Success on the Tenure Track: Five Keys to Faculty Job Satisfaction

Satisfaction ratings from tenure-track faculty at 200 institutions across the country reveal best practices and the key elements of workplace success.

Landing a tenure-track position is no easy task. Achieving tenure is even more difficult. Under what policies and practices do faculty find greater clarity about tenure and experience higher levels of job satisfaction? And what makes an institution a great place to work?

In 2005–2006, the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education surveyed more than 15,000 tenure-track faculty at 200 participating institutions to assess their job satisfaction. The survey was designed around five key themes for faculty satisfaction: tenure clarity, work-life balance, support for research, collegiality, and leadership.

Success on the Tenure Track positions the survey data in the context of actual colleges and universities and real faculty and administrators who talk about what works and why. Best practices at the highest-rated institutions in the survey―Auburn, Ohio State, North Carolina State, Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Iowa, Kansas, and North Carolina at Pembroke―give administrators practical, proven advice on how to increase their employee satisfaction. Additional chapters discuss faculty demographics, trends in employment practices, what leaders can do to create and sustain a great workplace for faculty, and what the future might hold for tenure.

An actively engaged faculty is crucial for American higher education to retain its global competitiveness. Cathy Ann Trower’s analysis provides colleges and universities a considerable inside advantage to get on the right track toward a happy, productive workforce.

Cathy Ann Trower is research associate at Harvard University, Graduate School of Education.