COACHE 2019-20 Report

The COACHE Report on Faculty Job Satisfaction

As a part of the NSF ADVANCE Catalysis project to assess the status of women and minority faculty, the Advance research team partnered with the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) to survey tenured, tenure-track faculty and non-tenure track faculty about satisfaction across areas of faculty life: teaching, scholarship, service, academic leadership, governance, and work-life balance. COACHE is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, it provides institutions an independent, research-driven, comparative study that helps the Advance Team and WSU to continue to attract, retain, and nurture the highest quality faculty.

Some Particulars

In early February 2020 all tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty as of fall 2019, received email invitations to voluntarily participate in the COACHE survey. The survey closed in March following the COVID-19 shut down at WSU.

The Survey Report contains lots of information with visuals. Throughout the report WSU outcomes are shown relative to the outcomes of other institutions: Peer Institutions (five institution chosen by the ADVANCE Team) and Cohort Institutions – 110 similar institutions that have also taken the survey.

The report is in two different formats: 1) a pdf Summary – Report Preview of Results and 2) an online Chrome application for viewing details.

Response Rates

Peer Institutions

George Mason University (2019)
University of Missouri - Kansas City (2017)
University of North Carolina - Charlotte (2018)
University of North Texas (2018)
Virginia Commonwealth University (2019)

A sneak peak of the overall findings are provided here. They are based on responses from the University as a whole; that is- all WSU faculty. The COACHE report itself provides results aggregated by faculty rank, gender identity, race and ethnicity, and by college or discipline. Thus, major outcomes may change depending upon aggregate group.

As shorthand, COACHE defines as an "area of strength“ any benchmark where our institution scores first or second among selected comparison group (peers) and in the top 30 percent of the cohort.

Conversely, an "area of concern" is where WSU faculty rating of a benchmark falls fifth or sixth among WSU peers and in the bottom 30 percent of the cohort.

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Areas of strength (all faculty combined)

Departmental Collegiality
Departmental Engagement

Areas of concern (all faculty combined)

Facilities and Work Resources
Leadership: Divisional (college level)
Nature of Work: Research
Nature of Work: Teaching

Faculty Select Two Best and Two Worst Aspects of Working at WSU

Faculty were asked to think about the institution as a whole and identify those issues (both good and bad) that are most on their minds. Here, faculty were given the opportunity to select the two best aspects of working at WSU.

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Best Aspects

Quality of Colleagues 27%
Support of Colleagues 28%
Cost of Living 23%
Academic Freedom 20%

Worst Aspects

Quality of Facilities 16%
Compensation 38%
Too much service/too many assignments14%

Improve WSU — This plot contains COACHE's thematic analysis of the final open-ended question of the survey. Faculty were asked to identify the one thing they feel their institutions could do to improve the workplace for faculty. COACHE reviews all comments, redacts any identifying information, and codes them thematically.

Going through the report on your own

The Advance Team highly recommend that you start with the pdf Summary – Report Preview of Results. The report provides excellent graphics with a guide for viewing.

Next, dive into the online detailed report. It is a lot of information. The online report includes instructions and Quick film clips to help you navigate the site and various options for viewing the data.

The COACHE report and links found on this webpage includes three downloadable pdfs

Faculty Survey - questions that made up the survey Cover Letter – describes what was done and how to consider the results Summary – Report Preview of results

Location of Detailed Report

The web link to a detailed analysis of the survey is contained in a Zip file (Wichita_2020.Zip) and is located on the far left panel of the myWSU faculty staff page, Employee Toolbox, just below the University Budget.

Once on myWSU follow instructions for downloading and opening the Zip file.

Next Steps

The ADVANCE project team is continuing to sift through the COACHE report. While the ADVANCE Catalyst project goal is to identify the issues and barriers to increasing and retaining the numbers of STEM women and minority faculty, and to create a five year strategic plan to address those barriers, the outcome will benefit all WSU faculty. We are interested in real institutional change that supports equity and inclusion for all faculty. Our process for creating the strategic plan is described under Deliberative Dialogues.

‘Effective and sustainable institutional change occur under distributed models of leadership’ (COACHE, Report Preview). For that reason we recommend that you use the COACHE report to begin discussions for solutions with your colleagues in your departments, colleges, and other groups.

Please contact our ADVANCE Team if you have questions or comments about the survey.

Also, please keep our team informed of your efforts so that we can all learn from each other.