Research & Evaluation
A central goal of the ADVANCE program is to be a resource to University administration and provide information that can guide institutional decision-making, particularly on issues that concern faculty. Our efforts include collecting and monitoring institutional data, conducting research studies to inform institutional policy and practice and regularly assessing the climate in individual units and campus-wide. Jump to:
Climate Studies
ADVANCE Faculty Climate Survey
Closing March 6th
Due to the weather and widespread power-outages, we are extending the survey response period to Monday, March 6 at noon. Explore this FAQ webpage for more information about the survey.
For Faculty
Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Faculty at the University of Michigan: 2002, 2006, 2012, & 2017. During the fall of 2001 the ADVANCE Program administered the first University of Michigan Survey of Academic Climate and Activities. In fall 2006, a second survey was conducted to assess changes in the campus work environment for scientists and engineers at the completion of the five-year NSF supported period of U-M’s ADVANCE Program. In the fall of 2012, a third survey was conducted; reports from our fourth and most recent survey in fall 2017 are available now.
The U-M ADVANCE Program aims to improve our campus environment for faculty in four general areas: recruitment, retention, leadership, and climate. The ADVANCE Program assesses the campus climate through a series of campus-wide faculty surveys (reports from those surveys can be found below) as well as individualized assessments of schools and departments.
Faculty reports:
2017 Campus-Wide All Faculty Climate reports
- Report one: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2012 and 2017: Gender, Race, and Discipline in Department- and University-Related Climate Factors – Executive Summary, Full Report, Data Tables, and Survey Instrument
2012 Campus-Wide All Faculty Climate reports
- Report one: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Science and Engineering Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2001, 2006, and 2012: Gender and Race in Department- and University-Related Climate Factors – Executive Summary, Full Report, Data Tables, and Survey Instrument
- Report two: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2006 and 2012: Gender, Race, and Discipline in Department- and University-Related Climate Factors – Full Report and Data Tables
- Report three: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Tenure-Track Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2001, 2006, and 2012: Gender and Race in Retention-Relevant Career Experiences – Full Report
- Report four: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Tenure-Track Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2012: Predictors of Job Satisfaction – Full Report
- Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Clinical-Track and Research-Track Faculty:
- Assessing the Work Environment for Clinical-Track Faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School in 2012: Gender and Race as Factors in School Climate and Career Experiences – Full Report
- Assessing the Work Environment for Research-Track Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2012: Gender and Race as Factors in Climate- and Career-Related Experiences – Full Report
2006 Campus-Wide STEM and Social Sciences Faculty Climate reports
- Report one: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Science and Engineering Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2001 and 2006: Gender and Race in Department- and University-Related Climate Factors – Executive Summary, Full Report, and Data Tables
- Report two: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Science and Engineering and Social Science Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2006: Gender, Race, and Discipline in Department- and University-Related Climate Factors – Executive Summary, Full Report, and Data Tables
- Report three: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Science and Engineering Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2001 and 2006: Gender and Race in Retention-Relevant Career Experiences –Executive Summary, Full Report, and Data Tables
- Report four: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Science and Engineering and Social Science Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2006: Gender, Race, and Discipline in Retention-Relevant Career Experiences – Executive Summary, Full Report, and Data Tables
- Report five: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Science and Engineering and Social Science Faculty at the University of Michigan in 2006: Gender and Race in Faculty Mentoring – Executive Summaryand Full Report
2005 STEM Women Faculty Climate report
- In February 2005 a brief web survey was sent to all instructional track women scientists and engineers on campus to assess their current experiences of the climate and to learn if they perceive any changes in the climate since the ADVANCE baseline survey was completed in the fall 2001. – Full Report
2002 Campus-Wide STEM Faculty Climate reports
- Report one: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Women Scientists and Engineers – Executive Summary, Full Report, Data Tables, and Survey Instrument
- Report two: Assessing the Academic Work Environment for Faculty of Color in Science and Engineering –Executive Summary and Full Report
COVID and Faculty Equity
2021
Faculty Equity & COVID-19: The ongoing impact on faculty careers
In this report, we draw upon the literature and a survey of U-M faculty to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic faculty in three areas: Productivity, evaluations, and career advancement; Faculty mental health and career concerns; and Institutional responses. We end with principles and recommendations for a future with greater equity and inclusion.
2021
The Effect of COVID-19 on U-M Faculty Experiences
This is a follow-up study conducted in March 2021 to gain further understanding of pandemic effects on faculty experiences. Study results provide insight about how COVID-19 disruptions impacted all faculty and resulted in less time for scholarship and more time spent on teaching, mentoring, service, and caregiving at home. Additionally, the report highlights differential impacts and challenges to productivity have been especially felt by assistant professors, women, parents, and scholars in the arts and humanities.
2020
The Effect of COVID-19 on U-M Faculty Life
This report summarizes data from a limited survey of U-M faculty in August 2020. Faculty described the effect of the pandemic on their ability to do work, strategies to mitigate the pandemic, and supports that might help them.
2020
Faculty Equity & COVID-19: The problem, the evidence, and recommendations
This report reviews the literature on how the pandemic may create and exacerbate inequities for faculty. It also offers recommendations for supporting and evaluating faculty.
Reports on Institutional Indicators of Diversity and Salary Equity
Annual Reports
The program also collects and reports annual indicator data about the state of the faculty at U-M. As a result of these efforts the ADVANCE Program has amassed a large amount of demographic and descriptive data on the faculty of the University of Michigan across many years. Given this wealth of information we have initiated a process to more thoroughly consider these data, specifically in terms of ADVANCE’s mission to improve efforts at recruitment, retention, and leadership, to help University policy-makers at the University and individual school levels identify areas of success as well as needs for future and/or continued efforts.
Annual reports:
2021 Indicator Report
Leadership & Recognition
2020 Indicator Report
Faculty Hiring
2019 Indicator Report
Faculty Departure
Salary Equity Studies
In 2001, 2007, and 2012, the University of Michigan Office of the Provost commissioned a group of faculty and academic administrators to conduct an econometric analysis of salaries of tenured and tenure-track faculty at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Findings from these analyses are available on the Provost’s office website.
Research on Policies & Practices at U-M
2023
Time in Rank for Instructional Tenure-Track Associate Professors
This memo looks at the time that associate professors spend in rank before becoming full professors by discipline, gender, and race/ethnicity. Unlike the assistant professor rank, there is not a university policy stating the maximum time that faculty can remain in the associate professor rank. Among the findings summarized in this memo, it was found that faculty who were hired as associate professors spent a longer time in the associate rank, than those who were hired as assistant professors and promoted to associate professors.
2022
Faculty and Staff Experiences in LSA with Disabilities & Accommodations
Faculty and staff shared their experiences with disability and securing accommodations at the university. The onus is on the person with a disability to learn and navigate the university to secure and extend their own accommodation. Suggested improvements included confidential, centralized support, increased awareness of disability challenges, and dismantling the culture of ableism.
2021
BIPOC Faculty Retention: Interviews with Michigan Faculty
At the request of the Provost’s Office ADVANCE and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) held discussion groups with current Black, Indigenous and People Of Color (BIPOC) faculty, department chairs and associate deans to understand the issues and concerns that lead to BIPOC faculty leaving U-M.
2020
Why Do Tenure-Track Faculty Leave U-M?
The ADVANCE Program offers exit interviews to tenure-track faculty who choose to leave the university. This summary report describes the most common reasons why faculty leave.
2020
Faculty Exit Interview Studies
At the request of the Provost’s Office ADVANCE conducts annual (since AY2011) exit interviews as part of an ongoing assessment of issues that may affect tenure-track faculty and contribute to their decisions to leave. Reports are updated every other year.
2020
The Effect of COVID-19 on U-M Faculty Life
This report summarizes U-M data from a limited faculty survey about the effects of the COVID pandemic on their ability to do their work as well as their recommendations for University support to address these current constraints on their work.
2019
Campus Climate and Faculty Diversity at U‐M: Three Critical Factors
This report describes three critical factors linking campus climate and faculty diversity that underscore the importance of recruiting and retaining underrepresented faculty at U-M.
2018
2018 Campus-wide Snapshot: U-M Tenure-Track Faculty Composition
This one-page report provides an overview of tenure-track faculty at U-M by gender, race, and rank during the 2018 academic year.
2018
Tenure Cohort Analysis AY1998-AY2007
This report summarizes the findings of an analysis designed to assess one measure of promotion outcomes by gender and race-ethnicity. We calculate and report on the percentage of assistant professors hired between AY1998 and AY2007 who earned tenure within 10 years of hire.
2018
Study of Named Lectureships
This preliminary study documents the rates at which men and women are invited to deliver high status, named lectures campus-wide.
2015
Faculty Experiences Influence Bias Exclusion Among U-M Tenure-Track Faculty: Relations to Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Job Satisfaction, and Thoughts of Leaving U-M
The analyses in this report utilized measures from the ADVANCE Program’s aggregated climate assessment data. This data set includes tenure-track faculty from U-M departments, schools, and units that took part in ADVANCE climate assessments between 2008 and 2015. These analyses provide another way to assess important climate indicators and their consequences.
2014
Experience of Students’ Disruptive and Disrespectful Behavior
In fall 2014, the ADVANCE Program conducted a faculty survey to assess experiences of students’ disruptive and disrespectful behavior in both undergraduate and graduate level courses in the past year.
2014
Senior Women Faculty Members’ Views on Leadership Opportunities within and outside the College of Engineering (Executive Summary)
In fall 2013, the College of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Committee on Female Faculty asked the ADVANCE Program to examine how senior women Engineering faculty view leadership opportunities within and outside the College.
2011
Thriving on the Medical School Tenure Track at the University of Michigan: A Study of Assistant Professors
The U-M ADVANCE Program conducted a study of junior (assistant professor) tenure track faculty in the Medical School to identify those factors that allowed junior tenure track faculty to thrive and facilitated their success at the Medical School.
2010
Postdoctoral Fellow Child Care Study
This report summarizes responses to a Fall 2009 survey of U-M postdoctoral fellows about their need for, and satisfaction with, child care options on campus and in the larger community.
2009
Report on Tenure Cohort Study
At the request of the ADVANCE Steering Committee, the ADVANCE Program conducted a study to assess outcomes in terms of retention and promotion by gender and race-ethnicity for two cohorts of instructional track faculty hired as assistant professors at U-M during two time periods: 1993-97 and 1998-2002.
2009
Interview Study of STEM Faculty Who Turned Down Offers
The ADVANCE Program conducted an interview study of tenure track faculty who had turned down offers of faculty positions in STEM departments in one college. The purpose of the study was to learn about candidates’ experiences during the hiring and interview process, as well as the factors they considered in their decisions. The report includes a summary of key findings as well as recommendations for strategies that may improve the faculty hiring and interview process.
2009
Report on Focus Groups with Associate Professors in LSA
During April and May of 2009, the ADVANCE Program held three focus groups with a total of 53 Associate Professors in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. The purpose of the focus groups was to hear from Associate Professors about their experiences in the associate rank. This report summarizes consistent themes about the positive and negative aspects of the rank as well as suggestions for improvements.
2007
Departmental Transformation Grants
What have been the effects of ADVANCE at the University of Michigan? To help answer that question, this report focuses on one of the interventions outlined in the original NSF proposal: Departmental Transformation Grants. These grants involved substantial awards (up to $250,000) to departments that made rigorous, specific and ambitious proposals for improving their own internal policies, practices and climates, based on analyses of the current situation and recent past.
2006
Experiencing Michigan: Accounts by Faculty from Underrepresented Minorities
Twenty-six science and engineering faculty drawn from four racial-ethnic groups (African American, Latino, Native American, and Asian/Asian American) were interviewed ADVANCE staff during the summer of 2006. Most of the faculty of color interviewed regard U-M and their departments as offering many positive career opportunities. At the same time, a large proportion of them report serious interest in leaving the U-M, in part because of their experiences both in the University and in the larger community. These include isolation, a sense of being marginal or unvalued, exclusion from decision-making and from networks, and disrespect and lack of deference from students. These difficulties are exacerbated by frequent experiences of heightened visibility and of being viewed as a representative of a group.
2004
Reports from the Gender in Science and Engineering Committee
In April 2003, President Mary Sue Coleman and Provost Paul Courant convened and co-chaired the Gender in Science and Engineering Committee (GSE). Membership is comprised of four deans, three women scientists, and the director of the Life Sciences Institute. The GSE committee charged three subcommittees of senior faculty to “examine and evaluate institutional practices and policies that might differentially impact the progress of U-M women faculty in science and engineering, and to recommend specific goals for improvement and outcome measures to ensure accountability.” They reported to the GSE Committee their findings and detailed recommendations for possible policy changes. During 2004-2005 these recommendations were reviewed and discussed by a variety of offices and committees on campus. Reports on:
Faculty Evaluation and Development | Recruitment, Retention and Leadership | Family Friendly Policies and Faculty Tracks
For Postdoctoral Fellows and Ph.D. Students
Survey of Postdoctoral Fellows at the U-M
In spring 2011, the U-M ADVANCE Program administered a survey to postdoctoral fellows at the University of Michigan. The survey covered a broad range of issues related to the postdoc experience and career plans. The aims of the study were to better understand the postdoctoral experience at the University of Michigan and to allow comparisons with other participating institutions with the goal of improving the work environment for postdocs at the University of Michigan.
Assessing the climate for doctoral students at U-M
In fall 2004, the ADVANCE Program, in collaboration with Rackham Graduate School, surveyed all doctoral students enrolled in Rackham for more than one year. Survey topics included skills, training and learning experiences, advising and mentoring, career planning goals, department climate, and background information.
- Report one: Assessing the Climate for Doctoral Students at the University of Michigan – Executive Summary and Full Report
- Report two: Assessing the Climate for Sexual Minority Doctoral Students at the University of Michigan –Executive Summary and Full Report
