Annual Review of Performance

1. The following is the procedure for conducting the administrative, peer, and student evaluations required of faculty by Act 244 of 1989. The procedure was developed by an ad hoc committee on Annual Review of Performance. Act 244 requires state colleges and universities to conduct an annual review of the performance of all full-time faculty. The Act states: “This review shall include assessment by peers, students, and administrators and shall be utilized to insure a consistently high level of performance and serve in conjunction with other appropriate information as a basis for decisions on promotion, salary increases, and job retention. This review shall not be used to demote a tenured faculty member to a non-tenured status.”
2. The faculty recommend that cost of living raises take precedence over merit pay. The University’s initial contract with a faculty member sets a “contractual value” on the faculty member’s service that the University should try to maintain in relation to the cost of living until the terms of the contract are changed by negotiation.
3. The faculty does not oppose appropriate salary “adjustments” when change of degree status, prior gender or racial discrimination, considerations of salary equity, or other weighty considerations can be documented. Moreover, if the budget for faculty salary exceeds stated or planned cost of living increases, the Senate would support using the excess for merit pay. If it falls below cost of living increases, the Senate feels a policy of merit pay will result in more mischief than good.
4. Since the passage and application of Act 244, another legislative bill was passed, Act 1330 of 1997, which requires state-supported colleges and universities “to review faculty performance, including post-tenure review. The framework should be used to develop processes and procedures at each institution to ensure a consistently high level of performance of the faculty at Arkansas’s publicly supported institutions of higher learning. The effects of the review process of faculty performance should include rewarding productive faculty, redirecting faculty efforts to improve or to increase productivity, and to correct instances of substandard performance.”

1. Evaluation Materials Storage and Access
   1. All materials generated by peer, student, and administrative evaluations shall be secured in the Office of Human Resources. Summaries of peer and student evaluations shall be kept on file indefinitely. Access to the files will be limited to those who have a professional need to see them. Faculty shall have access to and may obtain copies of their own files.  Peer and administrative evaluations will be forwarded to HR either as hard or digital copies. Annual summaries of professional activity are processed through Mentor; HR will have access to Mentor files.
2. General Procedures for Faculty Evaluation
   1. Specific dates each year will be provided by the Office of the Provost and VPAA.
      1. Preparation and Review of the Development Plan for Tenure-Track Faculty Members: By November 1 in the first year of appointment, new tenure-track faculty members and full-time instructors will meet with their chairs to prepare the initial Professional Development Plan, using the form entitled “Development Plan for __(Name)____. The plans will be forwarded to the dean and the Provost. By November 1 in subsequent years, the supervisor/department chair and the tenure-track faculty member or full-time instructor will meet to discuss progress made and update the development plan. The chair and the faculty member will date and initial the plan in the appropriate space. The plans with the chairs’ comments will be forwarded to the dean and Provost.
      2. Completion and Submission of Annual Summary of Professional Activity: By May 15, all full-time faculty members will submit the electronic version of their “Annual Summary of Professional Activity” to their supervisor (department chair, etc.), college dean (or equivalent), and the Office of Human Resources. This report provides self-evaluation data which may enhance a faulty member’s evaluation for the purposes of promotion, tenure, position retention, and/or salary increases.
      3. Chair’s Evaluation Scored on the Faculty Evaluation and Progress Review Form: By November 1, the department chair will evaluate each full-time faculty member for the previous academic year on the Faculty Evaluation and Progress Review form, hereafter referred to as the FEPR form. The progress report may occur at the same time as the overall chair evaluation of the faculty member. At the evaluation meeting between the department chair and faculty member, the two will also determine the “Faculty Member’s Preference Ranking of Evaluation Categories” for the upcoming evaluation cycle on the Faculty Evaluation and Progress Review Form.
         1. Data for consideration include the student evaluations, student comments, faculty self-evaluation through the “Annual Summary of Professional Activities,” faculty load, and professional contribution to departmental operations.
         2. Additional data may be collected for evaluation and documentation. Supervisors may solicit evaluative comments concerning external contractually assigned activities of faculty.
         3. At the evaluation meeting, the following details will be completed:
            1. the faculty member writes comments on the form, if so desired; and
            2. the faculty member signs and dates the form (by signing the form, the individual indicates only that the faculty member has read the form).
      4. Faculty Response to Evaluation Results
         1. If a faculty member wishes to respond to the evaluation results of a supervisor, the faculty member may, within one week of receiving the annual evaluation report, write a letter to the supervisor, explaining the problem. The supervisor will strive to solve the problem, which could include a re-evaluation, as soon as possible.
         2. A faculty member may request an evaluation by a supervisor at the level above that from which the faculty member is normally evaluated. Requests for reevaluation or further evaluation may continue to the level of the Provost.
         3. The FEPR form shall be sent to the dean for review and will be sent or made available to the faculty member after the dean’s comments have been recorded. The FEPR form shall then be sent the Office of Human Resources.
3. Peer Evaluation Procedures
   1. *Members of each college have created their own Peer Evaluation Form.
      1. A peer, for evaluation purposes, shall
         1. be a full-time faculty member with at least a six-semester credit hour teaching load or its equivalent per semester;
         2. have been employed as a full-time faculty member at SAU for more than one year;
         3. be a member of the same department (Note: Faculty holding dual appointments, excluding instructors in the Methods and Materials courses in Education, shall evaluate and be evaluated in both departments.); and
         4. not include department chairs or deans.
      2. A department, for evaluation purposes, shall be defined by the administration.
      3. A peer review shall include the following:
         1. Face-to-Face and Online Course Evaluation Procedures:
            1. Peer assignment: The chair will assign the peer to observe a faculty member’s class. The faculty member, in consultation with the peer, will choose the class to be visited or observed. Consideration must be given to both face-to-face and online courses. Two faculty peers should not evaluate each other’s courses within the same academic year.
            2. Pre-Evaluation Communication: The peer reviewer will communicate with the instructor before the course evaluation. During the meeting the two will review the material to be presented and the connection to the syllabus, the planned instructional methods, the academic backgrounds and interests of the students, and the teaching style of the instructor.
            3. Classroom Observation (in the case of face-to-face courses): The peer reviewer will be present at the beginning of the class and remain throughout the session. The peer reviewer will record observations on a form developed by the appropriate college or department.
            4. Post-Observation Feedback: the peer reviewer will share initial observations and evaluations with the instructor following the course observation. The instructor will have the opportunity to respond to the peer reviewer’s observations in writing.
            5. The peer evaluation will occur at least once each academic year for tenure-track and tenured faculty. Non-tenure track faculty will have a course observation each year, while adjuncts will be observed at the discretion of the department chair.
            6. Academic departments and colleges may determine whether additional course observations are needed to strengthen faculty evaluation and development as well as to meet program accreditation standards. Individual faculty may request additional course observations.
            7. Tenured faculty members seeking a promotion must undergo a course observation, according to the rules above during the semester prior to submitting their promotion portfolio.
4. Evaluation of the Annual Summary of Professional Activity:
   1. By October 1, a faculty member’s Annual Summary of Professional Activity Summary will be evaluated by at least one peer and an evaluation of the Summary submitted to the chair of the faculty member’s department. The chair will assign the peer(s) to evaluate a faculty member’s Annual Summary. The peer reviewer(s) will report their evaluations on a form developed by the college. Two faculty peers should not evaluate one another’s Annual Summary.
5. Final Peer Review Evaluation:
   1. The evaluation will include the peer reviewer’s course observation form, the faculty member’s response to the classroom visit report, and an evaluation by the peer reviewer(s) of the faculty member’s Annual Summary of Professional Activity. This peer evaluation assessment will become part of the chair’s Faculty Evaluation and Progress Review that will be filed with the Provost and the Office of Human Resources. As set out in the Administrative Evaluation Procedures section, the faculty member will have the opportunity to respond to the FEPR findings, including the peer review evaluations.

All faculty will be evaluated by students in each course they teach each semester during the regular academic year. Faculty members or their immediate supervisors may request and be granted a student survey for courses taught during summer sessions. All current courses will be surveyed unless the Office of Human Resources is notified by a department chair of a course that should not be surveyed.

The Student Survey Form (see Appendix I) will be used as the instrument for student course surveys.

Student course surveys shall be made available to students no later than the second Monday prior to the start of finals week each semester. When evaluations become available an email will be sent out to students from the Office of Human Resources with detailed instructions. Students no longer enrolled in a course will be excluded from completing the student course survey.

Faculty in face-to-face and hybrid courses shall schedule in advance sufficient regular class time in order for students to complete the student course surveys for their course. Students should be encouraged to bring their mobile devices to that class session. During the scheduled survey time for face-to-face classes, the instructor will be absent from the classroom and the survey session will be proctored by another SAU faculty or staff member as assigned by the department chair for the course being surveyed. The survey proctor should read aloud the survey instructions regarding how the survey results are used and remind students to complete the surveys with care and consideration. The instructions are as follows:

“Please take the time to carefully and thoughtfully complete your Student Survey Form individually. This Student Survey Form is intended to provide information for the purposes of course, curriculum, and faculty development. Your responses will remain completely anonymous, and faculty will not have access to the results until after the final grades have been submitted.”

Upon completion of the surveys in face-to-face courses, the proctor will notify the faculty member that the student surveys are complete.

Faculty in online courses will alert students when the surveys are available, encourage participation in and completion of the course survey, and provide reminders throughout the duration of the survey’s availability.

Students will have access to the Student Survey Form until 11:59 PM on the night before the first day of final exams. After this time, the Student Course Survey portal will no longer be available.

The Office of Human Resources will prepare a summary of student course survey results. When the information is processed, the Office of Human Resources will send the results out to the individual faculty and the chair of the department. At no time will student workers be involved in the summary process.

Data from the course surveys will be processed at the earliest possible convenience of the Information Technology Services (ITS) and Office of Human Resources with information distributed to each faculty member and administrator.

Each faculty member will receive the results of the student course surveys of their courses.

Each course report will include response counts for each question as well as information about the average of the “instructor questions” and also compiled lists of open responses. The Provost, Dean, and department chair will also receive or be granted access to these individual reports.

Each department chair shall receive or be granted access to departmental, college, and university summaries — one with all responses and one with instructor questions only — of all evaluated courses in their departments for comparison purposes. These summaries will not be accompanied by the written comments. The Provost and Dean will also receive or be granted access to these summaries.

Individual faculty may request the raw data for the evaluation responses for any of their courses for crosstab analysis. Requests for raw data should be made to ITS/Helpdesk.

The Southern Arkansas University institutional plan will be monitored by a nine (9) member committee. The monitoring committee will be composed of four members of the faculty (one elected member from each of the four colleges) and the Deans’ Council (the deans of each college and the Provost). If no Faculty Senator is selected in this process to this committee, one will be appointed by the Faculty Senate president to serve as an ex officio member. The committee will meet following receiving written request(s) for re-evaluation of the annual faculty performance review process, as well as meeting each academic year to review the overall SAU institutional plan to ascertain its academic effectiveness and to ensure that the process is rigorously and consistently applied. The Office of Human Resources will be responsible for maintaining the University’s permanent faculty performance review records and in preparing the summary of the student’s evaluations and comments for all faculty participants.

Based upon input from faculty to their college dean and/or the Faculty Senate, the AFPR Monitoring Committee members will regularly reevaluate the AFPR System to recommend any changes/modifications to the approved AFPR System, as necessary. Any proposed change to the AFPR system must be forwarded to the Faculty Senate for consideration.

1. Administrator Rating
   1. The administrators to be rated include chairs, deans, the Provost, and the President.
2. Administrator Rating Process
   1. Administrators will be rated by the faculty in the academic unit that they administer, i.e., chairs by their departments, deans by their colleges, and the Provost and the President by all of the faculty.
   2. All administrators will be rated in their first year and on the two-year cycle for their unit thereafter.
   3. The faculty rating of an administrator is intended for the use of the administrator being rated.
   4. The Office of Human Resources will manage the process of conducting faculty ratings of administrators and will communicate a summary of these ratings to the evaluated administrator as soon as possible.
   5. The rating summaries will consist of averages of both the importance rating and the performance rating for each item, as well as a typed list of comments by category.
   6. In order to preserve the confidentiality of these ratings, the Office of Human Resources will destroy the original documentation of the faculty ratings for each administrator as soon as feasible. No permanent record will be maintained in the Office of Human Resources of said ratings.
   7. Additions and Exceptions to the above for Chair Evaluation:
      1. Chair ratings will be conducted only for those chairs that administer departments of five or more faculty.
      2. All chairs will continue to be rated by their departments as peers.
3. Administrator Rating Forms: Administrator Rating Forms