Editor's note: This story is part of a series about Duke faculty based on a survey conducted by The Chronicle between April 8 and 19.
The Chronicle is releasing survey data from its inaugural faculty survey next week.
For the first year, we surveyed faculty members about their opinions on healthy campus discourse and contentious political issues. Questions ranged from opinions on institutional neutrality to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The results of this survey will be released throughout the coming week in a five-part series.
Summary statistics
We asked respondents about their faculty tenure status, the schools their appointments were in, race and ethnicity, gender identity, religious identity and political leanings.
Demographics
In our survey, 76.16% of respondents identified as white, 7.22% identified as Black or African American, 4.51% identified as Hispanic/Latinx, 11.86% identified as Asian, 0.39% identified as American Indian or Alaskan Native, 0.13% identified as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 2.06% identified as Middle Eastern/North African and 4.12% self-identified with another identity.
40.98% of respondents were women, 56.96% were men, 0.9% were genderqueer or nonbinary, 0.13% were agender and 1.03% identified with a different gender identity.
About 41.49% of respondents identified as Christians — 12.37% of respondents were Catholics, 21.65% were Protestants and 7.47% identified with another Christian denomination. 23.07% of respondents were agnostics, 17.27% were atheists, 1.68% were Buddhists, 0.77% were Hindus, 8.51% were Jewish, 0.9% were Muslims and 6.31% identified with another belief system.
Respondents were also asked for their political identifications, from a scale of “very liberal” to “very conservative.” 23.2% of respondents identified as “very liberal,” 38.53% identified as “somewhat liberal,” 24.48% identified as moderates or centrists, 9.92% identified as “somewhat conservative” and 3.87% identified as “very conservative.”
Tenure status and appointments
Of the respondents, 44.59% were full-time faculty not on the tenure track, 7.35% were part-time, non-tenure track faculty, 10.44% were on the tenure track and 33.25% were tenured. Additionally, 4.38% of respondents selected none of the provided options.
We also asked respondents to indicate the schools where they held their primary appointment(s). Of the respondents, 51.16% were affiliated with the School of Medicine, 31.06% with the Trinity School of Arts & Sciences, 5.93% with the Pratt School of Engineering, 3.74% with the School of Nursing, 3.48% with the Fuqua School of Business, 2.45% with the Sanford School of Public Policy, 2.45% with the School of Law, 2.32% with the Nicholas School of the Environment, 1.42% with the Divinity School, 1.03% with the Duke-NUS Medical School and 0.26% with Duke Kunshan University.
Respondents affiliated with the Trinity School of Arts & Sciences were asked an additional question about their field of study. To preserve respondents’ anonymity, only the five largest departments were listed individually. The remaining departments were grouped into fields as listed on the Trinity website. Respondents were provided with the fields listed on the Trinity website in their answer choices — for instance, the option of “other sciences” was listed with chemistry, evolutionary anthropology, physics and statistical science.
Of the 241 Trinity respondents, 6.64% were affiliated with the department of biology, 1.66% with computer science, 7.88% with economics, 5.39% with mathematics and 4.98% with psychology and neuroscience. 39% were affiliated with the arts and humanities, 16.6% with other social sciences, 14.94% with other sciences and 2.9% with another field.
Survey methodology and limitations
The survey was administered from April 8 to 19. A total of 776 faculty members fully completed the survey, and 132 faculty members answered at least one question. Only complete responses were analyzed. A $5,000 prize was awarded to the department with the highest percentage of completed responses.
The Chronicle verified that respondents were faculty members by cross-referencing respondents’ NetIDs with NetIDs scraped from the Duke directory with a primary faculty affiliation. Surveys were manually edited to correct the NetID for respondents who mistakenly entered their unique ID instead. At the time of collection, there were 7,412 faculty members with a unique NetID in the Duke directory, meaning that 12.25% of faculty members started the survey and about 10.47% completed it.
In total, this year’s survey asked 25 questions, with one question only posed to faculty members in the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.
The survey was promoted via a faculty-specific newsletter, The Chronicle’s Daily Rundown, social media channels and other emails.
All 132 faculty members who started but did not complete the survey stopped between sections, particularly sections with more questions. Of the respondents with incomplete surveys, 20 stopped after inputting their NetIDs, 16 stopped after inputting their tenure status, 49 dropped after finishing the first section on demographics, 29 dropped after finishing the section on affirmative action and the remaining 18 dropped after the section on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The phrasing of the questions may have inadvertently introduced ambiguity, potentially influencing the reliability and validity of the data. For example, one question asked faculty members if they had ever expressed an opinion on a particular topic that differed from their true view. Although the intent was to address preference falsification — when individuals hide their genuine opinions due to social pressure — respondents might have seen it as a question about exploring different perspectives, where sharing alternative views doesn’t necessarily mean hiding their actual beliefs.
For the two questions gauging faculty opinion on the amount of aid sent to Israelis and Palestinians, we used Gallup’s wording in its November poll on the Israel-Hamas war.
Below, we compare our survey data with the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System’s reported data for Duke. This shows how The Chronicle’s survey responses may differ from the overall breakdown of faculty demographics.
Comparing gender, race and tenure status to official Duke data
According to the University’s fall 2022 IPEDS report, there are 4,292 total staff members with faculty status, and 1,283 non-instructional staff members who hold research roles. The difference between the number of faculty in our scraped dataset and the IPEDS report likely stems from the broad inclusion criteria of our dataset, which identifies anyone with “faculty” as their primary affiliation. This encompasses consulting professors, adjuncts and other roles that may be classified differently or spread across various categories in the IPEDS report.
The comparison below will exclude individuals identified as part-time, non-tenure track or another status not listed in the survey options. While the IPEDS provides tables that include all staff by employment status and occupational category, it remains difficult to accurately categorize part-time faculty.
Among full-time faculty, those who are tenured and tenure-track are overrepresented in our survey, while non-tenure-track faculty are underrepresented.
In terms of racial identity, the IPEDS report does not include a separate category for individuals identifying as Middle Eastern or North African. For this comparison, individuals in this category were grouped with those identifying as white, in alignment with common practices in most census classifications. Full-time faculty who identify with an unlisted racial identity were excluded from the following comparison.
Full-time faculty members who identified exclusively as white or Black/African American are proportionately represented in the survey. Those who identified exclusively as Hispanic/Latinx are slightly underrepresented, and full-time faculty who identified exclusively as Asian are underrepresented. In contrast, full-time faculty members who identified with two or more races are overrepresented relative to their proportion in the broader population.
The IPEDS report does not include a category for individuals who do not identify within the gender binary. Full-time faculty who identify as genderqueer, agender or with another gender identity were excluded from the following comparison.
Among full-time faculty members, those who identified as either male or female were proportionately represented in the survey.
A PDF of the questionnaire is embedded below.
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Audrey Wang is a Trinity senior and data editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 119.