Update on COACHE Survey Results and Process

Sent on behalf of Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor Barbara Bichelmeyer, Faculty Senate President Nate Brunsell, and University Senate President Ani Kokobobo

Dear Colleagues,

The COACHE (Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education) Advisory Team has met to discuss the faculty satisfaction survey, and we would like to provide an update about that ongoing effort and forthcoming opportunities for your engagement in the spring semester.

Omitted Academic Staff

In partnership with COACHE, we have arranged for the 105 inadvertently omitted academic staff to be surveyed. This group received an invitation to complete the survey through COACHE on December 6. When these surveys are completed on December 20, the results will be integrated into the team’s analyses and recommendations. We felt that institutional investment to extend for the group the missed opportunity to participate in the process was important in our efforts to hear all faculty voices

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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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 non-tenure 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

Upcoming Opportunities for Engagement

In the beginning of the spring semester, we will share additional quantitative data and analyses of comments around these areas of focus. The provost and governance leaders will launch the engagement process in January through an open forum with all faculty to discuss the data, hear perspectives, and address potential solutions. More forums will be hosted in February in all academic units as well as with various demographic groups. Beyond these structured opportunities, we hope to have templates for presentations of the data that can be shared with any interested groups on campus.

We look forward to these conversations and wish you all well as you finish the semester.

Thank you for all you do for KU.

Barbara Bichelmeyer, Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor

Nate Brunsell, Faculty Senate President

Ani Kokobobo, University Senate President