History & Mission

Founded with support from the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Ford Foundation in 2003 by Richard Chait and Cathy Trower, the Study of New Scholars examined why fewer women and faculty of color were obtaining tenure. That pilot's successor, the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), delivered its first diagnostic reports on faculty development and diversity in 2008. By 2011, COACHE had expanded in scope to understand the experiences of tenured faculty and full-time, non-tenure track faculty. Today, more than 250 colleges, universities, systems and consortia in the U.S. and Canada have joined our research-practice partnership.

COACHE has since transformed to become a research-practice partnership (RPP), committed to improving the academic workplace and advancing the success of a talented and diverse faculty. We accomplish this by providing comparative, actionable insights on what faculty need to do their best work. We derive these insights from survey and institutional data that we collect and analyze under the highest standards of research. We share these insights with a community of practice in academic affairs who are, like us, committed to making academic leadership more adaptive and governance more strategic.