FACULTY WORKLIFE - ESTABLISHING BENCHMARKS ACROSS GROUPS

Pressures on colleges and universities have spawned numerous studies t o improve our understanding of faculty and their worklives, including examinations of faculty satisfaction, morale, motivation and productiv ity, reward, and retention and turnover. In response to external press ures for improved accountability in higher education, institutional le aders seek to identify outcome measures and generate benchmarks that c an be used to assess change over time. The purpose of this study is to propose a structural model of faculty worklife and to test its genera lizability by examining possible differences in the model across three cross-sectional samples of probationary faculty at a major research u niversity. Identified trends in faculty perceptions about their workli fe over time can be used as benchmarks to aid institutions in retainin g faculty by monitoring and improving aspects of their worklives.