|
...distributing resources and made sure that junior faculty got high-quality graduate students. provided a clear assessment of my progress each year prior to tenure and set a tone indicating that it was normal for junior faculty to seek help and mentoring. But the year I was granted tenure a new head entered the picture and life changed drastically. He rapidly alienated several senior colleagues I admired as well as some of my junior colleagues, many of whom ended up leaving the department. The new head played favorites, ignored established processes, and didn't support the promotion of several outstanding young faculty hired under the former head. He also reneged on several promises that the former head had made to me. It's been years since he became the department head, but I am still disillusioned and disappointed. I find myself advising newly hired colleagues to build their CVs and keep an eye open for other jobs; I tell them "outstanding work does not assure success in this department."
Faculty Member #2
When I first came to the university, one of the things that gave me the most satisfaction was working closely with two of my senior colleagues: Ed and Jon. I truly valued their collaboration on grants, research, and publications, and had always believed that we worked well together and respected one another. That's why I was so taken aback, on the eve of my tenure decision, to learn from others in the department that Ed and Jon had voiced concerns to the tenure committee about my performance. Neither Ed nor Jon had ever shared these concerns with me, and I felt disconcerted and hurt. Although I eventually did receive tenure, the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Now, when I hear Ed and Jon speak in faculty meetings, I wonder what their words are hiding. I see the glances they exchange when I'm speaking, and I resent their implication. Because I find it uncomfortable to be with these two colleagues, I avoid them whenever possible. I have extricated myself from joint research ventures and purposely avoid Ed and Jon in other venues of departmental life.
Introduction: What Our Research Revealed
What do the two stories above have in common? First, they portray senior (defined in this study as tenured) faculty members who are dissatisfied with their respective experiences at their institution. Second, in both cases, negative or disillusioning experiences at key times in their professional lives have colored the lens through which these individuals view their colleagues and experience life in their departments. They have responded to these events in ways that are counter to fostering collegiality and a sense of community--two primary sources of satisfaction in academic life (Barnes, Agago, & Coombs, 1998; Manger & Eikeland, 1990; Matier, 1990; Weiler, 1985).
Although dissatisfied senior faculty members are hardly rare in academia (Amey & VanDerLinden, 2002; Boice, 1993; Hamrick, 2003; Karpiak, 1997; Mills, 2000), what is interesting about these particular stories is that they describe faculty who are not stagnant professionally but who continue to be remarkably productive: They publish extensively, secure prestigious grants, and succeed in a variety of other areas, as described below. In other words, these senior faculty members are at the top of their game. Nevertheless, they remain withdrawn in important ways at their own university, a problem we believe is not unique to this institution.
What characterizes the experiences of faculty such as these, and what is the impact on their institutions? To what extent does the literature help us to understand the sources of their dissatisfaction and their responses to it? Finally, what can institutions do to re-engage them? These are the questions we set out to answer in this article.
This study grew out of a larger research project we conducted from 2001 to 2003 at a midsized private research university. (A full discussion of research methodology and results can be found in Ambrose, Huston, & Norman, 2005.) The purpose of the larger study was to identify factors that positively or negatively affected faculty satisfaction and retention. Toward this end, we designed a matched cohort study and interviewed 124 faculty members (8.9% of the total faculty), half of whom had left the institution between 1991 and 2000 and half of whom had stayed. Seventy-seven former faculty members were asked to participate, selected to form a representative sample of colleges and departments within the university. Seventy-three of these 77 agreed to be interviewed. Of them, 62 were available for interviews during the necessary period, and one of the participants withdrew later in the study, leaving 61 former faculty members, 17 of whom were tenured before leaving the university. (1) Current faculty were then matched with former faculty by rank, tenure status, year of appointment, department, and, when possible, gender and race (although this was not always possible in small departments or for years with fewer new hires). (2) Seventy current faculty members were asked to participate and 62 agreed. Of them, 42 were tenured. These 42 senior, tenured faculty members who have remained at the university are the focus of this article.
We used a semistructured interview protocol (Chilcott, 1987; Fetterman, 1990; Maxwell, 1996; Merriam, 1998) in which respondents were asked to describe their experience at the institution and any significant factors or critical incidents that affected their experience. (3) They were encouraged to tell their own "stories" in their own style. We chose this method because we wanted detailed, context-rich data to clarify the subtleties and complexities of faculty members' experiences, thus capitalizing on what Maxwell has identified as the principle benefits of qualitative research (Lecompte & Preissle, 2003; Maxwell, 1996; Merriam & Associates, 2002). These benefits include its capacity to clarify (a) the meaning for participants (in this case, faculty members) of the events, situations, and actions in which they are involved; (b) the particular context within which participants act and the influence this context has on their actions; (c) unanticipated phenomena and influences, which emerge spontaneously in open-ended interviews in ways that cannot in structured surveys; (d) the process by which events and actions take place; and (e) complex causal relationships, in this case the varying and interacting causes of faculty satisfaction and dissatisfaction (Maxwell, 1996, pp. 17-20).
This nondirective, qualitative approach yielded data that we believe accurately reflect the priorities and concerns of the faculty themselves. However, there were limitations to this approach as well. Because faculty participants told their own stories, they did not necessarily all raise the same issues, and thus some comparability across interviews was lost. Furthermore, because interviews were conducted with faculty members only, we cannot provide the department or university perspective. In fact, it would have been impossible to get triangulation by talking with others in the department without revealing the identity of participants. While this constrains the reader's ability to make objective sense of the events described or to see them in a fuller departmental and historical context--and must be acknowledged as a limitation to the study--the anonymity we were able to assure resulted in surprising, sometimes even shockingly frank, accounts. Since faculty perceptions and emotions, regardless of objective reality, are at the heart of the satisfaction issue, it seemed appropriate to focus on faculty interpretations of their own experiences, if only as a first stage of investigation.
Of the many results from the larger research project mentioned above, two are of particular relevance to this paper. The first is predictable, the second less so. First, our research corroborated the results of other studies by indicating a powerful--and often unmet--need on the part of the junior faculty to experience effective mentoring and a sense of collegiality (Ambrose et al., 2005; Bilimoria, Perry, Liang, Stoller, Higgins, & Taylor, 2006; Boice, 1992; Menges & Associates, 1999; Zachary, 2000). Specifically, junior faculty members stressed the importance of having senior colleagues who were interested in and willing to take the time to give them professional advice and who were engaged in the life of the department.
This need for active, engaged senior colleagues brings us to a second, more surprising finding. Of the 42 current senior faculty members we interviewed, 12--almost a third--indicated significant levels of dissatisfaction and disengagement, recounting stories like the two at the beginning of this article. All 12 "disengaged" current senior faculty members had outstanding reputations. In addition to their continued success with publications and grants, they also served on national and international professional panels and boards, and they were respected as effective teachers, earning high scores on their students' course evaluations. Yet despite their professional productivity, they had become disengaged from their departments and sometimes the institution as a whole. We define "disengagement" here as: (a) withdrawal from intellectual exchange and collaboration with colleagues, (b) disengagement from decision-making processes, (c) deliberate withdrawal from departmental social activity, and (d) disengagement from mentoring relationships (or giving cynical advice to junior faculty). (4)
We were not only surprised but also worried by the level of discontent among these faculty members. Because the disengaged senior faculty did not cluster in any particular discipline but rather represented six of the seven colleges at the university, their dissatisfaction suggests a university-wide phenomenon. If their numbers are representative of the larger population, moreover, their impact is potentially very significant. In a small institution, and particularly in small departments, even a small number of disengaged senior faculty can have a disproportionately harmful effect, especially for junior faculty whose status in the institution is most tenuous and whose need for mentoring and collegiality is greatest. As we analyzed the narratives from dissatisfied senior faculty, two themes emerged. First, several respondents discussed an "ideal" situation into which they were hired that, for a number of different reasons, changed over time (illustrated in the first vignette). Second, a number of respondents described one particularly painful incident, often taking place during a key transition, that negatively colored their subsequent experiences in their department (illustrated in the second vignette).
We found that the literature on faculty vitality was only marginally helpful in explaining these patterns and determined that new models were needed. In this essay, we begin by examining and challenging the way in which faculty vitality has been operationalized in the past, arguing for the value of institution-specific analysis of the faculty vitality issue. We then propose alternative models for understanding previously unexplored aspects of faculty vitality, drawing on research in organizational behavior and adult development. Finally, we discuss the institutional implications of vital but disengaged senior faculty members and suggest steps to prevent or address this problem. We end with a call for future research that broadens the definition of faculty vitality and that addresses the distinctive cultures of particular institutions.
The group we have identified as disengaged senior faculty represents almost 30% of the total number of current senior faculty interviewed, and their disengagement, as we will argue below, has ripple effects throughout the university community. However, this group does not in itself constitute a large enough sample for a systematic empirical exploration of the issue. Thus, this study should be understood as exploratory and speculative as opposed to definitive. Following Talburt, our general intention is to open "new paths of thought" (2004, p. 81) rather than verify a particular phenomenon through the use of hard...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from Journal of Higher Education
The interaction effects of gender, race, and marital status on faculty..., September 01, 2007
The Black College Mystique.(Critical essay), September 01, 2007
Envisioning the Future of Doctoral Education: Preparing Stewards of th..., September 01, 2007
Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.
Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication
name or publication date.
About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company
analysis or best practices in managing your organization,
Goliath can help you meet your business needs.
Our extensive business information databases empower business
professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible,
authoritative information they need to support their business
goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting,
company research or defining management best practices -
Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.
|
%20%20&position=1)