All faculty in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences are evaluated annually, on a calendar-year basis. It is the responsibility of the department chair to provide annual evaluations. Departments should have guidelines by which they can evaluate a faculty member’s interdisciplinary contributions to teaching, research, and service/leadership.
Reflective of the principles of shared governance in CLAS, all faculty evaluations should include the input of peers, as advisory to the chair’s assessment.
5.1.1 Tenure-Track Faculty
Tenure-track and tenured faculty in the CLAS are evaluated in the general areas of instructional contributions, research and creative activity, and professional service and engagement (includes contributions to the Department, College, University, Profession, and local, national, and global communities). Individual departments may weight these differently, either as a department or in addressing individual workloads. Faculty are evaluated on a calendar-year basis.
5.1.2 Lecturers and Senior Lecturers
Lecturers and senior lecturers are reviewed against criteria aligned with the duties and responsibilities described in the contract letter and/or job description. In general, departments should design criteria commensurate with performance expectations typically demanded of other faculty of the department with similar responsibilities. For example, lecturers whose primary responsibility is teaching 1000/2000-level undergraduate courses should be expected to perform similarly to all faculty teaching at that level. In cases where a lecturer’s duties include responsibilities in multiple departments or programs, the departmental review committee and chair of the home department should receive feedback on the lecturer’s performance from the chair or director of the other unit(s) involved.
Criteria for Evaluation
The review of lecturers should be regular, systematic, and rigorous and should be conducted by a departmental review committee. The criteria for performance should align with the duties and responsibilities described in the contract letter and/or job description. In general, departments should design criteria commensurate with performance expectations typically demanded of other faculty of the department with similar responsibilities. For example, lecturers whose primary responsibility is teaching 1000/2000-1evel undergraduate courses should be expected to perform similarly to all faculty teaching at that level. In cases where a lecturer’s duties include responsibilities in multiple departments or programs, the departmental review committee and chair of the home department should receive feedback on the lecturer’s performance from the chair or director of the other unit(s) involved.
Lecturers whose major responsibility is teaching courses at the undergraduate level will be held to the same standards for teaching performance as all faculty teaching at that level in the department. Such criteria may include (where appropriate):
- Evidence of knowledge and currency in subject matter
- Knowledge and use of effective instructional strategies
- Ability to design and implement a course curriculum
- Ability to formulate and measure course goals, expectations, and outcomes
- Ability to provide effective oral and/or written feedback to student learning
- Evidence of effective teaching from peer reviews and student evaluations.
If the lecturer is responsible for duties in addition to teaching, criteria for performance will be outlined by the lecturer’s supervisor and presented to the lecturer at the beginning of the contract or whenever the duties are assumed.
Professional Development
In order to maintain high levels of quality instruction, departments in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences should reasonably support, encourage, and share responsibilities with lecturers for their professional development. Departments should provide adequate time and resources for lecturers to pursue these endeavors which may include, but are not limited to:
- Development of their professional knowledge as it relates to the curriculum material in which they will teach and on which they will be evaluated;
- Formation of partnerships with colleagues in research and writing and teaching that can be used to develop opportunities for knowledge building in their curriculum areas;
- Encouragement of professional association memberships;
- Identification of opportunities to participate in pedagogical workshops and meetings to enhance the individual teaching portfolio and maintain currency within disciplinary norms;
- Participation on departmental, college and university committees.
5.1.3 Part-time Faculty
Each department is responsible for determining an appropriate procedure for evaluating part-time faculty. At the very least, the process should include the following:
- A copy of the instructor’s course evaluations;
- A copy of a peer review report (part-time faculty in the first two semesters of appointment should receive a peer review each semester; after the initial year, a peer review should be scheduled once a year).
- A report from the chair, outlining strengths and weaknesses.
Evaluations are provided to part-time faculty within one month of the semester’s end.
