More Faculty Participate in COACHE Survey

In Spring 2019, Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and The City University of New York (CUNY) administered the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey to professors at the college.

This was the second time BMCC administered the survey.

“Job satisfaction changes over time, we hope for the better,” says BMCC Associate Dean of Faculty Jim Berg. “The results for BMCC showed improvement in most categories with much more room for growth. For example, the satisfaction related to the clarity of the tenure and promotion process went up as a result of the work Academic Affairs did following the 2015 survey. But there is still a lot we can do.” ”

The COACHE survey, which originates at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a research-practice partnership and network of peer institutions dedicated to improving outcomes in faculty recruitment, development, and retention.

BMCC’s comparison institutions within New York state, referred to as “peers” in the report, include Bronx Community College, Hostos Community College, Kingsborough Community College, LaGuardia Community College and Nassau Community College (SUNY).

A Report Preview on the COACHE survey presents strengths and concerns the survey revealed, looking at the responses of all faculty as well as aggregating the responses by groups including pre-tenure faculty, associate professors, female faculty and faculty of color.

The survey was completed by 52 percent of eligible faculty at BMCC — up from 48 percent who completed the survey in 2015.

Faculty were asked to gauge their satisfaction with factors such as diversity, support from colleagues and their department, quality of leadership, assistance for grant proposals and others.The Top 4 Best aspects of working at BMCC that emerged in the survey included quality of colleagues, quality of undergraduate students, diversity and geographic locations. The Top 4 Worst aspects were compensation, lack of support of research/creative work, too much service/too many assignments and teaching load.

Ultimately, the COACHE survey will be used to inform the BMCC Designing for Success Phase II: Taking What Works to Scale process, and its priority of improving student success.A Steering Committee designed questions specific to BMCC. The results of those questions are also being analyzed. One area of widespread agreement was to the statement, “All students can learn under the right conditions.” This is one of the Guiding Principals of the Designing for Success strategic planning initiative.

Over 85 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with this statement.

“This reflects a strongly held shared value at BMCC, that we collectively believe in the potential and promise of all our students,” said Interim President Karrin E. Wilks.

“We are looking for ways to make sure information from the COACHE survey makes its way into the strategic planning process,” says Berg. “I will be asking the study groups to present some recommendations to the Designing for Success Steering Committee at a meeting in the Spring 2020 semester.”

For more information, visit the BMCC COACHE website.