BU Faculty Challenged to Make Changes

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This month, Boston University is asking faculty in all disciplines a simple question: Are you happy?

The University’s first faculty climate survey, conducted by MIT’s Web survey service, is under way now through the end of October, and it asks faculty to rate their experiences at BU, sharing information about workload and responsibilities and analyzing things ranging from student quality to parking availability. The initiative was launched by the Council on Faculty Diversity and Inclusion, which is chaired by Sargent College Dean Gloria Waters, University Provost David Campbell, and Roscoe Giles, a College of Engineering professor of electrical and computer engineering. The idea, says Waters, is to get a comprehensive look at what faculty like and don’t like about working at BU and to use that information to better attract and retain quality teachers and researchers.

“Our mandate is to attract a more diverse faculty but also to make the climate better at BU,” Waters says. “This survey will help us get an idea of what the faculty experience is like.”

Participants are asked to give one of six ratings — ranging from “very satisfied” to “very dissatisfied” and including “not applicable” — in several categories. They include compensation and the subcategories of salary, start-up funds, and length of contract; resources, which covers parking, staffing, workspace, and equipment; and teaching, advising, and research, which asks participants about their experiences with undergraduate and graduate students, intellectually stimulating projects, and time available for scholarly research. They are also asked to provide information about the number of students they teach and advise and estimate the number of hours spent on different tasks over the course of a week.

Questions about environment also make up a significant part of the survey; participants are asked to respond to statements such as “My colleagues value my research/scholarship,” and “I have a voice in the decision-making that affects the direction of my college/school.” The survey focuses extensively on respondents’ personal lives as well, asking about family, domestic responsibilities, and satisfaction with partner benefits.

“It’s a way for the administration to get a sense of what the faculty feel are very positive attributes of working at BU and what they feel needs to be improved,” Waters says. “Some of it is satisfaction with compensation and resources, but then it also branches out: whether or not you’re properly mentored, what you think about promotion and tenure, and even things about life outside of BU. Are there adequate opportunities for spouses to find jobs? Is housing an issue?”

The survey also offers respondents an opportunity for open comment at the end, which many faculty appreciate, says Julie Sandell, the chair of the University’s Faculty Council, who as council chair is an ex officio member of the BU Board of Trustees “I hope that the responses will identify areas where we need to consider changes to improve satisfaction,” says the School of Medicine professor and vice chair of anatomy and neurobiology. “For example, do people feel stressed over balancing child-care needs with work requirements? I don’t know how big a problem that is, and if that’s a big problem, we need to think more carefully about what recommendations we make to the administration.”

The MIT service was chosen based on the institution’s experience with such surveys, which it has conducted for Harvard, Washington University, Duke, and Stanford. The survey is confidential; no one at BU will see individual responses, and only responses from groups with at least five faculty members will be collated and included in the aggregate data. The Council on Faculty Diversity and Inclusion plans to review the responses collected at the school and college level and share the overall findings with the entire University faculty near the end of the fall semester.

Ultimately, Sandell says, this year’s responses will serve as a benchmark for annual reviews and continued improvement. “We want to know what the situation is right now, and we hope to improve the atmosphere and conditions,” she says. “When we administer this survey next year and the year after, we will see an improved experience.”

To take the faculty survey, visit http://web.mit.edu/surveys/bu/.

Jessica Ullian can be reached at jullian@bu.edu.

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