This spring, Shepherd is participating in the Great Colleges to Work For Program. This program is designed to collect information about employee satisfaction and institutional policies and practices, and allows us to evaluate ourselves and compare our results against other institutions.
Full-time employees of Shepherd University will be asked to complete a questionnaire addressing institutional employment practices and job satisfaction. The survey sample includes all administrators, full-time faculty, and exempt professional staff, as well as a sample of non-exempt staff. If you are part of the survey group, you will receive an email soliciting your participation.
This survey is optional. You are not required to respond, and you will not be penalized for not responding.
Below are some FAQs (frequently asked questions) regarding the survey and the survey process. If your question is not answered below, please contact the Office of Institutional Research at ir@shepherd.edu.
What is the Great Colleges to Work For Survey?
The Great Colleges to Work For Survey is a survey of selected higher education employees. It is designed to collect information about employee satisfaction, procedures, and other aspects of employment in higher education. More information is available at https://greatcollegesprogram.com/.
2024 is Shepherd University’s thirteenth year of participation in the survey.
Who can respond to the survey?
This year, the respondent pool includes all administrators, full-time faculty, and exempt professional staff, as well as a randomly-selected sample of non-exempt staff.
How do I respond to the survey?
If you are part of the survey pool, you will receive an email from ModernThink around March 1 or 2 with instructions for completing and submitting your responses to the survey.
The survey should take roughly 18-22 minutes to complete. As the survey is handled entirely online, you will need a computer with Internet access and a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or Chrome to respond.
I don’t have a notification email from ModernThink – what should I do?
Check your daily spam-filter email to see if it was caught by our spam filter. If you have set up your own email filters, check to see if the message was rerouted because of those. If you are a non-exempt employee, you may or may not be included in the random sample; if you were not selected for the sample, you will not receive a notification email.
In past years, ModernThink has sent out reminder emails to those who have not yet responded to the survey; if you have lost your initial notification email, please wait for a reminder email, which will contain the information that you will need to access the survey.
Why should I respond to the survey?
Your response will provide Shepherd with valuable information on your satisfaction with your employment at Shepherd. Combined with the responses of other employees, your response will provide a comprehensive picture of employment at Shepherd, and allow the institution to evaluate its own practices, as well as benchmark itself against other institutions.
Will my response be anonymous?
Your response will be entirely anonymous. All response information is handled by ModernThink. The results will be reported back to Shepherd in the form of aggregate reports, without individual responses. Comments will be reported as written, but with no other identifying information attached. Shepherd will not have access to the raw response data, and so will not be able to tie responses to individuals.
Where can I find more information about the survey?
The main website for the survey is at https://greatcollegesprogram.com/. Click on the “FAQs” link at the top of the page for detailed information about the survey.