Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    An AI-Driven Work Force
    AI and Microcredentials
Sign In
News

How Colleges Can Use Big Data to Encourage Better Management

By Richard K. Boyer July 17, 2017

As we reach our 10-year anniversary, my colleagues and I have been reflecting on the growth and impact of the Great Colleges to Work For survey. We’ve been encouraged to see that impact extend beyond just the participating colleges. We’ve seen and heard from countless institutions that have become more intentional about their daily faculty/staff experiences and the health of their institutional cultures.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

As we reach our 10-year anniversary, my colleagues and I have been reflecting on the growth and impact of the Great Colleges to Work For survey. We’ve been encouraged to see that impact extend beyond just the participating colleges. We’ve seen and heard from countless institutions that have become more intentional about their daily faculty/staff experiences and the health of their institutional cultures.

We’re also seeing increasing sophistication in how leaders are using faculty/staff engagement data. Having a highly visible metric of your organization’s faculty/staff satisfaction and institutional competency is worthwhile in and of itself, of course, and the employee-engagement data generated from these surveys has been put to use by institutions in a variety of internal processes, from strategic planning and accreditation efforts to risk management. We’re very much in the age of “Big Data” now, and the potential applications and benefits of these data are only just beginning to be realized.

6341 Academic Workplace 2017 - LOGO
Great Colleges to Work For 2017
This special report explores how academics are breaking down some of the barriers that prevent them from building stronger ties with one another and with their local communities. Copies of the full report are also available for purchase.
  • Buildings That Foster Collaboration
  • Where Is Academe’s Collegial Buzz? The Locus Has Shifted
  • Now You’re in Charge. Right?
  • You Can Take a Bold Sabbatical
  • Grad School Is Hard on Mental Health. Here’s an Antidote.
  • Breaking Down Barriers Across Disciplines
  • How Community Service Can Help Your Career

This anniversary provides us with an opportunity to look over data from the past decade to see exactly how the top survey performers set themselves apart from their peers. Of particular interest are a few trends that echo some of our earlier insights but which perhaps take on greater significance as we see the continuation over time: the professionalization of management, the focus on performance management, and the commitment to organizational alignment.

Professionalization of Management. The traditional practice of faculty members’ taking a few years away from their primary duties to serve in the administrative ranks is increasingly rare. This evolution is driven largely by economic reality and operational efficiency, but it can also create a climate in which faculty members feel they have little to no input on policy (a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the “corporatization of higher education,” used by Henry Giroux in a Harvard Educational Review paper that also aptly laid out a cautionary vision of such policies taken to excess).

When we started this research, it was somewhat rare to see specific and intentional management and/or leadership programs for those in academic-leadership roles. Today supervisory/training programs for department chairs are indeed much more commonplace and largely considered a best practice. Of this year’s Honor Roll institutions, 74 percent report having such programs.

We see the payoff not just in anecdotal commentary from faculty and administrators but also reflected in the continuing improvement in the supervisor/department-chair survey dimension. When we look at Statement 7 (“I receive feedback from my supervisor/department chair that helps me”) and, in particular, when we compare the 2017 Honor Roll institutions with their 2010 counterparts (Note: The year 2010 was the first Honor Roll designation; see “How the Survey Was Conducted,” for a description of the Honor Roll awards) we see notable improvement across both four-year and two-year Honor Roll categories. In the four-year, large-college category, the positive response improved from 71 percent to 77 percent.

Increasing Cultures of Accountability. The improvement on Statement 7 also mirrored the improvement we see on Statement 18, “Issues of low performance are addressed in my department.” Historically one of the most challenging statements on the survey, this statement also shows consistent improvement across all Honor Roll category averages. In the four-year, small-college category alone, the Honor Roll average improved by eight percentage points.

It probably should come as no surprise that when we better prepare those in supervisory/managerial roles to be effective leaders, we see a greater sense of accountability as it relates to the ability to address performance issues.

Whether wary of compromising academic freedom or simply harming the camaraderie that exists within many departments, many institutions have been reluctant to embrace the tools and processes that ensure true accountability. While institutions may espouse values of community, civility, and integrity in their formal mission, vision, and values, many find themselves challenged when it comes to addressing issues of bullying and poor performance.

Identifying issues and conflicts early on, before they become full-blown problems, can spare an organization the loss of countless worker-hours and dollars should those problems reach the point of litigation or negative stories in the news media. P.T. Barnum’s contention that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” doesn’t apply to every professional arena, and higher education is definitely one of those exceptions.

Organizational Alignment. Regression analysis conducted on Statement 60, “All things considered, this is a great place to work” consistently points to Statement 58, “There’s a sense that we’re all on the same team” as highly predictive.

ADVERTISEMENT

Statement 58 is one of four survey items that load on the Collaboration factor/dimension. Another statement on that survey dimension is Statement 26, “I can count on people to cooperate across departments.” And in the cases of both Statements 58 and 26, we continue to see improvement over time across the Honor Roll institutions.

And at four-year institutions, where achieving a sense of “one university” is arguably the most difficult because of the challenges of size and complexity, we see the greatest improvement. Honor Roll institutions improved from 66 percent to 74 percent positive on Statement 58, and from 65 percent to 71 percent positive on Statement 26.

If we want to create the kinds of environments on our campuses in which we are consistently tapping into the creativity and innovative thinking of our faculty and staff members, we are well served by providing professional management/leadership training to those in supervisory roles, tying accountability to integrity and ethical conduct, trying to build community and alignment across traditionally siloed structures, and bridging strained relations among boards, administrations, and faculty and staff members.

There’s simply no going back to the days when strict hierarchies, traditional top-down leadership, and “this is the way we’ve always done it” thinking were the norms. If an institution wants to remain competitive in the competition for talent and be successful in its efforts to transform and innovate to ensure future success, now more than ever we must continue to break down barriers and build bridges to the futures we want.

Richard K. Boyer is a founding partner of ModernThink LLC, a management-consulting firm specializing in organization culture, workplace quality, and employee engagement.

A version of this article appeared in the July 21, 2017, issue.
Read other items in Great Colleges to Work For 2017.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Photo illustration showing Santa Ono seated, places small in the corner of a dark space
'Unrelentingly Sad'
Santa Ono Wanted a Presidency. He Became a Pariah.
Illustration of a rushing crowd carrying HSI letters
Seeking precedent
Funding for Hispanic-Serving Institutions Is Discriminatory and Unconstitutional, Lawsuit Argues
Photo-based illustration of scissors cutting through paper that is a photo of an idyllic liberal arts college campus on one side and money on the other
Finance
Small Colleges Are Banding Together Against a Higher Endowment Tax. This Is Why.
Pano Kanelos, founding president of the U. of Austin.
Q&A
One Year In, What Has ‘the Anti-Harvard’ University Accomplished?

From The Review

Photo- and type-based illustration depicting the acronym AAUP with the second A as the arrow of a compass and facing not north but southeast.
The Review | Essay
The Unraveling of the AAUP
By Matthew W. Finkin
Photo-based illustration of the Capitol building dome propped on a stick attached to a string, like a trap.
The Review | Opinion
Colleges Can’t Trust the Federal Government. What Now?
By Brian Rosenberg
Illustration of an unequal sign in black on a white background
The Review | Essay
What Is Replacing DEI? Racism.
By Richard Amesbury

Upcoming Events

Plain_Acuity_DurableSkills_VF.png
Why Employers Value ‘Durable’ Skills
Warwick_Leadership_Javi.png
University Transformation: a Global Leadership Perspective
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin