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Faculty Evaluation at Northwestern

Faculty Handbook

Faculty Evaluation Rubric

Portfolio Outline

ALCA

Faculty Development Advisory Board

Annual Faculty Evaluation Form

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, Tenure Track (NT-TT) faculty will be evaluated every fall semester and the evaluation should focus on the previous academic year. First-year NT-TT faculty are exempt from submitting a portfolio, but will have student evaluations done in the fall and should begin developing a portfolio. NT-TT faculty will complete a portfolio following their first complete academic year, and each year thereafter until their application for initial tenure. NT-TT faculty to be considered for initial tenure should submit a portfolio based on all years at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. 

Non-Tenured, Non-Tenure Track (NT-NTT) faculty will be evaluated every fall semester and the evaluation should focus on the previous academic year. NT-NTT faculty will complete a portfolio following their first complete academic year of employment and every third year thereafter. The vice president for academic affairs will notify NT-NTT faculty when they are scheduled for portfolio review. During non-portfolio years, an immediate supervisor will evaluate a NT-NTT faculty member by using the Annual Faculty Evaluation Form with input from student evaluations.

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%) 

  1. Teaching/Instruction   (40-75%)
  2. Professional Development   (5-25%)
  3. Scholarly Activity   (5-25%)
  4. Institutional Involvement   (5-25%)
  5. Community Service   (5-15%) 

Faculty will be evaluated using three sources: 

  1. Department/division chair
  2. Peer faculty members
  3. 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:      

 

FEAD Minutes

2022-2023

2014-2015

2023 Revisions and Updates

In 2022-23 the FEAD committee was tasked with updating the language of the portfolio rubric and clarifying expectations regarding the evaluation process. As part of that update, the FEAD committee also developed a change to the evaluation process for Non-Tenure-Track faculty which was implemented beginning in Fall 2023. 

Non-Tenure Track Faculty Evaluation Process and Schedule:

FEAD recommended to the Administration that Non-Tenured Non-Tenure Track (NT-NTT) faculty submit a portfolio every three years rather than every year. This portfolio will be a one-year portfolio, and will be evaluated using the standard rubric. During non-portfolio years, NT-NTT faculty will be evaluated by their chair or dean, with input from student course evaluations, using the Annual Faculty Evaluation Form. This form was developed by FEAD using the portfolio outline and the faculty evaluation form that was used before the portfolio was implemented. During non-portfolio years, the evaluation form will be completed early in the spring semester, after student evaluation are released. The evaluation will be discussed with the faculty member before March 1st. 

Portfolio Rubric Revisions: 

Administration ask the FEAD committee to update the rubric in order to clarify language and implementation as well as to create a more consistent experience across disciplines. This led to one change to the portfolio outline wherein Section 2 was combined into a single evaluation score rather than the previous two. The rational for this change was to account for the difference among faculty education levels. Other major changes to the rubric included reformatting for clarity especially regarding portfolios for different lengths of time, language changes to stress that the portfolio is being evaluated (rather than the faculty member), and a more consistent structure among the sections. To accommodate for differences between disciplines and artifact type was added that allows for other professional artifacts demonstrating the desire characteristic. This updated rubric will be implemented for portfolios beginning in the fall of 2024. Below are documents relating to these changes in the rubric. 

 

 

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