4.31 / Faculty Evaluation

Effective: July 01, 1997Last Revised: September 21, 2020

  1. Initiating Authority

    Faculty Senate serves as the initiating authority.

  2. Purpose

    The following policy provisions are established from the perspective that variety in academic schools/departmental (hereinafter referred to as "Department") evaluation procedures shall be preserved, subject to providing a fair evaluation for each individual and subject to departmental mission.

  3. Policy

    1. All faculty, with half-time or more appointments, and those unclassified professionals who have teaching responsibilities amounting to 50 percent or more of their workload are to be evaluated at least once a year regardless of whether or not they are in the Academic Affairs division of the University.

    2. There shall be a common calendar for the evaluation of untenured faculty and for annual merit evaluation.

    3. Department evaluation procedures shall focus on the year in question while providing for at least two contiguous years in each review, in order to make appropriate adjustments in salaries based on previous years with limited or no salary allocation moneys and to determine patterns and continuity in academic accomplishments.

    4. The Department shall be established as the primary site of evaluation. The chair of the department is responsible for maintaining the current departmental evaluation policy in an open file. The following records shall be established and maintained in individual faculty files kept in the departmental office:

      1. Departmental instructions to persons being evaluated including the requirement to discuss flexible performance goals for the coming year with the chair. The understanding is that these goals can be revisited and modified during the course of the year.
      2. Departmental evaluations for each person, including assessment of success in attainment of performance goals.
      3. The relationship between evaluation and departmental pay recommendation for each person.
      4. The rationale for changes in departmental evaluations and pay recommendations made by persons outside the Department.

    5. There shall be no information requested for annual evaluation that is not intended for that purpose.

    6. Persons being evaluated should be informed of any submitted information that was not reviewed by the evaluators involved in the evaluation process.

    7. There shall be developed procedures for an open information flow between affected parties as per the procedure outlined below and an opportunity for the person being evaluated to appeal at each stage of the process that will meet the prevailing budget time line requirements.

    8. The majority of any departmental review committee, if established according to the following procedure, must be tenured faculty.

  4. Administrative Procedure

    1. Departmental Faculty

      1. The faculty of each department shall establish a written policy for annual evaluation of all faculty with half-time or more appointments and those unclassified professionals who have teaching responsibilities amounting to 50 percent or more of their workload.

      2. Chairs and deans shall review departmental policy and meet with the departmental faculty in the interest of any changes that should be made.

      3. The faculty of each department shall cast a secret ballot at least every third year on whether they desire to elect annually a faculty evaluation committee for the purpose of evaluating the department members with teaching/librarianship responsibilities and providing merit pay recommendations to the department chair. If such a committee is established, its chair will meet with the department chair to report on the committee's recommendations for merit pay distribution within the department. If the departmental faculty elect not to establish a committee, the department chair will have sole responsibility of evaluating the department's teaching personnel/librarian personnel and generating the department recommendation for merit pay distribution within the department.

    2. Department Chairs\Directors (hereafter referred to as "Chairs")

      1. Chairs shall transmit departmental pay recommendations for the entire department, according to faculty established policy, to each person being evaluated as soon as these are developed and ready for transmittal to the dean. At that time, each person being evaluated may appeal his/her individual pay recommendations to the department chair.

      2. Chairs shall transmit departmental pay recommendations to their dean along with a prioritized list of individuals they recommend for any additional salary increases.

    3. Provost and Deans

      1. Deans shall transmit their pay recommendations to the Provost for the entire department. At the same time, the dean will explain to the Chairs any changes recommended by the dean in the department's salary recommendations. The Chairs are responsible for immediately informing the person being evaluated.

      2. The Provost shall transmit that office's departmental pay recommendations for the entire department to each dean who has the responsibility of informing the Chairs as soon as soon as these are developed. The Chair is responsible for informing the person being evaluated at that time.

      3. Administrators above the department level shall prepare a written explanation, attaching any relevant documents, of all changes they make in pay recommendations sent to their office. The explanation shall be transmitted to the person being evaluated and to the department chair.

    4. Evaluation Of Teaching

      1. It is the policy of the Kansas Board of Regents that merit increases for faculty shall be based on an annual evaluation of performance. In compliance with these policy statements, the University has developed the following guidelines for the evaluation of all University faculty with half-time or more appointments who have teaching responsibilities amounting to 50 percent or more of their workload, including: temporary faculty, probationary faculty, tenured faculty, contingent unclassified professionals, provisional unclassified professionals, and regular unclassified professionals.

      2. Departments, colleges or units must review and develop a comprehensive, and flexible approach to teaching evaluation, where several types of evidence will be collected, presented and evaluated as a portfolio. The types of information evaluated shall be appropriate for the discipline or various sub-disciplines represented in the department, college or unit. It shall be the responsibility of the department, college or unit to insure that evaluations are conducted in accordance with the established procedure. In addition to normed student evaluations such as SPTE or IDEA, evidence of teaching effectiveness may include, but is not limited to, some combination of the following:

        1. Course materials such as reading lists, syllabi, classroom or community activities, and examinations;

        2. Special contributions to effective teaching for diverse student populations;

        3. Development of innovative and effective teaching methods;

        4. Development of new courses or substantial modification of existing courses;

        5. Evidence of impact on students and faculty;

        6. Student outcome assessments such as before/after quantitative or qualitative testing, or results from standardized exams;

        7. Honors or special recognitions for teaching accomplishments;

        8. Peer evaluations;

        9. Special teaching activities outside the university;

        10. Advising and mentoring students;

        11. Exit interviews, and alumni interviews and surveys to obtain information about teaching effectiveness.

      3. Departments, colleges and unit should determine the appropriate criteria used to judge the information presented.

      4. The results for student perceptions of teaching evaluations and student comments are owned by the faculty teaching the class. Departments and/or colleges should not have access to the results and student comments prior to faculty. Only a quantitative summary for any normed evaluations is required. Only the two summary pages are required for evaluations if SPTEs are used, but faculty are free to include student comments in their entirety. SPTE results should be available to faculty before the annual review deadlines.

      5. Since all faculty with half-time or more appointments and those unclassified professionals who have teaching responsibilities amounting to 50 percent or more of their workload must be rated by students at least once a year, the department faculty shall determine the form or forms appropriate to its discipline among those which conform to the criteria stated in the policies of the Board of Regents). Surveys intended for faculty evaluation must conform to certain administrative practices:

        1. Persons being evaluated do not have access to blank survey forms and they have no responsibilities to administer the survey nor to tally survey results.
        2. Personnel who distribute and collect the surveys will acknowledge by their signature that they conducted the survey for a particular class and they recorded the number of students present at the time the survey was taken.
        3. Persons being evaluated shall have access to a copy of raw scores of any survey used for evaluation.

        Note: The Provost will establish procedures in consultation with the Faculty Senate for implementation of this policy. These procedures will pertain only to the time and form of the evaluation policy.