Opportunity for faculty to shape improvements in our workplace

The COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey closes on April 5. 

Since February, WPI has been participating for the fourth time in the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) faculty job satisfaction survey, led by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. All full-time faculty at WPI— dual-mission and teaching-mission tenure-track and tenured, along with full-time teaching and research faculty on contracts—have an opportunity to register their voices across a broad range of university practices, policies and working conditions. 

The faculty have made good use of COACHE survey results in the past, for example by starting conversations about weaknesses in our promotion and mentoring systems and making changes in policy and practices to improve them. The COACHE survey has also been useful to the administration during leadership transitions. No doubt, the 2024 COACHE report will be quite useful for our incoming Provost to get a sense of faculty perspectives of strengths and weaknesses of our workplace and work environment. 

This year a working group of COG, CTRF, and Morgan Center representatives made decisions about custom questions and a custom report that will give us more insight into the experiences of faculty in different tracks. Another positive development is that in 2024-25, the Senior Research & Evaluation Associate in the Morgan Center will partner with faculty groups who wish to dig deeper into particular results, using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. Thus, you can be assured that time you spend completing the survey will lead to inquiry and action.

The results will be most meaningful if we have broad participation. If you have completed the survey, thank you! If you have not, we encourage you to do so in the coming days. The survey will close on April 5. Those who have not responded will receive a final reminder from COACHE soon, or you can search your email folders for previous invitations from “COACHE” or “Collaborative.” All full-time faculty should have been invited to participate. If you have not received an invitation from COACHE, please contact cdemetry@wpi.edu. For information on robust protections for anonymity and data access, please visit the WPI COACHE webpage. 

Sincerely,

Chrys Demetry, COACHE liaison