Faculty Senate Takes Unique Role in Leading Improvements at UTA
Partner Spotlight: The University of Texas at Arlington
In a time when relationships between faculty and administration can often be strained, the Faculty Senate and administration at the University of Texas Arlington (UTA) forged a unique path — driving both change for faculty, and change in the relationship between faculty and administration.
As part of its efforts to create movement in addressing faculty concerns, the UTA Faculty Senate set about implementing the first faculty satisfaction survey at UTA in more than a decade. Selecting the COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey as the survey instrument of choice, UTA became the first institution in COACHE’s community of practice where the Faculty Senate was the primary driver of COACHE, rather than the administration.
“Offering to undertake the work of a faculty survey — rather than just asking for one — proved to be a very good strategy for effective collaboration,” says Dr. Jacqueline Fay, Professor of English and past Chair of the UTA Faculty Senate. She says that after the survey “faculty were eager to get around the table and be a part of the discussions.”
Partnership and communication foster collaboration
Dr. Fay, together with Dr. Bill Carroll, co-chaired the survey’s administration and analysis, working with committees to develop recommendations informed by the survey findings. The faculty then presented results to Dr. Tamara L. Brown, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Dr. Jennifer Cowley, President of UTA, both of whom had stepped into their roles during the COACHE process.
This spirit of collaboration and resulting transparency proved especially important when working through difficult issues that had been identified through the COACHE survey.
When survey data reflecting dissatisfaction with faculty salaries was presented, leadership began by saying they were in agreement, Dr. Fay says. “Acknowledging that an issue exists is really a huge step forward — it's part of a solution in and of itself. To be able to have those conversations and build on that has been amazing.”
Provost Brown also praised the communicative and collaborative process. “We were able to give full transparency about the things that were shared: ‘Here’s what we’re thinking. Here’s what we can do, here’s what we can’t do. And here’s why.’”
Clarity on ownership of actions, priorities, and progress
To quickly and easily share recommendations with others, Dr. Fay has created a COACHE scorecard, which is shared with the full faculty and at every level of leadership. The scorecard includes recommendations yielded from the seven faculty committees and provides a way to record how issues are being addressed, check off accomplishments, and track progress over time.
Another clear benefit of the Senate-led COACHE model is that faculty members take responsibility for communicating to their peers that some of the changes need to be owned by faculty themselves — a message that might be difficult for an administrator to deliver. Dr. Fay notes that many of those changes are about the culture surrounding faculty roles, and faculty’s impressions, evaluations, and treatment of one another.
“Some of the recommendations are really in the hands of faculty members themselves, and some of them don't even cost any money — they're about how people feel and experiences that they've had that maybe not everyone knew about. As a group, we really need to own some of those,” says Dr. Fay.
More than this, Dr. Fay explains that actions arising from the survey have reached far beyond faculty themselves: the recommendations have been incorporated into UTA’s strategic planning, and Dr. Fay has also made connections between the COACHE survey and UTA’s people and culture survey.
Faculty engagement in the COACHE process grows
UTA has recently completed its second COACHE survey. Dr. Fay says that everyone is excited to see results, but her biggest goal is to continue to harness the desire that people now have in wanting to be involved in the COACHE process — either as part of the steering committee or in the analysis portion. “People are enthusiastic to get involved,” says Dr. Fay. “I want to see a lot more people stepping up at that stage.”
Dr. Fay is also happy to see more faculty getting involved in COACHE at other institutions. “From sitting in workshops and talking to my colleagues at the campuses, I am seeing more faculty involved and more faculty wanting to be involved. I'm proud to be able to share more about our model with colleagues.”
This story appeared in COACHE’s recently released COACHE 20th Anniversary Impact Report: Looking Back – Moving Forward. Read the full report here.