This survey was conducted in spring 2015 by Nilanjana Dasgupta, Director of Faculty Equity and Inclusion in the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst

1. Faculty Survey of STEM Departments at
UMass
Conducted in Spring 2015
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:
1. Whether their department treated all faculty equitably regardless of
gender, race, and other social identities
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 in
their department, transparency of policies and procedures, fairness, and
how valued their opinions were by colleagues in the department.
The table that follows provides details.
Department culture and climate

5. Department climate: Gender differences and
similarities

6. Men and women’s impressions of department culture and climate were
most different in departments with very few women (under 25%).
The next slide shows which STEM departments at UMass have less than
25% women, which have slightly more women (25-35%), and which
others have even more women (36-54%).
Department culture and climate

7. Faculty gender composition of STEM departments at
UMass-Amherst

8. In departments with less than 25% women, decision-making was seen
as less transparent by women compared to men.
While men thought all faculty were treated equally regardless of their
gender, women thought men were treated better.
In departments with more than 25% women, this difference of opinion
between the genders was significantly smaller.
This is illustrated in the next slide.
Men compared to women’s perception of department
culture and climate diverged most in departments with
very few women

9. In departments with less than 25% women, men and
women had greater disagreement about decision-
making transparency and gender equity
Transparency of policies, procedures,
and decision-making Perceived gender equity
Response scale:
1 = not at all,
5 = very much

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 substantially more knowledgeable
about promotion criteria and process than women (e.g., Math, Biology,
Engineering, GEO, Stockbridge, Chemistry).
The figure on the next slide illustrates this.
Department Culture and Climate

11. In some departments men and women had similar
knowledge about promotion criteria, but other
departments showed big gender differences

12. Mentoring: Who has mentors? What type of mentor is useful?
• 60% of faculty 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:
1. The quality of the department and university
2. Quality of life in Western Massachusetts
3. Work-family balance
Faculty who came to UMass because of department quality felt more
connected to, and accepted by, their department and felt that department
decision-making was fair and transparent (see correlation table on the
next slide).

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 were concerns about salary, inadequate research support
(especially facilities, start-up, and access to internal grants), spousal
employment, and department climate.
See table on the next slide for the frequency with which various reasons
were mentioned by faculty.

16. The reasons why some faculty think of leaving UMass:
Organized by how frequently they were mentioned

17. Of all survey respondents, 63% had considered leaving UMass at some
point during their time at UMass.
Of this group, 44% had applied for jobs elsewhere, received an outside
offer and a counteroffer from UMass, and decided to stay at UMass.
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 (as shown in the figure on the next slide).
Retention: Who thinks of leaving UMass?

18. Rank differences in who considered leaving UMass

19. Black and Latino faculty in STEM were more likely to have thought of
leaving UMass (see graph on next slide).
One reason for this greater retention risk may be spousal employment:
58% of Black and Latino STEM faculty live apart from their spouses or
partners because of employment constraints.
None of the Black and Latino STEM faculty at UMass had spouses
employed at UMass.
Race differences in who considered leaving UMass

20. Race differences in who considered leaving
UMass

21. 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. See table on the next slide.
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 had been when they
had been hired (p < .001).
These data suggest the “two body problem” has become more important
over time both in terms of recruitment and retention of faculty.
Spousal Employment

24. Research
When we asked faculty if they were satisfied with research
opportunities at UMass, we found a great deal of satisfaction with
research collaborations on-campus, but varying degrees of satisfaction
with research facilities and staff support around grant applications.
See table and figures on the following slides.

25. Are faculty satisfied with research opportunities at UMass? What
aspects are more vs. less satisfying?
Response scale: 1 (not at all satisfied), 5 (very satisfied)

26. Satisfaction with research facilities: Departments in newer
research facilities were happier than those in old research
facilities that had not kept up with changing needs
Response scale:
1 = not at all,
5 = very much

27. Satisfaction with grant submission and management:
Departments with strong internal staff support and/or college-
level support were more satisfied than others with weak or no
support
Response scale:
1 = not at all,
5 = very much

28. • Women reported more preference for doing collaborative research with
other faculty than did men, p = .012.
• Not giving faculty adequate credit for collaborative research at tenure and
promotion may have a disproportionate impact on women.
• Women did more interdisciplinary research than men, p = .048.
• Assistant professors did more interdisciplinary research than associate and
full profs (p < .020) suggesting that fields are becoming increasingly
interdisciplinary over time.
Faculty interest in collaborative and interdisciplinary research

29. Teaching
On average, faculty felt valued by their department for their teaching.
But two specific teaching concerns stood out across several
departments:
1. The need for more teaching assistants given class size and better
support for struggling students
2. Better equipped classrooms and teaching labs
For more details, see table and figures on the following slides.

30. Most frequently raised teaching concerns, satisfactions, and other
feedback

31. Satisfaction with TA allocation and support for struggling students:
Some departments were more dissatisfied with constrained TA
resources and inadequate supplemental support than others
Response scale:
1 = not at all,
5 = very much

32. Satisfaction with classrooms and teaching labs: Departments in
newer classrooms and teaching labs were happier than those in
old teaching facilities that do not have adequate technology
Response scale:
1 = not at all,
5 = very much

33. Gender differences in teaching
• Women enjoyed collaborative teaching more than men, p = .006.
• Women were more willing to engage diverse students in classes by
modifying course curriculum, p = .008.
• Women advised more undergraduate students, p < .001, and graduate
students, p = .046.

34. Service
Faculty rank and gender influenced the amount of time they spent on
service.
Not surprisingly, time spent on service increased significantly for
associate and full professors compared to assistant professors, p < .001.
But also, among tenure-system faculty, women spent more time on
service than men, p < .05.
These findings are illustrated in the next slide.

35. How much time do faculty spend on service? Disaggregated
by faculty gender and rank
Among tenure-track faculty, hours spent on service per week: Post-tenure > pre-tenure, p < .001.
Women > men, p < .05.

36. Leadership-oriented service
• Department’s gender composition affected whether or not women got tapped
for leadership positions
• Men were more likely than women to be tapped for important leadership
roles in departments with under 25% women, p < .001.
Response scale:
1 = not at all,
5 = very much

37. Six actionable next steps
1. Inadequate research facilities is hampering faculty productivity in some
depts. Improve communication between affected faculty, dept heads/chairs,
and higher-administration committees that handle research space.
2. Improve staff support for research grant submission; provide equal access
to college-level staff for all CNS faculty. This improvement is already
underway.
3. Identify problems with department climate and culture early. Department
leaders should proactively work to find and implement solutions with
assistance from the deanery.

38. Six actionable next steps (cont’d)
4. Create a spousal employment network by coordinating with Five College
Consortium, UMass-Worcester, and other local employers.
5. Identify a “matchmaker” at the university level who will gather information
about job opportunities within UMass and also within the local network and
connect them to departments in need of a spousal position.
6. Create a free or subsidized bus service between Amherst, Worcester, Boston,
and New Haven to make it convenient for faculty spouses to commute to
jobs. Such a bus service will expand the geographical region within which
faculty spouses could look for jobs.

39. Questions? Comments?
Please complete our feedback form
(see link on the CNS website)