ACCREDITATION – ASSESSMENT – INSTITUTIONAL IMPROVEMENT – FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
- Are your faculty using advanced pedagogy in the classroom? More so than your peer institutions?
- In what areas are your faculty most satisfied? Is it different for associate professors Adjuncts?
- How do your faculty view institutional priorities?
- How do your faculty experience the campus climate?
- Where are areas for growth and improvement?
HERI conducts the Faculty Survey every three years. The next regular survey administration period is scheduled for September 1, 2025, through April 30, 2026. An off-cycle HERI Faculty Survey for 2024-2025 can be administered from now through April 30, 2025.
Using the HERI Faculty Survey
Faculty are essential to the main educational mission at higher education institutions. Given their importance, it is vital to monitor aspects of their experience.
The HERI Faculty Survey provides institutions with a comprehensive, research-based snapshot of key aspects of the faculty experience. Since 1989 nearly 1,300 two-and four- year institutions have used results from this survey to connect faculty practices, values and priorities to institutional success and drive improvement efforts.
The HERI Faculty Survey is designed to provide institutions with actionable information on important and timely issues. It includes topics such as pedagogical practices, faculty goals and expectations for students, research and service activities, sources of stress and satisfaction, and the connection between learning in the classroom and practices in the local and global community.
Results from the HERI Faculty Survey have been used in strategic planning, faculty recruitment and retention, faculty development activities, assessment and accreditation, and discussions relating pedagogy to student learning experiences.
The HERI Faculty Survey includes:
- A web-based “core” instrument that all institutions administer with optional modules. Modules are brief sets of related items that institutions may elect to use or not use based on their mission, goals, and needs
- Special sections for faculty teaching graduate students and part-time faculty
- A separate version of the survey for two-year institutions
- The opportunity to add up to 5 open-ended and up to 30 closed-ended institutional or consortium questions
- The ability to select peer comparison groups for your institutional reporting
You will receive an institutional profile, which includes institutional results broken out by sex and comparisons with other similar institutions. Separate reports in the institutional profile detail findings for full-time, part-time and graduate faculty separately. Institutions also receive a data file of your faculty responses, a PowerPoint Presentation summarizing results, and a monograph of the national results.
ADMINISTERING THE SURVEY
The HERI Faculty Survey is a web-based survey. It is administered triennially to faculty at two- and four-year colleges. Each institution selects its own sample. The HERI Faculty Survey is meant to be used with all faculty, be they full- or part-time, graduate faculty, or administrators with teaching responsibilities. Each institution has the ability to customize the survey for their administration.
The Survey Instrument
- 2024-2025 HERI Faculty Survey Instrument – All institutions participating in the HERI Faculty Survey administer this “core” set of questions
- Campus Climate Module – This optional module asks respondents about their perception of the campus environment and the various types of practices and policies in place at an institution
- STEM Module – This optional module examines practices and expectations in STEM disciplines, focusing on the use of active learning techniques and faculty values related to STEM majors. If selected, this module will only be seen by faculty at your institution in STEM disciplines. For a list of STEM disciplines, click here
- Mentoring Module – This optional module examines the nature and scope of academic advising at an institution and the extent to which faculty advisors assist students with academic growth
- Spirituality Module – Adapted from the College Students’ Beliefs and Values (CSBV) project, this optional module examines faculty perspectives and practices with respect to religion and spirituality
- Faculty Survey Changes Document – A document that lists all of the Faculty Survey changes for the 2024-2025 off-cycle survey compared to the previous instrument from the 2023-2024 HERI Faculty Survey
Because the HERI Faculty Survey is comprehensive, it gathers information on a wide variety of issues relevant to faculty. Below are documents organized by topic that allow you to easily find items to the survey that may be of particular relevance on campus.
- Part-Time Faculty Items
- Graduate Faculty Items
- Using HERI Surveys to Assess Campus Climate – The HERI surveys capture both personal experiences and perceptions of campus climate from the perspective of students, faculty, and staff for a more complete understanding of the climate for diversity on campus.
Important Forms and Documentation
- UCLA IRB Approval Notice – Copy of the current UCLA IRB approval for the HERI Faculty Survey
- Administration Guidelines – Necessary information for schools concerning the administration of the HERI Faculty Survey
- Administration Timeline – This timeline summarizes general activities in a survey cycle
- Survey Information Sheet – Copy of the informed consent given to survey respondents
- Additional Questions – Important information for campuses adding their own questions to the instrument
- School Managed Email Distribution – Instructions for sending your email invitations directly from your institution
- Mailing List – Sample file for uploading your distribution list
- Invitation and Reminder Templates – Sample text for inviting your faculty to participate
- Welcome and Thank You Text – Editable text for your welcome and thank you survey pages
- Anti-Spam Guidelines – Important information about how to prevent survey invitation and reminders from HERI being filtered out as bulk or junk mail
- Group Codes – Comparing specific subgroups of your faculty sample
- Confidentiality and Privacy – Suggestions about how to talk with your faculty about confidentiality and privacy issues
- Encouraging Participation – Suggestions for increasing response rates
- Promo Pack – Instructions on how to use the Promo Pack items
- Pre-Notification Email Template – Editable text for the pre-notification email
- Data and Reporting – Information about institutional data and reporting from HERI
Survey Fees
You can find the survey fees for your institution by searching on our pricing page.
Survey Fees
The combined survey administration and registration fee is calculated based on total full-time equivalent (FTE) undergraduate enrollment (for student surveys) or full-time faculty (faculty/staff survey) with information obtained from the IPEDS database on September 1, 2021. Click here to determine the cost for your institution: https://heri.ucla.edu/pricing/
Optional Costs
-Customized Welcome and Thank You Pages: no additional fee
-Additional questions for web administration – 30 closed-ended and/or 5 open-ended: $400
-Group Codes: no additional fee
-HERI-managed email distribution to faculty: $400
-School-managed email distribution: no additional fee
Billing Policy
HERI uses a two-step process for billing. First, within two weeks of receiving an order to administer one of our surveys from an authorized campus representative, we will send an invoice to that representative or the designated billing contact requesting payment for a $1,000 registration deposit. This registration deposit will be credited toward the total administration cost. Should needs on campus change, please read below to review our cancellation policy.
Second, approximately six weeks before the national administration closes for the HERI Faculty Survey, we will send a second invoice for the remaining balance associated with the survey administration, including any optional services requested during the administration period (i.e., HERI-managed emails, additional questions on web-based surveys).
The costs for administering HERI’s surveys cover customer service support from HERI’s staff throughout the administration process, the full suite of campus reports (i.e., Institutional Profile Report, Construct Report, Theme Report, Executive Summary PowerPoint), preparation of the final dataset, and targeted consultation to help clarify or explain the results featured in each set of reports.
We will continue to invoice separately for any orders for data services or customized reports placed by authorized campus representatives, and we typically send those invoices within two weeks of fulfilling each order. Additionally, for campuses that have more specific needs related to developing more tailored surveys, generating a more comprehensive, in-depth analysis of their survey data, or creating a more comprehensive assessment of campus climate, HERI staff members are available for more extensive consulting partnerships. Please contact us at heri@ucla.edu for more information.
*Expedited payment is helpful because UCLA charges additional fees after invoices become 90 days past due. If there are delinquency fees on your account, your payment will be applied to these charges first. The unpaid balance on the account will remain past due and will continue to accrue additional delinquency fees. Balances which remain unpaid for several months risk going to collections.
Cancellation Policy
Placing an order indicates your institution’s agreement to participate in the survey. HERI will refund $800 of the $1,000 deposit if a campus informs HERI in writing of its decision to cancel the administration of the HERI Faculty Survey more than two weeks before the launch of the survey. HERI will refund $200 of the $1,000 deposit for orders canceled one week before the launch of the survey. If the survey is within one week of the launch date and your institution has received survey links or distributed links via HERI’s email system, you will be charged the full $1,000 (or forfeit the $1,000 if already paid) with no refund/credit.
Withdrawal Policy
If the URL(s) have already been sent to the institution or distributed via HERI’s email distribution service to the sample of intended survey participants, the campus will forfeit the full $1,000 registration deposit. In addition, if HERI has provided any customized services at your request (e.g., incorporated on-line additional questions, etc.), you will also be responsible for the full cost of these services.
An off-cycle HERI Faculty Survey administration is open now for registration from November 15, 2024, to April 30, 2025 at https://surveyportal.heri.cresst.org/