Soon faculty will have an opportunity to participate in a survey of faculty job satisfaction. This survey research is part of a national program called COACHE – the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education – which has been operating from the Harvard Graduate School of Education since 2003. Participation will entail completing a 25-minute, web-based survey. A unique link to the survey will be emailed to faculty from COACHE in the coming days. COACHE will not use names or email addresses for any purpose except this research. A leadership team of Clemson faculty have been working with the COACHE team in the planning and implementation of the survey on our campus. Tenured, tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty are included in the survey.
While there are many surveys that faculty are asked to complete, this one was designed entirely to determine their current job satisfaction compared to faculty at peer institutions. Your views are especially important to us as we strive to attract and retain the best and brightest scholars and teachers, increase the satisfaction of all faculty, and to make Clemson a great place to work. The university welcomes this opportunity to learn from an independent, research-driven, comparative study. We believe that Clemson has the potential to be one of the best places for scholars to work, and with your help we can learn how best to support that goal. The Leadership Team has been involved during the fall semester to ensure that the survey results will be widely distributed and used for campus improvements. However, data from the COACHE study will be meaningful only if we have broad participation.
While other instruments include items whose results may be merely interesting (“Is your father an academic?”), even voyeuristic (Is “friction with spouse/partner” a source of stress?), with no correlating policy or practical response, COACHE surveys are distilled to the actionable and the pivotal, producing data that are of immediate use to academic policymakers. Click here for more information about the survey.
The survey gathers data along these themes to help participating chief academic officers answer three sets of questions:
- How do faculty of different career stages experience academic work life at my institution? How do their experiences compare to those of faculty at peer institutions?
- Do their experiences differ by rank, gender, or race/ethnicity?
- What policies or practices are associated with high levels of faculty satisfaction and vitality?
Within a week, faculty will receive an email from COACHE (coachfaculty@opinioncast.com ), with a link to the online survey. The survey is easy to complete. For questions about the survey, please contact Debra Jackson at or 656-4592, or contact COACHE.
Below is a list of the faculty leadership team working on this project for Clemson:
Denise Anderson
Associate Professor, PRTM
864-656-5679
Jeremy King
Professor, Physics and Astronomy
864-656-4275
Jennifer H. Ogle
Associate Professor, Civil Engineering
864-656-0883
Huriye S. Atamturktur (Sez)
Associate Professor, Civil Engineering
864-656-3003
Diane Perpich
Associate Professor, Philosophy and Religion
864-656-2001
Randy Collins
Professor and Executive Director,
College Academic Initiatives
College of Engineering and Science
864-656-4440
Robert C Knoeppel
Department Chair, ETM School of Education
864-656-1882
Russell Purvis
Associate Professor, Management
864-656-3177
Ted Whitwell
Associate Dean, CAFLS
864-656-5333
Leon Wiles
Chief Diversity Officer
864-656-4238
James A McCubbin
Professor, Psychology
864-656-3929
Debra B Jackson
Vice Provost
864-656-4592
Bob Jones
Executive Vice President and Provost
864-656-3940
David Knox
Director, University Assessment
864-656-0868
Wickes Westcott
Director Institutional Research
864-656-0161
