(Please contact the
Approved by the
Approved by the Chancellor: October 15, 2009
Approved by the Board of Trustees: pending
Approved by General Administration: pending
(Please
note these additional revisions follow those already adopted by the
Proposed additions are noted in bold print
and deletions are noted in strikethrough.
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 performance 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. A negative review must include a statement of the faculty member’s
primary responsibilities and specific descriptions of shortcomings as they
relate to the faculty member’s assigned duties.
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.
A faculty member may provide the
unit administrator with a written response within 20 calendar days of receiving
his or her performance review. A copy of
the faculty member’s response will be placed in the faculty member’s personnel
file and provided to the Performance Review Committee. A faculty member’s
response to a negative review will also be shared at the next highest
administrative level.
E. Rewards
The first
priority of the revised UNC Guidelines on Performance Review of Tenured Faculty
is that faculty whose performance 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. Additional support for this form of recognition may be provided by the
department, school, college or division.
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 performance review reflects deficient performance shall negotiate
a formal development plan with the Performance Review Committee and the unit
administrator. The development plan must: (a) identify specific shortcomings as
they relate to the faculty member’s performance of his or her assigned duties;
(b) state any modification of duties due to a less than satisfactory rating and
take into account the new allocation of responsibilities; (c) include specific
steps designed to lead to the required degree of improvement; (d) specify a
time line, not to exceed three academic years, in which improvement is expected
to occur; (e) schedule and require written records of progress meetings between
the faculty member, the unit administrator and the chair of the Performance
Review Committee at regular intervals no less frequently than twice each
academic term; (f) state the consequences for the faculty member should
improvement not occur within the designated timeline. The use of mentoring
peers is encouraged.
The description of specific steps designed to
lead to improvement shall 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 state guidelines, indicate
approved present 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 is 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 shall be provided 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 twice each academic term by the
Performance Review Committee and the unit administrator, who shall provide a
written evaluation of progress to the faculty member. A copy of this evaluation will be provided to the faculty member and
placed in the faculty member’s personnel file.
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 performance 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 performance
review at the beginning of the next performance 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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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