4.2 / Handbook for Faculry
4.22 /WSU Policies and Procedures -- http://webs.wichita.edu/inaudit/ch4_22.htm

GENERAL POLICY

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.

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

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.

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 rediscussed 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.

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

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.

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

PROCEDURES

Departmental Faculty:
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.

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

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.

Department Chairs\Directors (hereafter referred to as chairs):
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.

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

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research and Deans:
Deans shall transmit their pay recommendations to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research 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.

The Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research shall transmit that office's departmental pay recommendations for the entire department to each dean who has the responsibility of informing the department chairs as soon as soon as these are developed.  The chair is responsible for informing the person being evaluated at that time.

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.

EVALUATION OF TEACHING

Kansas Board of Regents policy statements of April 1992 and December 1994 mandate that there be a formal evaluation of teaching as part of the annual merit salary review.  In compliance with these policy statements, the University has developed the following steps in the evaluation of all University faculty with half-time or more appointments and those unclassified professionals who have teaching responsibilities amounting to 50 percent or more of their workload.

1. Each department shall develop an explicit statement of the appropriate information to be used for teaching evaluation in that department and an explicit statement of the criteria used for the evaluation of that information.
2. Multiple sources or kinds of information shall be used.  Examples are cited in Regents policy statements and in the Faculty Evaluation Committee report to the Faculty Senate (5/95).
3. Student survey results must be included in the information sought.
4. The information presented must be evaluated by peers or knowledgeable colleagues.
5. To protect the broad faculty prerogatives explicit in Regents policy, department faculty shall act immediately to implement those policies.  Accordingly, these faculty shall:  
   1. Determine the kinds of information appropriate for their disciplines or for the various subdisciplines represented in their department.
   2. Describe the peer evaluation process with respect to the requisite information. 
       
   3. Determine the appropriate criteria which are used to judge the information.
   4. Write a departmental policy statement incorporating items a. through c. above.
   5. Insure that the unit operates in accord with its own policy.

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 (Policy on Teaching Evaluation, Board of Regents, 12/94).  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.

Each University department/unit shall develop, with input from its faculty, a set of guidelines approved by the dean, describing the minimum acceptable level of performance for all applicable areas of responsibility for its faculty, as well as procedures to handle alleged cases of chronic low performance.  Chronic failure of a tenured faculty member to meet the minimum acceptable level of performance as defined by the department/unit guidelines shall constitute evidence of “chronic low performance” and may warrant consideration for “dismissal for cause” under existing University policies.  This statement is intended to establish a specific and clear procedure for identifying and addressing instances of a faculty member failing to meet the minimum level of performance, and to provide a remediation program where appropriate, as further described below.

If remediation is necessary, the chair will discuss the faculty member’s performance with the faculty member and suggest types of remediation that are available and appropriate.  The remediation may include appropriate provisions for faculty development, such as counseling, leave of absence, or a change in teaching assignments.  Other remediation steps may be offered, subject to review by the Faculty Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate and the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research.  Remediation should begin as soon as possible and will be funded by the University.  The faculty member’s annual review document for the subsequent year should reflect the method of remediation and document its level of success.
 

If within any period of five years from the first evaluation of low performance, a tenured faculty member receives a third annual evaluation which reflects a failure to meet the minimum level of performance, the chair, in conjunction with the dean, may recommend to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research that the Dismissal for Cause Policy under Section 4.23 of the WSU Policies and Procedures Manual be invoked.
 

Revision Date:
May 15, 2007