Retention and Advancement for Mid Career Faculty

1. Retention and Advancement for Mid Career Faculty K.D. Joshi Kelly Ward Associate Professor of Interim Chair and Information Systems Professor, Education Leadership & Co. Psychology College of Business College of Education

2. Overview • Who are mid career faculty? • Importance of the topic • National scene • COACHE--Mid Career Findings • Other research—Mid Career Faculty • Next steps

3. Who are mid career faculty? • Associate professors • Post tenure (associate or full) more than five years from retirement • “Not so young anymore” • Faculty with tenure between 10 and 30 years on the job • Faculty with tenure who are 40-55 of age • WSU--COACHE --Post tenure associate faculty

4. Why is the advancement of mid career faculty important? Who cares?

5. Why important? • Develop potential leaders • Maintain faculty pipeline • Faculty morale • Wise institutional investment • Maintain research vitality and productivity • Role model for junior faculty • Other reasons?

6. Issues and challenges associated with advancement of mid-career faculty • The pipeline is lacking—not enough people to go up for full • Promotion to full is voluntary—not on a set time line like promotion to associate • Tenure and promotion policies vague • Work/family issues (child and elder care) • Gendered cultures • Disciplinary cultures vary • Service responsibilities • Other ideas?

7. COACHE Findings Related to Mid-Career Faculty

8. Background • Cohort analysis at WSU – Fran McSweeney • Focus group at WSU - Fran McSweeney • What we can learn from COACHE 2009 Data • Associate Professor Perspectives on Factors that shape Job Satisfaction of Faculty – A comparison of Assistant, Associate and Full Professors • Are there any Gender Differences? • Begin Conversation

9. Background – Cohort Analysis • Cohorts of those hired as, or promoted to, associate professor between 1992 and 2001 Major Conclusions: • We lose associate professors (23% in 6 years; 33% over all years) at a lower rate than we lose assistant professors (44% in 6 years). • Few associate professors move to full professor status in a timely manner (22% in 6 years) or at all (40% in 15 years for the 1992 cohort. • Women (13% in 6 years) are only approximately half as likely to be promoted to full professor as men (27% in 6 years) • Women may encounter a “glass ceiling” for salaries at approximately $130,000 per year. • Doing better in more recent years than we did in the earlier years.

10. Background – Focus Groups • Four discussion sessions of Associate Professors were conducted during February/March 2009. • A set recommendations were derived from the insights gained through these sessions: • Increase Transparency • Clarify Responsibilities • Increase Institutional Support

11. Distribution of Survey Participants by Rank N = 578

12. COACHE Survey for Associate Professors • COACHE focuses mainly on Pre-tenure faculty, however, associate and full were included in a small set of ADVANCE Institutions • Comparative data not available from other institutions • This work focuses Associate Professors and conducts analysis to compare perspectives of Associates with Assistant and Fulls. I do not compare Assistant and Fulls. • A five point scale is used to measure perceptions

13. Survey Themes • Tenure and Promotion • Nature of the Work • Policies and Practices • Climate, Culture and Collegiality • Global Satisfaction

14. How Satisfied are Associate Professors Compared to Assistant and Full?

15. Global SatisfactionDifferences between Associate and Assistant & Associate and Full are Significant

16. Tenure and Promotion

17. Level of Agreement • All the Faculty rated their level of agreement with the following two statements: • “I have received consistent messages from tenured/Full colleagues about the requirements for tenure,” and • “In my opinion, tenure/promotion decisions here are made primarily on performance-based criteria rather than on non-performance criteria.” • Fulls ONLY rated their perceptions of level of clarity regarding the promotion of associates.

18. Consistent Message and ObjectivityDifferences between Associate and Assistant & Associate and Full are Significant

19. Tenure and Promotion – Overall • The survey asked Assistants and Associates to rate their level of clarity regarding four aspects of tenure: process, criteria, standards, and the body of evidence required. Along the same scale, the survey asked faculty to rate their level of clarity regarding their sense of whether or not they will achieve tenure/promotion. • The survey also asked the Fulls to rate their perceptions of level of clarity regarding getting promoted to Full on the aforementioned items

20. Tenure and Promotion Process - Perception Differences Between Associates and Assistants Differences are Significant for all items except the “Sense” Item

21. Promotion to Full Professor: Perception Differences Between Associates and Full Differences are Significant for all items

22. Tenure and Promotion – Drilling Down • Performance Expectation – Clarity and Reasonableness • Next, the survey asked faculty to rate their level of clarity regarding the expectations for earning tenure or promotion in six areas where faculty work is judged: scholarship, teaching, advising, colleagueship in the department, campus citizenship, and membership in the broader community. For each item, the survey also asked faculty about the reasonableness of those expectations.

23. Performance Expectation ClarityDifferences are Significant for all items except “advisor” and “broader community member” Item

24. Performance Expectation ClarityDifferences are Significant for only “scholar” item

25. Performance Expectation Reasonableness Differences are Significant for all items except for “advisor” Item

26. Expectation Reasonableness Differences are Significant only for Scholar, Teacher and Colleague items

27. Nature of Work

28. Nature of Work Overall • The Nature of Work – Overall composite represents the mean satisfaction scores of the following: • Satisfaction with the number of hours worked • The allocation of faculty members’ time • Clerical/administrative support services • Access to TAs, RAs, and/or GAs • Quality of facilities • Computing support services

29. Nature of Work – Teaching • The Teaching composite represents the mean satisfaction scores of the following: • Level of courses taught • Number of courses taught • Degree of influence over which courses are taught • Discretion over content of courses taught • Number of students taught • Quality of undergraduates taught/interacted with • Quality of graduates taught/interacted with • Teaching services

30. Nature of Work - Research • The Research composite represents the mean satisfaction scores of the following: • Amount of time to conduct research • Amount of external funding required • Influence over research focus • Research Services

31. Work Related Satisfaction Differences between Associate and Assistant (except for Teaching) & Associate and Full are Significant

32. Compensation and Work-Life Balance

33. Differences between Associate and Assistant & Associate and Full are Significant for Compensation, but not for Work-Life Balance

34. Climate

35. Differences between Associate and Assistant & Associate and Full are Significant

36. Gender Differences Overall Male and Female Perceptions are not statistically different, but females consistently rate their satisfaction lower than males.

37. Policies and Practices – Gender differences in how the Importance of these policies were rated

38. Now what? Next steps? • Best practices: What are you doing in your department? • Issues: What challenges do you face in addressing mid career faculty development? • Future: What can you do in your department to maintain faculty vitality and advancement? • Institution: What can WSU do to maintain the pipeline?

39. Policy and practice Next steps… • Transparency in policies for promotion—not a cure all, but a help • Work/family balance issues remain very important for women faculty, regardless of rank (Britton, 2010) • Pay attention to departmental/disciplinary culture and expectations for promotion • Maintain a faculty development mindset that includes associate faculty

40. Institutional initiatives • What data analysis needs exist? • What can ADVANCE do to be helpful?