Results From Your Feedback
In 2019, SJSU faculty shared candid feedback through the COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey about where the university was succeeding—and where it needed to do better. The results did not sit on a shelf: they directly informed a series of structural, programmatic, and communication changes within Academic Affairs. The five outcomes highlighted below demonstrate how faculty voices translated into meaningful, sustained action across the division.
On this page
- Creation of the Office of Faculty Success
- Launch of the RSCA Program
- Greater Transparency in the Divisional Budget
- Strategizing Tenure-Track Hiring and Areas of Strength
- Increased Communications from the Provost Office
Creation of the Office for Faculty Success
In response to faculty concerns about the decision by a prior administration to move Faculty Affairs out of Academic Affairs and into University Personnel, Provost Vincent Del Casino established the Office for Faculty Success. This enabled essential functions of faculty affairs to return to the division, providing focused, centralized leadership on faculty hiring, development, and advancement across the academic lifecycle. Through appointing a Vice Provost for Faculty Success, division can coordinate training for new faculty and review committees, oversee faculty hiring strategy, and enhance the work of shared governance. The Provost also unified the Center for Faculty Development and eCampus (now the Center for Faculty Excellence and Teaching Innovation) into a single unit to strengthen support and consistency around faculty matters within Academic Affairs.
Launched in 2019, the RSCA assigned-time program was created to formalize and scale institutional support for research, scholarship, and creative activity by embedding dedicated time for scholarly work directly into faculty members’ official workload. Its design reflects a university-wide commitment to recognizing RSCA as core to faculty roles across disciplines, rather than as an add-on supported inconsistently through ad hoc course releases. By centrally investing Academic Affairs funds and later supplementing them with PaCE and F&A revenues, the program established a stable, structured mechanism to advance faculty scholarship and strengthen SJSU’s research profile.
Greater Transparency in the Divisional Budget
The Provost’s Office has made detailed budget information accessible by curating a dedicated Academic Budgets section that includes annual budget plans, funding overviews, and documentation of budget communications and town halls where Academic Affairs leaders share and explain fiscal data and decisions. These resources include breakdowns of major funding sources, enrollment allocation plans, vacant rate metrics, and archived budget presentations. A a result, faculty have greater insight into how resources are generated, allocated, and discussed within the division, fostering openness about financial priorities and processes.
Strategizing Tenure-Track Hiring and Areas of Strength
Academic Affairs leadership developed hiring themes based on multi-year hiring plans across the colleges, reflecting a commitment to recruiting and retaining faculty with diverse expertise and experience. The themes, which include Data Analytics and Design Thinking, Ethnic Studies Education, Health Equity and Health Infrastructures, Social Robotics and Human-Robotic Technology Relations, and Sustainable Futures and Earth Systems Science, aim to focus on core campus strengths, meet critical need areas, and help SJSU gain a national and global reputation for academic excellence.
Increased Communications from the Provost Office
Hearing the need to make decision-making and opportunities more transparent, the Provost Office has established a regular cadence of messages from the Provost that span leadership announcements, academic planning initiatives, student success efforts, faculty and research matters, and key policy or operational updates. Collectively, the messages reflect a focus on strategic academic priorities, shared governance, organizational effectiveness, and fostering a supportive campus community. In addition, the Office for Faculty Success developed a monthly newsletter with updates and opportunities for faculty.
