Survey Identifies Colleges That Know How to Keep Junior Faculty Members Happy

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By ELYSE ASHBURN

Junior faculty members are generally a satisfied lot. But those at Davidson and Kenyon Colleges, Brown and Stanford Universities, and the Universities of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and of Virginia seem downright ecstatic about their jobs, according to a report released last week by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education.

The tenure-track faculty members at those institutions were the most satisfied overall, according to a report based on a survey of about 5,000 faculty members at 42 colleges and universities.

"One surprise was the number of publics that came out on top because we often think, well, the privates can spend more money and provide better support," says Cathy A. Trower, a Harvard researcher who worked on the report, "Top Academic Workplaces 2005-06". "I think this speaks really highly for those public institutions."

The survey asked faculty members to rate their job satisfaction on a five-point scale on such concerns as the clarity of the tenure process and collegiality.

Twenty-one institutions, including the six with the highest overall satisfaction, rated exceptionally well in at least one work-life category. And Auburn University, Brown, Davidson, Ohio State University, Stanford, and the University of Illinois all scored high in four of the seven categories.

Over all, junior faculty members rated their job satisfaction as a 3.92. However, women were less satisfied than men (3.89 versus 3.94), members of minority groups were less satisfied than white faculty members (3.84 versus 3.94), and faculty members at research universities were less satisfied than those at liberal-arts colleges (3.90 versus 4.15).

Staff members of the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, or Coache, plan to visit top-rated institutions to see how they keep faculty members satisfied.

Coache is conducting its second survey of junior faculty, with 27 participating colleges and universities. Results from that survey are scheduled to be released this summer.