Faculty Insights

Faculty Insights: Belonging and Environment

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The positive relationship between sense of belonging and important outcomes for students is real, but less focus has been placed on the faculty who are also influenced by the institutions in which they work.

Understanding if faculty members feel comfortable being themselves, valued by the institution, and a part of the campus community is essential for improving the lives of the people so closely tied to student success. Measures of faculty belonging coupled with indicators of supportive faculty teaching environments help leaders in higher education more fully understand how to create institutions where students and faculty members thrive together.

In the spring of 2020, 13,048 faculty from 94 baccalaureate-granting colleges and universities expressed their agreement with three statements about their sense of belonging and four statements about the teaching environment at their institutions. We created a Sense of Belonging scale and a Supportive Teaching Environment scale by averaging faculty responses to the two groups of items.

New in 2020! Sense of Belonging and Supportive Teaching Items

To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
(Response options: Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree)

I feel comfortable being myself at this institution.
I feel valued by this institution.
I feel like part of the community at this institution.
I have the time I need to prepare for class.
I have the resources I need to do my best teaching (office space, technology, materials, etc.).
The environments (classroom, online, etc.) I teach in are conducive to quality teaching.
I know where to go for help with teaching at my institution.

Did You Know?

91%of faculty feel comfortable being themselves at their institution

79%of faculty feel valued by their institution

81%of faculty feel like part of the community at their institution

Belonging and Environment by Faculty Roles and Disciplinary Areas

In the aggregate, most faculty members agree or strongly agree that they have a positive sense of belonging and supportive teaching environment across all the survey items.

That said, differences emerge when looking at faculty subpopulations. Adjunct faculty report higher sense of belonging and more supportive teaching environments than non-adjunct faculty. This may come as a surprise to many considering the negative reports about conditions facing adjunct faculty, including heavy teaching loads and lack of resources. Yet, adjunct faculty may feel more in touch with their environments as their role often focuses specifically on teaching, possibly establishing a greater community with students and the campus more generally.

Looking broadly across faculty, we find variation by disciplinary area for each item. For example, faculty in business (84%), health professions (81%), and education (81%) feel most valued by their institution (Figure 1). This could be a reflection of the mission of the institutions or the resources allocated to specific disciplines.

**Figure 1. Disciplinary Variation in the Percentage of Faculty Who Feel Valued by Their Institution**Go to an accessible version of Figure 1 data.

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Students' major is also related to sense of belonging.

For more details, see our NSSE story: Building a Sense of Community for All

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28% of incoming first-year students expect moderate difficulty interacting with faculty.

—BCSSE 2020

Did You Know?

83%of faculty feel they have the time they need to prepare for class

77%of faculty feel they have the resources to do their best teaching

76%of faculty feel that the environments they teach in are conducive to quality teaching

Belonging and Environment by Faculty Identity

Faculty sense of belonging and perceptions of a supportive teaching environment also vary by identity group. For example, American Indian or Alaska Native, Middle Eastern or North African, and Asian faculty have the most positive perceptions of their teaching environment compared to their peers. Straight faculty feel a greater sense of belonging than their LGBQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, or other sexual minority identities) colleagues. Additionally, faculty who express their gender identities outside of the man-woman binary feel they belonged much less and feel their teaching environments are less supportive than their colleagues (Figure 2). Students identifying outside the binary express similar perceptions of their institutions—for more details see our NSSE story.

Faculty Insights