COACHE Survey
Cal State Fullerton partnered with Harvard's Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education
in Spring 2022 to administer a wide-ranging survey of full-time faculty. It captured faculty sentiment with regard to teaching, service and research, tenure and promotion, departmental engagement and collegiality, and other aspects of the academic workplace.
COACHE is a three-year project to improve the conditions that lead to faculty success and uses peer-institution comparisons to assess areas of strength and concern. The survey was specifically designed to generate data for action, to inform policy and resource planning and to identify areas of improvement.
TIMELINE
2021-22
Implement
- Administered survey in Spring 2022
- 43% response rate
-
Implementation web page (archive)
2022-23 (current)
Disseminate
- Disseminate results widely
- Launch task force
- Seek input
- Propose recommendations
2023-24
Action
- Provost responds to recommendations
- Implement recommendations
Survey Response Rate by College
Table 1: Survey response rate by percentage
Themes
COACHE surveys across nine different themes that impact how faculty feel about working at CSUF. Each theme is composed of three-to-five benchmarks, each of which is made up of several survey questions that assess satisfaction in a five-point Likert scale that comes together in an overall result for a theme.
| Theme | Benchmarks |
|---|---|
| Nature of Work | Research, Teaching, Service |
| Resources & Support | Facilities & Work Resources, Personal & Family Policies, Health & Retirement Benefits, Salary |
| Cross-Silo Work & Mentorship | Interdisciplinary Work, Collaboration, Mentoring |
| Tenure & Promotion | Tenure Policies, Tenure Expectiations: Clarity, Promotion to Full |
| Institutional Leadership | Senior, Dvisional, Departmental, Faculty, |
| Shared Governance | Trust, Shared Sense of Purpose, Understanding the Issue at Hand, Adaptability, Productivity |
| The Department | Collegiality, Engagement, Quality |
| Appreciation & Recognition | Teaching, Advising, Scholarship, Service, Outreach |
Peer Comparison Group
CUNY- Lehman College (2019)
Georgia State University (2020)
Illinois State University (2022)
San Jose State University (2019)
University of Texas at El Paso (2020)
Strengths and Areas for Growth
Our Strengths
- Governance: Adaptability
- Governance: Productivity
- Health & Retirement Benefits
- Leadership: Faculty
- Promotion to Full
- Tenure Expectations: Clarity
- Tenure Policies
Our Areas of Concern
- Appreciation & Recognition
- Collaboration
- Interdisciplinary Work
- Departmental Collegiality
- Shared Sense of Purpose
- Nature of Work: Research
- Nature of Work: Service
- Nature of Work: Teaching
- Personal & Family Policies
COACHE defines as an "area of strength" as any Benchmark where the institution scores first or second among our Peer Comparison Group and in the top 30 percent of the cohort. Conversely, an "area of concern" is where the faculty rating of a Benchmark falls fifth or sixth among our peers and in the bottom 30 percent (the red section) of the cohort.
