Throughout the University, academic and support units are addressing the findings of the 2004 Faculty/Staff Survey. All University units, including the College of Medicine and the Dickinson Law School, participated in the survey, which drew a response rate of 51 percent, or more than 7,800 responses. This is the first of occasional articles, prepared by the Office of Human Resources, describing unit responses to the survey and how the survey results are being used to clarify issues and identify opportunities for improvements.

When administrators at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College began to rewrite the College's diversity plan, they turned to the 2004 Faculty/Staff Survey for assistance.

"There were some concerns expressed in the survey results that we were able to address in developing the College's new five-year diversity plan," said David Christiansen, associate dean for undergraduate studies and academic administration.

"Working with the Chancellor's Committee on Diversity, we looked at the detailed data from the Faculty/Staff Survey and identified where we were doing well in addition to areas of concerns. Analyzing the data and identifying strengths and weaknesses was very important in helping us to formulate our new diversity plan, which was finalized in January. The plan would be much weaker without that data."

Although 71 percent of Behrend respondents felt that their workplace environment was welcoming to members of underrepresented groups and only 11 percent disagreed, the College decided that it could improve on these numbers. As a result, the Chancellor's Committee on Diversity developed several initiatives to develop a more welcoming and nurturing work environment. They included:

Development of a definition of diversity that would act as a guiding principle on campus. The definition says, in part: "The College is committed to the principle of equitable treatment of all individuals. At Behrend we are dedicated to providing an inclusive campus environment reflective of contemporary society. . .The College also affirms its belief that diversity has a critical role in a liberal education. . .The breadth of opinions and experiences that the members of our academic community share results in a richer education for all."

"As a first step," Christiansen said, "we distributed the definition to Behrend faculty members and included it in the Teaching Handbook for New Faculty. It also is an important element of new faculty orientation. Later in the Fall Semester, we will distribute the definition to campus staff members."
Creation of a campus climate survey to identify campus needs, problem areas, and appropriate professional development topics. The survey will be given to a sampling of students, faculty, and staff every two to three years.
Development of a campus web site that highlights the College's definition of diversity, provides resource information, promotes diversity-related events, and celebrates the personal identities of all members of the College community.

Besides development of the diversity plan, Behrend administrators used data from the survey to address issues identified by various college constituencies and, at the same time, to reinforce positive areas.

After the Faculty/Staff Survey data became available, John D. Burke, Behrend chancellor, asked Christiansen to analyze the data and identify potential problem areas. Christiansen said he specifically looked at areas or categories where Behrend stood out in some way. Once identified, he then compared the College with similar units throughout the University.

"Basically, we identified categories or groups where we were out of the norm. We wanted to keep those areas in mind as we developed our strategic plan."

One potential problem area was that of women faculty and staff who felt they had earned more recognition than they were receiving. Women and non-supervisory staff also expressed a concern about lack of merit pay raises.

In response to the concerns, a task force will be established in the fall to look at the overall issue of female faculty, staff and students.

Comparison of Behrend's results with those throughout the University, Christiansen said, showed that the College was above the University average in virtually all categories.

"There was a great deal of self-satisfaction in the overall University results," he said, "and we were able to spread that news here. It showed that, although we are far away from University Park, our faculty, staff and students are quite happy about being part of Penn State. In a sense, the survey results are an affirmation of what we are trying to do and we felt quite good about that."

According to Christiansen, projects such as the Faculty/Staff Survey have additional benefits in that they give administrators an opportunity to think more strategically and more introspectively.

"By virtue of that," he added, "reaction to the data in this project is worthwhile. As administrators we deal with events on a day-to-day basis and often we have to react to them in a limited time frame. However, the Faculty/Staff Survey provides us an opportunity to analyze and to try to understand the impact of the work we're doing. It allows us to become more pro-active with our efforts to ensure quality and to think strategically about our work and the mission of our offices."

OFFICE OF HUMAN RESOURCES

Unit Responses to the 2004 Faculty/Staff Survey (Penn State Erie)