The last time Duke surveyed the faculty in 2005, the results were put to use to create new classrooms and faculty development policies. With a new survey ready to go out later this month, Vice Provost Dr. Nancy Allen says she hopes the survey will provide ideas for improving support for faculty in a time of tight budgets.
"We didn't want to shy away from doing a survey in these difficult times," said Allen, vice provost for faculty diversity and development. "Back in 2005, we said we would repeat the survey in five years. You can't choose the time when you want better news. In many ways, this is a good time to do a survey. Like in 2005, we may find a lot of interesting ideas."
Provost Peter Lange sent an e-mail to faculty Monday describing the survey. Nearly 3,000 regular-rank faculty members will receive a follow-up e-mail this week that provides a direct link to the survey, which is expected to take 15-25 minutes, depending on how many comments a user writes.
The electronic survey will cover topics such as faculty satisfaction with the intellectual climate of Duke, resources to support teaching and research, and the stresses faculty encounter when managing work and home responsibilities.
The survey is separate from a second survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education. That survey was sent to 600 Duke faculty and staff members this week and studies a particular set of work culture issues for the journal's special issue, "Great Colleges to Work For."
Allen said it was important for faculty members to respond to the Duke survey. In 2005, the results helped guide decisions on facilities, faculty support services and faculty development issues.
"The new classrooms in the LINK came out of the 2005 survey," Allen said. "There were a lot of written-in comments that were very helpful. All comments were grouped into themes and if the same themes showed up in a school, we let the dean know so they could address the issues."
That information is valuable for school leaders, said Dr. Nancy Andrews, dean of the School of Medicine. "It's not easy for deans to get a sense of what the real day-to-day issues are for our faculty," Andrews said. "I hope that this survey will give us a more complete understanding and help us make Duke an even better place to develop faculty careers."
One of the results of the 2005 survey was that women faculty members reported spending more time on domestic issues than men. Some women faculty members were concerned that this was an impediment to their advancement and added stress to their work and family lives.
Following the 2005 survey, Duke launched several initiatives, including a new flexible work arrangements policy, faculty development programs, and attention to dual partner faculty recruitment as well as retirement concerns. To support these efforts, Duke applied for -- and received -- an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award for Faculty Career Flexibility in 2006 to improve work-family balance for faculty members.
The 2005 faculty survey, the first done at Duke, was based on a questionnaire designed at MIT. Since then, Duke and other universities affiliated with the Association of American Universities (AAU) have collaborated on developing a core faculty survey that all could use. Duke's 2010 survey is based on the AAU core questionnaire plus additional questions carried over from the 2005 survey, Allen said.
She said the intention is to compare the results to both the 2005 Duke survey and to recent surveys done at other AAU institutions.
"We have a pretty good idea of faculty concerns," Allen said, "but it's always good to have the hard data."