This year’s CUPA-HR event took place at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL, so naturally, I was thrilled to attend as part of the Interfolio team and experience the magic. But what I didn’t expect was for the conference to be just as much of a thrill as the rides surrounding it. “But Kara,” you’re thinking, “It’s an HR conference—how can it possibly be interesting?” Am I overselling it? Read on for my top three takeaways.
HR Wants to Help You
Saying “HR is here to help” might feel either obvious or hilarious, depending on your experience with that department, but let me tell you: HR is here to help. Every single person I spoke to during CUPA-HR was engaged, motivated, and forward-thinking. When hearing about the Interfolio Faculty Information System, we heard a lot of “Oh, my faculty senate would love this,” or “This isn’t my department, but I’m taking a flyer for my faculty affairs office.” Attendees from universities and colleges from all over the world joined presentations about generative AI, harnessing data to better understand their faculty and staff needs, and how to proactively address their latest challenges.
From my perspective, when talking to HR professionals who came up to the Interfolio table, the greatest challenge they face is gaining cross-functional allies to meet common goals. There was a feeling of being siloed from the faculty affairs office in many cases, even though both offices work to improve the experience of employees. It got me thinking—how can faculty affairs and human resources innovate together, especially given the conference’s focus on the latest data collection and analysis trends?
Dr. Shantay Bolton from Georgia Tech urged these cross-departmental connections in her conference presentation. “Have regular meetings with your academic deans,” she said, discussing how HR can work with the faculty administrative team, “you know deans are very competitive.” What energies can you harness on your campus to meet your goals? “Don’t be afraid to do something—one bite at a time,” said Dr. Bolton.
HR Is Insights- and Data-Driven
One of the most illuminating presentations I attended was “Making the Most of Faculty Data for Institutional Effectiveness,” led by KC Culver from the University of Alabama and Jackie Bichsel from CUPA-HR, diving deep into data from both CUPA-HR and the Faculty, Academic, Careers, and Environments (FACE) project. Getting a high-level overview of faculty composition and trends upended some of my assumptions about the landscape of higher education. Did you know, for example, that most faculty in the United States are not tenure-track? Or that faculty who are not tenure-track often are not making enough money to meet basic needs in most states—especially those with a high cost of living? Or that faculty as a whole have generally not had a raise above the level of inflation in the last decade and, in many cases, had a decrease in pay?
No wonder we’re seeing trends of faculty looking to leave higher education—and the data bears this out; since 2021, the turnover rates of non-tenure-track faculty are almost double those of tenure-track faculty. In survey responses, non-tenure-track faculty feel unsupported by their organization, exhausted and overwhelmed, and have low compassion satisfaction (the feeling that you are helping others).
An effective part of this presentation was polling the audience to ask what they thought their campus data looked like and contrasting those polls with the data collected from FACE and CUPA-HR for the overall picture. It was a startling contrast that raises the question: Do you actually understand what is happening on your campus with your faculty, or do you just think you do?
The presenters asked the audience to consider the following: Who is being promoted? Who is in the leadership pipeline? What are the factors that underlie faculty pay? What resources do faculty need? What motivates faculty? How can we support and motivate mid-career faculty, an often-overlooked moment in career development? These are the kinds of questions you can get a handle on with a centralized data collection and analysis approach.
In a different presentation, “Conversations with a CHRO: The Evolving Workplace,” Eugene Whitlock, the Chief People and Culture Officer and Associate Vice Chancellor of Human Resources from UC Berkeley, emphasized the importance of meeting with deans and department chairs to understand departmental goals for tailored support. “Deans don’t know their workforce,” he said, going on to explain that HR has the demographic and other data that can help make effective decisions for faculty affairs. And this brings us back to my earlier point: How can faculty affairs and human resources come together to improve their understanding of faculty needs and how to best address them?
For more data insights into the current state of faculty, check out Interfolio’s recent white paper on faculty sentiment and engagement.
HR Is Taking Generative AI Seriously
I know, I know, this feels clickbait-y. But the presentations I saw at CUPA-HR about generative AI and its practical applications were some of the most measured approaches to these tools I have seen anywhere. Thinking about generative AI solutions as a magic wand that will solve all your problems is not helpful, but considering it as a tool in your arsenal to tackle existing questions can be very useful. It’s certainly top of mind for the leaders in the “Conversations with a CHRO” presentation I attended.
“We’ve got to lean in, this is coming,” said John Whelan, Vice President for Human Resources at Yale University. His team created a monthly AI “coffee talk” meeting last year to be a safe space for HR to discuss use cases for generative AI on campus—it’s still going strong, and a university-wide AI coffee chat meeting has been added. “AI may not take your job, but a person who knows how to use AI just might take your job,” he said. “I use AI about 40 times a day.” Eugene Whitlock of UC Berkeley agreed that it is important to learn and understand generative AI. For his HR department, his goal is to be the leading voice on campus about this new technology—he urged other HR professionals to take advantage of the opportunity to be a proactive partner on campus about generative AI.
The Harvard Center for Workplace Development shared their evolving use of generative AI tools in a forthright presentation, “Survey Says! Using HR Data and AI to Maximize Analysis of Needs.” They noted the challenge of analyzing data in a needs assessment survey in a limited time period. At Harvard, they have 14,000 staff members and 1,000 executives, and 35% of staff are eligible for retirement in the next decade. There is a sense of urgency for them to understand the needs of their employees and test their theories about the workforce. With thousands of qualitative responses coming in, they needed a fast way to get insights and began experimenting with generative AI tools.
The presenting team was careful to emphasize that this is a work in progress, and they went in clear-eyed about the limitations of the current generative AI tools—privacy concerns, risk of hallucinations, and the need to double-check all outputs from the tools and not take the answers at face value. Over several iterations, they were able to refine their prompt to get consistent answers from multiple users and embrace the (sometimes chaotic!) nature of an emerging technology that is still in its infancy. I appreciated the presenter’s candor in discussing the shortcomings of the tool and their approach as well as the successes—too often, generative AI is put up on a glowing pedestal, but to quote Seth Merriman, Sr. Manager of Learning Architecture at Harvard University, “This is a tool for a goal instead of having a goal for a tool.”
What’s Next?
I saw the spirit of opportunity and innovation alive and well at CUPA-HR and urge faculty affairs and human resources to come together to figure out how best to support the needs of all campus employees. Whether it’s data collection and analysis, regular touch bases, or exploring new solutions together, the future is brightest when it is approached together.
CUPA-HR attendees liked what they heard at our Interfolio table. Learn more about Lifecycle Management for easily tracking faculty roster information, including exceptions, or supporting essential committee-based workflows with Review, Promotion & Tenure. Schedule a demo with us today—we’re friendly, and we want to show you what’s possible for your institution!