President Karl Scholz and Vice President Mark Schmelz sent out the following message to faculty and staff on May 5, 2026.
Dear colleagues,
Nearly 4,000 of you took the time this spring to complete our employee engagement survey, and we are grateful for your participation, your candor, and your care for this university.
We partnered with Gallup for many reasons. We wanted your responses to be confidential; we wanted to tap into their workplace survey expertise, analysis, and resources; and we wanted the ability to compare ourselves to peer R1 institutions so we could understand our results in the context of higher education.
The headline result is that our overall engagement score sits at the 45th percentile of R1 universities. Gallup confirms what many of us already sense: we have strengths and we have real work to do.
Two themes stand out as strengths in your responses:
- “My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.”
- “My colleagues are committed to doing quality work.”
We were in the 90th and above percentiles for both among our peers. These strengths speak to something foundational about the University of Oregon: people care about one another, and we take pride in the caliber of our work. That combination is the foundation from which we can have conversations about where we want to improve.
There were also two themes that are opportunities for growth.
- “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.”
- “I know what is expected of me at work.”
We were in the bottom third for both of these statements. We have work to do to make sure people understand what's expected of them and have the chance to use their strengths every day. When expectations are murky, roles don't fit the people in them, or assignments aren't balanced and prioritized, individual fulfillment suffers and so does what we accomplish together. The good news is our strengths give us a solid place to start.
This survey is one source of information that will inform our work going forward. It isn't a judgement on any team, leader, or unit, and it isn't the end of the conversation. The institutional number is an average across thousands of different roles, buildings, and experiences. The more nuanced picture lives in your units, and that is where the most meaningful conversations and the most meaningful change can happen.
Over the next several months, each faculty and staff member will have a chance to review their own unit results and help decide together what to do about them. The point of those conversations is to use what has been shared to identify a reasonable number of concrete, achievable actions to improve our work environment. We will also examine the institution-level barriers that show up across units. We will report back on what we learn and what we change.
You can find high-level results on our Ducks Engage webpage.
A university where people flourish is central to Oregon Rising, and engagement is one piece of that larger aspiration. Thank you again for participating in the process and being here for what’s next.
With gratitude,
Karl Scholz
President
Mark Schmelz
Chief Human Resources Officer and Vice President