During the month of September 2019, the SAC Executive Team reached out to various levels of Staff Advisory Councils to assist with determining the appropriate course to building the foundation of the inaugural committee. The objective is to create a foundation for the College SAC and assist with self-evaluation in comparison to other established staff advisory councils in higher education. The questionnaire asked a set of four base questions relating to climate, policy change, funding possibilities, and recognition.
FINDINGS
The results affirmed that the College SAC foundational direction is in line with the responding institution and Colleges. Of the internal Colleges reporting: one College is trying to revitalize their SAC team as it slowly became defunct overtime and the other reported being closer aligned with the College of Educations Diversity and Community Enhancement Committee.
METHOD
The four question survey below was solicited via email to 10 external institutions and 4 internal colleges (N=14). The overall response rate was 36% with a breakdown by type being 30% external institutions and 50% internal colleges.
OVERALL
The main purpose of a staff advisory council is just that, to advise leadership of the issues or policies pertaining to the staff in the College. One area of this benchmarking that the Executive Team found of interest was the effectiveness of other institutions to have a positive effect on creation or change of policy.
The benchmark for this survey was based upon units similar in size to our college. The sample was taken from:
Other colleges at University Park
Big 10 Institutions
Ivy League Universities
Other State Universities
Many of the institutions provided further explanation and feedback for their responses. Thus adding further clarity and direction to our Council.
FUTURE ACTION
The benchmarking process and findings have provided the College SAC team to strive to align our goals and outcomes with peer institutions as well as knowledgably move forward with creating a strategic plan to actively support the staff of the College of Education. We plan to send similar questionnaires every 3 years to monitor current trends across the institutions.