COACHE Summary Report

COACHE Summary Report

Dear Colleagues, 

UMass Amherst faculty are the core strength in our institution’s fulfillment of its research/creative activity, teaching, and public service missions. To better understand faculty’s perceptions and experiences of our campus as a place to thrive, we are pleased to provide the results of the UMass Amherst-COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey. Details on this survey and its findings are available through the Office of Faculty Development (OFD) website. Briefly, this survey, run by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education at Harvard University, assesses issues and trends in work satisfaction among college and university faculty. Hundreds of higher educational institutions have participated in COACHE since 2007.  

Our survey was conducted in February-April of 2020, a time of great change and challenge to our campus. Given the pressures that faculty worked under, we are grateful for the 539 faculty who were able to complete the survey. All full-time faculty, including tenure-track and non-tenure track faculty on continuing appointments, comprised the study population. Our response rate for survey completion was 38%, a higher rate than those of our peers.  

The campus-level report* (*UMass Amherst NetID login required) from COACHE focuses on broad thematic areas from the survey, with results disaggregated by gender, race/ethnicity, and rank. During the course of the spring semester, biweekly detailed summaries of findings on each thematic area, prepared by members of the COACHE Steering Committee and OFD staff, will be released here

Areas of strength identified in the survey include teaching, mentoring, shared governance, and leadership. Broadly, 74% of our faculty are satisfied with UMass Amherst as a place to work, stating that the best aspect of UMass Amherst is the quality of their colleagues, and ranking UMass Amherst more highly, relative to peer institutions, on all aspects of shared governance and on senior leadership. Areas of concern focused on departmental collegiality and engagement, and to a lesser extent, the equitability of teaching and service loads, clarity and support around promotion to full professor, departmental mentorship, support for engaging undergraduates in research, benefits, and facilities. 

In the coming year, together with faculty members, the MSP, the Faculty Senate, and college leadership, we will use these findings to inform decision-making and programming in support of faculty success at UMass Amherst.  

Provost John McCarthy
Vice Provost Michelle Budig
UMass Amherst COACHE Steering Committee

 

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Watch a brief video:
How to interpret the benchmark graphics in the summary report


Survey responses were collected from February 3 through April 10, 2020. The majority of responses were recorded prior to the suspension of in-person instruction on March 23, 2020 due to COVID-19. The survey had a 38% overall response rate (539 total respondents). The averaged overall survey response rate at UMass Amherst's COACHE peer institutions was 35%.

Peer Institutions:
Rutgers University - New Brunswick (2019 Survey)
SUNY-Stony Brook (2017 Survey)
University of Connecticut (2020 Survey)
University of Delaware (2020 Survey)
University of Maryland - College Park (2020 Survey)