Faculty Senate2012 Faculty Survey Followup

September 2012 Faculty Survey Follow-Up

In spring 2011 and again in spring 2012, the Faculty Senate administered an online survey to all full-time Gustavus faculty members. The survey asked faculty members to provide their opinions about the effectiveness of leadership at various levels of the College, about their satisfaction with their salary and benefits, and about their workload and morale.

The original survey and response data may be viewed at:: https://gustavus.edu/facultysenate/documents/FacultySurveyResults2011-2012.pdf.

At its May, 2012 meeting, the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees requested that the Senate follow up on the numerical results of the surveys. We were tasked with identifying a few areas that either indicated strength or weakness at the College or had shown substantial changes between 2011 and 2012. We were then asked to seek narrative comments to explain these results in detail.

The four areas identified were: (1) “the job performance of your department chair” (an apparent strength); (2) “the job performance of the President” (an apparent weakness); (3) “your salary and benefits” (an apparent weakness); and (4) “your morale and its effect on your job performance and willingness to work at Gustavus” (an apparent weakness).

The narrative responses were solicited during the first three weeks of fall semester 2012. Although 173 faculty members had responded to the numerical survey in May, only 77 narrative responses were received. The response rate was undoubtedly affected by both the short timeline and the time of year. The start of the academic year is very busy, and, in fact, letters of recommendation for tenure and promotion were due on the same day; however, the Senate wanted to complete the survey and its analysis in time for the October 11 meeting of the Academic Affairs Committee.

The survey responses were anonymous, and the methodology ensured that only full-time faculty members could respond and that no one could submit more than one response. A Senate-appointed committee (Leila Brammer, Priscilla Briggs, Eric Dugdale, and Steve Mellema) wrote an executive summary from over 300 pages of narrative comments that had been submitted.

The executive summary of narrative comments may be read at Faculty Survey Executive Summary

The original survey responses including all of the narrative comments may be read at September 2012 Faculty Survey Narrative.