Faculty Senate Survey 2017: Summary Results
William A. Sundstrom
Faculty Senate President
October 26, 2017
This document provides some simple visualizations of the core quantitative results of the 2017 Faculty Senate Survey. The survey was conducted during early fall quarter and was closed to new respondents October 6, 2017, although some faculty completed their survey after that date. There were a total of 281 responses, most but not all of them complete. A more complete report with additional analysis is in the works.
If you have questions, concerns or errors to point out, please contact Bill Sundstrom at wsundstrom@scu.edu . The bar charts in this document were generated from the summary spreadsheet distributed to faculty (Faculty Survey 2017 Responses Summary.xlsx), using R statistical software. The code is available on request.
Respondents by rank, etc.
The first set of plots provide information on rank, tenure status, years at SCU, and College/ School of the respondents.
Strength of agreement
The following questions asked faculty for their level of agreement or disagreement with each statement. The bars indicate the percent answering “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” (as opposed to “somewhat disagree” or “strongly disagree”). The statements are abridged for a better fit; the full text of each statement in the survey is included in the appendix below.
Bars are ordered from statements with the greatest percentage of faculty in agreement to those with the least. In comparing the average levels of agreement across statements, note that while most of the statements are “affirmative” in tone (“My work at SCU is valued”), a few are more “negative” (“The fraction of SCU faculty who are tenured or tenure-track is too small”).
Strength of agreement breakdown by tenure status
Bars are again ordered from most agreement to least, separately by tenure category.
The following questions were asked only of tenure-stream faculty.
The following questions were asked only of lecturers and other non-tenure-stream faculty.
Strength of agreement breakdown by College/ School
Due to small numbers of responses in some schools, the ECP, JST, and Law School responses are combined into the “Other” category in order to avoid compromising respondent anonymity.
Importance and Priorities
The following questions asked faculty to judge the importance or priority of each issue. The bars indicate the percent answering “extremely important” or “very important” (as oposed to “somewhat important” or “not at all important”). Bars are ordered from greatest number judging important to least.
Appendix: Full survey statements
The following tables provide the full statements in the survey corresponding to the shortened versions in the figures.
Agree / disagree statements
| Short statement (chart) | Full survey statement |
|---|---|
| SCU right direction | Overall, SCU is headed in the right direction. |
| My work valued | My work at SCU is valued. |
| Fair & adequate salary | I am paid a fair and adequate salary for the work that I do. |
| Maintain work-life balance | I am able to maintain a desirable work-life balance. |
| Admin. consistent & fair | Administrative decisions affecting individual faculty are usually consistent and fair. |
| Voice in dept. decisions | I have a voice in departmental decision making. |
| Shared gov. transparent | SCU’s shared governance structure successfully facilitates transparency and collaborative decision making. |
| Faculty Senate important | The Faculty Senate and Faculty Senate Council play an important role in representing faculty views and interests. |
| Support unionizing faculty | I would support an effort to unionize SCU faculty and engage in collective bargaining. |
| Increase diversity | SCU needs to do more to increase racial and ethnic diversity of faculty, staff, and students. |
| Tenure-stream too few | The fraction of SCU faculty who are tenured or tenure-track is too small. |
| Non-tenure-stream valued | Lecturers and other non-tenure-stream faculty are respected and valued by the university. |
| Comfortable expressing views | I am comfortable expressing my political views publicly on campus. |
| Strategic Plan good priorities | SCU’s current Strategic Plan provides a good set of priorities for the future direction of the University. |
| STEM 2020 website helpful | The STEM 2020 website has helped me to understand the STEM project plans. |
| Confident STEM project | I have confidence that the STEM project will be planned and implemented well. |
| Confident in Sust. Exc. | I have confidence that the Sustaining Excellence initiative is being planned and implemented well. |
| Support Blue Ribbon recs. | I generally support the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Diversity and Inclusion. |
| Demands make difficult scholar | Current teaching load and service demands make it difficult for me to be an active scholar. |
| R&T standards appropriate | The standards for tenure and promotion are appropriate for our institution. |
| R&T processes transparent & fair | The processes for tenure and promotion are transparent and fair. |
| SL promotion transparent & fair | The process for promotion to senior lecturer is transparent and fair. |
| Lecturers have opp. to advance | Lecturers of all ranks at SCU have sufficient opportunities for advancement. |
Importance / priority statements
| Short statement | Full survey statement |
|---|---|
| Budget & financial situation | University budget/ financial situation |
| Governance | University governance: transparency and collaboration |
| Quality of leadership | Quality of University leadership |
| Faculty salaries & benefits | Faculty salaries and benefits |
| Housing costs | Housing costs |
| Access to quality child care | Access to quality child care |
| Diversity and inclusion | Diversity and inclusion |
| Jesuit/Catholic mission & identity | SCU’s Jesuit/ Catholic mission and identity |
| Teaching-scholar model | Strengthening teaching-scholar model |
| Protecting academic freedom | Protecting academic freedom |
| Equal treatment by gender | Equal treatment by gender in faculty salaries and work conditions |
| Climate for teaching | Climate/ support for teaching |
| Climate for scholarship | Climate/ support for scholarship/ research |
| Treatment of lecturers | Treatment of lecturers |
| Implementation STEM | Implementation of new STEM facility and programs |