2024 NFA Survey of NSHE Faculty
The Nevada Faculty Alliance has surveyed academic and non-managerial administrative faculty at the seven NSHE colleges and universities about compensation and benefits, shared governance, academic freedom, institutional leadership, recruitment and retention, campus climate, and collective bargaining. The aggregate numerical results and a narrative with highlights are presented here.
The survey was conducted from November 9 to November 30, 2024, via SurveyMonkey with individual email invitations. A total of 6168 invitations were sent to all academic faculty and to administrative faculty ranges A to D; 2488 responded giving a 40% overall response rate. Ninety percent of those who started the survey completed it.
We would like to thank everyone who responded to the survey and provided written comments. Your input is incredibly valuable to us, and we will read and consider all of the comments. As always, we remain committed to working in solidarity with members of our faculty alliance to ensure that our voices are heard and our needs are met.
The detailed aggregate and institutional results are linked below:
2024 Summary Results - All Institutions with Comparisons and Statistics
A similar survey of NSHE faculty was conducted two years ago.
Key highlights from the surveys include the following:
After our two large cost-of-living adjustments of 12% in July 2023 and 11% in October 2024, for which NFA fought strongly, faculty are feeling better about their overall compensation, with 62% saying they moderately or strongly agree that their overall compensation is satisfactory while 37% moderately or strongly disagree. That’s a reversal from two years ago when 64% of respondents reported dissatisfaction with their overall compensation. However, approximately half of the respondents believe their compensation is not appropriate compared with others in their field and stage of career nationally or compared with others hired before or after them at their own institution.
About 59% express moderate or strong satisfaction with health care benefits, an improvement from 49% two years ago. Since then, some PEBP benefits have been partially restored and NSHE has provided Long-Term Disability Insurance for faculty employees (a NFA priority). A strong majority of respondents (83%) are satisfied with retirement benefits. For NFA’s advocacy in the next legislative session, faculty prioritize across-the-board salary increases and lower out-of-pocket costs for health care.
Although majorities of faculty members say their institutional administrations and presidents promote a strong academic environment (64%) and protect academic freedom (54%), shared governance is called into question by faculty. Only 45% overall agree that their administration affirms the principles of shared governance through their decision-making. GBC at 75% and WNC at 68% stand out as positive cases, versus less than half at the other institutions and 38% at UNR. Only 55% of respondents overall (less than half at UNR) agree with the statement “Faculty committees largely determine educational policy, curriculum design, curriculum review, and academic standards”--areas where faculty should have primary authority under basic shared governance principles. Only 53% of respondents overall (less than half at GBC and UNR) agree that the recommendations of faculty committees largely determine the nature of the evaluation or tenure and promotion of individual faculty members. While 60% agree that faculty recommendations are decisive for faculty search outcomes, only 32% agree and 39% disagree that faculty recommendations decisively influence executive-level searches. Notably, only 45% overall believe their presidents or provosts are appropriately selecting capable executive administrators and deans. At UNR, 49% disagree with that statement.
The allocation of resources to departments and programs is another area of concern, with 43% disagreeing vs 39% agreeing that budget allocations reflect appropriate strategic goals and the missions of the institutions.
Faculty respondents generally report having a collegial work environment within their own departments or programs (74% overall), suggesting good working relationships with close colleagues. The work environments on campuses overall are rated positively at a lower rate (64%). There is variability across the seven institutions regarding how the campus climate has changed over the past two years, with majorities saying the climate has improved at CSN, GBC, and WNC and pluralities saying the climate has deteriorated at NSU, UNLV, and UNR. Tellingly, a substantial minority (36% overall) fear that they may face discipline or retaliation for expressing criticism of their department, program, or institution and 15% say they have personally experienced such retaliation.
Forty-two percent of respondents believe that the ability of their department or program to recruit high-quality new faculty has deteriorated over the past two years (versus 28% saying it has improved). The most-cited reason is low salary offers, followed by better competing offers. High housing and living expenses are cited more often at the northwest Nevada institutions (TMCC, UNR, and WNC).
About 44% of the faculty respondents have seriously considered leaving their institution in the past two years, a slight reduction from 50% in the 2022 survey. Low salaries are the most common reason followed by limited advancement opportunities and a lack of sense of belonging, then tension with supervisors or the upper administration and an unwelcoming campus climate. Sixteen percent of those who seriously considered leaving were recruited by or offered a position at another institution.
Asked about the political atmosphere for higher education in Nevada, 50% find it very or somewhat unfavorable versus 39% who find it very or somewhat favorable. Although higher education and academic freedom are under stronger attack in other states such as Texas and Florida, state funding of higher education in Nevada has been deficient and the Board of Regents has been dysfunctional over many years.
Finally, at the four institutions without faculty collective bargaining units (GBC, NSU, UNLV & UNR), a supermajority of 78% of respondents moderately or strongly support the formation of a bargaining unit to negotiate for improved compensation, benefits, and working conditions.
The survey responses will inform our advocacy efforts at the legislature for higher, fully-funded COLAs, for improvement of benefits, and for a bill to secure collective bargaining rights in state law.
This faculty survey is strongly indicative of differences in campus climate and shared governance among the seven institutions, but does not substitute for the need for comprehensive campus climate studies and faculty evaluations of administrators, which should be conducted by external consultants as part of the periodic presidential reviews by the Regents. Such studies could delve into the specific groups of faculty who feel the campus climate is unwelcoming or uncomfortable and why.
This survey includes several questions similar or identical to questions in the faculty surveys for the 2023-24 presidential evaluations of Presidents Sandoval and Whitfield. These questions are noted in the survey summary report. The response rates for the NFA survey at UNLV (43%, 974 responses) and UNR (38%, 850 responses) significantly exceeded the response rates for the presidential evaluation surveys for President Whitfield (16%, 491) and President Sandoval (19%, 456). The public evaluation committee reports quoted survey responses for only a few of the questions in the presidential evaluation surveys (five of 37 questions for Sandoval and nine of 40 questions for Whitfield).
Questions or feedback on the survey results may be directed to kent.ervin@nevadafacultyalliance.org.
