Faculty Work Life Research Articles

Students’ Address and Reference Term Choices for Female versus Male Professors

Using four methodologies, with both students and professors as participants, we predicted and found that college students are more likely to address/reference female versus male professors by first name. The effect was not explained by perceptions of lower status/competence or greater warmth, but rather more student-professor interaction. When we made first-name-only references impractical, students actually used more formal reference terms for female than male professors. We discuss potential moderating variables and implications for female faculty work life.

The Role of External Factors in Rural-Serving Community College Faculty Attrition

The existing research on community college faculty attrition has focused on such internal institutional factors as faculty work life and morale. Few studies have examined factors outside of an institution’s control that may influence faculty attrition and no studies to date have examined such factors in a sample of rural-serving community college faculty. The present study explores the relationships of geographic issues, counterstream migration, economic concerns, and social responsibilities to attrition in a sample of full-time rural-serving community college faculty. Implications for rural and rural-serving community college human resources professionals and administrators are discussed.

Not in the Greater Good: Academic Capitalism and Faculty Labor in Higher Education

American public universities have assumed business-minded practices and norms that more closely align with the goals and values of corporations than social institutions charged with creating and disseminating knowledge. One consistent strategy to lower costs involves faculty labor. Institutions have outsourced educational missions to a largely contingent workforce to decrease instructional costs; over the last two decades, the number of adjunct or part-time faculty now comprises 70% of all faculty. As a result, policies have decreased instructional costs and provided administrators with increased flexibility to respond to student demands. However, research indicates compromised student outcomes, less shared governance, and faculty work–life pressures that can undermine commitment, motivation, and professional identity. The following literature review examines the locus of academic capitalism and faculty labor, theorizing how faculty labor policies infer consequences for equity, inclusion, and social justice in higher education.

Examining staff and faculty work–life balance and well-being using the dual continua model of mental health during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic created work–life balance, mental health, and well-being challenges for higher education employees, both initially and years later. We investigated staff and faculty self-reported work–life balance and quality of life using the dual continua model of mental health at a medium-size university for 9 months during August 2021 to April 2022. The dual continua model of mental health states that high levels of well-being and psychological distress can co-occur, while a unidimensional model of mental health positions well-being and psychological distress on opposite ends of a unipolar continuum. The dual continua model overlaps with and is broader than the unidimensional model. Based on 299 responses, four groups of staff and faculty (high and low anxiety crossed with high and low life satisfaction) were formed. Consistent with the dual continua and inconsistent with the unidimensional model of mental health, high life satisfaction, regardless of anxiety level, was associated with higher levels of quality of life and work–life balance. Consistent with both the unidimensional and dual continua models, within faculty and staff reporting lower levels of life satisfaction, higher levels of anxiety were associated with lower quality of life and work-life balance. In addition, within the high or low anxious groups, higher life satisfaction was associated with lower levels of depression. Present data represent the only study that builds on previous literature in examining well-being and psychological distress using a dual continua model in staff and faculty at a mid-size university. Overall, present results suggest the dual continua model of mental health better characterizes the relationship of well-being and psychological distress in staff and faculty in a higher education setting than a unidimensional model

A Longitudinal View of the Liberal Arts Curriculum a Decade After Merger: A Multiple Case Study of Community Colleges in Connecticut, Kentucky, and Louisiana

This study is an examination of the state of the liberal arts curriculum in community colleges in three geographic regions of the United States. From a constructivist paradigm and using globalization theory as a theoretical framework, this multiple case study examined faculty work life and administrative processes related to curriculum change in merged community and technical colleges. Through an examination of research on globalization, mergers, and trends in the general education and liberal arts curriculum, a gap in the literature emerged in the studies of community college curriculums after merger. This study considers whether the focus on workforce development and decrease in the transfer mission has diminished the liberal arts courses in the college curriculum. Research on liberal arts courses identified them as courses that emphasize higher order thinking and the development of intellectual skills needed to engage in a democratic society. If students are not exposed to these skills, it may have a detrimental effect on a democratic society. Study findings suggested that the English and communication curriculums are narrowing and the mission is more toward workforce skill preparation. Also, the changing demographics of today[#x02019]s community college students, as well as the ongoing budget constraints, create challenges and frustrations for faculty members.

Evaluating Dedicated Education Units for Clinical Education Quality

Dedicated education units (DEUs) have emerged as an important clinical education innovation within academic practice partnerships. However, rigorous evaluation has not been conducted previously. This article presents findings from a randomized, controlled, multiyear, multisite study comparing the clinical education quality for students educated in either the DEU innovation or traditional clinical education model within the same nursing course. The evaluation occurred within a larger study focusing on teaching capacity, faculty work life, and educational quality at one large, urban university collaborating with three agency partners. To examine learning outcomes, the question posed was, "In what ways, if any, does the DEU intervention, when compared to traditional clinical education, enhance educational quality?" Results indicate that educational quality and learning gains are significantly more positive for students clinically instructed in DEUs. Findings will be of interest to education and practice leaders seeking to enhance the quality of clinical teaching, learning, and nursing practice.

1: NAVIGATING THE NEW NORMAL

Faculty socialization and satisfaction are critical to retaining quality teacher/scholars and key to a well-functioning teaching-intensive, research-driven university (Ponjuan, Conley, & Trower, 2011). This chapter reports on a year-long research project aimed at investigating faculty work life and satisfaction at a large, urban, comprehensive state university. Our goal was to use empirical evidence to understand and support faculty work under the “new normal” conditions characterized by reduced state funding and increased faculty workload. We discuss the results in terms of a revitalized direction for faculty and explore directions for organizational development within the context of the new normal.

A national survey examining the professional work life of today's nursing faculty

To examine factors that influence faculty member's work life in order to provide a supportive environment for recruiting and retaining nursing faculty. A cross-sectional non-experimental design incorporating correlation-based analyses gathered from a 45-item online survey. The survey gauged several aspects of the nurse faculty work life, including teaching competence, productivity, and organizational support. US nurse faculty employed at either a CCNE or NLNAC accredited nursing program. A stepwise linear regression analysis was conducted to ascertain which aspects of work life significantly predicted nurse faculty members' intent to stay or leave the faculty role. A one-way ANOVA examined whether faculty members' intent to stay or leave the faculty role varied as a function of generation. Data from 808 useable surveys demonstrated that perceptions of administration's support for faculty improvement, perceptions of productivity, choice of pursuing a professional career in nursing, and the application of perceived teaching expertise significantly predicted faculty members' intent to stay or leave the faculty role. Moreover, generational membership influenced faculty members' intent to stay or leave the faculty role. Academic nurse administrators can positively affect the work life of their faculty and their intent to stay in the organization through support for the development of teaching and research roles with time and resources, recognition of faculty efforts, consideration of faculty needs from individual and generational perspectives, and targeted mentoring for career development.

Insider-Outsiders: Integration and Exclusion Experiences of Religious Nonadherent Faculty Members

Over the past several decades, research on faculty work life has shed new light on inclusion and exclusion experiences of traditionally underrepresented groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, and contingent employment faculty. This study expands on this prior research by investigating a unique segment of faculty members: those whose marginal status is conferred upon them because they are not part of their employing institution's dominant religio-cultural tradition or affiliation. These insider-outsider faculty members are often unaware of the implications of this new status, which is added to the common challenges of socialization and integration. Through the narrative accounts of participants, this study identifies categories of inclusion and exclusion, highlights practices that welcome and alienate such faculty members, and explores the organizational and interpersonal implications of this complex element of faculty identity.

Faculty in the Hinterlands: Cultural Anticipation and Cultural Reality

Using qualitative inquiry, this paper employs a cultural lens to explore the work life experiences of faculty who work in smaller higher education administration programs in institutions that are not high-level research universities. The research focus included understanding how participants made sense of the institutions in which they worked and the consequences of that for their lives. Implications for the field of higher education administration, faculty work, and graduate socialization are examined. Ultimately, this research suggests that a single model of faculty work life identity drawn using a research institutional prototype does little to support all faculty members, many of whom work in markedly different institutions.

Increasing diversity in pediatric hematology/oncology

Diversity is necessary for the survival and success of both biological and social systems including societies. There is a lack of diversity, particularly the proportion of women and minorities in leadership positions, within medicine [Leadley. AAMC 2009. Steinecke and Terrell. Acad Med 2010;85:236-245]. In 2009 a group of ASPHO members recognized the need to support the career advancement of women and minority members. This article reports the results of a survey designed to characterize the comparative career pathway experience of women and minority ASPHO members. A group of ASPHO members modified a published Faculty Worklife survey [Pribbenow et al. High Educ Policy 2010;23:17-38] for use by Pediatric Hematologist-Oncologists (PHOs). A link to an online version of the survey was sent to all ASPHO members. Of 1,228 ASPHO members polled, 213 responded (17%). Women and minority PHOs reported less satisfaction than their counterparts on 70 of the 90 issues addressed in the survey including the hiring process, access to resources as well as integration and satisfaction with their organizations. Women also expressed greater dissatisfaction with issues of work-life balance, support for family obligations and personal health. The current literature suggests that there are significant disparities in career opportunities, compensation and satisfaction for women compared to men and minority compared to majority faculty in academic medicine [Nivet. J Vasc Surg 2010;51:53S-58S; Peterson et al. J Gen Intern Med 2004;19:259-265; DesRoches et al. Acad Med 2010;85:631-639; Castillo-Page. AAMC 2008]. Our data, derived from a survey of ASPHO members, suggests that this holds true for PHOs as well.

The Quality of Dental Faculty Work‐Life: Report on the 2007 Dental School Faculty Work Environment Survey

This report is the third in a series of articles on the dental school work environment commissioned by the American Dental Education Association's Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education. The report is based on the most extensive research to date on faculty satisfaction in the dental school environment. The purpose of the study was to assess faculty perceptions and recommendations related to work environment, sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and professional development needs. More broadly, the study intends to provide insight into the "change readiness" of dental schools to move forward with curricular improvements and innovations. Findings are based on 1,748 responses from forty-nine U.S. dental schools obtained during the time frame of February to April 2007. The total number of respondents constituted 17 percent of all U.S. dental school faculty. The average response rate per school was thirty-six (21 percent). To elucidate the data in terms of issues related to the quality of faculty work-life based on demographics, the authors compared perceptions of various aspects of the work culture in academic dentistry among faculty with different academic ranks and academic degrees and by other variables such as age and gender, tenure versus non-tenure appointments, and full- versus part-time status. Quantitative and qualitative analyses show that the majority of faculty members described themselves as very satisfied to satisfied with their dental school overall and with their department as a place to work. Tenured associate professors expressed the greatest level of dissatisfaction. Opportunities for and support of professional development emerged as an area requiring substantially more attention from dental schools. The authors of the study suggest that dental school leaders use these findings to assess their individual dental school's work environment and to plan changes as needed.

The Changing Landscape of the Academic Profession: The Culture of Faculty at For-Profit Colleges and Universities (review)

Changing Landscape of the Academic Profession: Culture of Faculty at For-Profit Colleges and Universities, by Vicente M. Lechuga. New York: Routledge, 2006. 176 pp. ISBN 0-415-97699-5. It was once commonly understood that a member was a person with extensive formal knowledge and expertise, who had considerable autonomy in his or her job, had a role in institutional governance, and fulfilled three roles (i.e., teaching, research, and service). Now that definition fails to describe many faculty. Similarly, the term no longer has much meaning outside the context of each particular institution. previous commonalities of position and academic culture among the professoriate, at least in the United States, have greatly diminished. This is partly due to the much discussed and written about decline in state funding to public institutions. Public institutions reexamining faculty roles and work conditions to find ways both to decrease the costs of faculty and to enable faculty to generate more money, thus replacing decreased public funding. Another less understood influence has been the enormous growth in for-profit institutions of higher education (IHEs). These institutions have defined the faculty role very differently from the traditional definition. Much less is known about the roles and lives of faculty in these institutions and the impact of their work conditions on the larger definition of the professoriate. In this book, Vicente M. Lechuga provides unique insights into the work life of faculty at these institutions. book is based on the author's case study of four for-profit IHEs: two publicly traded institutions and two privately held institutions. Lechuga writes, The underlying assumption of the study is based on the belief that two key factors influence faculty work and faculty culture at for-profit higher education institutions--the nature of the institution as a profit-making entity and faculty members' status as contingent employees (p. 14). Faculty at the four institutions were studied in depth via a qualitative approach involving document review and hour-long interviews with a total of 51 faculty (21 part-time, 30 full-time) in six fields: business, education, information technology/communications, health sciences, social sciences, and general education. Lechuga emphasizes that he is neither bemoaning nor celebrating the rise of for-profit colleges and universities but rather wants to illuminate our understanding of them. This book begins by describing the changes higher education is undergoing as a result of the tremendous growth of for-profit IHEs. These institutions are redefining the academy by treating education as a commodity, offering programs that focus specifically on job training, and exclusively employing contingent faculty members (p. 8). rise of for-profit IHEs has been astounding. In the late 1980s, only 19% of the two-year IHEs and 3% of the four-year IHEs were for-profit. By the late 1990s, only a decade later, these percentages had changed to 28% and 8%, respectively. Concurrently, the regard of for-profit IHEs has risen as they have increasingly become nationally and/or regionally accredited and have begun to offer programs similar to those in traditional IHEs. However, important features distinguish for-profit IHEs from traditional IHEs. Paramount is the belief that higher education is a private rather than a public good. For-profit IHEs emphasize specific job skills and increased competitiveness in the job market as the major benefit of higher education, rather than the development of broader skills necessary for critical thinking and citizenship in a democracy. …

Faculty Members' Intentions to Leave: A National Study on Their Worklife and Satisfaction

Despite the importance of faculty retention, there is little understanding of how demographic variables, professional and institutional worklife issues, and satisfaction interact to explain faculty intentions to leave at a national level. Using the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:1999) database, this study proposes (a) to extend our previous conceptualization and understanding of those issues that comprise the dimensions of faculty worklife, satisfaction, and intentions to leave, (b) to examine relationships between these three dimensions, and (c) to determine the extent to which demographic variables and the quality of worklife have an impact on satisfaction, and faculty members' intentions to leave. Using structural equation modeling, the findings indicate that the perceptions faculty members have of their worklife have a direct and powerful impact on their satisfaction, and subsequently their intentions to leave. That is, a combination of worklife perceptions of faculty members' professional and institutional issues and satisfaction initiates individuals' behavioral intentions and the desire to leave for another position and/or career alternative.

Instructional and work life issues for distance learning faculty

AbstractAs community college faculty become more involved with online courses, questions are emerging about pedagogy, workload, intellectual property, and a number of other issues. This chapter examines how the online environment has affected faculty work life.

Measuring the Quality of Faculty and Administrative Worklife: Implications for College and University Campuses

There seems to be a presumption that the quality of worklife on college and university campuses has declined for faculty and administrative staff. What is not known is how generally true this is perceived to be, to what extent the quality of worklife varies by campus, and for what reasons it varies. Most importantly, it is not clear what impact the quality of worklife of faculty and staff members has on their performance or retention. The following article reviews the recent empirical literature devoted to this topic and offers a framework that conceptualizes these studies in three groups: those that describe and explore differences in the quality of worklife, those that determine the impact of worklife on attitudes, and those that attempt to explain behavioral outcomes. The implications of this work for practice and policy on college and university campuses is discussed. The author argues that campus leaders who want to improve the performance and retention of faculty and administrative staff must identify and address the particular issues that matter to those employed on their campuses.

Faculty Members' Morale and Their Intention to Leave: A Multilevel Explanation

The purpose of this study is (1) to advance our understanding of the quality of faculty worklife, morale, and intentions to leave at both the individual and institutional level, (2) to examine relationships among these three constructs, and (3) to determine the extent to which these relationships operate within or between faculty groups.

FACULTY WORKLIFE: Establishing Benchmarks Across Groups

Pressures on colleges and universities have spawned numerous studies to improve our understanding of faculty and their worklives, including examinations of faculty satisfaction, morale, motivation and productivity, reward, and retention and turnover. In response to external pressures for improved accountability in higher education, institutional leaders seek to identify outcome measures and generate benchmarks that can be used to assess change over time. The purpose of this study is to propose a structural model of faculty worklife and to test its generalizability by examining possible differences in the model across three cross-sectional samples of probationary faculty at a major research university. Identified trends in faculty perceptions about their worklife over time can be used as benchmarks to aid institutions in retaining faculty by monitoring and improving aspects of their worklives.