Approved
by the
Approved
by the Chancellor: November 3, 2008
Approved
by the Board of Trustees: November 21, 2008
Approved
by UNC General Administration: pending
ECU Faculty Manual
APPENDIX B
POLICY FOR PERFORMANCE REVIEW OF
TENURED FACULTY
OF
CONTENTS
I. Preamble
II. Description
of Policy
A. Timing
B. Performance Standards for the Review
C. Performance Review Committee (PRC)
D. Review Process
E. Rewards
F. Reconsideration
G. Faculty Development Plan
H. Subsequent Evaluation
III. Form
POLICY FOR PERFORMANCE REVIEW OF
TENURED FACULTY
OF
I. Preamble
On May 16,
1997, the Board of Governors mandated the review of performance of tenured
faculty in the
On March
10, 2008, the UNC Board of Governors revised its Guidelines
on Performance Review of Tenured Faculty (The UNC Policy Manual: 400.3.3.1(G)). On October 15,
2008, this ECU performance review policy was revised accordingly.
II. Description of Policy
A. Timing
At
five-year intervals, beginning with academic year 1998-1999, each permanently
tenured faculty member shall have a review of all aspects of his or her
professional performance during the review interval. A review leading to promotion in rank qualifies
as a cumulative review. A faculty member
granted permanent tenure shall be reviewed within five years of the granting of
tenure. Probationary-term faculty
members are excluded because other review mechanisms exist to evaluate their
performance. Unit* administrators,
deans, and administrators at the division or university level shall be excluded
from this policy. After returning to
full-time teaching/research responsibilities, administrators shall be evaluated
in their fifth year and following five-year intervals.
Each
academic unit’s tenure committee shall decide whether all of its tenured
faculty will be reviewed in the same year or whether its tenured faculty will
be reviewed according to a serial plan.
Those units choosing a serial plan shall also determine the method of
serialization.
B. Performance Standards for the Review
For the
cumulative review of performance for the five-year period, the unit’s Tenure
Committee shall review current standards of
“exemplary,” “satisfactory,” and “deficient” performance and revise as necessary. These standards will comply with the
provisions of Appendix C, Section I, C and D of the ECU Faculty Manual, the unit’s code provisions, and the primacy of
teaching/advising within the UNC system institutions. These standards should be consistent with
changing goals of the unit and the university, while also considering varying
expectations at the time of the granting of permanent tenure for individual
faculty members and should address the faculty member’s teaching, research,
service and other duties, including contributions to the departmental
college/school and university goals, contributions to the academic programs in
which the faculty member teaches and any other professional activities bearing
on the faculty member’s performance of his or her duties during the period
under review.
The Tenure
Committee shall submit the proposed standards to the unit administrator for
concurrence or nonconcurrence. At that point, two possible actions may
occur. (1) If the unit administrator
concurs, he or she shall forward the standards to the next higher
administrator. If the next higher
administrator does not agree with the standards developed by the Tenure
Committee and concurred with by the unit administrator, every effort (including
discussion and negotiation) shall be made to resolve the disagreement. If the effort fails, the matter shall be
referred to the next higher administrator who may accept the standards or
return them for revision. (2) When the
unit administrator and Tenure Committee disagree, every effort (including
discussion and negotiation) shall be made to resolve the disagreement within
the unit. If the effort fails, the
matter shall be referred to the next higher administrator who may accept the
standards or return them for revision.
In either case, any amendment to these standards must be approved by a
vote of at least 2/3 of the Tenure Committee and follow the same process for
initially proposed standards.
C. Performance
Review Committee (PRC)
The Tenure Committee will elect a minimum of three faculty
members and one alternate from the permanently tenured voting faculty (ECU Faculty Manual, Appendix L, Section
A. Voting Faculty Member) not holding administrative status to serve on the
Performance Review Committee. The
alternate shall serve when a member is unable to serve. Members on the Performance Review Committee
shall serve for one academic year.
When a unit is unable to elect three permanently tenured
voting faculty members not holding administrative status, the next higher
administrator above the unit level shall appoint permanently tenured voting
faculty not holding administrative status from other units to increase the
committee’s membership to three members and one alternate. These appointments to the committee must be
from one list of candidates selected by a vote of the permanently tenured and
probationary-term faculty of the unit.
The list forwarded to the next higher administrator by the appropriate
faculty will contain at least twice the number of faculty members required to
complete the membership of the committee.
Before voting on the list to be forwarded to the next higher
administrator, the voting faculty will ascertain that faculty members nominated
to have their names placed on the list are willing and able to serve in this
important capacity. The list of faculty
names recommended to the next higher administrator may not be returned for
revision.
D. Review Process
Performance
Review of Tenured Faculty shall cover all aspects of the faculty member’s
professional performance. The review will be informed by the faculty member’s
annual reports and annual evaluations (ECU
Faculty Manual, Appendix C, Section III. Evaluations), but primarily shall
be based on a comprehensive assessment of the faculty member’s teaching,
research, service and other duties, including contributions to the departmental
college/school and university goals, contributions to the academic programs in
which the faculty member teaches and any other professional activities bearing
on the faculty member’s performance of his or her duties during the period
under review. Permanently tenured full-time
faculty members who have received University approved leaves of absence shall
not have such leave time counted as part of the performance review period.
Should a
subsequent academic unit administrator disagree with the annual reviews and
annual reports of an individual faculty member composed before the term of
office of the incumbent administrator, the administrator shall not dismiss,
alter, or argue against the body and conclusions of the earlier annual reviews
and reports.
The initial
review shall be conducted by the unit administrator who, using the attached
Form, shall prepare a performance review report which shall consist of a
narrative evaluation of the overall performance of the candidate that takes
into account the relative weights assigned to each duty during each of the
years being reviewed and the amount of reassigned time from teaching to the
performance of other duties for each year under review. This evaluation shall
conclude with an overall ranking that categorizes each faculty member’s
performance as exemplary, satisfactory, or deficient.
The evaluative report, together with
the faculty member’s annual reports and annual performance evaluations for the
period under review, a copy of the faculty member’s current curriculum vita,
and any other material the faculty member wishes to provide to the review committee in support of
his/her professional performance over the review period, shall be forwarded to
the Performance Review Committee. Any
additional supporting material provided by the faculty member to the Performance
Review Committee shall become part of the permanent personnel file. For each
faculty member, the Performance Review Committee shall either agree or disagree
with the findings of the unit administrator.
When the
unit administrator and the Performance Review Committee agree, the Performance
Review Committee shall report this agreement on the Form. The unit administrator
shall provide a copy of the report to the faculty member and to the next higher
administrator, and place a copy of the report in the faculty member’s personnel
file.
When the
unit administrator and Performance Review Committee disagree, every effort
(including discussion and negotiation) shall be made to resolve the
disagreement within the unit. If the
effort to resolve the disagreement fails, the
Performance Review Committee shall prepare its own report. The unit administrator shall provide copies
of both reports to the faculty member and the matter will be referred to the
next higher administrator, who after reviewing both reports and the faculty
member’s supporting materials, shall make the final decision, which shall be
reported in writing to the faculty member.
A copy of the final decision shall be placed in the faculty member’s
personnel file and provided to both the Performance Review Committee and the
unit administrator.
E. Rewards
The first priority of the revised
UNC Guidelines on Performance Review of Tenured Faculty is that faculty whose
cumulative review reflects exemplary performance shall be recognized and
rewarded. A faculty member whose review
reflects exemplary performance may be recognized in ways including, but not
limited to, nomination for awards, merit salary increases, research leaves,
and/or revisions of work load.
F. Reconsideration
A faculty member
whose review process determines a deficient performance level shall have the
opportunity to respond within 20 calendar days.
The faculty member may request that the unit administrator and
Performance Review Committee reconsider the evaluation based on additional
substantive information provided by the faculty member. In reconsidering the evaluation, the unit
administrator and Performance Review Committee shall
have the opportunity to nullify, modify, or reconfirm the original evaluation
(or evaluations, in the case of disagreement between the committee and the unit
administrator). The response of the faculty member to the report of deficient
performance and the decision of the committee and the unit administrator shall
be reported to the next higher administrator.
When the
committee and the unit administrator disagree on the appropriate action after a
reconsideration initiated by the faculty member under review, every effort
(including discussion and negotiation) shall be made to resolve the disagreement
within the unit. If the effort fails,
the conflicting responses to the reconsideration appeal by the faculty member
under review shall be referred to the next
higher administrator for final decision.
The final
decision of a higher administrator shall be reported in writing to the faculty
member and a copy of the final decision shall be placed in the faculty member’s
personnel file and provided to both the Performance Review Committee and the
unit administrator.
G. Faculty Development Plan
A faculty
member whose cumulative review reflects deficient performance shall negotiate a
formal development plan with the Performance Review Committee and the unit
administrator. The development plan must
identify specific strengths and deficiencies and also define specific goals or
outcomes that would help the faculty member overcome the identified
deficiencies. It should also outline
activities, set guidelines, indicate approved criteria by which the faculty
member could monitor his or her progress, and identify the source of any
institutional commitments, if required.
The development plan shall set reasonable time limits, not to exceed
three academic years from the implementation of the plan. The plan shall represent a commitment by the
faculty member, the Performance Review Committee, and the unit administrator to
improve the faculty member’s performance and provide adequate resources to
support the plan. The plan shall be
consistent with the faculty member’s academic freedom (as defined by the ECU Faculty Manual, Part III), shall be
self-directed by the faculty member, and shall be sufficiently flexible to
allow for subsequent amendment, if necessary.
Such amendment will follow the same process as the development of the original
plan. If the unit administrator,
Performance Review Committee, and faculty member cannot agree on a formal
development plan, each party’s draft of a plan will be forwarded to the next
higher administrator, who will make the final decision. The faculty member’s development progress
shall be reviewed in a meeting that occurs at least semiannually by the
Performance Review Committee and the unit administrator, who shall provide a
written evaluation of progress to the faculty member.
H. Subsequent Evaluation
If the
faculty member’s cumulative performance level is satisfactory within the
designated period of time, the unit administrator shall report the results of
the cumulative review in writing to the faculty member and place a copy of the
written evaluation in the faculty member’s personnel file. The faculty member will undergo another
cumulative review at the beginning of the next cumulative review interval. If the faculty member’s cumulative
performance level remains deficient after the designated period, the unit
administrator may recommend that serious sanctions be imposed as governed by
Appendix D, Section VI, “Due Process Before Discharge or Imposition of Serious
Sanction,” of the ECU Faculty Manual
and Chapter VI of The Code of the
Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina.
*With respect to personnel matters relating to Performance
Review, academic units are defined as departments described in the codes of
operation of professional schools, the departments in the College of Arts and
Sciences, professional schools without departments, Academic Library Services,
Health Sciences Library, and any other units in which faculty appointments are
made. In the
III. Form: Report on Performance Review of Tenured Faculty
Approved:
15 April
1998
Amended:
Interpretation
made to Section II., October 1998
Faculty
Senate Resolution #08-42, October 2008 (pending)
Performance Review of Tenured
Faculty
Faculty member:
_____________________
School/department:
____________________Date:
__________________
______________________________________________________________________
I. Narrative Evaluation of most
recent 5 years of faculty performance:
II. Summary Performance Review
Evaluation: _______ Exemplary
_______
Satisfactory
_______
Deficient
_______________________________________________________________
Submitted by: ____________________________ __________________
Unit
Administrator Date
Performance
Review Committee Response: _______
Agree
_______Disagree
_____________________________________ ____________ Committee Chair Date