Faculty Recruitment, Retention and Welfare Survey 2007

This survey was conducted in the spring of 2007 at the request of the Faculty Senate. The purpose of the survey is to identify the top priorities for retaining and recruiting faculty at the University and solict feedback about benefits and policies.

All teaching, research, and administrative faculty were surveyed, including part-time and wage faculty. The responses of non resident, international faculty are not reported in the results. Out of a total of 3,447 in the orginal sample, 29 respondents requested removal from the survey and 2,086 responded, for a response rate of 61%, and an overall sampling error of ±1.3%. Response rates varied depending upon the follwoing respondent subgroups: (lecturer/instructor, assistant professor (non-tenure track), assistant professor (tenure track), associate professor and professor (non tenure track), associate professor and professor (tenured), and wage faculty. See methodology for response rates and sampling errors by subgroup.

Data
Reports
Questionnaire (full version) Codebook (abridged)
Methodology

Data (Stored in IAS Data Catalog)

Frequencies

Overall (includes demographics)

By Working Group

By School and Department

School of Architecture
College of Arts and Sciences
McIntire School of Commerce
School of Continuing and Professional Studies
Curry School of Education
School of Engineering and Applied Science
School of Nursing
Darden Graduate School of Business
School of Law
School of Medicine

Summary Tables

Text Comments

Reports

Faculty senate final report

Methodology

The survey population was all 3,447 general and academic faculty in the University's academic division in Charlottesville.

On March 29, 2007, the population of 3,447 was sent personalized letters or emails, signed by the chair of the Faculty Senate, Ken Schwartz and Jennifer Harvey, the chair of the Recruitment, Retention and Welfare Committee of the Faculty Senate. An experiment was conducted to determine if an introductory paper letter improves the response rate. One half the sample got paper invitations and the other half received an email invitation. Both groups were treated identically after the initial invitation, receiving reminders via email. The invitation letter informed faculty of the importance and general purposes of the survey, assured them of confidentiality, and invited them to participate. The survey was conducted over the web but a paper version was distributed to faculty who requested one. Respondents were tracked via an alphanumeric randomized respondent key. Four email reminders were sent to nonrespondents on April 6 and 13 and May 9 and 21. Results indicated that those who received an initial paper invitation were significantly more likely to have responded to the survey than those who received an email invitation (51.5% versus 48.5%, respectively, p<.05). No financial incentives were offered for participation.

When the field period ended on June 1, 2007, a total of 2,086 faculty had responded to this survey for a response rate of 61%. At a 95% confidence level, the overall sampling error for the survey was ± 1.3%. Sampling error is higher for subgroup breakdowns of the data. Below is a table of response rates and sampling error for the key subgroup breakdowns by school and rank. Sampling errors could be higher if a significant number of respondents did not answer a particular question.