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Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a paper version of the survey available for submission?

The COACHE Survey is administered electronically; all respondents must complete the survey online. If, for some reason, you are unable to complete the survey online, please contact the COACHE administrator at your institution. To find out who is responsible for administration of COACHE at your campus, click here to send an email message to COACHE (coache@gse.harvard.edu), whose staff will give you the name of your institution's responsible official.

If you have a disability which prevents you from completing the survey online, please...

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Why don't you ask someone else?

The COACHE survey takes a census approach to eligibility, so it is important that all eligible faculty members invited to participate go on to complete the survey. To have confidence in the results, your institution is counting on as many faculty members as possible to participate. Each response can make a difference in the survey results.

I get surveyed all the time. How is this survey different?

The COACHE Survey offers institutions three different modules based on faculty tenure status.

If you are a tenure-track faculty member, the COACHE Survey will differ from most others you get because it focuses specifically on tenure-track faculty. An important purpose of COACHE is to learn what tenure-track faculty have to say. Our experiences and studies indicate that neither the concerns nor the opportunities to express them candidly are the same for junior and senior faculty. In a broader survey, the voice of junior faculty will be lost, and institutions will be no better...

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How did you get my name?

When your institution got involved in this project, it gave us a data file with the names and e-mail addresses of all faculty members that fulfill our participation criteria. This includes all full-time, tenure-track faculty who have been at the institution for at least six months, and tenured faculty with the rank of Associate or Full Professor.  A number of institutions are also surveying full-time non-tenure-track faculty.

Are you surveying my institution only?

More than 200 colleges and universities across the nation have been involved in COACHE. A list of the current and previous participating institutions can be found on the COACHE web site.

Why should I complete a COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey?

Your institution needs to know what you think of your work experience - the level of support you are receiving at work, the reasonableness of your performance expectations, and the kinds of policies that are important to your success at your institution. Without this information, it is not very easy for academic administrators at your institution to identify the areas that can and should be improved. And because the survey directly addresses issues that can impact policies and strategic planning in your institution, it is imperative that you make your views known. This will, possibly for...

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What is The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE)?

COACHE is a collaboration of colleges and universities committed to gathering the peer diagnostic and comparative data academic administrators need to recruit, retain, and develop faculty members, who are critical to the long-term future of their institutions. The core element of COACHE is an electronic survey specially designed for full-time faculty like you to provide information about your experience at your institution. The COACHE Survey  asks faculty members to assess their experiences regarding promotion and tenure, the nature of their work, policies and practices, and the...

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