Faculty Employment Status and Characteristics of Diverse Learning Environments in the Promotion of Academic Mission, Governance, and Freedom

• In Event: 16.058 - Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: 16.058-4 - Diversity and Organizational Culture

Abstract

This analysis evaluates faculty members’ support of the academic mission, their involvement with academic governance, and their sense of academic freedom in relationship to both their employment status (part- or full-time), and their relative sense that the campus has been one that affirms diversity according to the psychological, historical, and behavioral dimensions of campus climate (Hurtado, et al., 1999). Findings demonstrate that part-time status is detrimental to the academic mission and the participatory processes of academic governance. The behavioral experiences of harassment and unfair/treatment or exclusion reduces all faculty members’ sense of academic freedom. When faculty members possess strong psychological feelings that they are welcomed, these feelings contribute positively to all three academic principles – academic mission, governance, and freedom.

Authors

• Cassie L. Barnhardt, The University of Iowa

• Peggy Valdes, University of Iowa

• Ryan L. Young, University of Iowa

• Jessica Kathryn Ezell Sheets, University of Iowa

• Nicholas A Katopol, University of Iowa

• Eugene T. Parker, The University of Kansas

• Carson Phillips, The University of Iowa