The Collaborative On Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) is a research-practice partnership within the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It’s a network of peer institutions dedicated to improving outcomes in faculty recruitment, development, and retention.

More than 300 colleges, universities, and other institutions have used COACHE data to help identify the drivers of faculty success and implement informed changes.

In February 2024, the COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey will be administered at Carleton. The survey captures faculty sentiment regarding teaching, service and research, tenure and promotion, departmental engagement and collegiality, and other aspects of the academic workplace.

The survey results will be shared publicly and used to inform meaningful improvements in areas identified by participating faculty.

COACHE Survey

See the survey questions on a sample COACHE Instrumentation Summary


Frequently Asked Questions

I didn’t receive the survey — why not?

COACHE guidelines on implementation indicate that visiting faculty, as well as tenure-track and FOCA faculty who are in the first year of their appointment at Carleton, will not receive the survey. However, we will have a variety of post-survey sessions that will include those who do not receive the survey, so that we can share survey results and get feedback on the results. 

What is required to participate?

Carleton’s office of Institutional Research will provide the Provost’s Office with an Excel or SPSS file containing information on the faculty and who are eligible to participate in the survey.

The data we provide to COACHE are not merely names and email addresses, but an array of variables that will allow for robust analysis. All information will be transferred using COACHE’s secure file-sharing portal that meets the standards of protection for “Level 3 High-Risk Confidential Information,” as directed by Harvard University’s Committee on the Use of Human Subjects.

Faculty who are eligible to participate will receive an email from COACHE with a link to the survey, and occasional updates from COACHE about the survey.

How long does the survey take to complete?

For most participants, the survey takes approximately 25–30 minutes to complete.

Do I need to complete the survey in one sitting?

No: you may suspend the survey and resume where you left off. To resume the survey, log back in using the link you received from COACHE. On the welcome page, you will be offered a link that allows you to resume the survey, or you may choose to restart the survey if you’d like.

When do I see the results?

The survey will close in early April, and the report will be sent to Carleton during the summer. We anticipate sharing the results at a faculty meeting and at subsequent issue-based forums in fall term of 2024.

I am worried about anonymity. Can my identity be determined in any way?

Confidentiality and anonymity are assured in all COACHE analyses and reports. Your name and email addresses are retained solely for the sake of COACHE research, including reminding respondents to begin or to complete their survey and for limited and IRB-approved follow-up studies. When we submit the survey report to your institution, only the aggregate data is shown in the report. No identifiers are matched to reported responses, and no disaggregated data will be presented for any subgroup with fewer than five respondents. 

For some institutions, administrators have requested unit-record data in addition to the COACHE survey report. If your institution has done so, that choice is disclosed on the first web page that you see upon clicking the unique link emailed to you. The unit-record data (without your name or email address) will be sent to a representative in your institution, who signed a statement of confidentiality legally guaranteeing that the unit-record data received by him/her will not be individually shared with any individuals who are in a position to make or influence personnel decisions about individual subjects, and that only aggregate data, with no cells smaller than five respondents, will be shared with broader audiences at their institution. 

If you wish to receive further information about the representative assuming responsibility for the data at your institution, send an email message to COACHE, whose staff will give you the name of your institution’s responsible official.

What will Carleton do with the results of the survey?

In collaboration with faculty committees, the Office of the Provost hopes to use the survey results to guide our agenda for the next two to three years. We will do that in consultation with the faculty and in collaboration with the relevant faculty committees.