The purpose of this study was to conduct a national survey to examine job satisfaction of community college academic deans as measured by the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and an Individual Data Sheet (IDS) and to determine if academic deans will pursue the community college presidency in meeting the current leadership crisis. This study assessed the relationship of selected personal characteristics, unit-related characteristics, facets of job satisfaction, and career aspirations of academic deans. Six research questions directed this study. Four hundred community college academic deans were randomly assigned as participants and represented all 50 states. The usable response rate from the 400 participants was 50.5% (n = 202) representing all 50 states. Demographic data pertaining to gender, age, ethnicity, degree status, tenure in position, gross annual salary, number of hours worked per week, major responsibilities, size of college, location of college, number of full-time and part-time faculty supervised, number of full-time and part-time staff supervised, and career aspirations were collected through use of the IDS. The 1977 Long-Form MSQ was used to measure general, intrinsic, and extrinsic job satisfaction. Appropriate summary statistics, correlations, and regressions were computed to answer all six-research questions.
Community college academic deans were neither dissatisfied nor satisfied with an MSQ sample mean score of 3.828. The findings indicated that 55.5% (n = 112) were neither dissatisfied nor satisfied. Only 76 academic deans or 37.5% stated that they were satisfied and three deans or 1.5% were very satisfied. Ten deans or 5% reported being dissatisfied and one or 0.5% dean reported being very dissatisfied. Only 15% or 30 deans reported that they had career aspirations to pursue the community college presidency within the next one to ten years. The results also indicated that those academic deans that do not desire to be a community college president are slightly more satisfied than those deans who want to be a president. The results of the survey indicate that academic deans with the lowest job satisfaction score desired to move along the academic leadership pathway, and the deans that were more satisfied wanted to move in another direction or stay a dean.
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