[Dr. Ken Rainey's Summary of the President's Letters to the VPAAs, 2001-2005]
Entire package
- Should be complete, current, and free of grammatical and mechanical errors.
- Should be in the correct order.
- Curriculum vitae should be current and up-to-date
Department chair letters
- Letters should directly address the criteria for the action being considered.
Narrative self-assessments
- The best ones are truly reflective and augment (rather than repeat) the information
in the c.v. and include a clear discussion of future goals, as well as past accomplishments
and have a clear discussion of goals, as well as of past accomplishments.
- Provide an overview of what motivates the faculty member to engage in teaching, service,
and scholarship - give a "feel" for the faculty member's style and enthusiasm for teaching and
scholarship - how the faculty member interacts with students and motivates them to learn.
- Clearly identify activities or accomplishments as falling in one of the four areas of
evaluation and explain the rationale for so including them.
- Also, the narrative is where faculty have the opportunity to explain the significance
of their efforts - i.e., why you attended a workshop, what the outcomes were, how it benefited
SPSU and the faculty member's teaching, scholarship, or service.
- It is the place where the faculty should make the case for how a particular activity
contributes to one evaluative area.
- The faculty should explain which publications were peer - reviewed and their level of
contribution to publications with multiple authors.
Evaluations of teaching
- SIRS should not be the only - or even the major - source of information about the quality and effectiveness of teaching - a variety of sources should be included.
- SIRS data should be provided in a clear context - i.e., departmental benchmarks should be discussed and the faculty member's record compared to departmental averages.
- Comparing the faculty member's scores to the "comparative mean for 4 - year institutions" is not a relevant comparison for this institution.
- Evaluation should include specific evidence of how the information has been used to improve teaching
- Peer - reviews of teaching should be included.
- Minimum expectations for teaching should not be listed as "noteworthy."
- Excerpts from informal student comments are not helpful unless the faculty member makes
clear that all of the comments are included.
Evaluations of scholarship and professional achievement
- See attached page of Scholarship Assessed as an illustration of criteria that should be considered in the evaluations of personnel packages.
- Should distinguish between grant (both proposals and awards) from on - campus
sources vs. external sources.
Evaluations of professional development
- Maintaining currency is not evidence of "noteworthy" professional development.
Evaluations of service
- Service activities should focus on the impact and contributions of the service, the result that is accomplished through committee service - the effectiveness of the service is critical.
- At SPSU we include activities that show involvement in the community, but it is the
faculty member's responsibility to make the case that it is a meaningful contribution.
Evaluations by external reviewers
- Include letters from professionals in the faculty member's field, but not letters from graduate school advisors, fellow graduate students, or personal friends.
- The most valuable are from those who have worked with the faculty member in some off - campus context - as part of a professional organization, a colleague on a project, or as a co - author.
- Letters should comment on the value of a faculty member's contribution to the profession, their reputation in the field, and their contributions relative to faculty at other schools (my addition: in a similar category).
- They can be useful in commenting on the value and use of web pages (since this is
a yet - undefined area of scholarly contributions).
Responsibilities of the department peer committee
- Should be the first review that assures that the tenure and promotion package contains the require information. If it does not, return it with instructions.
- Provide an assessment of the faculty member's activities and accomplishments not
just a listing.
Responsibilities of all committees/levels of evaluation
- In negative votes, provide information that concerned the committee members.
- Rely consistently on the faculty member's identification of the areas in which
he or she is making the case for "noteworthy" performance.