Faculty Performance Evaluation Task Force

View the Final Report of the Task Force on Faculty Performance Evaluation [PDF].

Charge

The Academic Master Plan raises concerns for whether faculty evaluations align with the Vision, espoused values and strategic initiatives of the University. Even before this, the Office of the Provost called for revisions in faculty performance evaluations in three major areas: interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborations, enhancement of diversity and international experiences, and attention to safety and research compliance. The development of the Teaching-Learning and the Engagement Roadmaps in the Academic Master Plan have pointed to the need to improve our teaching evaluation mechanisms, as well as to define recognition and reward criteria for contributions to the pursuit of scholarly engagement. The task force is expected to make recommendations to the interim provost and executive vice president for academics by April 1, 2010.

The task force is charged with three tasks. First, the task should:

  1. Develop a flexible set of university-wide guidelines or rules to steer the colleges and departments in the development of their own annual faculty performance evaluation guidelines. The guidelines need to accommodate the following conditions:
  2. Identify and recommend examples of best-practice approaches to faculty performance evaluation in research-extensive, land-grant universities, in which they have considered on-campus practices as well as strong examples from other institutions;
    • Adhere to the requirements presented in Section 2 of University Rule 12.01.99.M2 or recommend changes to the Rule with strong supportive reasoning.
    • Address all faculty members, tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track.
    • Clarify the process for normal expectations and for annual assignment to individual faculty for the percentage that each performance element (teaching, research, service) will contribute to the overall evaluation score. The guidelines should clarify that teaching, research, and service loads may vary from faculty member to faculty member, and provide a Standard Administrative Procedure for the negotiating and/or assignment of individualized loads.
    • The submission of the annual review procedures should be accompanied by a description, as needed, of how the performance in each element will be determined (what will be considered as contributors to the elements) and how each element is weighed in the ensuing annual review cycle. In this regard special attention should be given to how teaching is evaluated routinely (and how student evaluations are weighed and how they are supplemented by other sources in this evaluation), to how diversity in creative scholarship is valued (publishing, funding, commercialization and popular adoption, multi-modal, etc…), and to how service, including scholarly engagement, is assessed and valued in the total evaluation.
    • Faculty members should be recognized and rewarded for teaching, research, and service that contribute at the university or college levels in strategic multidisciplinary areas (which include activities in recognized interdisciplinary programs).
    • Multidisciplinary contributions should be valued no more and no less than disciplinary contributions.
    • Faculty members should be recognized and rewarded for teaching, research, and service that contribute at the university, college, or departmental accomplishments in enhancing diversity and participation in international initiatives.
    • Faculty members should be recognized and rewarded for teaching, research, and service that contribute at the university, college, or departmental accomplishments in scholarly engagement.
    • The guidelines should state the minimum, best-practices elements that must be included in Faculty Teaching Evaluations. This includes setting parameters for the types of data, methods of data collection, as well as processes and procedures for the interpretation of the data.
    • No faculty member may receive an overall satisfactory rating if they have not complied with all System Regulation 33.05.02 required training.
    • Each faculty annual evaluation must include a section on safety, where faculty members can self-report how they have addressed safety concerns, if any, in the environments in which they work.

  3. Make recommendations on how the proposed changes should be addressed in college and departmental guidelines (timeline and processes), and guidance on any concerns for ‘phasing in’ changes in evaluation processes so that all faculty are treated fairly, especially those on tenure track or nearing some other significant evaluation juncture.

Members

  • Antonio Cepeda-Benito (chair), dean of faculties and associate provost
  • Clinton D. Allred, assistant professor of nutrition and food science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
  • Michael J. Benedik, professor of biology, College of Science
  • Fred A. Bonner, II, professor of educational administration and human resource development, College of Education and Human Development, and associate dean of faculties
  • Joseph Cerami, senior lecturer, George Bush School of Government and Public Service
  • Gary D. Ellis, professor and head, Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
  • Marcel C. Erminy, senior lecturer in architecture, College of Architecture
  • Richard J. Golsan, distinguished professor and head, Department of European and Classical Languages and Cultures, College of Liberal Arts
  • Jean-Luc Guermond, professor of mathematics, College of Science
  • John E. Hurtado, associate professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering
  • Yvonna S. Lincoln, distinguished professor of educational administration and human resource development
  • Annie S. McGowan, associate professor of accounting, Mays Business School
  • Kate C. Miller, dean, College of Geosciences
  • Allen J. Roussel, Jr., professor and associate head, Department of Veterinary Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
  • Roger H. Schultz, professor of theatre arts, Department of Performance Studies, College of Liberal Arts
  • Simon Sheather, professor and head, Department of Statistics, College of Science
  • Elizabeth D. Tebeaux, professor of English, College of Liberal Arts
  • X. Ben Wu, professor, Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, and associate dean of faculties
  • Debra L. Zoran, associate professor of veterinary small animal clinical sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences