This dissertation investigates a possible service-value gap between faculty valuing of service categories and their perceptions of departmental valuing of these service categories at the University of Colorado. The service gap was shown to be statistically significant for most service categories on most campuses using a t-test for each campus/category combination.

The theoretical framework for the study combines elements from the history of faculty service in the U.S., cognitive dissonance, organizational adaptation, faculty retention, and Boyer's (1990) model of scholarship. These areas provided the lenses through which the findings were viewed. The major independent variable used to examine the data was time in unit. The hypothesis was that as faculty spent more time in their academic unit, they reframed their own values, thereby reducing the cognitive dissonance produced by gaps that may have existed as they began their time in their units. The dependent variable was a dissatisfaction ratio constructed from the value number that the faculty member placed on a service category divided by the value number that the faculty member perceived was held by her or his department.

Qualitative data from the survey supports the quantitative findings that faculty are generally dissatisfied with the gaps that exist between their service values and the values of their departments. The majority of those who answered the question "If you could make any change in how service is evaluated in your unit or your university, what would you change?" indicated that significant changes are needed in order to create a fair system of service evaluation.

Multiple regressions were conducted to determine if a correlation between time in unit and the faculty dissatisfaction ratio could be found. While a statistically significant correlation was found for some campuses for some categories, the effect size was small according to Cohen (1988), and therefore just the campus with the highest correlation was reported to show the methodology used. However, comparing ethnic/racial groups results indicated that some relationship may exist between time in unit and service-value dissatisfaction for some ethnicities.