Abstract:
Collegiality has been a consistent topic in the literature in the discussion surrounding
individual academic success in higher education. Researchers have explored the degree to which
the collegiality of an academic department matters (Alleman and Haviland 2016; Clark and
Corcoran 1986; Ponjuan, Conley, and Trower 2011; Victorino, Nylund-Gibson, Conle 2018).
The topic of the larger department culture impacting an individual’s career trajectory has become
increasingly important as the organizational structure of academia continues to shift from
majority tenure-track lines to the majority being non-tenure contract positions (Alleman and
Haviland 2016; Webber and Rogers 2018). This paper will attempt to explore how different
members of the university community (i.e., ranks of faculty) define collegiality, whether
collegiality significantly influences job satisfaction, and whether there is variation across race,
gender, and faculty rank in relation to this trend. This will be done by surveying faculty at
universities in the United States and by over-sampling minority populations. By determining
how different faculty define collegiality, and what constitutes a collegial department, we can
further understand if increased collegiality leads to increased work satisfaction and the impact it
has on academic success for non-tenured faculty and women and racial and ethnic minorities.
