This presentation contains the results of survey conducted of all departments in the College of Natural Sciences, the College of Information and Computer Sciences, and some departments in the College of Engineering in 2014-15 about faculty climate at UMass Amherst.
Faculty climate survey of STEM departments at UMass
1. Faculty Climate Survey of STEM
Departments at UMass
Sponsored by
College of Natural Sciences
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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
6. 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
7. Men vs. women’s perception of department culture diverge
most in departments with very few women
8. 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
9. 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
10. 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
11. In some departments men and women have similar
knowledge about promotion criteria, but other
departments show big gender differences
12. 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
13. 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.
14. Pearson’s correlations above, ** p < .001
Correlations between the quality of the department as the
reason for coming to UMass and department climate
15. 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.
17. 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?
19. 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?
21. 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
22. 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
23. 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
Editor's Notes
Third graph: Negative numbers mean women perceive more transparency, positive mean men perceive transparency. No women responded for astronomy, food science, or micro bio so those depts were excluded.
