Faculty Climate Survey Highlights

1. Faculty Climate SurveyHighlights Institutional Research & Faculty Development and Diversity March 2008

2. Faculty Climate Survey – Results • 1,863 tenured, tenure-track, and non-ladder faculty from all of Harvard’s Schools were invited to participate and 1,400 faculty responded (75%) • On average, the faculty are slightly more than “somewhat satisfied” with being faculty members at Harvard (4.16 on a 5-point scale, 5=“very satisfied”) • Women are significantly less satisfied than men (3.90 vs. 4.27) • Tenure-track faculty are significantly less satisfied than tenured faculty (3.93 vs. 4.31)

3. Response Rates and Distribution of Respondents and Faculty † Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding. †† There is one respondent with an unknown rank.

4. The Survey Addresses Seven Topics • Satisfaction (e.g., satisfaction with the University, School, staff and facilities) • Atmosphere (e.g., fit with department, respect from colleagues and students, camaraderie and collegiality) • Workload(e.g., expectations and sources of stress) • Mentoring (e.g., effectiveness of mentoring) • Tenure (e.g., clarity of the tenure criteria and prospects ) • Hiring and Retention (e.g., likelihood of leaving and reasons for leaving) • Life Outside Harvard(e.g., work-life balance)

5. Satisfaction: Overall with Harvard Satisfaction with Being a Faculty Member at Harvard University (University Average = 4.16) 1=very dissatisfied 2=somewhat dissatisfied 3=neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 4=somewhat satisfied 5=very satisfied

6. Satisfaction: Overall for Women and Men 5 4.6 4.6 4.5 4.5 4.3 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.0 4.0 4.0 3.9 3.8 4 3.6 3.6 3.5 Average Satisfaction 3 2 W W W W W W W W W M M M M M M M M M 1 HLS HBS KSG GSD FAS HMS/ GSE SPH HDS HSDM Satisfaction with Being a Faculty Member at Harvard University 1=very dissatisfied 2=somewhat dissatisfied 3=neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 4=somewhat satisfied 5=very satisfied

7. Satisfaction: Overall by Rank 5 4.8 4.7 4.5 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.3 4.3 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.1 4.1 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.9 4 3.8 3.5 3.5 Average Satisfaction 3 2 HLS HBS KSG GSD FAS HMS/ HSDM GSE SPH HDS Tenured Tenure-Track Non-Ladder Satisfaction with Being a Faculty Member at Harvard University 1 * 1=very dissatisfied 2=somewhat dissatisfied 3=neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 4=somewhat satisfied 5=very satisfied * Tenure-track and non-ladder faculty are not reported for HLS because there are fewer than five respondents in each group.

8. Atmosphere: Fit with Department 5 4.03 3.95 3.93 4 3.74 3.43 3.43 3 Average Agreement 2 W M W M W M 1 Tenured Faculty Tenure-Track Faculty Non-Ladder Faculty Agreement with: “My department* is a good fit for me.” 1=strongly disagree 2=somewhat disagree 3=neither agree nor disagree 4=somewhat agree 5=strongly agree * The unit of analysis is Department/Committee at FAS, Academic Unit at HBS, Department at GSD, HMS/HSDM, and SPH, Area at HDS and KSG, and School at HLS and GSE.

9. Atmosphere: Gender and Rank Gaps (Ladder Faculty)

10. Workload: Reasonableness of Service Expectations (Ladder Faculty) 1 0.6 0.6 Too High 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 About Right Points from "About Right" 0 -0.1 -0.1 Too Low W M W M W M W M W M W M -1 Tenured Tenure- Tenured Tenure- Tenured Tenure- Faculty Track Faculty Track Faculty Track Faculty Faculty Faculty Service to Department Service to School Service to University Reasonableness of Service Expectations: Mean Difference From “About Right” (Ladder Faculty)

11. Work Expectations: Committee Load Average Number of Department, School and University Committees in Previous Academic Year (Ladder Faculty)

12. Mentoring: Overall Effectiveness 5 4 3.52 3.30 2.99 Average Effectiveness 3 2.54 2 W M W M 1 Tenured Faculty Tenure-Track Faculty Department’s Effectiveness in Overall Mentoring of Junior Faculty* 1=very ineffective 2=somewhat ineffective 3=neither effective nor ineffective 4=somewhat effective 5=very effective * The unit of analysis is Department/Committee at FAS, Academic Unit at HBS, Department at GSD, HMS/HSDM, and SPH, Area at HDS and KSG, and School at HLS and GSE.

13. Mentoring: Types of Mentors Formal Mentor Only Neither Formal (N=25), 8% nor Informal (N=40), 12% Both Formal and Informal Informal (N=97), 30% Mentor Only (N=165), 50% Percentage of Tenure-Track Faculty with and without Mentors (Formal/Informal)

14. Tenure: Clarity of Criteria (Ladder Faculty) Agreement with: “The criteria for tenure are clearly communicated.” 1=strongly disagree 2=somewhat disagree 3=neither agree nor disagree 4=somewhat agree 5=strongly agree

15. Hiring and Retention: Likelihood of Leaving in the Next 3 Years 100% 80% 56% 60% % of Respondents 40% 40% 20% 18% 20% 10% 7% W M W M M W 0% Tenured Faculty Tenure-Track Faculty Non-Ladder Faculty Percentage of Faculty “Somewhat” or “Very Likely” to Leave Harvard in the Next 3 Years * Only non-ladder faculty who answered the question, “Given the opportunity, how likely would you be to renew your contract?” are included in the graph. This includes only 143 non-ladder faculty respondents who have renewable contracts.

16. Hiring and Retention: Top 2 Reasons Faculty Consider Leaving

17. Life Outside Harvard: Dual-career Issues • 89% of faculty have a spouse or domestic partner • 31% of the ladder faculty have spouses that currently work in academia • 49% of these faculty report their spouses work at Harvard while the other half are at other institutions • 51% of faculty with spouses at other institutions are in commuting relationships. Of these faculty, • 78% had problems finding appropriate local employment for their spouses • Only 6% received help finding local employment for their spouses from their School

18. Life Outside Harvard: Dependent Care

19. Life Outside Harvard: Effect of Domestic Responsibilities on Career 5.00 4.00 3.57 2.99 2.83 2.77 Average Agreement 3.00 2.21 2.14 2.00 W M W M W M 1.00 Tenured Faculty Tenure-Track Faculty Non-Ladder Faculty Agreement with: “My care giving and/or other domestic responsibilities have had a negative impact on my career.” 1=strongly disagree 2=somewhat disagree 3=neither agree nor disagree 4=somewhat agree 5=strongly agree

20. Policy Recommendations and Next Steps • Junior faculty: • Connect mentoring to incentives for senior faculty as mentoring is ill-defined, not measured and unevenly supported • Discuss the criteria for tenure and the possibility of tenure at the associate level • Understand better the dual-career issues for junior faculty • Delve more deeply into workload issues and factors driving perceptions of these issues • Continue to invest in family-friendly policies including: portable childcare scholarships, research enabling grants and tuition benefit reform • Examine and analyze qualitatively the minority faculty experience (small population limits usefulness of quantitative analysis)