The School of Education & Human Development used qualitative data to improve faculty engagement, satisfaction, and retention rates.
The School of Education & Human Development used qualitative data to improve faculty engagement, satisfaction, and retention rates.
Recently, the school underwent several transitions, including a name change and a transfer of some programs as part of a university-wide restructuring plan. Michael A. de Miranda, PhD, led the school as interim dean for a year before being named permanent dean in 2022.
SEHD’s leadership team wanted to gauge faculty members’ working experiences and social-emotional needs, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and considering recent organizational leadership changes. They knew that this type of reflective feedback would be easier to acquire with the help of an external research partner.
“As a dean, you really need reflective feedback from faculty on their needs, their resources, and their social connectedness. We needed to find out what we could do to improve, and Hanover’s report helped us drill down to changes we could implement that would help faculty feel more included and supported.”
— Michael de Miranda, PhD, Dean
Within SEHD, the faculty’s sense of identity and belonging had become strained not only from the school’s transitions, but also by the isolation and stress of the pandemic. Having up-to-date benchmarks and indicators would help leadership better understand the diverse experiences of early-career faculty and determine their factors for success.
To capture this information, Dr. de Miranda and his team worked with Hanover Research to develop a needs assessment that included in-depth interviews with faculty to explore their lived experiences. The project included three primary objectives:
“It’s very expensive to recruit faculty. You’re throwing resources away if you don’t have the structures in place to properly retain them. Retaining faculty means nurturing their development, their engagement, and their work-life balance. We needed to find out what we could do better to support our faculty, and that’s what Hanover’s report provided.”
— Michael de Miranda, PhD, Dean
Hanover Research conducted 14 in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of early-career faculty members, in both the tenure-track and academic professional track. This qualitative approach provided key insights that SEHD leadership could use immediately to make evidence-based decisions regarding faculty engagement.
Participants generally agreed that SEHD supports its faculty, but instability within the school and the university’s pandemic response presented some challenges to their success.
As a result of the in-depth interviews, Hanover’s team made four key recommendations to SEHD:
The insights drawn from the interviews allowed Dr. de Miranda and his team to gain a richer understanding of the faculty’s lived experiences and professional needs, particularly tied to their sense of belonging. This helped them narrow down the top success factors they could focus on to improve faculty engagement, retention, promotion, and satisfaction.
Some of the changes implemented at SEHD included:
SEHD faculty now have a 94% tenure and promotion success rate, the highest ever recorded. While Dr. de Miranda is pleased with the progress, he also acknowledges that the work is never done. He and his team continue to partner with Hanover Research on other initiatives related to student success, academic program development, and professional development.
“Our work with Hanover greatly helped during a time of transition. The research results gave us some stability and helped ‘lower the temperature’ with faculty because we had data to better understand their different lived experiences and knew how to adapt our approach to faculty engagement as a result.”
— Michael de Miranda, PhD, Dean
The number of undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Education and Human Development
The number of faculty members, across four academic departments
The number of staff members
The percentage of faculty who achieved tenure and promotion success in 2023
Texas A&M University’s School of Education and Human Development
Public, 4-Year
College Station, Texas
Assess the faculty experience to improve engagement and retention
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