This year The Chronicle of Higher Education's Great Colleges to Work For survey is based on responses from more than 43,000 people, at 275 institutions. Four-year colleges and universities accounted for 221 of the institutions, and two-year colleges for 54.
Approximately 20,000 of the people responding were faculty members, more than 14,800 were professional staff members, and 8,100 were administrators. The survey was sent to more than 100,000 people, with an overall response rate of 45 percent. The assessment was administered by ModernThink LLC, a human-resources-consulting firm based in Wilmington, Del. Its survey instrument is based on an assessment that has been used in 55 Best Places to Work programs involving more than 4,000 organizations. A panel of higher-education experts has helped to customize the survey to reflect issues unique to colleges.
In the Great Colleges program, each institution was asked to submit a list of full-time employees randomly selected across three categories: administration, faculty, and exempt professional staff. Adjunct faculty members were included for two-year colleges. The sample size, up to either 400 or 600, was based on the number of employees in those categories. Institutions with fewer than 400 people in a category were invited to survey the entire employee population.
The assessment process had two components: a questionnaire about institutional characteristics, and a faculty/staff questionnaire about individuals' evaluations of their institutions. The assessment also included an analysis of demographic data and workplace policies at each participating college or university. The questionnaires were administered online in March and April of this year.
Survey respondents were asked to address 60 statements using a five-point scale, ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." They were also asked to rate their satisfaction with 18 benefits, respond to two open-ended questions, and answer 15 demographic questions.
The faculty/staff survey statements are categorized into 12 dimensions, each one forming a Great College recognition category, such as collaborative governance or compensation and benefits.
For analysis, we divided the applicant pool into two classifications; four-year institutions and two-year institutions. Within each of these classifications, there were three groups, based on total undergraduate and graduate enrollment: small (2,999 or fewer students), medium (3,000 to 9,999), and large (more than 10,000). Recognition in a particular Great College category was given to the 10 highest-scoring institutions in each size for four-year colleges, and the three highest-scoring institutions in each size for two-year colleges.
Honor Roll recognition, for four-year colleges, was given to the 10 institutions in each size that were cited most often across all of the recognition categories. For two-year colleges, Honor Roll recognition was given to the three institutions that were cited most often in each size category.
Comments
1. stevenkass - July 26, 2010 at 11:35 pm
The Chronicle's own Facts and Figures give data on thousands of schools (over 3,000 for tuition; over 800 for endowments). Only 275 colleges chose to participate in the Great Colleges to Work For survey. This fact alone - that the survey included only a small fraction of institutions - is sufficient to dismiss the survey's value. (And the full list of schools surveyed isn't to be found, so for the "winners," there's no answer to the important statistical question "compared to whom?".)
If that isn't enough, consider that, at least for small institutions, the always-important random sampling of individuals was left up the institutions themselves.
If the Chronicle doesn't have the resources or statistical knowhow to perform a credible survey (and that seems to be the case), it should leave the job to organizations that do.
2. reinking - July 29, 2010 at 10:09 am
I agree completely with stevenkass. Without knowing the sample of institutions and how they were selected, response rates, and whether respondents represented a random sample, the survey results are essentially meaningless and carry little more weight than a high school popularity contest. The results likely serve only the public relations offices of those institutions that decided to participate and that were fortunate or savvy enough to have a relatively higher number of satisfied faculty choose to complete the survey. One would expect more from a publication targeted at an audience that includes many who have basic knowledge about survey research. I suggest that, in the future, the editors of the Chronicle balance whatever the perceived benefits are of conducting such a flimsy survey against the loss in credibility it is likely to inspire among many of its readers.
3. rabmeow1 - July 30, 2010 at 11:35 am
Ditto to the above. And according to information elsewhere in CHE, the "professional staff members" include only "exempt" staff. Thus, the backbone of the workforce--the "nonexempt" staff--were completely omitted. It says a lot about the value placed on the efforts of the secretaries, groundskeepers, maintenance engineers, cooks, and "blue-collar" staff. At my Honor Roll institution, staff received a 1% pay increase this year (less than a dollar a day for my department's exemplary administrative assistant), while the University was able to pay millions of dollars in severance pay to the outgoing football coach and more millions to the incoming coach. Likewise, dozens of individuals are appealing the new job classifications assigned to their positions as part of a university-wide initiative that has "simplified" the old system by introducing a 3-track, 17-category, 100+ position-title matrix that the VP for HR described in a public meeting as ultimately being "subjective" in its methodology for assigning staff to specific categories. I love my department, faculty, students, boss, and staff colleagues, so I'm in a wonderful place to work on one level. On the other hand, inequities like the above make me question our placement on a list of "Great Colleges to Work For."
4. drtrevithick - August 26, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I am so sorry to have come in late on this conversation, but I must point out that if "each institution was asked to submit a list of full-time employees," and if "Adjunct faculty members were included for two-year colleges," much depends on which office at which college was asked: many institutions do not keep, or make easily available, lists of faculty, particularly adjunct faculty.