How to improve the workplace for faculty

Actual written responses

• More support for faculty effort more consistency in and direct addressing of students' uncivil and/or unprofessional behaviors
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• The institution requires far too much service and does little to consider our individual goals as faculty members. the institution needs to address this by limiting the amount of service it asks of faculty and by deepening an understanding of what we seek to accomplish in our individual professional lives.
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• We constantly feel that we are on the verge of no longer existing which creates anxiety. this is due to our lack of building. this makes all of us feel that we need to be able to find other work/look for other work just in case this all ends abruptly. it's horrible to live your professional life like this.
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• Get a new building that can actually fit our student and faculty body.
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• We need space/building
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• A primary issue is space. there is not enough space for faculty and students to collaborate and work together. with our space limits, our institution can neither grow nor provide opportunities for students to do more than just attend classes (i.e. form student groups and other extracurricular activities).
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• Consistency and clarity in leadership, support for faculty, recognition of past faculty achievements, focus on giving opportunities to non-white males
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• We need a building. we need to see a concerted effort by executive admins to get us a building. we need to see exec admin's efforts on establishing our college's permanence.
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• Make non-tenured full-time positions more equitable in terms of pay and potential for advancement.
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• I would be a more effective mentor and teacher with an office to meet with students privately. i would be a more productive scholar with an office to write and think. i would be a more satisfied employee with a space to call my own. also, there must be transparency in how leadership positions are decided, which is lacking now.
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• Provide faculty more support in managing teaching loads and class sizes in order to facilitate more quality teaching, rather than emphasizing the quantity of students enrolled, graduating or transferring.
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• Faculty, staff, and administrators should commit to recognizing and appreciating one another's efforts rather than devoting so much time and energy to assigning blame.
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• There are too many goals (e.g. equity, inclusion, hsi, crp, glos) where it ends up being paralyzing in terms of making change. i'd rather focus on fewer to allow more action and reflection. there are also too many service and administrative demands with insufficient support that leads to far worse work life balance compared to other [system]s.
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• More transparency around how leadership, and other, decisions are made by administration. it is not clear how institutional decisions are made here, and that can be incredibly frustrating as a faculty member.
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• The president is aver weak leader. his unwillingness to take on the challenges of [university] has potentially disastrous implications for the entire college. we need a new building in order to do our work and make our college grow.
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• More professional development to help teach students with different learning needs. less pressure to teach classes that are always about inequality, race, class, and identity. i feel that students can benefit from (and enjoy learning about things) that are not necessarily related to their own lives. i think they get bored with this constant theme. this also has a negative impact on their ability to succeed at 4-year colleges because they have less experience analyzing issues/topics that are not just about race/class/gender.
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• We need a new building where faculty have own offices; this cannot be emphasized enough
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• Reassess how release time and support is being distributed. it is not distributed equitably. some folks receive too much for work that is frankly unnecessary or poorly executed. others do not receive release time for more complicated tasks.
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• Actual recognition of teaching and service as ranked first and second in tenure decisions. the teaching/service workload is unrelenting, the pace is unhealthy, the teaching difficult and the committee work overbearing. there seems to be little parity in these areas as displayed/modeled by tenured and promoted faculty. this inequitable practice is demoralizing.
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• As i do not know what the institution could do about our lack of space, i think the claim that we are a department of one (including faculty, staff and adminstration) should be supported by the practice. when we blame faculty for changes in the insitution without looking at all the things that have changed and look for solutions together, we destroy any possibility of unity and show how siloed we truly are.
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• I love the students we serve, but i find it highly problematic that students who do not meet the summer bridge requirements are frequently allowed to matriculate anyway. the bridge program is the only way we can gauge college readiness. if students fail to meet the requirements, then they are not ready for college. allowing them to stay sends the message (to them and the other students) that there are no consequences.
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• Better compensation to live in such an expensive area.
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• We need more space, but that is well known and acknowledged. the start/end times are difficult- an 8 am class means i have to wake at 5, and an evening class means i get home at ten. with a small child, this is difficult.
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• Lines of communication could improve, particularly due to the fast pace of the college and the number of projects ongoing.
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• A permanent larger facility with ample space for our students and offices which would show an investment in our growth and permanence of our institution and would allow us to grow our faculty which could help with the unrelenting service requirements on our current small faculty which are leading to burn out.
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• Stop recruiting students that shouldn't be in college.
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