Staffing Report, Part II Guidelines and Due Dates

Evaluation Guidelines

• Guidelines and Procedures

  The tenured members of your unit not on leave should participate fully in the deliberations that the preparation of the staffing report requires, and a draft should be circulated to them for comment. The cover page of the final version should be initialed by all the tenured members who participated in the deliberations, as an indication not simply that they have read the staffing report, but also that it fairly represents their own views along with those of their colleagues.

  Senior faculty members on leave must either participate fully in the reappointment and tenure evaluation process of all candidates for reappointment and promotion to tenure in that year, or submit a letter evaluating the work of each candidate. Faculty who are unable to fully participate throughout the deliberations should also write a letter conveying their assessments. These letters should be appended to the reappointment and tenure recommendations. All such letters shall specify what materials the author has considered in preparing the letter.

  Once approved for tenure by the Board of Trustees, faculty members shall begin immediately to participate in the work of tenured faculty, including participation in tenure decisions. A newly tenured faculty member shall not, however, take part in tenure decisions or appeals concerning colleagues considered for tenure in the same academic year.

  N.B. especially for department chair: For the procedures that apply to members of your department who teach courses that carry only a program prefix and are not listed or cross-listed in the department, please refer to the Faculty Handbook, Section II-G on the Dean of the Faculty website. Program assessments must be included in department staffing reports in those years when a reappointment, tenure, or contract renewal decision is to be made. They may be included at other times as well, but are not required. Please note that while program evaluations are very important, they should not be regarded as a substitute for the obligations of departments to evaluate non-tenured faculty. Any course taught by a non-tenured member in your department, whether or not it carries a department prefix, should be included in your own evaluation processes, among them the analysis of SCS scores and the gathering of individual student responses.

  While the CAP wants the fullest information available on student assessments of the teaching of individual faculty members, it is ultimately concerned with the faculty's evaluation of teaching. It is therefore very important that the tenured members of the unit continue to provide their own interpretations of the SCS data even though those data are available to the CAP. The staffing memorandum should also include reports on student interviews and on whatever other means of assessing teaching the unit uses, such as class visits, questionnaires, and so on.

  Please submit a copy of your unit’s current evaluation statement to the Dean of Faculty's Office by September 15. Be sure that all of your colleagues have a copy as well. Indeed, the Faculty Handbook specifies that chairs should provide members of their unit and the CAP with this information on an annual basis.

  Please be sure that recommendations in this report for or against reappointment or promotion include a full account of the ways in which the candidate's teaching and scholarship have been evaluated.

• Staffing Report Formatting

  Please see guidance for the format of staffing reports for questions about staffing report formatting.

• Principles and Good Practices for Reappointment and Promotion Evaluation

  Please see principles and good practices for reappointment and promotion evaluation for more information.

Due Dates

• Unit Evaluation Procedures - Due September 15

  Please submit a copy of your Unit’s current evaluation procedures to Gerrit Blauvelt by September 15 for CAP review. Please note any changes made from the evaluation procedures of the previous academic year.

• No decision is pending reports - Due September 15

  This report is an assessment of the unit’s judgments regarding the performance as a teacher, scholar, and member of the college community.

  A no-decision staffing report in the first year is optional since there is usually very little to report at the start of that fall semester, and faculty in their first year do not receive a written communication (Fuqua Letter). Instead, chairs meet with first-year faculty at the end of the spring semester to discuss their performance over the past year.

  Please create and send a separate PDF file for each person (if more than one) - to Gerrit Blauvelt containing the following:

  1. Report from the tenured members of the Unit
  2. The faculty member’s current CV - to be requested by the reporting chair
  3. AP Leave Reports (if any)  (If a faculty member is currently on an extended AP leave through next spring, you should expect to receive an update on their leave activities so far for the purposes of this fall's staffing report)
  4. Unit’s evaluation procedures

• Reappointment reports and recommendations - Due October 1

  Please send in PDF format with sections bookmarked to Gerrit Blauvelt:

  1. The signed recommendation and report from the tenured members of the unit/evaluation committee (include your assessment and recommendation on the candidate’s Assistant Professor Leave application)
  2. Letters from tenured faculty on leave commenting on the candidate
  3. The candidate’s curriculum vitae
  4. The candidate’s self evaluation
  5. AP Leave Proposal
  6. Copies of any reviews of their scholarly work that may have appeared in professional or other publications
  7. PDF or combination of the two (e.g., a book and PDF of other materials) of scholarly work, if any, with a list of the scholarship
  8. Unit’s evaluation procedures

• Renewal of lecturers and instructors - Due October 1

  Please send the signed recommendation and report, CV, self-evaluation, and Unit's evaluation procedures in PDF format with sections bookmarked to Gerrit Blauvelt.

  • The CAP expects routine comments on Lecturers in the annual staffing reports during the first four years in rank, and thereafter only in those contract years when a renewal decision is required.
  • Assessment of Senior Lecturers or Lecturers in their fourth year of a five-year contract
  • Assessment of Lecturers or Instructors in their second year of a three-year contract
  • Assessment of continuing Lecturers or Instructors with one year contracts
  • Reports on Visitors
  • Assessment of Visitors (Optional*)

  *Faculty with Visiting Appointments – no official communication is mandated. However, regular written assessment and a yearly conversation are recommended. In the case of visiting faculty who may be competitive for a future tenure-track position, such written reports can be helpful in the event that the visitor is subsequently hired for the permanent position and it is decided to accelerate the timing of the reappointment and/or tenure decision.

• Tenure reports and recommendations - Due October 15

  Please send in PDF format to Gerrit Blauvelt:

  1. The signed recommendation and report from the tenured members of the unit/evaluation committee
  2. Letters from tenured faculty on leave commenting on the candidate
  3. Unit’s evaluation procedures
  4. Letters and CV’s from external reviewers assessing the candidate’s scholarship
  5. Copies of letters to external reviewers soliciting assessments of the candidate’s scholarship
  6. Recommended unit/evaluation committee report redactions

  We will be collecting from the candidate:

  1. The candidate’s curriculum vitae
  2. The candidate’s self-evaluation
  3. Scholarly writings or creative works sent to the external reviewers
  4. Additional material submitted by candidate (for both the July 1 and August 15 deadlines)

• Associate Professor Interim Progress Report - Due January 15

  Please send the report, CV and self-evaluation in PDF format with sections bookmarked to Gerrit Blauvelt.

  This review, which is written in the Assoc. Prof's 4th year in rank, is analogous to the staffing report for an untenured faculty member in a no-decision year, and forms the basis for a letter, sent to the associate professor by the CAP, commenting on the progress to date. The associate professor submits a current c.v. and a brief self-assessment, and the evaluating unit includes these materials as well as SCS results in their evaluation of the associate professor’s progress. The interim progress report contains a description of the associate professor’s teaching, scholarship and service since tenure and a brief assessment of this work by the full professors. The evaluating unit also, in consultation with the associate professor, solicits input concerning contributions to other academic units, and includes this information in their deliberations and in their report. Should an evaluating unit be considering a recommendation of promotion to full before the sixth year, it would be appropriate for the interim report to discuss this possibility.

• Promotion to Full Professor Report - Due January 15

  Please send the signed report, CV and self-evaluation in PDF format with sections bookmarked to Gerrit Blauvelt (also the external assessments of scholarly work if solicited).

  The Promotion to Full report is a systematic and serious assessment of each associate professor in their sixth year in rank, to be carried out by the full professors of the evaluating unit. Full professors on leave must either participate fully in the evaluation process of all associate professors or submit a letter evaluating the work of each candidate. The evaluating unit submits to the CAP a written evaluation of each associate professor's teaching, scholarship, and service as well as a clear account of how the evaluation was conducted. The material to be reviewed by the full professors includes but is not limited to a written self-evaluation by the associate professor, a current c.v., SCS results, and, if relevant, reports on contributions to other units. The associate professor may submit additional materials, and the evaluating unit may request additional materials deemed helpful in providing a full assessment. The use of external evaluators of scholarship is rare. If external evaluators are used, they are selected in consultation with the associate professor and the full professors of the evaluating unit, and are approved by the Dean of Faculty and the CAP.

  The report includes a recommendation regarding the timing for the associate professor's promotion to full professor and sets forth explicitly the considerations and criteria on which the recommendation is based. When requested by the CAP or the evaluating unit, the full professors and the CAP will meet to discuss the case.

• Promotion-to-Full-Professor Update - Due January 15

  Please send the signed report, CV and self-evaluation in PDF format with sections bookmarked to Gerrit Blauvelt.

  If promotion does not take place in the sixth year, the evaluating unit writes an update in each successive year until promotion takes place. This update provides commentary on the progress made in the intervening year.