Administrative Hierarchy and Faculty Work: Examining Faculty Satisfaction with Academic Leadership.

Academic administrators at all levels have some impact on the performance of faculty members, yet each level of administration may interact differently with faculty. Literature has strongly supported the notion that department chairs, deans, and provosts can positively influence the performance and livelihood of faculty members. This study was designed to explore faculty satisfaction with each level of academic administration making use of the 2014 survey data collected by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. We found that faculty members at research universities were more satisfied with leadership at the departmental than college or institutional levels. Furthermore, assistant professors were significantly more satisfied with academic leadership at all levels than both associate and full professors. Michael T. Miller, Ketevan Mamiseishvili, & Donghun Lee Administrative Hierarchy and Faculty Work: Examining Faculty Satisfaction with Academic Leadership 2 Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education 3 Spring 2016 (Volume 12 Issue 1) be creative and find self-motivation to be high performing (Kaufman, 2009). Among the varied activities administrators can create to support faculty in their teaching and research roles are providing money to attend conferences and workshops on teaching strategies, resources to meet with grant funding agents, release time from teaching to write grants, and at some institutions, sabbatical leave programs to allow a dedicated time for research. Increasingly administrators are the individuals who structure the work of faculty members, determine workload and effort, and ultimately, evaluate those efforts and reward them with increased pay, rank promotions, and recognition. Faculty productivity is strongly correlated with workplace satisfaction and the culture created and maintained by academic administration, especially at the departmental level (Czech & Forward, 2010; Fitzmaurice, 2013; Monteiro et al., 2013). The result of greater workplace satisfaction can be documented in higher retention rates of faculty, higher levels of academic output, increased teaching effectiveness, the recruitment of better faculty and students, and prestige indicators such as program rankings. But despite the obvious benefits of high faculty satisfaction and morale, many institutions fail to “treat faculty as a resource to be retained and developed” (Sanfey, Savas, & Hollands, 2006, p. 370). The current study was subsequently designed to explore faculty satisfaction with academic leadership at the departmental, college, and institutional levels. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The roles and functions of academic administrators have changed significantly over the past three decades. Academic deans, for example, were once primarily tacticians who planned curriculum, scheduled classes, and evaluated faculty members (Vacik, 1997). Today these individuals are the public faces of their academic colleges and are required to engage in active fund raising and public relations. They are responsible for establishing the priorities of an academic unit along with setting a vision and goals for the unit. These might include a heightened research profile or graduate degree presence, a greater emphasis on diversity, more value on outreach and partnering with nonacademic entities (Wolverton, Gmelch, & Montez, 2001). Additionally, their energy is increasingly being devoted to the management of the growing business operations of academic units such as web-presence, computing and information systems, service unites, and facility maintenance. The same evolution has been seen in the provost, and to some extent, increasingly in the department chair position (Gmelch, 2011; Hammond, 2004; Sibley, 1998). Similar to the decanal position, the provost position has changed at some institutions and remained consistent at others, often depending on the role and mission of the institution. Increasingly the position is seen as the individual next to the president or chancellor with overall responsibility for the institution. In some instances the provost position has the responsibility for all internal operations, including budgeting and facilities, allowing the president to focus on more external operations, such as board relations, political relationships, and fund raising. The provost’s office is also responsible for regional accreditation and has broad responsibility for all instructional matters, including the faculty of the institution. As the office with final responsibility for instructional quality, individuals in the office have found creative and innovative strategies for enhancing and encouraging faculty performance. Some of these include offices or centers dedicated to teaching improvement, workshops on research strategies, special pay or financial rewards for academic accomplishments, and both formal and informal recognition ceremonies (Hammond, 2004). The department chair position has also been changing, assuming many of the responsibilities once required of the dean. Chairs combine technical implementation with strategic planning to both build departmental cultures and atmospheres conducive to effective teaching and research, while also managing the technical aspects of classrooms, technology, course delivery methods, and even ordering teaching supplies. This administrative evolution to some extent can be empowering for faculty as they have more independence in some areas of their work, but can also reinforce the idea that faculty members are part of a managed profession (Gmelch, 2011). Ultimately, all three levels of administration have some impact on the environment of faculty members, in addition to their recruitment, retention, and promotion, and therefore, play a critical role in shaping the faculty members’ work climate and environment. Thus the relationship between faculty and administrators is critical to building an environment that supports the mission of higher education. Some research (Rose, 2012) has found a strong relationship between organizational culture and commitment. The better an employee feels about the employer, the greater the productivity, workplace loyalty, and retention. This idea is grounded in social exchange theory where positive behaviors are demonstrated toward an employer based on the feelings of the employee (Deluga, 1994). This social exchange has been noted to be particularly well suited for higher education, as these human resource-rich environments function based not just on formal job descriptions, but on individual discretion to implement job duties (Birnbaum, 1989). Implementing directives is particularly difficult in a higher education setting where faculty experience significant amount of freedom in completing their assigned academic tasks. In such settings, fostering positive and mutually respectful relationships between faculty and academic administration becomes essential.