09/12/2023
By Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier & Meg A. Bond
Calling all faculty!
Every two years, the ADVANCE Office for Faculty Equity & Resilience (OFER) takes the pulse of faculty to hear more about perceptions of our work climate. It’s time to do it again, and we very much hope you will participate before September 15!
Thank you to those of you who have already completed the 2023 Faculty Climate Survey! We recognize that you were not on contract this summer and appreciate you taking the time to complete it. We also realize that many of you were not able to complete the survey this summer. Therefore, we have extended the deadline to September 15.
The driving force behind the 2023 Faculty Work Climate Survey is to shape university-wide efforts to promote a workplace where all faculty feel genuinely respected and supported in our work. This year the ADVANCE Office for Faculty Equity (OFE) is partnering with the Center for Program Evaluation to distribute and analyze the comprehensive survey in which we ask about your experiences of feeling valued and/or devalued, perceptions of campus and departmental climates, observations about equity, and related issues.
You may recall completing similar surveys in 2017, 2019 and 2021. The purpose of repeating the survey is to assess how faculty experiences change over time.
Please note that this survey is different from – and sponsored by a different office than – the survey distributed to all students, staff, and faculty in fall 2022. This current survey is an opportunity to hear about experiences that are specific to faculty in order to inform future initiatives.
Many of you have completed past surveys, and your views have made a difference! Over the past few years, there has been exciting progress on several fronts:
- Over half of all faculty have participated in bystander training to learn how to address microaggressions. The majority of top administrators have also participated.
- Mentoring opportunities have been expanded to support over 60 faculty members from minoritized groups.
- Over half of all departments have adopted a personnel protocol to reduce bias in personnel decision making; research about biases in P&T evaluation has become part of the provost’s annual Personnel Committee Training.
- New FAQs now help faculty navigate complicated parental leave and family & medical leave policies.
- UML has partnered with community agencies to launch the first-ever childcare pilot program for faculty and staff.
- Long-overdue conversations about faculty service equity are happening all across campus.
The work initially spearheaded by the NSF-funded ADVANCE Making WAVES Initiative was so well received that the university established the ADVANCE Office for Faculty Equity. OFE is now called the ADVANCE Office for Faculty Equity & Resilience (OFER) and a permanent office dedicated to action and advocacy to promote equity vis-à-vis faculty recruitment, retention, and quality of work life.
The 2023 Faculty Work Climate Survey is critical to a larger OFE mission and it is important that as many faculty as possible complete the survey so that we can have a multifaceted view of campus climate. The survey is entirely voluntary. Results will be held in confidence by the lead researchers and only included in reports when anonymity can be maintained.
As we have done in past years, we will be holding open forums in the fall to share the survey results. Please contact us if you would like us to present to your department, college, or other group.