2026 survey starts Monday, March 9 and will be available to all full-time employees until the end of March 2026. View message from President Bailey for details.
Learn more about UTRGV's 2025 survey results below.
TWICE AS NICE:
UTRGV recognized for second consecutive year as a Great College to Work For
"This honor emphasizes the positive culture we've created together – one that values support, empowerment and opportunity. “This achievement not only recognizes our ongoing efforts for the past decade but also strengthens our commitment to enhancing the lives of our community and fostering a workplace where every team member can thrive."
Dr. Guy Bailey, UTRGV President
Celebrate Our Greatness!
Show (or remind) colleagues and external networks that you work at a great college with these digital assets:
What is the Great Colleges to Work For® program?
The Great Colleges to Work For® program is a national survey designed by ModernThink to recognize institutions that have cultivated great workplaces. The 2025 program marked the 18th anniversary of the Great Colleges to Work For® program, which is also used to conduct research and gain understanding of the factors, dynamics and influences that have the most impact on organizational culture at higher education institutions. This year's program included 199 colleges from across the country: 123 four-year institutions and 76 two-year institutions. This marks UTRGV’s 2nd consecutive year of participating and earning recognition in the Great Colleges to Work For® program — a testament to our sustained focus on campus culture and employee experience.
Visit the recognition website at GreatCollegesList.com to learn more about this year’s honored institutions, program data, and best practices in higher education. View the program timeline for more details about the process.
How was UTRGV evaluated?
At the core of the program is a two-part assessment process. The first component is a faculty/staff survey (The ModernThink Higher Education Insight Survey©) which was sent to a random sample of 600 full-time UTRGV employees in March 2025.
The second part of the assessment process is an institutional audit (The ModernThink Institution Questionnaire© or "IQ"), which captures information detailing various institution demographics, policies and practices.
Recognition is primarily determined through the feedback provided by faculty/staff and collected from the ModernThink Higher Education Insight Survey©. For analysis and recognition purposes, ModernThink first segments the participating institutions into four-year and two-year categories. Colleges within each of these categories are further classified into three (Small, Medium, and Large) groups based on student enrollment, defined as full-time, part-time, undergraduate and graduate students in degree-granting programs. UTRGV is in the program's "Large" institution category.
| Size (Student Enrollment) | 2-Year Participants | 4-Year Participants |
|---|---|---|
| Small (500 to 2,999) | 35 | 60 |
| Medium (3,000 to 9,999) | 34 | 39 |
| Medium (3,000 to 9,999) | 7 | 24 |
Who from UTRGV participated in the survey?
The survey was sent in March 2025 to a random sample of 600 full-time UTRGV employees across four job categories: administrators, faculty, exempt staff and non-exempt staff. Our response rate was similar to last years with 32.8% (drop of 0.7% compared to 2024).
| UTRGV Participation | |
|---|---|
Faculty includes:
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Administration includes:
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*Defined by the National Center for Education Statistics as "Executive/Administrative/Managerial staff"; Employees whose assignments require management of the institution or of a customarily recognized department or subdivision thereof. These employees perform work that is directly related to management policies or general business operations and that requires them to exercise discretion and independent judgment.
How did UTRGV earn recognition and in which categories?
Recognition in each category (below) is given to the 10 highest-scoring institutions in each size for four-year colleges and the 4 highest-scoring institutions in each size for two-year colleges.
| Participating institutions are evaluated across 10 categories: | |
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UTRGV has been recognized in 2 of the program's 10 categories:
- Professional Development
Support for faculty/staff professional development is critical both in terms of building organizational capacity and supporting individual development needs. This recognition category is based on survey items related to onboarding processes, professional development opportunities, and support for career development.
- Inclusion, Belonging & Community
This recognition category is reserved for program participants who are demonstrating an institutionalized commitment to building a sense of community, as reported through the experiences of faculty and staff.
In addition to the responses collected through the ModernThink Higher Education Insight Survey, recognition considers overall response rate, data broken down by demographic subsets, benefits data and information collected through the IQ. The Honor Roll distinction went to the top 10 four-year colleges and the top 4 two-year colleges recognized the greatest number of times in each size category.
How do these results compare to the 2024 survey?
Overall, our average positive response rate stayed unchanged at 72%. Out of the 10 broad categories, we have seen slight increases in positive responses in 6, 2 stayed the same, and 2 indicate slight decreases in positive responses.
| Biggest Positive Changes | Biggest Negative Changes |
|---|---|
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For more details about UTRGV's performance and comparison to our 2024 results, view our full Topline Survey Results:
Comment Summary
| Appreciate | Opportunities |
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What’s Next?
All survey data was shared with Senior Leadership and discussions on how to address our identified opportunities are currently taking place. While the survey results were positive overall, we know there is still work to be done in certain areas and we will be forming action plans to achieve even better results.
We are committed to surveying all full-time employees every three years moving forward, starting in spring of 2026. The 2026 survey will offer all active full-time UTRGV employees a chance to share opinions, feedback, and other critical information, which will help continue our efforts to improve student and employee experiences.
If you didn’t participate in the 2025 Great Colleges to Work For® program survey, you can still share your praises in Great Colleges To Work For | UTRGV_Announcements | Microsoft Teams. Please direct any additional feedback to your supervisor. All other questions about the survey may be sent to OrgDevelopment@utrgv.edu.
Thank you to those who participated in this year’s survey and to all UTRGV employees for making our institution one of the best places to work, learn, and grow in America.