Date: January 21, 2001

To: Dr. Sandy Pfeiffer

Acting Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs

From: President Lisa A. Rossbacher

Re: Observations on the 2000-2001 faculty review process for tenure and promotion

In our efforts to sustain "continuous improvement," I want to offer you my perspectives on the review process for faculty seeking tenure and promotion during the 2000-01 academic year.

From my perspective, the tenure and promotion packages that you forwarded to me are significantly better than those I received last year. Several of the packages were resubmissions by faculty whose requests were not successful last year. In cases where the faculty members received specific suggestions about how to strengthen their presentation, the improvement was particularly dramatic. Overall, the narratives provided valuable information, background, and direction about each faculty member's plan for professional growth, and I found this extremely helpful in assessing the package. I hope faculty will be encouraged to continue providing this narrative explanation of their activities, motivations, and reflections on the results.

I have a question about whether it is appropriate to include, in the personnel package, letters of support from colleagues who serve on any of the evaluation groups (such as the departmental peer committee or the University peer review committee). I assume that these letters were written before the author had the opportunity to review the entire package, and it seems unwise, at best, to ask a colleague to support a recommendation whose supporting documentation they have not seen or will see only after the letter is written.

The cover page to each package does not include any information about whether the faculty member being evaluated is tenured. The information states current academic rank and only whether the person is tenure-track or not. I would welcome the addition of information on the cover page about whether the faculty member already holds tenure and, if so, when it was awarded.

The letters from departmental committees and from you did an excellent job of providing the independent evaluation that I have asked for in previous years. So did the department heads who wrote letters (recognizing that one department's faculty did not have letters from a department head). The letters from deans were a mixture of independent evaluations (which I look for) and evaluations of the other evaluations (interpreting the recommendations contained in other evaluations, which is far less helpful). I want to express my appreciation to the individuals and committees who clearly spent considerable time and energy in preparing these comments, and I thank you all for your good work.

My greatest concern in this year's faculty evaluation process is the lack of information from the University peer committee. The summary format that was used includes only a vote count and, if there were any negative votes, some comments that justified them. No positive comments or discussions of the candidates' strengths were included – only a list of shortcomings or weaknesses (and sometimes the same problem, listed over and over). This brief summary does not do justice to the discussion and consideration in which I know the peer committee engaged, and this format seems to minimize the concerns and neglect the strengths. This summary format does not provide me with much useful information, and I hope to receive more detailed evaluative information in a narrative form next year.

I realize that the membership of the University peer review committee changes from year to year; how can we ensure that this information is conveyed to next year's committee early in the fall, so that the 2001-02 committee knows what my expectations are from them?

Many thanks for your help.