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Now that everyone has received the proposed Faculty Evaluation Plan (FEP), the Faculty Senate would like to encourage discussions and questions before it is voted on in the Fall.
Though the Faculty Evaluation Steering Committee will be holding an afternoon session during Convocation, we hope this blog will allow more in depth discussion. The blog will also provide an easy way for us refer back to the questions and comments of others.
Let me provide just a little background:
The Faculty Evaluation Plan, or FEP, is the culmination of several years of work by the Faculty Senate. In 2005, the Faculty Senate, Dr. DiCroce, and the College Board unanimously approved the Faculty Responsibilities Paper. This led to a review of the evaluation system. The Faculty Evaluation Steering Committee, a multi-campus and multi-disciplinary team, worked for two years to create this plan. Three non-voting members were added this year: two Deans and one Human Resources Representative.
Paramount in our minds throughout this process were the two following goals:
1) to use faculty input to develop the plan
2) to view faculty evaluation as a key to professional growth and development.
Six surveys and 10 multi-campus meetings were held to solicit input and feedback. The plan you see is based on the work of experts in faculty evaluation and on the responses made by faculty throughout the creation of the FEP. Faculty feedback guided all decisions and allowed the FEP to address the complexities of a multi-campus community college within the larger Virginia Community College System.
We look forward to seeing a lively discussion about the FEP in this area.
Maureen Cahill
Chair. Faculty Evaluation Steering Committee
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37 comments:
In reading the proposal it seems that the new evaluation is largely based on face-to-face classes. How does the senate intend to accomodate for on-line courses where an effective evaluation process is not in place?
The Faculty Evaluation Plan is designed to address all full-time teaching faculty regardless of the type of class they will be teaching.
Both online and face-to-face faculty will participate in a new online student evaluation of faculty, which is expected to begin Fall 2009 semester.
(For more information on this see the Senate Log: http://www.tcc.edu/welcome/collegeadmin/gov/facsen/SenateLOG.htm
The motion is item 4 on the log.)
Maureen (Chair of the Faculty Evaluation Steering Committee)
I liked the way we are evaluated now. I don't think this new plan is necessary.
At first glance, this new evaluation seems rather restrictive and much more weighty. It also appears that only a paragon of virtue could possibly acheive excellent status. Was this devised to assist faculty or hinder us?
Have you tried out the forms?
I found that by adjusting my weights to focus on my strong areas, I could earn less than excellent in two areas and from different sources, yet I could still earn an excellent overall.
I like the current system too. I copy and past what I said last year make a few minor modifications and I always get an excellent. But, everyone gets an excellent, so what does it really mean… nothing. The new system will take a little more work and thought on my part, but I think it’s worth it.
I applaud the new system for addressing the problem where everyone gets excellent regardless or their performance! It is about time that those who work hard are awarded for their efforts.
If you are currently performing at an excellent level, as you stated in your evaluation, the new system should only serve as a more organized reinforcement. Isn't this what we have been doing all along?
I'm glad to see that the Faculty Evaluation Steering Committee will be doing Q&As at each campus regarding the plan. The feeling I got from the session at convocation is that you all will need to do some selling in order to get enough faculty on board. You might consider distributing some handouts such as a list of advantages of the new plan or a summary comparison table of the two systems that faculty can take away from the session. Maybe an FAQ on the Senate Blog and/or website as well.
The flyer listing benefits is already in the works! Thanks for the suggestions.
What are the benefits?
Given that the percentage one receives is tied to the evaluation ranking, and the new system would, by design, reduce the number of "Excellent" ratings received, why should someone vote for a system which has such a strong potential to cost them $$? Especially when everyone seems to agree that faculty are woefully underpaid as it is.
I don’t think the new system was designed to reduce the number of “Excellent” ratings. Unless I miss something I don’t see anything that limits the ratings. I also disagree with the statement that it has the strong potential to cost us money. I actually think the opposite is true. I think the proposed plan has the potential to reward those that earn the “Excellent” rating. However, the plan doesn’t address merit pay. So, instead of focusing on speculation of what might happen in regards to merit increases, let’s focus on the potential the plan has to enhance the quality of instruction and service.
While the proposed plan does not speak to merit pay directly, the College is required by the state to have a merit component in its pay structure. For us, that has meant tying the percentage raise an individual receives to his/her evaluation rating. If I'm not mistaken, a rating of Very Good receives 1/2% less than a rating of Excellent, a Good receives 1/2% less than a Very Good, and so on.
While in theory the plan has the potential to improve the quality of instruction (I'm not sure what the quality of service means in this context), just the fact that a Dean has to write a justification for awarding a rating of Excellent, with no such requirement for ratings of Very Good or Good, makes it more likely that an overworked (and underpaid) Dean will award a rating of Very Good rather than Excellent to cut down a little bit on the work that the new system would subject them to.
Currently the percentage of faculty receiving a rating of Excellent is greater than 95%. Unless the new plan would lead to a larger number of faculty receiving ratings of Excellent, I fail to see how this plan could do anything but cost a large number of faculty money (compared to the present system), and I certainly can't imagine how the effect could be "opposite".
This, to me, smacks of everything that's wrong with trying to get tenure, only in this case, there isn't even tenure.
Here are what I see as the benefits of the proposed plan:
1) focus on teaching faculty voted for a focus on teaching effectiveness with a minimum of 50%and a maximum of 85% (the current evaluation does not have any set focus)
2) faculty control (Deans did 100% of our former evaluations... yes, most of them used our self evaluations, but this is not stated nor required)
3) consistency/objectivity (Less likelihood for bias)
3) flexibility (in any given year a faculty member can highlight his/her strengths.... mid-year renegotiation is possible should workload change)
4) predictability (faculty members can predict likely evaluations based on the choices he/she makes)
5) training (the current system has no training for either new deans or new faculty members)
6) tracking (results can be compared across classes over time)
There have been suggestions to the administration numerous times over the last several years about training for Deans in the current system, and they have always been summarily rejected. Is there any (written) guarantee to provide training to Deans with the new system? Any plan as to who would provide said training?
Just wondering?
This like a good plan. It seems indicative of what other instructors at various colleges and universities receive (both tenured and nontenured tracks).
Training is guaranteed for both Deans and faculty members. Based on the information of the two Deans serving as non-voting members of the Faculty Evaluation Committee, Deans will want to engage in the training sessions.
maureen
An earlier contributor asked "Is there any (written) guarantee to provide training to Deans with the new system?". The response was "Training is guaranteed for both Deans and faculty members". My experience has always been that the worth of a guarantee depends strongly on who provides the guarantee, and whether they are in a position to make good on it. So who, precisely, has guaranteed this training?
There was also the question "Any plan as to who would provide said training?" I saw nothing in the response addressing that question. Has this been decided? If not, when will it be decided, and by whom?
I have been getting a lot of comments that the proposed plan should focus more on teaching and not include the areas of service to the college, service to the profession, or service to the community. All of these areas are currently included in the current evaluation system and must be included with any new evaluation system as mandated by VCCS policy. The survey results also indicated that the majority of faculty agreed that these areas were a required by VCCS policy. The proposed system places a range on the weight for teaching from 50 to 85 percent. These percentages were selected based on statistical analysis of the data collected from faculty.
If the FEP is approved, training will be conducted targeting both faculty and deans. The Faculty Evaluation Committee will be the primary group putting together and delivering the training. I have already had discussions with the Executive Staff on the need for training. The training component has been part of the process since the beginning, and was included in the presentation I made at the 2007 Convocation. The details (format, who, when) of the training will be worked out and announced, if the FEP is approved. As chair of the College Faculty I guarantee training will occur (if the FEP is approved) for both Faculty and Deans. If needed, I will do it myself. Now getting people to show up is another issue!
In an earlier comment, someone asked about merit pay. As required TCC has merit pay. The Vice President for Finance develops the college's faculty salary merit plan each year with the approval of the President. The percentages applied to the ratings of Excellent, Very Good, and Good vary from year to year depending on the General Assembly and State Board approved increase to the salary average.
Additionally, the earlier comment suggested that overworked Deans would be more likely to assign Very Good or Good ratings to cut down on their workload. First, I do not agree that Deans would cut corners in the area of faculty evaluation. More importantly, at the beginning of each evaluation period, the faculty member and his/her Dean will sit down together to discuss the goal for the year. Based on his/her strengths and interests, the faculty member will select weights to allow the best possible outcome. In this way, both the Dean and the faculty member will begin the year with a clear idea of what would be needed to receive an Excellent rating. Any Dean who fails to select Excellent in order to save work would quickly find himself/herself in a position that could not be supported. The grievance process is available for such situations.
The final part of the comment asked whether the proposed plan will cause a faculty member to lose money as more than 95% of the faculty currently earn Excellent ratings. (I have no idea whether the 95% earning Excellent ratings is accurate, but I have heard this a time or two.) Throughout the two years the committee has worked on the proposed FEP, the committee members have remained focused on using this plan to improve teaching (and yes service).
Everyone continues to have the opportunity to earn an Excellent.
I cannot help but liken this comment to some of our students who expect excellent grades for less than excellent performance. The excellent is there and available.
I hope to see 95% or more of us earning Excellent evaluations.
The voting is now closed -- so when do we learn the results? Is there any plan to make that information available to the faculty?
Gee, I wonder why my post yesterday asking whether there was an impartial party counting the votes was CENSORED. Awkward question? I still would like an answer!
Response Rate 53%
Yes vote 64% of voting faculty
Details are posted on the Faculty Senate Log page. A formal email was sent out to faculty within 4 working days of the vote closing.
The computer does the counting. If you are questioning my integrity, I will be more than happy to provide the raw data downloaded from Surveymonkey to the Faculty Senate, Dr. DiCorce or to individual faculty members on request. Just send me a written request.
Also, I wasn’t happy with the time delay from when a post was made and when it actually showed up, so I had the requirement of sending post through a “blog-overseer” (I’m not sure what term to use) removed. So any post will go directly to the Blog. So if a post is made and doesn’t show up it is due to an error on the part of the person making the post or some type of server error. We have not censored any post. That being said , we will remove any spam posting, or any offensive post, if needed. If we remove a post we will notify the person making the post, if a name is attached. I would also like to encourage everyone to sign in and make post with their name attached. While I will not do any censoring, some self censoring is expected.
You know, I find it rather sad that questioning the manner in which votes are collected and tabulated is interpreted as an assault on the integrity of the person running the show. Rather than a personal attack, the question was intended as a call for a little more daylight on the mechanics of the voting process.
By the way, why not make the raw data available in a way that any interested colleague can inspect it, rather than making folks jump through the hoop of submitting a written request for said data. It seems to me the raw election data, along with the results, belongs to the faculty as a whole, not to any one (or two) individuals or groups.
I understand people getting upset when a vote doesn't turn out how they would like it, but disrespecting people, even when angry, is uncalled for. Phrases like "Gee, I wonder" and "I find it rather sad" are simply not collegial.
While "anonymous's" September 17, 2008 10:10 AM question may have been "intended as a call for a little more daylight on the mechanics of the voting process," its wording was snide. Meanwhile, "senate chair's" response was not rude or assumptive. The words used were "If you are questioning my integrity," and "if" is the important word that was ignored in "anonymous's" September 25, 2008 2:03 PM response.
Thanks for your time.
Well, the vote is in, and although I see potential for disaster in the result, only time will tell. I honestly hope things work out well, despite my misgivings, because the College is very important to me, and of course even more so to our students.
While I would like to follow the "Chair's" suggestion of submitting a post as something other than anonymous, it has been my experience that there are individuals in position to cause difficulty who do not respond, to use Kim's language, collegially to anyone who questions any of their actions. Until such threat of reprisal no longer exists, I remain reluctantly, Anonymous.
Don't like the fact that those students who withdrew from the class are going to be able to evaluate me. They are even in the class! Why?
Peer review? Well, I had better be able to sit with each administrator and counselor to see how they are relating to students.
Regarding the student evaluations: I think part of the reasoning is that the students who withdrew WERE in the class at one point. If students withdraw because of home, work, or other personal reasons, they may still have good things to say about the instructor that help negate the fact that they had to leave. On the other hand, students may be leaving classes due to problems in the classroom that faculty aren't even aware of. If this is the case, allowing this students to evualuate faculty may help bring some of these problems into the light without making the students come forward.
Regarding your sentence about peer review: I'm not sure how the administrators and counselors are connected to the peer review. Could you explain your comment?
:)
I think the moderator step has been taken away since we now see our comments immediately (at least I do); you may want to delete that part from the explanation. :)
In response to having students that withdraw fill out an evaluation form. The web based software has a lot of reporting capabilities that we are not use to having. Just because data is collected from students that withdraw doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be used for evaluation purposes. I will check with IE to see if the college can provided a field indicating the "W" to the software company. If so, it will be easy to filter it out. I don't think it was done for the pilot study, but it is something that we can request. While instructors may not want data from students that withdraw count towards evaluations, it may be useful when looking at success rates.
I must say how disappointed I am in Dr. DiCroce’s decision to disapprove the FEP. I had begun to believe that over the past few years we had acquired enough new blood that the face of the institution had actually changed and we were no longer bound by the status quo of mediocrity that has held the college in its clutches for the past decades. The senate has been revitalized – the improvements over the last two years are staggering. The fact that I can now go to the Faculty Senate Log and check the status of issues that concern me and the very existence of this BLOG are leaps and bounds over where the senate was only a few years ago. I served my time on the faculty senate many years ago when I was young and naïve. I found it extremely frustrating and dysfunctional. The same complaints and issues brought up again and again and talked to death with no closure or solutions.
My hope is that the current senate group who worked on the FEP will not be, as I was after serving my time, disheartened, frustrated and bitter. My cynicism has been proven wrong as I never thought the senate could be where it is today. This dedicated group has shown that there are faculty who care about this institution AND our students and want to make it the best that it can be, always striving to improve. I am in awe at the changes that you have wrought. You are better men/women than I. Change we need, but perhaps it is not our time ….yet.
Anonymous, you officially lifted my spirits and helped keep a bit of the encroaching cynicism at bay.
Thank you.
:)
Kim
I am also very disappointed that the FEP was not approved. I participated in all the surveys and I voted for it because I want to see changes. The log shows a 64%majority for the plan. Only 35% voted against it. How can the people who didn't vote at all have more say than the majority of voters?
The senate really has made alot of positive changes over the past two years. I like seeing the senate's work on the Faculty Senate Log and hope it continues.
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