The New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) at the University of Massachusetts Boston has been selected by the CSU-AAUP to conduct an independent, comprehensive study of faculty and professional employee workloads within the Connecticut State University system.

The 16-month study will rely on both institutional data coordinated through the CSU system office and qualitative data gathered through individual interviews with administrators, department chairs, and faculty search committee chairs during Winter 2009 on each of the four campuses. Individual interviews with full- and part-time faculty, coaches, librarians, and counselors and focus groups for faculty will also be conducted on each of the four campuses during the Spring Semester 2009.

This 16-month study will examine several dimensions of the CSU faculty and professional employee role, including:

• full-time and part-time faculty workloads in relation to changes in enrollment over time;
• faculty involvements in pedagogical change, assessment initiatives, and new instructional technologies;
• the types of faculty professional development opportunities that could best facilitate the improvement of teaching and most effectively address student learning needs;
• ways to improve faculty recruitment, retention, and career satisfaction;
• analysis of workload issues for other academic professionals, including librarians, coaches, and counselors; and,
• administrative perspectives on these issues.

The research team is led by Dr. Jay Dee, Associate Professor in the Higher Education Doctoral Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and includes Dr. Glenn Gabbard, Associate Director, and Sharon Singleton, Senior Program and Research Associate, from the New England Resource Center for Higher Education and Nancy M. Ludwig, Director of Institutional Research at Northeastern University. The study’s findings will be available in December 2009.

The New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) is focused on linking policy and practice through programs, activities, and research intended to improve practice, improve the academy, and influence policy both at the institutional level and across higher education. Founded in 1988, NERCHE has a record of national and local research on pressing issues in higher education, including faculty labor market studies, access for underserved students, and remedial education. For more information, go to www.nerche.org.

As the collective bargaining agent, CSU-AAUP negotiates the wages and working conditions for the full and part-time faculty, counselors, librarians, and coaches at Central (New Britain), Eastern (Willimantic), Southern (New Haven), and Western (Danbury) Connecticut State Universities. It is also a professional organization, affiliated with National AAUP, which works to advance academic freedom and shared governance in addition to other issues in higher education. For more information, go to: http://www.ccsu.edu/aaup/csu/.