(NAME-MCE) The Satisfaction Gap

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Partial story below.  For complete story, graphs/tables, and related
stories, go to:

http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/02/coache

August 2, 2007

The Satisfaction Gap

Colleges that want to recruit new faculty talent talk frequently about
this new policy or that — or about efforts to promote a certain
environment for young scholars. But a study released Wednesday
suggests that those policies have had mixed effectiveness — and that
the experience of junior faculty members continues to vary based on
gender and race.

White and male junior faculty members experience a better campus
climate than do their minority and female counterparts, according to
the results of a study of the views of 6,773 tenure-track faculty
members at 77 four-year colleges and universities around the country.
Those working at colleges generally experience a better climate than
those working at universities, the survey also found. The study was
conducted by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher
Education, a research project based at the Harvard University Graduate
School of Education. COACHE, as the project is known, has become a
leading source of information on how colleges can attract the next
generation of professors and keep them happy — even as their
demographics and priorities may differ in key ways from their senior
colleagues.

Cathy Trower, director of COACHE, said that the study pointed to the
importance of remembering the difference between establishing sound
policies (which many institutions have done) and making sure that they
are effective and working for everyone (which is more difficult). "A
change in policy does not necessarily mean a change in practice or
climate," she said. In many cases, colleges that have adopted policies
may need "to drill down" to the department level to see why they are
or aren't working.

The breakdowns on climate and collegiality are important, Trower said,
because professors entering academe today are more likely to place a
high value on such qualities than were previous generations of
academics, who might have been more likely to accept a lousy a climate
at a prestigious institution.

The following averages are based on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being
"strongly agree," 4 "somewhat agree," 3 "neither agree or disagree," 2
as "somewhat disagree," and 1 "strongly disagree." There are some
signs that on issues related to gender, the current generation of
academics may be more inclusive. While female junior professors gave
lower scores than male counterparts on questions related to
interaction with senior colleagues, the opposite was true with regard
to junior colleagues.`