To the university community,
It’s been a very exciting few months as we have worked closely together to move some of our key initiatives forward. As you’ll remember, we’ve identified areas where we saw the greatest opportunity for change — employee compensation, research collaboration and assessing the student experience. We are delighted to give you updates on each of these areas and thank our leaders in these areas for their collaboration, hard work and dedication in moving these important projects forward.
COMPENSATION STUDY
Georgia State’s Department of Human Resources has been working with an outside firm to conduct a salary study of all university employees. This study will continue and expand upon the work of the
Provost’s Office to assess salaries and rewards to help retain our world-class faculty and staff. The management consulting firm EY held a number of stakeholder interviews and focus groups in February and March. It has also worked closely with Human Resources Administration to match more than 1,100 job titles to broader job descriptions that are used in published salary data. The next step is for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the departments to validate the job matching. Finally, EY will use this information to map our jobs to the salary data. The preliminary findings will be reported to campus leadership by the end of May, and we will work on a plan for next steps to be shared in fall 2022. Thanks to Ann Williamson, associate vice president for Human Resources, for her leadership.
RISE RESEARCH CHALLENGE
The Research Innovation and Scholarly Excellence (RISE) challenge has resulted in an impressive 38 multidisciplinary proposals submitted from colleges and units across campus. The tiered evaluation process will take place over the coming weeks and involve reviewers with diverse expertise, key stakeholders and university leadership. Award notifications are expected to be announced on May 16. Thanks to Tim Denning, vice president for Research and Economic Development, and Nicolle Parsons-Pollard, interim provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, for leading this initiative.
ASSESSING THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
A committee of faculty and staff is assessing the Georgia State student experience at our institution. Co-chaired by Nancy Kropf, senior vice president for Strategic Initiatives, and Michael Sanseviro, vice president for Student Engagement and Programs, the committee is using three methods to collect data. Using a “roving reporter” approach, students on all six campuses answered a five-minute survey (currently 373 completed) about their engagement, use of space and facilities and sense of belonging at Georgia State. Focus groups are currently being held with undergraduate and graduate students to dig deeper into student experiences on the Atlanta and Perimeter campuses. Faculty were also invited to focus groups to discuss student engagement on the campuses. Thirteen focus groups (124 faculty) were held with Atlanta Campus, Perimeter and online faculty. A focus group with University Advisers is scheduled for later in April. Faculty reported on ways that they engage with students within and outside the classroom, as well as situations that prohibit students from being more involved.
When data collection is complete, the following questions will be addressed:
- Do students report feeling a part of and engaged with the university? Does engagement differ by campus setting?
- What is the personality of each campus?
- What are the campus places that students are using? What other types of spaces are desired?
- How do faculty/staff view their engagement with students? What recommendations do these groups have to enhance the faculty-student experience?
Thank you for all your continued support as we work together to move the university forward.
All the best,
