CAS Congress
Annual Faculty Survey 2014
Purpose: Elicit a FacultyCentered Agenda for the Policy
Committee
• Identify the areas that faculty
members wanted to see improved.
• Generate ideas for how these areas
might be improved.
• Set the year’s agenda and serve as
the foci for the various policy
discussions to be held in the coming
year.
The Survey Construction
• Given this plan, the survey was designed to
ask about any areas where CAS might do
better rather than what CAS does well.
• If respondents identified an area that
needed improvement, a text question
popped up to solicit specific ideas for how
to improve that area.
The Data
• We have some quantitative data, indicating
where improvements might be most desirable.
• We also have a considerable amount of
qualitative data, highlighting specific
suggestions respondents provided for how an
area of concern might be improved.
The Participants
• We invited 255 tenure track or tenured faculty
members to participate.
• 182 (73%) responded to the survey.
(Thank you!)
The Results
• We will use these data to set the 2014-15
agenda for the CAS Congress Policy Committee.
• First we offer the quantitative, then the
qualitative data.
First Overarching Question
• Overall, do you think CAS is headed in
the right direction?
10%
= 7%
• More yes than no = 56%
• More no than yes = 27%
• Definitely no
= 10%
7%
• Definitely yes
27%
56%
Second Overarching
Question
• Is there something CAS can do to fulfill its
mission more effectively?
• Yes = 84 %
• No = 16 %
Specific Improvement Areas
• We suggested 7 areas, and asked respondents
to indicate how strongly they wanted CAS
Congress to improve each area.
Two Areas Were Ranked by Participants
as “Definitely needs improvement”
1. The pay you receive for the work you do.
2. Your ability to impact CAS decisions as they are
being made.
Two Areas Were Ranked by Participants as
“Could improve,
but I’m not too concerned”
1. The collegiality across different CAS
departments.
2. The level of engagement with colleagues in
other departments.
Two Areas Were Ranked by Participants
as “Needs No Improvement”
The level of engagement you have with
students.
2. The collegiality within your
department/workgroup.
1.
Two Additional Salary Questions
O 65 % disagree (or strongly disagree) that our
pay is fair compared to others in the discipline,
at the same rank, in other schools.
O Regarding gender equity:
O 50% chose “neutral or don’t know”
O 23 % chose either direction (agree/ strongly
agree)
O 28 % chose disagree/strongly disagree
Fourteen Attitudinal
Questions in 5 Groups
O Attitudes about participation
O Attitudes about Promotion and Tenure
processes
O Attitudes about the Dean’s advocacy
O Attitudes about discrimination/favoritism
O Attitudes about the budget
(NOTE: Neutral response was not allowed.)
Attitudes about Participation
• More opportunities to work with faculty in
other departments: 79% A or SA.
• More opportunities to participate in college
level decision making: 75% A or SA.
• Have enough information prior to decisions:
60% D or SD.
• Feel invited to participate in college
decision making: 63% D or SD.
Attitudes about P&T Processes
• Reviews by the Dean are fair: 81% A or SA.
• Reviews by the CAS faculty committee are fair:
61% A or SA.
Attitudes about the Dean as an
Advocate
• I trust the Dean to advocate for my department:
56% D or SD.
• I trust the Dean to advocate for CAS: 60% A or SA.
Attitudes about
Discrimination/Favoritism
• Experiences, rather than attitudes, were
reported for the following:
• I have experienced discrimination: 75% D/SD.
• This leaves 25% who agree/strongly agree.
• I have experienced favoritism: 84% D/ SD.
Attitudes about the Budget
O The Dean’s office is handling the budget
crisis fairly: 58% D/SD.
O I am given enough information to understand
how CAS allocates money: 79% D/SD.
What Can We Learn from
the Quantitative Data?
• CAS Faculty are generally happy here.
• However, they see room for improvement.
Areas to Improve
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Salaries
Faculty inclusion in college decision making
Cross-department engagement
Communication/flow of information to faculty
Possibly Promotion and Tenure processes
Solutions are noted in conjunction with qualitative
comments.
The Qualitative Sections
NOTE: Anytime a respondent indicated
dissatisfaction with any of the facets of CAS
that we considered, a follow up question asked
for suggestions about how to improve the
situation.
Six Areas of Concern
(Unranked)
• Workload
• Obstacles to increased collegiality or community
•
•
•
•
across CAS
CAS Leadership
Lack of inclusion in CAS decisions
Promotion and Tenure
Salaries
Concerns about Workload
• Faculty lack control over their workload.
• Service is not meaningful.
• Some work is redundant (such as entering
the same information into Digital Measures
for annual and retention reviews).
• Bureaucratic inefficiency is too great.
Possible Actions Related to
Workload
• Examine the forms and the processes to see if
these can be streamlined?
• Examine service and see how service activities
are connected to the following:
• P and T requirements?
• CAS goals?
• University goals?
Concerns about
Collegiality/Community
• Curiosity about how other departments work,
how others are handling the budget crisis, etc.
was common.
• A desire to be able to talk, ask questions and
have an opportunity to develop a sense of
CAS as a cohesive group was clear.
Possible Solutions for
the Collegiality Concern
• Create an online user group?
• Something like Facebook (but not)?
• Find a physical meeting space?
• Would faculty take advantage of such a space?
Concerns about Leadership
• Most of the concerns seemed to center on
transparency and communication:
• We want to know who is saying what, who is
deciding what, and why.
• These concerns are amplified around the
budget.
• Some concerns focused on how CAS fits into the
larger University.
Possible Solutions
Related to Leadership
Ask the Dean to provide rationales for
decisions?
2. Have Town Hall meetings once per month, in
which faculty can ask for any clarifications
they need and he answers as best he can?
3. Create a CAS website for disseminating
information, like Chairs’ minutes, etc.
4. Offer meaningful, not bureaucratic, service
work for faculty.
1.
Possible Solutions
Related to Leadership, cont.
5. Could we have more complete budget
information?
6. Could we reinstate the Faculty Budget
Committee as a Congress ad hoc
committee?
7. Fairness in budgeting may be connected
to better communication.
Concerns about P&T
• Overwhelmingly, respondents felt the Dean
reviews were fair.
• Respondents were less confident that the
faculty committee is fair and were generally
concerned about the unique power of this
committee and specifically concerned about
recent committee decisions.
• Some wanted greater clarity in the papers.
Possible Solutions
Related to P&T
O Change the P&T Committee’s task to simply
ensure that department rankings are fair,
according to the department papers?
(Committee no longer advises on rankings).
O Create a process for selecting the Chair? Just
for P&T or all Chairs? Create a removal
process?
Concerns about Salaries
• Plainly, there are concerns about salaries.
• The flat rate for the December term is not
helping to ease concerns.
• Cutting summer budgets is a salary cut for
many of us.
Possible Solutions
to the Salary Problem
• Communicate salary dissatisfaction to the
Provost?
• Become better informed about the procedures
used to set salaries, raises, etc., for CAS faculty?
• More participation from the ad hoc Budget
committee?
For this Year
• Which problems should we focus on and in
which order?
• Which solutions seemed promising, or not?
• Are there new ideas that we can bring
forward?
Chair Contact
• Any ideas or comments can be directed
toward Trish Oberweis at
toberwe@siue.edu for the 2014-15 year.
• Thanks!