Faculty Climate Survey of STEM Departments at UMass

Sponsored by

College of Natural Sciences

Who participated in this survey?

• Our sample included 383 faculty (82% response rate) from Natural Sciences, Engineering, and Information & Computer Sciences.

• Gender: 63% were men, 33% women, 4% did not respond, and 0.2% indicated another gender.

• Rank: 43% were full professors, 18% associate professors, 20% assistant professors, 13% lecturers, and 6% non-tenure research faculty

• Race: 82% White, 12% Asian, 4% Hispanic, 1% African American, 0.8% multiracial or other

• National origin: 69% were U.S. born, 31% were immigrants

Department Culture and Climate

To get a pulse on faculty experiences in their home department we asked them:

1. Whether their department treated all faculty equitably regardless of gender and race

2. How transparent decision-making was in their department

3. How fair decision-making was in their department

4. How much their opinions were valued by their colleagues

5. How collegial their department was

6. How collaborative their department was

We found that women and men faculty had similar impressions of their department’s collegiality and collaboration, but they had very different impressions of gender and racial equity, transparency of policies and procedures, fairness, and feeling valued for their opinions by colleagues in the department.

Department Culture and Climate

Department climate: Gender differences and similarities

Men vs. women’s impression of their department culture diverge most in departments with very few women. Below is the percent of women faculty in all STEM departments at UMass that participated in our study.

Department Culture and Climate

Men vs. women’s perception of department culture diverge most in departments with very few women

In departments with less than 25% women, decision-making was seen as more transparent by male faculty than female faculty. Men also thought all faculty were treated equally regardless of their gender whereas women thought men were treated better. In departments with more than 25% women, the disagreement between genders shrunk significantly.

Department Culture and Climate

In departments with less than 25% women, men vs. women disagreed about decision-making

transparency and gender equity

Transparency of policies, procedures, and decision-making Perceived gender equity

In some departments, men and women had similar knowledge about the criteria and process for promotion to full professor (e.g., Computer Science, Physics, VASCI, PBS), but in other departments men were more knowledgeable about promotion criteria and process than women (e.g., Math, Biology, Engineering, GEO, Stockbridge, Chemistry).

Department Culture and Climate

In some departments men and women have similar knowledge about promotion criteria, but other

departments show big gender differences

Faculty-to-Faculty Mentoring: Who has mentors? What type of mentor is useful?

• 60% had a mentor in their department, 38% had a mentor outside their department, and 29% had both

• Chosen mentors were more useful than mentors assigned by the department head/chair

• Mentors outside the home department were more useful than mentors inside one’s department

• Mentoring was more successful when faculty were grouped by common interest regardless of department

• Faculty often praised the CNS women’s mentoring program and the UMass-wide Mellon Mentoring program

Recruitment: What makes UMass a “destination of choice” for faculty?

The top three reasons why faculty chose to come to UMass were:

1. The quality of the department and university

2. Quality of life in Western Massachusetts

3. Work-family balance

We found that high quality departments had a positive department climate. Faculty who said that the positive quality of their department influenced their decision to come to UMass also had positive things to say about their department climate.

Pearson’s correlations above, ** p < .001

Correlations between the quality of the department as the reason for coming to UMass and department climate

Retention: Why do some faculty think of leaving UMass?

When asked—have you thought of leaving and if so, why?—the top four reasons we heard were concerns about salary, inadequate research support (especially facilities, start-up, and access to internal grants), spousal employment, and department climate.

The reasons why some faculty think of leaving UMass

Of all survey respondents, 63% had considered leaving UMass at some point. Of this, 44% had applied for jobs elsewhere, received an outside offer and a counteroffer from UMass, and decided to stay here. 34% of faculty in this group had a spouse living in a different city. Associate professors were most likely to have thought about leaving UMass.

Retention: Why do some faculty think of leaving UMass?

Rank differences in who considered leaving UMass

And Black and Latino faculty were more likely to have thought of leaving UMass. One reason for the greater retention risk for Black and Latino faculty may be spousal employment considerations: 58% of these faculty members live apart from spouses or partners because of employment constraints. And 0% of their spouses are employed at UMass.

Retention: Why do some faculty think of leaving UMass?

Race differences in who considered leaving UMass

We found that 40% of all survey respondents have a spouse employed at UMass. But there were big gender differences in the types of professional positions held by those spouses. Spouses of women faculty were more likely to be in tenure-track positions than spouses of men faculty. Spouses of men faculty were more likely to be in staff or lecturer positions than spouses of women faculty.

Spousal Employment

What type of spousal employment matters? And for whom?

Tenure-

system

faculty

Non-

tenure

system

lecturer

Short-

term

research

scientist

Staff

position

other -

please

specify:

Male

faculty% within 41.7% 11.1% 2.8% 29.2% 15.3% 100%

Female

faculty% within 63.3% 6.1% 4.1% 8.2% 18.4% 100%

Total 61 11 4 25 20 121

What type of job did/does your spouse/partner have at

UMass?

Total

Spousal employment played a bigger role in women faculty’s decision to come to UMass (p = .046) and to stay at UMass (p = .037). We also found a generational difference: Younger faculty’s decisions to come to UMass (for both men and women) were more influenced by spousal employment than older faculty’s decisions (p < .001).

Spousal Employment