academic career compatible.
• Departmental colleagues do what they can to make personal obligations and academic career compatible
• Department meetings occur at times compatible with personal needs
GLOBAL SATISFACTION
• CAO cares about: Assistant Professors; Associate Professors; Full Professors
• If I had it to do all over, I would again choose: To work at this institution; An academic career
• Department; institution as a place to work, all things considered
• Plans to remain at this institution
Follow-up: Primary reason for desire to leave
[To improve salary/benefits; To improve prospects for promotion; To find a more collegial work
environment; To find an employer who provides more resources in support of your work; To
work at an institution whose priorities match your own; To pursue an administrative position in
higher education (e.g. chair, dean, or provost); To pursue a nonacademic job; To improve the
employment opportunities for my spouse/partner; For other family or personal needs; To
improve your quality of life; To retire; To move to a preferred geographic location; Other]
• Strongly recommend; Recommend; Not recommend your department as a place to work
• Tell us the number one thing that you, personally, feel your institution could do to improve your workplace.
© 2010, The President & Fellows of Harvard College, All Rights Reserved p. 3