The COACHE Survey on Faculty Job Satisfaction

Working Group Recommendations

• Communicate with deans about best practices in faculty development and provide incentives for enhancing and optimizing faculty development programs within their schools.
• Ask central administration, deans, and chairs to develop plans for mentoring initiatives within and across Rutgers schools that build on successful programs like RCN. This should include formal mentoring programs and ways to facilitate informal mentoring within their departments, especially with URM and women faculty.
• Develop optional, non-evaluative Individual Development Plans and/or tools (e.g., web-based personal goal-tracking) that allow all faculty (TT and NTT) at various developmental phases to receive coaching, workshops, and/or individual support for career trajectory and other professional needs.

Chancellor Office Response

• Created the Provost Faculty Development Council with representatives from each school to provide opportunities for partnership and advice for the Chancellor office.
  • Implemented the Scholarly Productivity Grant Initiative to support faculty whose scholarly productivity has been adversely impacted by COVID
• Hired a Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement (Development) and Faculty Affairs (VPFAFA).
• Created the Center for Faculty Success that will implement the following initiatives:
  • Team Mentoring Initiative for new and junior faculty
  • Rutgers Associate Professor Portfolio Review Project (RAPP) for mid-career faculty
  • Faculty Development Fellowship Faculty Peers to work in the Center for Faculty Success to support faculty
  • Meeting with department chairs (Department Chairs Chancellor Breakfast) to discuss partnership and implementation of an Individualized Development Plan approach to supporting faculty

Working Group Recommendations

• Develop a document and web-based presentation that addresses ‘Who’s who’ in the Administration and provide a clear explanation of What Role They Play. This should include creation of an FAQ webpage that clarifies available communication channels for faculty and administrators. Regular open meetings between faculty and senior administrators at which faculty can seek and provide advice should also occur.
• Develop and implement orientation training in faculty leadership and shared governance (e.g. effective methods for gathering input and providing feedback) for faculty members who are elected to represent their units on the entities that represent faculty input in the shared governance process.
• Establish a Shared Governance Coordinating Council (SGCC) and codify in the University Policy Library. The SGCC should include representatives from those entities that participate in shared governance, including The University Senate, the four Faculty Councils, and the two AAUP Unions. Staff and students, who participate in shared governance, may also wish to designate additional entities that would have representatives on the SGCC.
• Current entities involved in shared governance (e.g., University Senate, Faculty Council, AAUP) should engage in a process of self-assessment and evaluation to determine the degree to which they are effective in addressing their mission and meeting their goals; identify barriers to effective functioning; and develop an action agenda for improvement.
• Senior and divisional-level leadership should increase communication with faculty through informal channels (e.g., town halls at the department or divisional level) in addition to working through the formal mechanisms for shared governance.

Chancellor Office Response

• A Website and FAQ page regarding administrative roles, communication opportunities, and email addresses will be developed.
  • Chancellor Administrators will attend faculty council meetings to discuss their role and collaborate on faculty matters. These meetings will be publicized on the Faculty Council and Chancellor websites, and through letters/announcements to department chairs.
  • The Chancellor office will continue to hold scheduled townhall meetings and informal meetings with groups of faculty and administration.
• The Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and Faculty Affairs (VPFAFA) will collaborate with the Center for Organizational Leadership to develop and implement orientation training in faculty leadership and shared governance.
• A meeting will be scheduled with the Chair of Faculty Council and Chair of University Senate to share the recommendations from the committee regarding:
  • Conducting a self-assessment of governing bodies.
  • Considering the recommendation to develop a Shared Governance Coordinating Council (SGCC).

Working Group Recommendations

• We envision a university where central administrative functions exist to support the faculty and not the other way around. Systems should work in ways that do not require faculty to catch problems or require having specific persons within central administration on speed dial to troubleshoot problems. Intolerabilities or bumps in the system that take faculty away from scholarly activity should be reduced to the greatest extent possible. One example is the Rutgers eIRB, including the lengthy time for review, the suitability of the questions for diverse research designs, and other functionalities that slow faculty research. In general, we advocate a more user-centered design of the eIRB interface and other aspects of the digital infrastructure for research (e.g., RAPPS, SOAR).
• We strongly encourage all Rutgers administrators to apply a diversity, equity and inclusion lens to the physical, digital, social and financial infrastructure for research. Fitting with the idea of Rutgers as a beloved, inclusive community, alongside the above-described findings from the COACHE survey, this lens should be used in all decision-making regarding the allocation of resources for supporting faculty research.
• We envision potential solutions including updated RCM Cost Pools for schools and specifically Faculty Investigators, assurance of basic facility needs, strong commitment to addressing deferred maintenance over new facilities, a means to reduce costs of graduate assistantship to be more comparable with peer institutions where GA tuition is truly waived and not taken from the grant. Grants management can also require significant time and specialized administrative staff; this support varies substantially by school or department. Peer institutions also offer credit cards linked to grant accounts, reducing the need for purchase orders or traditional contracted vendors and giving faculty increased speed and flexibility. We advocate for equity (or at least transparency) in discretionary funds allocation, faculty travel support, home v. office computing support, membership fees, open access journal fees and dissemination support (e.g., Twitter, research reports, infographics).

Chancellor Office Response

The Chancellor hired a Vice Provost for Research who will collaborate with the Office for Research to:

• Develop an eIRB task force to work with the Office of Research to provide feedback regarding process.
• Develop a mechanism that provides transparency and considers equity/DEI perspectives in the allocation of resources for supporting faculty research.

The Vice Provost for Research will collaborate with the New Brunswick Associate Deans for Research to:

• Explore the use of credit cards linked to grant accounts, reducing the need for purchase orders or traditional contracted vendors and giving faculty increased speed and flexibility.
• Survey Associate Deans to obtain more details about grant management practices across academic units

The Vice Provost for Research will collaborate with the co-chairs of RCM Refresh process and NB Finance Team to:

• Gather current information regarding updated RCM Cost Pools for schools and specifically Faculty Investigators.
• Explore means to reduce costs of graduate assistantships to be more comparable with peer institutions where GA tuition is truly waived and not taken from the grant

The Vice Provost for Research will collaborate with the NB Chief of Staff and facilities to:

• Assess the current conditions of research facilities and the deferred maintenance needs.

• Clinton Andrews, Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
• Alok Baveja, Rutgers Business School
• Robert Boikess, School of Arts and Sciences
• Timothy Cleary, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology
• Christopher Doll, Mason Gross School of the Arts
• Thomas Figueira, School of Arts and Sciences
• Susan Forman, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology
• Marybeth Gasman, Graduate School of Education
• Emily Greenfield, School of Social Work
• Maria Kraimer, School of Management and Labor Relations
• Linda Reddy, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology
• Lisa Rodenburg, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
• Bharat Sarath, Rutgers Business School
• Anand Sarwate, School of Engineering
• Don Schaffner, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
• Stuart Shapiro, Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
• Michelle Van Noy, School of Management and Labor Relations
• Elin Wicks, School of Engineering
• Ellen Williams, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
• Ryan Womack, New Brunswick Libraries