Book Description

The purpose of this dissertation research was to explore 14 faculty members' experiences concerning factors that contributed to the massive turnover of the teaching staff at the Sudanese public universities. To achieve this goal, the following research questions guided this study: 1. What extrinsic and intrinsic motivation factors affected the faculty workforce's job satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intention? 2. What policies affected the academic freedom (autonomy) of faculty members? 3. What were the other main factors that prevented other faculty members from resigning from a government-owned university? 4. How does the appointment of university presidents and vice-chancellors influence the faculty members' decision to stay or leave? The participants for this qualitative interview study were selected from two sites; a government-owned higher education organization and a private higher education university. Eight of these participants are currently teaching at (A) pseudonym to preserve anonymity, the remaining six participants are faculty members who have resigned and currently work for a private university (B) pseudonym to maintain confidentiality. Interviews were conducted face to face, and then transcribed. The themes that emerged from the interviews included: (1) lack of autonomy, pay, and staff development, (2) teaching is a calling and service to society, (3) relationships with co-workers and job security, (4) Sub-category theme: lack of relatedness, and (5) lack of involvement in the decision-making process is affecting staff retention. findings from this study illustrate that the study's participants dissatisfaction with how the Sudanese government policies affected the academic freedom (autonomy) of faculty members. They indicated that one of the primary reasons for voluntary turnover of high performing faculty members turnover has been the government's decision to appoint universities vice-chancellors. Also, the study's participants revealed that a teaching career in government-owned universities is unattractive to many scholars because teaching staff is being underpaid. The participants indicated that they are teaching large classroom sizes, advising and mentoring students, and executing their administrative duties, but it's commensurate with their return on investment. In addition, the study's participants also pointed out the lack of staff development in government-owned universities. The study' participants' perspectives were that they looked at teaching not as a job but rather as a "calling" and a service to society. They are passionate about teaching the Sudanese younger generations, and they find innate pleasure and satisfaction in transferring their knowledge to these learners. Although there are many pushing factors, the faculty's passion for teaching prevented them from resigning from public universities. Based on this dissertation research's results, the author recommends that future research should focus on gaining college deans' perspectives on the massive turnover of faculty employed in the Sudanese public universities. Also, a future study should attempt to recruit more female faculty participants because the small sample of female faculty participants involved in the present study revealed that gender played an essential role in their decision to stay or leave a public higher education organization and, therefore, there's a need to interview more female faculty to gain a fully-fledged picture about their lived experiences.