Aug. 2, 2007

The Satisfaction Gap

Colleges that want to recruit new faculty talent talk frequently about this new policy or that — or about efforts to promote a certain environment for young scholars. But a study released Wednesday suggests that those policies have had mixed effectiveness — and that the experience of junior faculty members continues to vary based on gender and race.

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White and male junior faculty members experience a better campus climate than do their minority and female counterparts, according to the results of a study of the views of 6,773 tenure-track faculty members at 77 four-year colleges and universities around the country. Those working at colleges generally experience a better climate than those working at universities, the survey also found. The study was conducted by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, a research project based at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. COACHE, as the project is known, has become a leading source of information on how colleges can attract the next generation of professors and keep them happy — even as their demographics and priorities may differ in key ways from their senior colleagues.

Cathy Trower, director of COACHE, said that the study pointed to the importance of remembering the difference between establishing sound policies (which many institutions have done) and making sure that they are effective and working for everyone (which is more difficult). “A change in policy does not necessarily mean a change in practice or climate,” she said. In many cases, colleges that have adopted policies may need “to drill down” to the department level to see why they are or aren’t working.

The breakdowns on climate and collegiality are important, Trower said, because professors entering academe today are more likely to place a high value on such qualities than were previous generations of academics, who might have been more likely to accept a lousy a climate at a prestigious institution.

The following averages are based on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being “strongly agree,” 4 “somewhat agree,” 3 “neither agree or disagree,” 2 as “somewhat disagree,” and 1 “strongly disagree.” There are some signs that on issues related to gender, the current generation of academics may be more inclusive. While female junior professors gave lower scores than male counterparts on questions related to interaction with senior colleagues, the opposite was true with regard to junior colleagues.`

Satisfaction With Climate, Culture and Collegiality

The survey also asked a series of questions, again on a scale of 1-5, in this case with 5 being “very important,” on how important certain policies were to the success of junior faculty members and how effective their employers were in these areas. In many cases, the scores were significantly higher for “importance” than for “effectiveness.”

The latter scores were taken from those who believed a given policy was “fairly important” or “very important” so the evaluations are coming from those who care about a given issue. Trower said that this suggested that “there’s still much work to be done.” The following table is in order of importance of various policies to tenure-track professors. Generally, the data suggest that junior faculty members are worried about drains on their time and want feedback.

Importance of Polices to Junior Faculty Members’ Success and Effectiveness of Their Employers

In many of these policy categories, demographic differences were minor. Junior professors of all races equally desire upper limits on teaching obligations, for example, or value periodic performance reviews.

But notable gender differences appear on the importance placed on certain time related or family related categories. Women see upper limits on teaching and committee assignments as a more important issue than do men. Women are more likely to value stop-the-clock policies on tenure, child care, and the availability of paid or unpaid personal leave.

Junior faculty who are not white are much more likely than their white colleagues to see child care and a spousal hiring program as important.

More broadly, a series of questions on work/life balance and family obligations found big differences in the reactions of women and men, and of those at colleges and universities.

Satisfaction on Family Support and Balance of Work and Non-Work Life

Consistent with past COACHE surveys, the new one found greater satisfaction coming from teaching than research duties and continued importance places on the clarity of policies on tenure and promotion. Generally, junior faculty members were more clear on issues of process than of standards.

Trower said that the importance of looking at demographic and other differences is that they point to the need for colleges to go beyond simply adopting a new rule or procedure. A “one size fits all, ‘we’ve got that policy on the books, so we’re done’” approach won’t work she said.

On issues of global satisfaction, differences based on gender and race are less notable than are those between those working at colleges and universities, with the former happier. (Note that only university faculty members were asked about departmental satisfaction.)

Global Satisfaction of Junior Faculty Members

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— Scott Jaschik

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