Faculty Turnover: Discipline-Specific Attention is Warranted

This study investigated the importance of discipline variations in understanding faculty turnover behaviors. A representative sample of university faculty in Research and Doctoral universities was obtained from a national database. Faculty members, self-identified into a primary academic area, were grouped into eight discipline clusters according to an established framework. Multiple regression models were constructed to examine within each cluster the relative importance of a list of factors that have been identified to be related to faculty turnover. Cross-discipline comparisons of within-cluster variable prioritization revealed substantial discipline variations with regard to the major factors that are critical to faculty turnover. The findings produced evidence that discipline-specific information was indispensable to institutional administrators and policy makers for effective faculty retention.     

Audio‐conferencing in graduate education: A case study

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study that examined the relationship between distance teaching and the faculty reward system. Using a qualitative approach, the study sought to understand how distance teaching is valued, rewarded, and accommodated within the institutional reward structure. Based on interviews with faculty members, distance education program administrators, and the chief academic officers at four research universities, the study describes a reward culture that is not accommodating to and rewarding of faculty work in distance education. The study finds that: 1) distance education occupies a marginal status, 2) distance teaching is neither highly valued nor well‐rewarded as scholarly activity, 3) distance teaching is not highly related to promotion and tenure decisions, and 4) rewards for distance teaching are dependent on the academic unit's commitment to distance education.     

Collective bargaining goals of university faculty

This paper examines the collective bargaining goals of 1,800 faculty members at eight Canadian universities. A particular focus of the study was the relationship between bargaining goals and traditional academic governance. The results of the analysis showed that faculty distinguish firmly between academic and nonacademic issues and deliberately choose to restrict the scope of bargaining to a relatively narrow range of issues involving money, job security, and grievance procedures. A major factor influencing this restricted bargaining scope was the confidence with and perceived influence of the traditional system of academic governance. The way in which the governance system functions helps determine whether academic and policy issues reach the bargaining table, suggesting that strong governance structures are not threatened by the advent of collective bargaining.     

Factors which comprise salary

A linear causal model is postulated and path analysis procedures are used to examine the direct, indirect, and total influence of 39 variables (grouped into eight general measures) on the salaries of 24.461 faculty members associated with virtually every discipline and type of postsecondary institution in the academic community. The results show wide variation in the relative influence of characteristics of postsecondary institutions and the personal and professional characteristics of faculty members on faculty salaries. The implications of these findings are discussed and specific guidelines are provided to assist those interested in examining the external and internal consistency of the faculty salary structures of their respective institutions.     

Generational perceptions of promotion and tenure expectations by faculty in a striving university: A quest for legitimacy?

Striving universities seek to gain prestige in the academic market. One characteristic of striving universities is a change in the faculty reward system. In this study, we examined historical promotion and tenure criteria in five disciplinary units at one striving university and then conducted interviews with senior faculty and recently tenured faculty in each unit to better understand the striving dynamics at play. Findings demonstrated that pressures to seek legitimacy were a result of the faculty themselves, the institution’s desire to gain legitimacy through an increased research profile and the disciplinary ties outside the university.     

The Task of Didactics

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) arose, in part, out of a need to rebalance the triadic mission of large academic institutions that have traditionally emphasized research over teaching and service. But how do you encourage SoTL when the faculty reward structure is weighted toward traditional research? Therein lies the SoTL paradox. The authors describe a program developed at the University of Minnesota to engage faculty in SoTL projects by relying on the nonmonetary rewards of scholarship, trust, and cross-disciplinary community.     

The study of academic department performance

The paper proposes a systems model of academic department performance and reports an empirical test of the model in a set of 20 departments. Departmental input and process variables related to eight departmental outcomes were identified: (1) student satisfaction with their overall learning experience, (2) student satisfaction with faculty, (3) student satisfaction with academic advising, (4) student graduate school admissions ratio, (5) student employment in field ratio, (6) faculty satisfaction with departmental research quality, (7) faculty job satisfaction, and (8) degrees conferred per faculty member. The eight departmental outcomes were found to be largely independent of one another and predicted by relatively unique patterns of departmental characteristics. Salient among the correlates of departmental outcomes were faculty workload, tenure pattern, and disciplinary differences.Presented at the Nineteenth Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, San Diego, California, May 1979.     

Comparing introductory course planning among full-time and part-time faculty

Using data from a nationally representative survey of faculty teaching introductory college courses, this exploratory study compares course planning procedures of full-time and part-time faculty teaching courses in eight academic fields. The choice of variables examined was guided by a general model of course design developed from earlier studies of course planning. To control for discipline-related differences in faculty planning assumptions, separate analyses were conducted for the eight fields. No key differences were found between full-time and part-time faculty on the primary factors under investigation: substantive content-related influences on courses, strength of influence within the instructional environment, and planning steps and content arrangements faculty preferred.     

Faculty vitality in the comprehensive university: Changing context and concerns

Much of the current research on faculty vitality—including studies of faculty workload, reward structures, and morale—are focused on research universities and liberal arts colleges. Results of two surveys of faculty vitality at DePaul University, administered in 1986 and 1992, suggest that the earlier models of faculty vitality, although useful, need to be reexamined for comprehensive universities. This case study suggests that nontangible correlates, particularly institutional direction and mission articulation and their relationship to faculty workload and the reward's structure, play an important role in ensuring a balanced effort at promoting faculty vitality at comprehensive universities.     

Research and teaching at a research university

This paper examines tensions between the research and teachingcomponents of the faculty role. It does so by reporting resultsfrom a case study of committed undergraduate teachers at aresearch university. Having agreed that research was the dominantelement in the university's academic reward system, samplemembers were cross-classified along two dimensions: First, theirown adaptation to the reward structure, as indicated by theirfive-year records of involvement in funded research; second,individuals' stated attitudes and beliefs toward the teaching andresearch roles. Although the 11 active researchers (ARs) withinthe sample reported somewhat more positive attitudes towardsresearch than did the 18 less-active researchers (LAs), we foundconsiderable overlap across, and variation within, the twosubsamples. Particularly noteworthy were the presence of a strongallegiance to the historic teaching mission of publicuniversities among both groups and, among the LAs, anoppositional cadre of politically adept senior faculty who hadachieved some success in preserving or expanding the place ofundergraduate teaching in the reward systems of their departmentsand colleges. The paper concludes by considering the case studyfindings in light of both recent theoretical work on intrinsicmotivation and the future of the teaching role.     

To what degree does thepromotion system reward faculty research productivity?

This study explores the research question: Does the promotion system in Taiwan reward faculty research productivity? By conducting event history analyses, I have demonstrated that the simple answer to the question is ‘yes.’ After controlling for the effects of demography, education, institutions and seniority, the discrete‐time logit models indicate that the number of research publications predicts the odds of promotion well. Although the promotion system is unquestionably effective in rewarding research productivity for at least some faculty, whether the system is truly universalistic or equitable remains an open question. Female and younger faculty members are clearly disadvantaged in seeking promotion. Future research is recommended to study how particularism operates in the Taiwanese academic community.     

How has Mexican faculty been trained? A national perspective and a case study

This article depicts how faculty members at Mexican higher education institutions have been prepared in order to assume their professional responsibilities. It relies on three elements: First, a secondary analysis of a national faculty survey composed of 3,861 faculty members from 65 institutions; second, 34 interviews conducted in eight higher education institutions; third, a primary analysis of an institution faculty survey in a public autonomous university. Results are presented regarding the following issues: first, the central traits of anticipatory or formative in-site faculty socialization; second, the changes in the highest degree faculty obtained at entry into academic life as compared to the obtained degree at the time of the survey; third, the formative time patterns during faculty’s higher education training, fourth, the conditions of study under which faculty members obtained their graduate degrees; and fifth, the academic inbreeding phenomenon.     

Biglan's dimensions: Are the perceptions empirically based?

The clusters of disciplines originally developed by Biglan have been useful guides in classifying or categorizing academic departments. Questions remain, however, as to the validity of the Biglan clusters among a wide range of colleges and universities.This study provides evidence which supports the validity of the Biglan categories by showing how faculty salaries and instructional staffing patterns differ among departments along the dimensions described by Biglan.     

Gender differences in the academic career

This study examines sources of satisfaction, indicators of stress, academic performance, and reward structure in the academic careers of male and female faculty at a major midwestern state university. Faculty pairs were selected from five academic divisions. A total of 58 matched pairs were identified. Of these, 63 faculty responded, yielding data for 23 matched pairs. Subjects were mailed the Academic Career Development Survey, consisting of 144 items. Results indicated that self-reported physical and mental health, and professional and personal life satisfaction were high for both males and females. Both males and females placed high importance on their career and on marriage/other intimate relationships; however, both reported high levels of dissatisfaction with these factors. Gender differences were found in both satisfaction and type of stress reported; no gender differences were found in composite teaching and research performance indices. Salary data, obtained for 42 matched pairs, indicated similar salary levels for men and women. Results were discussed with respect to prior research on gender differences and the academic career.     

Who governs? Academic decision-making in US four-year colleges and universities, 2000–2012

This study compares the explanatory power of two models of academic governance: dual and managerial control. The research is based on characterizations by chief academic officers of the primary decision-makers involved in 13 types of recurrent academic decisions. We examine change between responses to surveys fielded to US four-year colleges and universities in 2000 and 2012. We find limited support for the dual control and the managerial control models in both years. As an alternative to the two dominant conceptual models, we develop an empirically grounded classification based on multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. In each year we find high faculty participation and management-dominant clusters. The other identified clusters do not map well onto either of the two dominant conceptual models. Given these results, we argue that configurational analysis should be used as a supplement to future studies monitoring the incidence of dual and managerial control in academic governance.     

Beyond Teaching and Research: Faculty Perceptions of Service Roles at Research Universities

Faculty members in higher education institutions frequently have the responsibility of providing service activities to their institutions, professional societies, and external communities. This responsibility, however, generally carries little reward in the workplace and does not play a major role in promotion criteria. For the study we report here we drew upon a sample of 4,400 research university faculty members to explore their satisfaction with service roles by academic rank. Findings showed that mid-career faculty members at the associate professor rank were significantly less satisfied with their service functions, including workload, equity, work balance, recognition, and institutional support, when compared with both assistant and full professors.     

Dimensions of stress among university faculty: Factor-analytic results from a national study

Previous studies on the role of the professor reflect the existence of a multifaceted complex of strains on faculty. This research study investigated identifiable patterns of faculty stress. From a sample of 80 doctorate-granting institutions, 1,920 professors were selected and stratified by academic rank and Biglan's academic discipline model. The response rate was 75.28%. The multidimensionality of the 45-item Faculty Stress Index, investigated through factor analysis, resulted in five distinct dimensions of perceived stress: reward and recognition (55% common variance); time constraints (12% common variance); departmental influence (7% common variance); professional identity (6% common variance); and student interaction (6% common variance). Each factor was also analyzed according to professional and personal characteristics, and the analysis resulted in significant differences in the areas of tenure, rank, age, gender, and marital status. No differential pattern was discovered among disciplinary categories.     

EFFECTS OF JOB-RELATED STRESS ON FACULTY INTENTION TO LEAVE ACADEMIA

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between job-related stress and faculty intent to leave academia. The stress variables studied were reward satisfaction, institutional/departmental reputation, time commitment, departmental/institutional influence, and student interaction. We hypothesized that the relationship between these variables and faculty intent to leave academia would be moderated by interest in one's discipline and sense of community — an institutional fit variable. We also investigated the effects of academic discipline, tenure status, and gender on these relationships. Based on data from a national faculty survey of 3,070 full-time tenure-track faculty, results indicated that of the variables studied, the two major correlates of intent to leave academia were time commitment and sense of community; however, time commitment did not moderate the stressor-intent relationship. Though showing significant zero-order correlations with intent, when gender and tenure status were added to the hierarchical regression analyses containing the stressors and moderators, neither variable contributed meaningfully to the prediction of intent. Academic discipline classification (Biglan, 1973) contributed only 2% to explained variance. A prediction model that contained all stressors, both moderators, and the background variables of gender and academic discipline accounted for 25% of the variance in intent to leave academia.     

Implications of Biglan model research for the process of faculty advancement

The Biglan model is a three dimensional classification scheme wherein 35 academic subject areas are categorized into one of eight categories: soft-nonlife-pure; soft-life-pure; soft-nonlife-applied; soft-life-applied; hard-life-applied; hard-life-pure; hard-nonlife-pure; or hard-nonlife-applied. A basic assumption of the Biglan model research is that the types of faculty productivity differ in accord with academic subject areas. Though research studies report the importance of recognizing performance differences among faculty in different disciplines and subject areas during the faculty evaluation process, they do not present means by which this knowledge can be applied. This study discusses the practical implications of Biglan model research and the importance of university-level administrators recognizing differences in faculty productivity whenever faculty credentials are reviewed for advancement. This study also examines Biglan's original research and his model, as well as the major studies conducted to test the model. Also, the model is presented and explained as a conceptual framework for assisting administrators in the faculty evaluation process. Lastly, the reasons for employing subject area standards, as opposed to university-wide or single discipline standards, are argued.