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Report on Survey of University of Minnesota P&A Employees


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In the spring of 2007, the Council of Academic Professionals and Administrators (CAPA) developed and conducted a short but important survey regarding the contributions made by P&A employees to the University of Minnesota. This survey was distributed to approximately 4600 P&A employees on all coordinate campuses of the University of Minnesota.

Purpose of the Survey

As part of the Transforming the U initiative and the University of Minnesota’s goal to become one of the top three public research universities in the world, the Office of Metrics and Measurement is collecting data on both faculty and students to capture their contributions to and work at the University. However, the data being collected does not reflect the extensive contributions of P&A employees at the University.

The purpose of our survey was three-fold -

  1. To capture the critical contributions being made by P&A employees to the University of Minnesota.
  2. To share survey findings with top University administrators and officials, the Office of Human Resources, and the Office of Metrics and Measurement and to request that data be collected on P&A employees as part of the Transforming the U initiative.
  3. To take a leadership role on a national level regarding development of a process to measure the contributions of professional staff to top public research universities.

Survey Structure

This survey was structured to align with the primary and secondary scorecard measures being used by the Office of Metrics and Measurement to assess faculty and student contributions to the Transforming the U initiative. Additional categories were added that were considered essential to the purpose of this survey. As such, it did not capture a number of critical job responsibilities and contributions of P&A employees that do not fall under the prevue of these scorecard measures. Individuals in positions such as academic advising, development, University Libraries, and the Extension Service fall into this category. Many respondents commented on this oversight and provided additional information that would not have otherwise been captured by our survey. This is telling, in that current scorecard measures, if used to assess P&A contributions, would fall far short of capturing the work and contributions of a significant sector of our constituency.

Survey Questions

Questions represented the following broad categories —

  • Demographics
  • Teaching and Learning
  • Research and Discovery
  • Administration
  • Grant Writing and Securing Grant Dollars
  • Consultation
  • Publications
  • Community Engagement
  • Awards and Nominations

Survey Results