Mercer Survey Shows Faculty Discontented

Human resources consulting firm the Mercer Company recently administered to faculty members a survey of the state of affairs at the Academy. The study’s results showed widespread discontent, according to an Agenda Committee summary of the survey. This survey is one part of a comprehensive research endeavor regarding employment conditions for Exeter’s faculty.

According to Principal Lisa MacFarlane, the Academy appointed Mercer to address faculty concerns, to “understand which benefits mattered most to faculty and staff” and to find possible inequities between faculty members. With this research, the Trustee Committee on Work and Life plans to develop a new strategy of compensation.

Assistant Principal Karen Lassey acknowledged that the current method of workload, compensation and benefits (an A-level, B-level, C-level method and a “step system”), has some faults that the school needs to address. “I think for a long time we’ve recognized that there are flaws in both of those models, so we contracted with Mercer to help us develop new models that we could consider for workload and compensation,” Lassey said.

The A-B-C level system is the structure in which workload compensation is calculated. According to the faculty handbook, one C level activity entails between four and six hours of work per week, one B-level requires between eight and ten hours of work per week and one A-level activity necessitates 12 or more hours of work per week. The guidelines stipulate that a C-level activity and a B-level activity are equivalent to an A level activity; however, so are two C-level activities. “I don’t think anybody really thinks it’s logical, the way it’s done,” said Math Instructor Panama Geer. “Everybody knows that needs fixing.”

Mercer will complete research later this spring. Its data will guide the Academy in reforming faculty experience at the school. Head of the Agenda Committee Andrew McTammany thinks that “there will be a concrete change in the near future…Whether it’s related to housing, workload, compensation, that depends upon what the faculty is interested in pursuing, as well as what the administration thinks is realistic for what we can achieve.”

127 faculty members completed the survey. 72 percent of respondents were teaching faculty, ten percent were faculty administrators and 18 percent were administrative faculty. The survey highlighted complicated issues, including but not limited to dismay over the environment and culture at Exeter, unexpected time commitment and lack of equitable compensation and housing.

MacFarlane highlighted a weakness in the survey, saying that certain questions were difficult to understand and because of that, faculty weren’t able to answer to the best of their ability. “Faculty have expressed concern that sometimes the survey questions themselves were hard to interpret, which makes the data unclear,” she said.

The respondents’ most negative feedback regarded Exeter’s general environment and culture. Out of a total of 53 responses in this section, only six reported content with Exeter’s environment. According to the survey summary, 14 comments regarded “lack of community,” six comments discussed the “corporatization of the school,” six comments emphasized “failure[s] to address issues of diversity,” and five comments that criticized “a lack of communication” between faculty and administration.

In the survey, one faculty member expressed their dissatisfaction with the “loss of democratic governance by the faculty.” According to the same individual, “The school has become morally bankrupt. Aside from the loss of democratic governance by the faculty, the administration now operates in an arbitrary manner.”

Chair of the Math Department and Math Instructor Eric Bergofsky, who has worked at Exeter for 41 years, has noticed a shift in the consideration of faculty opinion in handling school regulations and policies. “I think the tradition of the teaching faculty having an important role in the governance of the school should never change,” Bergofsky said of the response above. “Any movement in which we take the teaching faculty, the ones who are in the classroom, on the athletic fields, in the dormitories, the ones who are interacting with the kids day in and day out most closely, that lessens their role in the decision-making processes… is a bad direction.”

Another faculty member’s comment in the survey stated that Exeter was becoming “much more corporate as a school.” They continued, saying that Exeter “as an employer, feels more impersonal than I remember it feeling, and I have more of a sense now that I am not really known as an individual.”

McTammany said about the survey, “I think the biggest issue that I saw was faculty wanting to feel like this is a community, where all of their opinions are cherished and valued as well as listened to and appreciated.” McTammany believes that the frequency of comments expressing faculty members’ desire to feel valued by the administration will “serve as a wake-up call.”

However, History Instructor Jermaine Matheson, who works part-time and has worked at the Academy for one year, feels that the Exeter community has embraced him. “I think the school is a welcoming place, but it really depends on who you are, how confident you are and how much experience you bring to the school,” he said.

The survey divulged another point of contention: the equity of faculty housing. In the housing section of the survey, only 12 of 50 faculty members considered the current situation was fair. Geer reasoned that since the Academy is a boarding institution, housing could be considered necessary in the job description. “I’ve heard colleagues say that we should be grateful for it being ‘free.’ While I understand where that sentiment comes from, the reality is that it is a benefit of the job that each of us factored into our compensation calculations when we decided to take the job,” Geer said.

When surveyed about workload and time commitment to extracurricular activities, faculty expressed dissatisfaction in their treatment. Some reported feeling as though they needed more effective compensation for workloads. One faculty member commented, “There are hidden responsibilities that lie outside the workload formula, depending on the department.” They went on to describe that there are many obligations that “receive no workload recognition.”

Geer brought up an example of an unpaid commitment some faculty can take up: teaching a 999. “This is pretty outrageous,” Geer said. “Students ask us to teach a course that’s not on the books, and people say yes out of the goodness of their heart. I have felt awful about having to say no to students in the past… Not everybody is able to work for free.” Geer explained that it is hard to justify to her family that she would take on an extra class, which means spending less time with them, and not receive pay to do so.

In a comment regarding workload, one teacher brought up the impact on themselves. “We do this because we love the kids and want to help them do what they want, but ultimately we get frazzled, and can’t do the things we do well,” the comment read.

Despite some faculty difficulties, data collected by Mercer actually pointed to the relative luxury that Exeter faculty experience. According to Lassey, “one of their findings was that our compensation for faculty was at the top end of the market, compared to around 30 other schools.”

Bergofsky agreed, saying that the general treatment of faculty is fair, in his opinion. “I would say our working conditions, our compensation, our overall workload, as a faculty, is probably as good as it gets in this industry,” Bergofsky said. “I don’t think you’ll find it better anywhere else.”