Faculty Recruitment Retention and Welfare Committee Report

Faculty Recruitment, Retention & Welfare Committee
Jennifer Harvey, Medicine, Chair
Susan McKinnon, Anthropology
Gweneth West, Drama
Peter Beling, Engineering
Pamela Norris, Engineering
Jeffrey Rossman, History
Douglas Bayliss, Medicine
Nick Kuhn, Mathematics
Julie Turner, Medicine
Sheila Crowe, Medicine
Daniel S. Lefkowitz, Asian Middle Eastern Languages

Faculty Senate Survey, Spring 2007
Preliminary Results

Over 50% response rate to date. Survey will close 5/15. Last chance email 5/12.
Please encourage colleagues to respond.

Overall the responses are mostly very positive- >70% agree or strongly agree that UVa is collegial and that their teaching, research, and service are valued. Most existing benefits are viewed positively as are department reputation and department faculty.

Diversity, mentoring, efforts to retain valued faculty, and faculty salaries are areas where there is clear dissatisfaction. In the Charlottesville community, cost of housing and cost of living are important issues to many faculty members. Of possible new benefits, a tuition benefit for dependents appears to hold considerable value among faculty. Areas that are important in improving faculty life are transparency of administrative policies, support for travel to meetings, and additional support for graduate students.

The FRRW committee has met with Susan Carkeek, Chief Human Resources Officer, twice (fall and this week) to discuss current benefits and how benefits can be improved over time. The committee previously met with Bill Harvey and Gertrude Fraser regarding diversity.

Over the summer, subgroups of the committee will be analyzing survey data (benefits, academic community, and faculty enhancement) by school/discipline/some depts., race/ethnicity, gender, and rank. No data will be released to the committee if the N is <5 in order to maintain confidentiality. No subanalyzed data (responses by gender for example) will be provided for depts. Text comments will be reviewed by the committee subgroups. Survey results and comments will be summarized by the subgroups. A final report will be prepared with anticipated completion, September 2007.