Understanding Article 54

EVALUATION: THE PHILOSOPHY, THE PROCESS, THE MECHANICS

December brings snow, the end of the semester, and holidays, but it also brings an end to the evaluation process, the time when most departments submit recommendations regarding the appointment status (i.e., retention or non-retention) and promotion of their faculty. It’s appropriate, therefore, to raise some questions and offer some advice and opinion on article 54 of the Contract: "Guidelines for Faculty Evaluation."

WHO SHOULD BE EVALUATED?

The purpose of evaluation is twofold: to help faculty improve performance and to guide decisions about reappointment, tenure, and promotions (see "General Purpose," 55). Individually as professionals and collectively as departments, all faculty have an interest in and responsibility to improve their own and their colleagues’ performance. The evaluation process is one of a number of activities faculty may participate in to improve performance, but it’s probably the only formal activity wherein others make judgements based on prescribed criteria. In addition, appointment, tenure, and promotion decisions must be made for all faculty at the college. Since these decisions should be based on the faculty member’s performance, the evaluation procedure is a structure which can insure that the decision will be an informed decision. It should be clear then that the answer to the question who should be evaluated is all faculty should be evaluated. The term "faculty" refers to all teaching and non-teaching staff as recognized in Article 3, Section A of the Contract (2).

Departments are usually clear about who they should evaluate, but there may be cases where the responsibility for evaluation is unclear. The easiest way for a department to determine whether it’s responsible or not is to ask who is responsible for making reappointment, promotion, and /or tenure recommendations for this faculty member? Whether the person is full-time, part-time, or adjunct, a technical assistant, lecturer, advisor, or coordinator, s/he is a member of some department at MCC. That’s the department responsible for the recommendations and, therefore, the evaluation.

WHEN SHOULD FACULTY BE EVALUATED?

Though all faculty should be evaluated, when they’re evaluated varies. Section I, C ("Frequency of Evaluation," 58) speaks to this matter. All full-time faculty must be evaluated once annually during the first five years of employment. Thereafter, faculty will be evaluated once every three years, but faculty seeking promotion must be evaluated at least once in the preceding 12 months. How does this actually work? Faculty in their first five years must be given six months notice if they are not to be retained. Therefore, 10-month faculty must be notified by December 31 and 12- month faculty by February 28. Consequently, the evaluation process must begin fairly early in the fall semester to meet these notification deadlines. By late September, the vice-president responsible for a department should provide the chair or director with a list of that department’s members, noting what year each is in, and setting a deadline for appointment status recommendations. This past fall, for example, VP Glocker asked that these recommendations be submitted to the respective deans by December 1st. No later than October 15th, all faculty should receive a copy of the "Annual Faculty Activity Form," and the evaluation process can begin.

For the most part, when faculty should be evaluated is pretty clear from the Contract, but one issue related to frequency may be less clear: when is a faculty member eligible for promotion? Section IV, B, 1 says "full-time faculty members shall be eligible for promotion at the beginning of their sixth year of professional, full-time employment (64). This allows a department to evaluate a faculty member during his/her fifth year and recommend promotion effective September 1st of the sixth year. It’s worth noting too that the phrases "full-time faculty" and "full-time employment" include full-time temporary appointments. So, for example, a faculty member who had full-time temporary appointments for two years prior to receiving a tenure track appointment would be eligible for promotion at the beginning of his/her fourth year term appointment. That means s/he could be promoted before receiving tenure (see Art. 55-Appointment of Faculty, 69). When is this person next eligible for promotion? Technically, s/he is immediately eligible for promotion because the Contract does not refer to time in rank as a criterion for promotion. In fact, sec. IV, B, 6 specifically states that "promotion from rank to rank…is not automatic, but is based on meritorious performance of teaching and other job duties" (65). Historically, it is true that the length of time required to achieve a performance level meriting a promotion has varied a good deal. But the important contractual point is that a department cannot deny a faculty member consideration for promotion based on number of years in rank. It may not rank the person highly, or it may not recommend promotion, but the department must assess the person’s fitness for promotion, if s/he requests.

WHAT IS AN EVALUATION?

The answer may seem simple, but I’m sure there are a variety of responses to this question. I want to answer it by referring to the language of the Contract. Section 1, B, 2 says, "an evaluation report shall be defined as a written assessment of a faculty member’s performance" (56). The two important words here are "report" and "written". Without them, an evaluation could be a form with blanks or boxes to fill in signifying satisfactory, unsatisfactory, or needs improvement. But contractually, an evaluation is a report in writing, which assesses a faculty member’s performance. So where is the confusion? Continuing into section 1,B, 3, we read that "the criteria to be used in the evaluation shall be in writing and based upon a departmental appraisal instrument". In the process of developing and using an appraisal instrument (and in some cases more than one), a department interprets what an appraisal instrument is, functionally answering questions like what does it appraise and how is it related to / different from an evaluation report? One reason why there’s not a simple answer to the question opening this section is that departments interpret the relation between an appraisal instrument and an evaluation differently.

I can tell you what I think. An evaluation report and an appraisal instrument are not the same thing. Contract language does not treat them synonymously; in fact, the reference above from p. 56 separates the two (i.e., it doesn’t make sense to say the criteria to be used in the appraisal instrument shall be based upon an appraisal instrument). But their relation can be clarified if we ask how an evaluation report gets written: where does the substance and evidence for the report come from? An "instrument" is a thing by means of which something is done, and to "appraise" is to judge the quality or worth of something, so an appraisal instrument would be a vehicle to help develop the substance for an evaluation report. It’s a form with questions and spaces or boxes for short comments and /or checks. It’s used to help organize and focus an evaluator’s response to any part of a faculty member’s professional activity: faculty activity reports; instructional materials or work products; classroom or lab observation; or performance of non-teaching responsibilities. This information can then be used to write the evaluation report. I think it’s important that departments recognize the distinction between the checklist format of an appraisal instrument and the written/paragraph format of an evaluation report.

WHAT FORM OR SHAPE SHOULD AN EVALUATION HAVE?

Section II of the Evaluation Article, "Criteria for Faculty Evaluation", lists six criteria though only five are applicable because one of the first two would apply either to a teaching or to a non-teaching faculty member. The five criteria fall into three areas:

• effectiveness in teaching or non-teaching position;
• professional activity and growth;
• service:
  • a) to students
  • b) to department, program/division, college
  • c) to community.

These three areas are the same ones specified in "Promotion Guidelines" as the "three facets of professional performance at Monroe Community College [which] will form the basis of every evaluation for promotion in academic rank" (65). Though a Department’s letter recommending a colleague’s tenure appointment or promotion is not an evaluation report, their content shares the same performance focus. An evaluation report should, therefore, be organized into three sections, each containing sentences and paragraphs which describe and assess the faculty member’s performance in that area. After the faculty member and evaluator sign and date the evaluation report, the faculty member must develop a written plan for maintaining and/or enhancing position effectiveness and professional growth (see Art. 54, Sec. B 9&10). When the plan has been mutually agreed to, it becomes a part of the written evaluation report. It’s now complete and can be filed in the faculty member’s official personnel file.

WHAT IF YOU AREN’T EVALUATED WHEN YOU SHOULD BE?

The frequency requirements for evaluation are outlined in the second section above. However, it’s surprising how often faculty are not evaluated when they should be. Recently, I spoke with a faculty member who’s been here 2 ½ years but has yet to receive an evaluation. Who is responsible for making sure an evaluation gets done? One might think it’s a supervisor’s responsibility, but two arbitration decisions in the mid 1990’s place the burden on the faculty member.

In both cases, the arbitrators said a grievance alleging failure to evaluate appropriately was time-barred because the grievant and/or the FA did not grieve the absence of an evaluation within the 25-day time period called for in the contract (Art 44, Sec. A, 4). I should point out that the evaluation question was only one of a number of issues in each arbitration; it’s unlikely it would be the sole issue in an arbitration. Nevertheless, these decisions make clear that all faculty should know when they need to be evaluated and be prepared to play a role in making sure the evaluation is completed. I can understand why some faculty might feel my second suggestion could put them in a delicate position vis a vis their evaluator. If so, please feel free to call the FA office at ext. 2528; we’re happy to help.

WHY IS EVALUATION IMPORTANT?

All evaluations are placed in the faculty member’s official personnel file, and " the only documents which shall be used as the basis for reappointment, evaluation, promotion, continuing appointment, discipline, suspension, or discharge are those that are in the official open file…" (Art. 6, Sec. C, 1). Virtually any decision regarding a faculty member’s status at MCC must be based on written evaluations. Additionally, if a department wants to address a tenured faculty member’s unsatisfactory performance, the need for change should be documented in an evaluation before the department pursues remedies. Faculty may not look forward either to evaluating a colleague or to being evaluated, but I can tell you that most of the issues I’ve dealt with in almost 12 years as Grievance Chair have been related to evaluation, so I’d urge faculty to engage the process fully and honestly. In the long term, doing so serves the best interests of the individual faculty member and the department.

- James C. Davis, Jr. , 2001