Resources and Support › About this Theme
Guiding Principles
Facilities and support. COACHE found a number of facets of the physical workplace for faculty to be especially important to faculty satisfaction, including office, lab, research or studio space, equipment, and classrooms. In addition, many faculty need support for technology, administrative work, and improvements to teaching.
Personal and family policies. The COACHE survey measures faculty beliefs about the effectiveness of various policies--many of them related to work-family balance and support for families. This is especially important because more than two-thirds of COACHE respondents are married; three-fifths, half, and one-third of assistant, associate, and full professors, respectively, have children under the age of 18. In addition, more than one in 10 professors are providing care for an elderly, disabled, or ill family member.
Health and retirement benefits. Health benefits, once a given, have been steadily eroding as the costs of insurance skyrocket, and many faculty put their retirements on hold in the wake of the recent economic recession. To encourage timely retirements, phased programs have become more prevalent. Some allow individuals to enjoy institutional affiliation, intellectual engagement, and contact with students and colleagues, while the institutions realize salary savings and more reliable staffing projections.
Hallmarks of Successful Models
Analysis of our survey identified partner institutions whose faculty rated these themes exceptionally well. Here's what we learned from them:
When it comes to facilities, new is nice but equity is best. Faculty understand that not everyone can have a brand new office or lab because campuses must invest in different areas over time, but everyone should enjoy equity in the distribution of resources and space within a department.
Hire personnel to staff work-life services. This is important not only to get the job done but also for symbolic reasons. Putting physical resources behind your words signifies meaning beyond the rhetoric. It is unlikely that universities will need fewer personnel in the future to attend to these matters.
Have written policies. Platitudes that "This is a family-friendly place" or "There's plenty of work-life balance here" are no longer enough. In addition to assuring pre-tenure faculty that the institution is doing more than just paying lip-service to work-life balance, written policies provide clarity, consistency, and transparency which leads to greater fairness and equity. Written policies concerning dual-career hiring; early promotion and tenure; parental leave; modified duties; part-time tenure options; and stop-the-tenure-clock provision are also indicators of how family-friendly a campus actually is.
Ensure that written policies are communicated to everyone--pre-tenure and tenured faculty members, chairs, heads, and deans. COACHE research indicates that written policies are particularly important to women and under-represented minorities. Make certain the policies are easily accessible online, and provide personnel to assist faculty in choosing the right healthcare option.
Provide additional accommodations: Childcare, eldercare, lactation rooms, flexibility, and opportunities for social occasions in which kids can be included are all relevant practices that help ensure a viable workplace for the future. Communicating their availability is critical.
Offer phased retirement for faculty to ease into retirement gradually. At the same time, institutions have the flexibility to fill the void left by retiring faculty more easily. Retiring faculty can continue their contributions to the institution by developing the teachers, scholars, and leaders who follow them.
