Compared to just three years ago, a significantly greater number of today's college teachers consider civic engagement and appreciation of racial and ethnic diversity important educational goals for undergraduates, according to a UCLA report on teaching faculty at the nation's colleges and universities.

 

The majority of college faculty (55.5 percent) nationwide now consider it "very important" or "essential" to "instill in students a commitment to community service," an increase of 19.1 percentage points since the survey was last conducted in 2004–05, and 75.2 percent indicate that they work to "enhance students' knowledge of and appreciation for other racial/ethnic groups," a gain of 17.6 percentage points over three years.

 

The report, "The American College Teacher: National Norms for the 2007–08 HERI Faculty Survey," is issued by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) at the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA, which puts out the national faculty report triennially.

 

"Civic engagement and diversity are among the core values that many institutions articulate in their mission," said Sylvia Hurtado, a co-author of the report and director of HERI. "It is important that faculty now view this as essential in their work because they are charged with preparing students to live in today's diverse world. Students represent our best hope for social progress."

 

Helping students develop critical-thinking skills and discipline-specific knowledge remain at the forefront of faculty goals for undergraduate education, with 99.6 percent of faculty indicating that critical-thinking skills are "very important" or "essential" and 95.1 percent saying the same of discipline-specific knowledge. Other top goals include helping students to evaluate the quality and reliability of information (97.2 percent) and promoting the ability to write effectively (96.4 percent). In addition, 72.8 percent of faculty indicate that instilling in students an appreciation for the liberal arts is an important goal.

 

Increases were also evident in faculty support of students' personal and psychosocial development as important goals for undergraduate education, including efforts to "help students develop personal values" (66.1 percent, an increase of 15.3 percentage points over 2004–05), "enhance students' self-understanding" (71.8 percent, a 13.4 percentage-point increase), "develop moral character" (70.2 percent, a 13.1 percentage-point increase) and "provide for students' emotional development" (48.1 percent, a 12.9 percentage-point increase).

 

The report, which covers activities and beliefs about undergraduate education and faculty work-life, also reveals that nearly all faculty members (97.7 percent) rate their role as teacher as personally "very important" or "essential" to them and that faculty spend significantly more time preparing for their teaching responsibilities and teaching than they do on research or committee work. In addition, women, on average, spend more time preparing for their teaching responsibilities and teaching than men.

 

In the area of "habits of mind" that are important to student learning and success, a notably higher percentage of female than male faculty report that they frequently encourage undergraduates to "revise their papers to improve their writing" (68.9 percent vs. 52.3 percent), "seek feedback on their academic work" (82.5 percent vs. 66.9 percent) and "evaluate the quality or reliability of information they receive" (80.2 percent vs. 69.0 percent).

 

Student-centered or inquiry-based evaluation methods in teaching showed gains. Although today's faculty are just as likely as those in 2004–05 to use multiple-choice exams (33.1 and 32.3 percent, respectively), they are 8.6 percentage points more likely to use short-answer questions (45.5 percent vs. 36.9 percent) and 9.6 percentage points more likely to use term/research papers (44.3 percent vs. 34.7 percent) to assess learning. The use of bell curves in grading coursework has diminished somewhat from three years ago to 16.8 percent overall and just 13.9 percent among assistant professors.

 

Assistant professors are also more likely than associate and full professors to employ student-centered teaching methods and less likely to use extensive lecturing: Assistant professors are 16.7 percentage points more likely than full professors to report using cooperative learning (66.3 percent vs. 49.6 percent), and full professors are 8.5 percentage points more likely than assistant professors to report using extensive lecturing (51.8 percent vs. 43.3 percent).

 

"The increased trend evident in faculty using student-centered teaching and evaluation methods is very positive," said Linda DeAngelo, assistant director for research at CIRP and a report co-author. "By using these methods, faculty are putting the emphasis in their classrooms on what they want students to learn rather than the material that faculty want to teach. This is not only making college classrooms more interactive, collaborative and engaging, it is also improving student learning and degree attainment."

 

The study also reveals that although a strong 74.8 percent majority of faculty are satisfied with their careers, more men report overall job satisfaction than women. The largest discrepancy in career satisfaction is in the area of opportunity for scholarly pursuits, where 58.4 percent of men and 47.4 percent of women express satisfaction. Male faculty are also much more likely than female faculty to be satisfied with their job security (80.8 percent vs. 72.8 percent) and their prospects for career advancement (57.7 percent vs. 49.9 percent).

 

Differences in career satisfaction by gender are especially apparent at the rank of full professor. At this rank, women are considerably less satisfied than men on many of the career satisfaction measures. In the area of opportunity for scholarly pursuits, 50.6 percent of female full professors report satisfaction, compared with 66.0 percent of men. Female full professors are also less likely to be satisfied than their male counterparts with their teaching loads (53.2 percent vs. 66.2 percent) and their prospects for career advancement (58.1 percent vs. 66.9 percent).

 

HERI faculty affiliate and report co-author José Luis Santos said: "These disparities in satisfaction by gender and by rank are important because if senior women become dissatisfied to the point where they would leave, it diminishes the very real investment a college or university has made to bring that scholar to tenure and full rank."

 

Further, only 46.2 percent of faculty are satisfied with their salaries, with men more satisfied than women (48.9 percent vs. 41.9 percent). Faculty are considerably more satisfied with the compensation areas of health benefits (63.3 percent) and retirement benefits (68.7 percent), and in these areas there is much more parity in terms of satisfaction between men and women.

 

Generally, the percentage of faculty who report that they have considered leaving their current institution for another institution decreases as satisfaction with salary increases. However, among full professors who indicate they are "very satisfied" with their salaries, women at public institutions (47.2 percent) are more likely to have considered leaving their current institution for another in the last two years than men at public institutions (20.1 percent), men at private institutions (21.0 percent) and women at private institutions (21.5 percent). The same pattern is evident at the associate professor level, with a greater percentage of women at public institutions (48.8 percent) having considered leaving, compared with men at public institutions (33.8 percent), men at private institutions (30.3 percent) and women at private institutions (26.9 percent).

 

"Public universities have been concerned with retaining senior women faculty, and rightly so," Hurtado said. "Among the top predictors in senior women's consideration about leaving are dissatisfaction with relations with campus administration or other faculty and other budget-related factors like clerical/administrative support, health benefits, course assignments and teaching load. Campuses need to think about how to improve the overall climate for retaining women at the highest ranks at the same time that they face enormous budget pressures."

 

A formidable 73.2 percent majority of faculty state that their institution should hire more faculty of color, and 57.1 percent think their institution needs to hire more female faculty. Yet differences are apparent along gender lines: 79.4 percent of female faculty indicate that their institution needs to hire more faculty of color, compared with 69.2 percent of male faculty, and 63.1 percent of female faculty think their institution needs to hire more female faculty, compared with 53.2 percent of male faculty.

 

Only 34.2 percent of faculty overall believe they have established a healthy balance in their lives personally and professionally, with female faculty appearing to have greater difficulty than male faculty in striking a balance (27.3 percent vs. 38.7 percent). Despite the struggle to balance work and home life, faculty express strong interests in personal goals outside of academia. Most notably, a large percentage of faculty regard as "very important" or "essential" developing a meaningful philosophy of life (72.5 percent), raising a family (69.2 percent), helping others who are in difficulty (65.2 percent) and integrating spirituality into their lives (47.5 percent).

 

The results reported are based on the responses of 22,562 full-time college and university faculty members at 372 four-year colleges and universities nationwide. The responses are weighted to provide a normative profile of the American faculty population.

 

To view a summary or order a copy of the monograph "The American College Teacher: National Norms for the 2007–08 HERI Faculty Survey" (L. DeAngelo, S. Hurtado, J.H. Pryor, K.R. Kelly, J.L. Santos and W.S. Korn), visit www.heri.ucla.edu.

 

The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA is widely regarded as one of the premier research and policy organizations on postsecondary education in the country. Housed in the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, the institute serves as an interdisciplinary center for research, evaluation, information, policy studies and research training in postsecondary education.