[Faculty] Fall 2024 ALVSCE Faculty Survey Report and Recommendations

Mon Nov 25 10:18:40 MST 2024

Jim,

If anything, I believe this may be more positive than the attitudes of the overall faculty. I did not weight the results based on faculty type, but it would be lower if I did. I also did not provide results segmented by broad faculty groups in the report. There are not enough CES responses for that.

Generally, on employee engagement surveys, the first responses are far more negative than the general population. This was not the case in this instance; although there is a weak correlation, wave 1 respondents are slightly more negative than wave 3. All three waves of respondents provided very similar ratings. Based on statistical analysis of survey response timing and faculty descriptive data (not included in the report), this does not appear to be an issue of a non-representative sample.

The verbatims are representative. There were no positive comments. As shown in the report, it is not a case of negative and positive faculty, resulting in a moderate average. Faculty have challenges, and we should all be concerned about the potential for burnout. The stress, uncertainty, and workload are taking a toll.

Finally, the response rate was over 30%. The overall response rate was 39% (122/308), but seven respondents did not answer any questions. 37% (115 /308) provided usable responses. This is the highest response we have received on the three Faculty Council surveys conducted over the past two years. We reached a saturation point with the third invitation and the response was quite low.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Regards,

K.

________________________________
From: Hunt, James E - (jeh) <jeh at arizona.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2024 8:48 AM
To: Kennedy, Kathleen J - (kjkennedy) <kjkennedy at arizona.edu>; faculty at list.cals.arizona.edu <faculty at list.cals.arizona.edu>; Burgess, Shane C - (shaneburgess) <shaneburgess at arizona.edu>; Ratje, Jeffrey M - (jmratje) <jmratje at arizona.edu>; Chorover, Jon - (chorover) <chorover at arizona.edu>; Mclain, Jean - (mclainj) <mclainj at arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Fall 2024 ALVSCE Faculty Survey Report and Recommendations

Kathleen-
Thank you for sending this information. I found the report very interesting. I do have concerns, given that only 30% of the faculty responded. With a report of this nature, the challenge is, often those who have a heavily negative or positive view are most likely to reply, resulting in us missing the respondents with less negative/positive sentiment. Was any effort made to account for this possibility?
Best,
Jim

[The University of Arizona block 'A' logo.]
James E. Hunt, PhD
Interim Associate Dean, Career and Academic Services
Professor of Practice, Human Development and Family Sciences
College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

Forbes
211B
520.626.3631
jeh at arizona.edu
He/Him/His
Land Acknowledgment<https://www.arizona.edu/about#:~:text=Land%20Acknowledgement>
www.arizona.edu<https://www.arizona.edu/>
Facebook |<https://facebook.com/uarizona>  X (formerly twitter) |<https://twitter.com/uarizona>  Instagram |<https://www.instagram.com/uarizona>  LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/school/the-university-of-arizona>
[Integrity, Compassion, Exploration, Adaptation, Inclusion, Determination] <https://www.arizona.edu/purpose-mission-values>

________________________________
From: Kennedy, Kathleen J - (kjkennedy) <kjkennedy at arizona.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2024 2:50 PM
To: faculty at list.cals.arizona.edu <faculty at list.cals.arizona.edu>; Burgess, Shane C - (shaneburgess) <shaneburgess at arizona.edu>; Ratje, Jeffrey M - (jmratje) <jmratje at arizona.edu>; Chorover, Jon - (chorover) <chorover at arizona.edu>; Mclain, Jean - (mclainj) <mclainj at arizona.edu>; Hunt, James E - (jeh) <jeh at arizona.edu>
Subject: Fall 2024 ALVSCE Faculty Survey Report and Recommendations

Attached is the 2024-2025 ALVSCE Faculty Council Faculty Survey Results and Recommendations report.

The ALVSCE Faculty Council expresses sincere gratitude to the 115 faculty members who took the time to participate in this survey during a particularly challenging period at the University of Arizona and for CALES and Cooperative Extension Services. Your thoughtful responses and candid feedback have provided crucial insights that will help guide our advocacy efforts and recommendations for improvement.

As you read this report, please keep in mind that we have no benchmark for the survey results. This survey is a benchmark that can be used in the future to measure the direction of faculty sentiment and our work environment.

The survey questions focused on what is happening within our Division and factors associated with ALVSCE policies and practices rather than the broader UA budget and leadership situation. Because of this focus, the survey did not include questions about confidence in and support of UA leadership. It is likely that responses to questions about ALVSCE leadership and unit heads reflect attitudes related to the larger UA context. Quantifying this relationship is beyond the scope of this survey.

Almost all faculty provided comments and detailed information about their current situation and attitudes about the work environment, workload, and effects of the budget situation. Only representative unidentifiable comments were used in this report. However, all of the comments were included in the analysis and recommendations contained in this report.

The next steps will be for the ALVSCE Faculty Council to consider this and other information in policy and practice recommendations for the Division. To forward this effort, we have formed Faculty Council subcommittees for the following four priority areas:

  1.
Faculty Workload Policy Recommendations
  2.
Annual Performance Reviews and Promotion Equity and Fairness
  3.
Faculty Wellbeing and Work-Life Balance
  4.
ALVSCE Budget and Resource Allocation Policies and Practices

Finally, I received a couple of questions about who can access the full survey dataset. Only two individuals (Robert Lanza and I) can access this data; I believe that neither of us has looked at this file. An anonymized response dataset was used to prepare this report, and no identification data was used in the analysis. In addition to removing identifiable information, titles , and workload percentages were used to create broad classifications and the more detailed information was deleted. The original response dataset will be destroyed on 11/30/24, and only the necessary portions of the anonymized and summarized dataset will be retained in a secure location accessible by the ALVSCE Faculty Council Chair for future use as a benchmark.

If you have any questions or suggestions about this report, please contact me or your Faculty Council representatives or Faculty Senators (also Faculty Council members).

Once again, thank you to all the respondents who took the time to respond to this survey. The high response rate makes this data invaluable and provides us with an excellent idea of the current state of the ALVSCE faculty.

Have a great Thanksgiving!!

Regards,

Kathleen J. Kennedy
Chair, ALVSCE Faculty Council
Associate Professor of Practice
Norton School of Human Ecology

On behalf of the 2024-2025 ALVSCE Faculty Council

Elected representatives of CALES faculty
Tauhidur Rahman, Associate Professor, Agricultural & Resource Economics
Bobby Torres, Professor, Agricultural Education, Tech & Innovation
Kerry Cooper      , Assistant Professor, Animal & Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Dr. Chi Zhou, Assistant Professor, Animal & Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Dr. Armando Barreto Munoz, Assistant Professor of Practice, Biosystems Engineering
Todd Schlenke, Associate Professor, Entomology
Katerina Dontsova, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, Vice Chair
Kathleen J. Kennedy, Associate Professor of Practice, Human Ecology, Chair
Cory Quailes, Associate Professor of Practice, Human Ecology
Rachel Mitchell, Assistant Professor, Natural Resources & Environment
Kevin Bonine, Professor, Natural Resources & Environment
Jennifer Teske, Associate Professor, Nutritional Sciences and Wellness
Maria Plant, Associate Professor of Practice, Nutritional Sciences and Wellness
Ramin Yadegari, Professor. Plant Sciences

Elected representatives of CES Faculty          
Anne LeSenne, Assignment Agent, Horticulture, Pinal County Cooperative Extension
Rosie Stewart, Area Assistant Agent, Santa Cruz & Cochise Counties Cooperative Extension

Faculty Senators representing ALVSCE
Duarte Diaz, Associate Specialist, Animal & Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Melanie Hingle, Professor, Nutritional Sciences and Wellness
Bobby Torres, Professor, Agricultural Education, Tech & Innovation 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/faculty/attachments/20241125/3e51deb1/attachment-0001.htm>