Feb 23, 2006 - Mar 8, 2006
Wayne State University was ranked 14th of 15 Best Places to Work in Academia, according to a recent survey. And the No. 1 factor in determining workplace satisfaction was personal fulfillment.
Results from the fourth annual survey conducted by The Scientist, a Philadelphia-based life sciences magazine, were announced in October. The magazine publishes the latest developments in life sciences, including research, technology, business and careers.
Assessing the workplace
For its 2006 survey, The Scientist gathered responses from more than 1,600 academics from around the world. A questionnaire posted on the magazine’s Web site invited tenured and tenure-track life scientists working in academia or other noncommercial research organizations to respond.
The respondents were asked to evaluate their working conditions and environments by indicating their level of agreement with 39 criteria in eight different areas. Participants also indicated which factors were important to them.
Determining factors
Along with personal fulfillment, survey respondents ranked peer relations, institutional management and tenure procedures among the most important factors. Institutions earning high marks in those categories took this year's highest honors.
Other Michigan institutions that made the list are Calvin College and Michigan State University. The survey lists these 15 academic institutions as the best in the United States:
Top US institutions
- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn.
- The J. David Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, Calif.
- Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
- Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
- Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich.
- Trudeau Institute, Saranac Lake, NY
- Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
- University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.
- Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pa.
- National Institutes of Health, Bethesda/Rockville, Md.
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga.
- University of Delaware, Newark, Del.
- Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
- Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich.
- Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, Mo.
