Identify the Characteristics of Engaged Faculty Members of Public Universities in Iran

Abstract
The prominent and outstanding role of faculty members is not hidden from anyone in the education of students, the dynamism and prosperity of the university, and development and excellence of society. To playing these roles, they require to have enough work engagement. In this qualitative-applied research, university faculty members’ work engagement is considered, posing the question: what are the characteristics of engaged faculty members of public universities in Iran? The participants were 26 faculty members of public Universities in Tehran, who were selected by snowball sampling method and were interviewed with semi-structured questions until theoretical saturation was obtained. The participants’ responses were coded after each interview, and the concepts and themes were extracted from them using the thematic analysis method. Finally, the characteristics of engaged faculty members were categorized into 4 main themes: try to other flourishing, interest in self-flourishing, Commitment to professional ethics and engaged personality. Furthermore,16 sub-themes were identified and discussed.
New organizations expect their employees to be creative and dynamic, take the initiative, work collaboratively, try to develop their job skills, and be committed to high performance standards. Therefore, modern organizations need a lot of engaged staff for success. Universities and centers of higher education play an important role in the development and excellence of human societies. One of the factors that help to improve the current status of universities is enjoying faculty members with enough work engagement. Due to the effect of faculty members’ work engagement on their performance qualitatively and quantitatively, it seems that in order to improve the status of universities, faculty members with work engagement, as major actors in the university should be recruited. Due to the reliance of achieving higher education goals and comprehensive development of the country on the existence of faculty members who are engaged in teaching, researching, advising and leading students, the present study seeks to answer the question: what are the characteristics of engaged faculty members of public universities in Iran? Thus, this study was conducted with the aim of identifying the characteristics of engaged faculty members, as one of the most important components of the country's higher education system. It is hoped this study can assist relevant authorities in identifying the characteristics of engaged faculty members, modifying performance evaluation criteria and promoting faculty members.
Case study
In this research, faculty members of public universities in Iran constitute the case study.
Due to the nature of the subject, the research is conducted in a qualitative manner and is based on the interpretation philosophy. Data collection is conducted through interview with 26 faculty members from public universities in Tehran. data collection was conducted through snowball sampling. The method of data analysis is thematic analysis.
Discussion and After analyzing the data, the characteristics of engaged faculty members were categorized into 4 main themes: try to other flourishing, interest in self-flourishing, commitment to professional ethics and engaged personality. Furthermore, 16 sub-themes were identified and discussed.
Although the main question of our research was about the characteristics of engaged faculty members, the characteristics expressed by the interviewees were mostly about the faculty members’ engagement for teaching and rather than about the engagement for researching. The characteristics identified with most to least frequency were about: the engagement for teaching, the engagement for communicating with the community, and the engagement for researching; it indicates the importance of spending time and energy of the teacher in educating students.