
Academics
Faculty Evaluation at Northwestern
Overview of Faculty Evaluation
Tenured faculty will be evaluated every three years in conjunction with tenure review. The Academic Vice-President will notify tenured faculty when they are scheduled for review.
Non-Tenured faculty will be evaluated every fall semester and the evaluation should focus on the previous academic year. Faculty to be considered for initial tenure should submit a portfolio based on all years at NWOSU. First-year faculty are exempt from submitting a portfolio, but will have student evaluations done in the fall and should begin developing a portfolio.
Faculty are required to use the ALCA system for their faculty portfolio. Reviewing and scoring of the portfolios will be done using ALCA.
Faculty will be evaluated in five areas: (weights are determined by the faculty member, must total 100%)
- Teaching/Instruction (40-75%)
- Professional Development (5-25%)
- Scholarly Activity (5-25%)
- Institutional Involvement (5-25%)
- Community Service (5-15%)
Faculty will be evaluated using three sources:
- Department/division chair
- Peer faculty members
- Students (via online student evaluations from the fall semester)
***selection of peers: First peer is chosen by the faculty member; second peer is appointed by the chair from a list of three to five names submitted by the faculty member; at least one peer must be from the faculty member's department
The timeline for the faculty evaluation process is as follows:
- October 1st: Completed faculty portfolios are due and submitted in ALCA. Department/Division chairs share portfolio with appropriate peer evaluators.
- October-November: Peers and Department/Division chairs evaluate faculty portfolios. Scores and comments are submitted online through the ALCA system.
- December: Academic Deans add in student evaluation scores; the faculty evaluation summary sheet is completed by the Academic Dean.
- January/February: Department/Division chairs meet with faculty to go over the evaluations.
History & Development of FEAD Task Force
The Faculty Evaluation and Development (FEAD) Task Force was created in September 2002 with the purpose of reviewing the current faculty evaluation system at Northwestern and making appropriate revisions and changes. Furthermore, the task force was charged with designing a faculty development program to serve as a resource for faculty improvement. The underlining goal of the task force is to develop a comprehensive faculty evaluation and development system that is fair, useful for personnel decisions, and promotes improvement in quality of teaching, scholarly activity, and university service.
As a first step, the task force reviewed the current evaluation system, noting its strengths and weaknesses, and discussed alternative methods of evaluation. Three members of the task force attended a workshop on faculty evaluation in St. Louis in October 2002. This workshop provided information on developing a comprehensive evaluation system that was fair and useful. Additional research was done as several task force members reviewed what other schools in Oklahoma use for faculty evaluation. The task force decided to adopt an 8-step plan for developing a new evaluation system based on R.A. Arreola's book, Developing a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System. (John Wiley & Sons Publishing) The task force felt this approach would provide a comprehensive evaluation system that could be adapted to support the mission and goals of Northwestern's faculty members.
Faculty evaluation and faculty development should go hand-in-hand. Thus, once the development of a new faculty evaluation system is complete, the FEAD task force will then focus on developing a faculty development program. The goal of such a program would be to provide faculty members with resources that will allow them to improve as teachers, scholars, and university employees.
In 2008-09 the FEAD task force became a faculty standing committee and makes recommendations to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs. Additionally, the Faculty Development Advisory Board (FDAB) was created in 2005 as a faculty standing committee based on a recommendation from the FEAD task force.
Original members of the Faculty Evaluation and Development Task Force: Tammy Brown, James Bowen, Dean Scarbrough, Jim Yates, Mike Knedler, Cindy Pfeifer-Hill, Marsha Fear, Jennifer Bays, & Tim Maharry, chair.
Faculty Input
Faculty input is essential to the development of a fair and comprehensive faculty evaluation system. The faculty at Northwestern are encouraged to contact any members of the Faculty Evaluation and Development Task Force with suggestions, concerns, or comments about the ongoing process of developing a new faculty evaluation system for Northwestern. Listed below are brief summaries of faculty input that has been gathered during the development of the evaluation process as well as information on conferences attended by members of the task force:
- Defining Roles for Faculty Evaluation, survey of all faculty, December 2002: Faculty Roles Checklist.pdf
- Faculty Roles and Weight Ranges, survey of all faculty, January 2003: FacultyInput-rolewts.pdf
- Piloting the proposed new evaluation system, April 2004: FEAD-letterToVolunteers.pdf, FEAD-surveyApril2004.pdf
- Faculty Forums presented by the FEAD task force: FacultyForum-PwPt-Nov2002.pdf, FEAD-FacultyForumPwPt-Aug2004.pdf
- Professional & Organizational Development Conference (POD), attended by two members of the FEAD task force, November 2004: POD-SummaryNov2004.pdf, POD-SummaryofSessionsAttended-Nov04.pdf, http://www.podnetwork.org/
- Meeting/Recommendations from Faculty Senate, November 2007/Sept 2008: FEAD-RecToDrLohmann2008.pdf
- FEAD recommendations to Dr. Lohmann - Spring 2016: FEAD_-_recommendations_2016.pdf