School of Business Faculty Evaluation Plan

 

The content of this document links to internal policy documents that are used by the School of Business.  Four of these key documents are attached as Appendices.  This document summarizes our policies in the University stipulated format.  In this update to our previously submitted Faculty Evaluation Plan, some processes have been modified to reflect changes in the organizational structure of the School.  Among those key shifts are: the introduction of Area Directors (substantially similar to Department Chairs in other units) in 2002.  These individuals have direct faculty management responsibilities; many actions previously taken by the Office of the Dean now are performed by these Area Directors (ADs).   Now a team composed of the Associate Dean and the four ADs exercise oversight of the faculty evaluation process.  Additionally, one key committee, the Research/PhD Team was split, with the Research Evaluation and Development (RED) Committee now solely tasked to evaluate the quality of faculty members’ research and to establish standards for such research.  This document applies to the evaluation of only tenured and tenure track faculty members.  Other means are used to evaluate non-tenure tracked instructors.  

 

 

 

School Research Expectations:  In evaluating research performance, the faculty Research Evaluation and Development (RED) Committee of the School is charged to provide evaluations. They articulate five principles:

 

(1)  The evaluation categorization system is simple.

 

The categorization system refers to the way faculty members are classified into groups after faculty research records are evaluated.  A simple system will not attempt to make overly fine distinctions among faculty.  The system has four research rating categories:

 

                   1.  Outstanding

                   2.  Highly Satisfactory

                   3.  Satisfactory

                   4.  Insufficient Activity

 

It is important that the rating categories be self-descriptive and that placement of faculty into these categories be consistent with these standards.  For example, "Satisfactory" should be an appropriately challenging rating to achieve, and a rating of “Outstanding" should connote extremely high research achievement.  We need to be rigorous and demanding in our self evaluations and resultant categorizations.

 

 

(2)  The definition of “research" is broad  

 

We have long-standing documentation within the School that describes elements of research, and of what constitutes especially important and honorific research.  We maintain the best aspects of that tradition in our research evaluation plan. However, our faculty exhibit considerable diversity of research paradigms and programs. The School's definition of research is broad enough to encourage and reward appropriately research generated within this diverse framework.

 

All faculty members are expected to identify what resources are needed to sustain a productive research program and then to negotiate with their Area Directors and the Office of the Dean for a resource package that is consistent with those needs. The research evaluation system aims to encourage and enable research.

 

(3)  Data collection is comprehensive, but the evaluations are holistic.

 

We have an inclusive research reporting system, one that captures all relevant research information. The current University and School promotion and tenure documents contain a wealth of information pertinent to this topic, but attention is needed to insure all relevant data are collected.

 

While the research reporting scheme is comprehensive, the evaluation of a faculty member's research is holistic. It is counterproductive to have an evaluation system that is too finely detailed. We encourage complete reporting of all relevant research activities, but the evaluation of that data is holistic.

 

(4)  Evaluations are long-run oriented

 

A potential problem with any research evaluation system which emphasizes current research output is that it may induce faculty to develop research programs that are short-run in nature so that there is always something positive to report each year. Yet, it is axiomatic that research programs should be long-term in orientation. Most important research topics require relatively long time periods for planning, study, writing, etc. In addition, we recognize that intent of the tenure system is to encourage risk-taking by faculty members after receiving tenure; (i.e. to encourage faculty to engage in those research pursuits that have a higher expected impact but a smaller probability of success). It is counterproductive for the School to have a research evaluation system that discourages risk-taking by encouraging short-term research orientations and discouraging long-term ones.

 

A reasonable method of dealing with this problem is to evaluate research over an appropriately long time period, such as five years. We use a three-year evaluation cycle:  every faculty member receives a comprehensive holistic review by the Research Evaluation Team (RED Team) every third year.  If annual reviews are required by the University, the Office of the Dean and/or the RED Team will conduct brief reviews that are perfunctory in nature in the interim years to satisfy that requirement, but a faculty member's comprehensive reviews provide the primary basis for faculty ratings in research. The Research Evaluation Team will be open to requests by individual faculty for a comprehensive review in some year other than the designated third year, but that is not the norm. The most recent five-year period will be used in the comprehensive evaluation. As time passes, the data frame scrolls forward to the next five-year period. To recap, a comprehensive review is made for all faculty members every three years using the five most recent years of data at the time of review.

 

(5)  All faculty are expected to do research 

 

The School wants no faculty rated as having "Insufficient Activity" in research and where the "Satisfactory" category is a challenging one. Our institutional research incentive functions will be in accord with that principle. Faculty members who are not producing refereed articles in the most prestigious journals in their field are still expected to have productive research agendas. We encourage administrators to “keep a hand in” while they are serving as administrators. Faculty who have made a long term administrative commitment will be given time to restart their research programs should they cease being administrators. We recognize that the research activity, not just the published output, is valuable to the School to the extent it helps keep faculty at the forefront of their profession. We recognize that not all research endeavors, particularly risky ones, will be successful in a publication sense. Documentation of effort may be important in some cases. As a practical matter, research ratings have important implications for faculty teaching and service loads, resource packages, etc.

 

The following issues related to research evaluations in the School of Business:

 

We closely follow the AACSB language in defining research and in classifying research output into subcategories of research. However, in our discussion we make two notable changes to the AACSB language used to describe these concepts. First, in its discussion of research evaluation the AACSB language substitutes "intellectual contributions" to mean what, within the School, we have traditionally called "research." We retain the word "research" in this document and our evaluation system because that word is part of our culture and history, and attempts to change that language would surely be difficult. Second, in its classification of research output into subcategories of research, the AACSB uses the term, "Applied Research" to describe research published in outlets such as professional journals, public/trade journals, in-house journals, and book reviews. We prefer to label such research explicitly as "Non-Refereed Research," rather than "Applied Research." This preference stems from our recognition that research which is empirical in nature, and research which addresses applied business problems or regulatory issues, can often compare favorably with the highest quality research produced and can often appear in the top journals in any field. Such research therefore naturally fits into the category we label as "Basic and Applied Research."

 

We use the three category taxonomy of the AACSB Intellectual Contributions discussion. However, we use the terms, "research" and "non-refereed research," to describe what the AACSB refers to as "intellectual contributions" and "applied research," respectively. We therefore classify the faculty's research output into the following components:  

 

 

The School views basic and applied research as the most important of the three components. This category corresponds most closely with the School's traditional definition of research. Non-refereed research will be the next most important area and instructional research the least. In all instances, the quality of the research plays a dominant role. That is, we do not elevate the quantity of research produced over the more important quality dimension.

 

 

 

The School defines the following four categories of teaching ratings:

 

Outstanding - An outstanding teacher should consistently receive student evaluations notably better than a "very good" rating on the School's current student evaluation form as well as demonstrate other significant contributions to the teaching programs.  Other contributions might include innovative pedagogies, superb integration of research into the teaching, teaching awards, and/or impressive contributions to advising and mentoring students.

 

Highly Satisfactory - Highly satisfactory instructors typically will receive student evaluations which are within the vicinity of the "very good" rating on the School's current student rating scale along with other indications of strong teaching performance.  Such evidence would be similar in nature to that noted in the "outstanding" category but would not be expected to be as extensive. 

 

Satisfactory - For a faculty member's teaching record to be categorized as "satisfactory,” a faculty member should demonstrate teaching evaluations of near "good" or better on the School's current student teaching evaluation scale along with other indicators of effective teaching.      

 

Unsatisfactory - A performance evaluation less than satisfactory is unacceptable. Low student evaluations will be taken as evidence of possible ineffective teaching. Other evidence of ineffective teaching might include such behaviors as long periods of time where needed course content updating has not taken place, frequent unauthorized missing of classes, or failure to provide time for student interaction (e.g. office hours).   

 

Standards of Acceptable Performance in Teaching:

 

The School minimally demands that teaching be satisfactory.  Given the nature of student evaluations and differences in structure and content of courses, it is recognized that a rating of less than this may still be considered "satisfactory" when significant other evidence of teaching effectiveness is present.

 

Evidence of possible ineffective teaching will lead to additional evaluation procedures including peer review. A final rating of "unsatisfactory teaching" will be determined based on total evidence. The School will work with any faculty member demonstrating unsatisfactory teaching to achieve satisfactory performance. 

 

SERVICE:

 

School Service Expectations:

 

All other professional activities not considered as research or teaching are considered service.  Service is divided into compensated and non-compensated activities.  Compensated services are those activities required from an administrative appointment for which a faculty member is paid generally through administrative supplements and/or additional summer compensation.  Non-compensated service are those other activities that contribute to the School’s Mission and Objectives by (a) providing service related to the faculty's academic expertise, especially to the University and the State of Kansas and (b) encouraging involvement with professional business managers as a way to enhance the focus and usefulness of our teaching and research.

 

Generally, service involves serving on School and University Committees or with outside organizations that are important to the School’s Mission and Objectives.

 

Standards for Acceptable Service Performance for Faculty Members:

 

Because service is so diverse in scope, determinations of adequate performance are more qualitative.  Often a “numbers count” approach (how many committees did an individual serve on?) is insufficient to understanding the effectiveness of the efforts undertaken, the desired outcomes to measure.  We understand that not all committee work is created equal - - that some aspects of service will be much heavier in work load and perhaps in magnitude of impact on our Mission and Objectives.  In general, all faculty members are expected to do non-compensated service on a regular basis.  For junior faculty, the expectations are less than for senior faculty members, who are expected to take leadership in service as well as to take on more time-consuming aspects of service.   

 

OVERALL:

 

School Overall Expectations:

 

A faculty member’s overall rating is also made in a holistic manner based on the individual evaluations of research, teaching, and service.  We are a research institution; thus we expect that the activities averaged over our faculty should result in a nearly equivalent amount spent on research and teaching.  These roughly translate into 40-40-20 splits on research, teaching, and service for a faculty member not holding an administrative appointment.

 

We desire to help all faculty improve their performance in all areas and to contribute to the mission of the School in a meaningful manner.  Furthermore, service that is properly focused on mission-critical activities should have profound and strategic impacts on the quality of the School.  As long as an individual makes a meaningful contribution to the School, he or she should be rewarded based on the process described in this document.  Under Board of Regents policy, an evaluation less than satisfactory in any of the three areas of responsibility of teaching, research, or service may lead to an overall unsatisfactory evaluation.

 

Allocation of Efforts:

 

The School's Mission and Objectives Statement says that the School values the synergies among teaching, research, and related instructional development. Board of Regents’ policies recommend that administrators meet with faculty and agree to weightings on the effort the faculty member will devote to teaching, research, and service. Regent’s policies note that a reduction of effort in one area should be made up by augmentation in another. We cannot always monitor effort, a term that captures the time, creativity, and intensity of work. Thus, in developing faculty and assessing performance, the focus is on the value of the output in achieving the School’s mission and objectives. It is recognized, however, that effort directed toward furthering the School's mission can require taking risks and will not always yield valuable output. When it is clear that such effort is consistent with the School's mission, this effort will be considered a valuable contribution and weighted accordingly. This document describes a program that provides an assessment of each faculty member’s development plan and performance in the three areas of research, teaching, and service.

 

The University frequently discusses a weighting of effort according to a 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% service standard.  We interpret the 40-40-20 measure to be a weighting system used to develop an overall faculty member evaluation based on the separate evaluations of teaching, research, and service. It also reflects the plans and expectations for the faculty member’s contributions for the following year. It is expected that other weightings for teaching, research, and service will develop based on faculty members' interests and abilities. These weightings, when agreed to in consultation with the Area Director and the Office of the Dean, will be appropriately rewarded (see Differential Allocation of Effort” below).

 

The weighting of teaching directly impacts the faculty member’s teaching load. Therefore, the School’s teaching load policy is related to the allocation of effort to that activity.  Each Area Director will be responsible, along with the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the program directors, for ensuring that program requirements for core offerings and electives are met. The average teaching load for full time faculty is 12 credit hours per year.  The teaching assignment of individual faculty will depend on such factors as:

A significant factor in setting individual teaching loads is research activity.  All else equal, faculty with substantial research activity and untenured assistant professors will be eligible for a below-average teaching load.  It is anticipated that faculty with low research activity will take on an above average teaching load.  In addition, the expectation is that faculty in the average teaching-hour range will be engaged in programmatic research which results in regular publication or conference presentations.  With respect to performance evaluations, faculty members with below average teaching loads are expected to have above average research performances.

 

The primary responsibility for specification of the individual teaching assignments is with the Area Director; ultimate approval of assignments rests with the Dean’s office.  Each Area Director must plan for course coverage that is consistent with the make-up of the group.  Each Area Director is responsible for working with faculty members to extend flexibility when it can enhance productivity in other areas while assuring that all teaching obligations of the faculty group are met.  

 

The Office of the Dean will provide an annual report to the faculty on teaching loads, broken down by teaching area, including but not limited to, average number of courses taught, average number of credit hours, and average student credit hours per faculty member.  

 

 

While all faculty members should be involved in teaching, research, and service, the School will support and encourage individual faculty who, with the agreement of the Office of the Dean, choose to deviate from the typical teaching and research allocation. Differential allocation of effort will be considered in determining the overall performance level. Monetary rewards should be linked to performance that is consistent with the School's mission and objectives. 

 

The School especially values faculty who are active and effective at both teaching and research. The ideal faculty member exemplifies these synergies and takes his or her research into the classroom. The School also recognizes that it is unrealistic to expect all faculty members to maintain a constant balance over their entire career. Therefore, faculty members who negotiate different weights can still get high evaluations. For example, new assistant professors may need to devote more of their energies to research while senior faculty may want to balance their previous research activity with a greater teaching emphasis. A greater emphasis in one area requires the faculty member to generate a greater amount of output in that area.  The School's Teaching Load Policy is available to all faculty members within the School on our network drive. As long as the School can maintain the overall balance of teaching, research, and service, individual faculty members and the Office of the Dean can mutually agree to adjust the weighting of teaching, research, and service each faculty member should contribute. In order to maintain the dynamic, intellectual environment basic to our mission, however, all faculty members must be involved in some teaching, research, and service. 

 

The following provides guidance as to acceptable weightings at different faculty ranks:

 

 

Given the importance of both research and teaching in a faculty member's advancement in professorial rank, criteria used for making salary judgments should be those used for promotion and tenure evaluation. This document, our P&T “White Paper” is available to all faculty on our shared drive. Non-tenured faculty should focus primarily upon research and teaching.  Some service activity is necessary, but strength in service cannot compensate for weakness in either teaching or research. The School encourages non-tenured faculty to make a limited service contribution.  Normally, they should not be involved in extensive team or committee work during their first two or three years as an assistant professor. The Office of the Dean in consultation with the Faculty Advisory Committee and the Administrative Committee may reduce service and teaching expectations for non-tenured faculty in some critical years. Beginning in AY 2012, the School reduced the weighting on teaching effort for the first three years for an unseasoned tenure-track faculty member by reducing the teaching load for these individuals from four courses per year to three. The purpose explicitly is to more rapidly advance their research programs.

 

 

The evaluation of faculty at the rank of associate professor represents a transition from the criteria used to evaluate assistant professors to that used for full professors.  It is the School’s goal to have all its associate professors promoted to full.  Therefore, promotion and tenure standards cannot be ignored.  Specifically, "moderate" deviations from the traditional weightings for research, teaching, and service are appropriate based upon strength in an area of importance to the School's mission, but clearly teaching and research collectively dominate. 

 

 

Rather than using any prescribed model, salary evaluators should look at the totality of the individual's activities and performance and make a judgment as to whether the individual is making a positive contribution to the School's mission and objectives in conformance with the expectations established with the Dean. While greater latitude is permitted senior faculty regarding the mix of activities viewed as appropriate, accomplishments in teaching and research are still important. Faculty on partial retirement and the Office of the Dean will agree to allocate the percentage of the faculty member's appointment to each of the three areas.

 

 

 

There are four objectives for the evaluation of faculty in the School of Business. First, the School of Business and the faculty of the School have the responsibility to use the resources provided by the State of Kansas, students, and other benefactors effectively to further the mission of the School of Business. This program is one of the ways in which the School of Business is accountable to these constituencies and furthers its mission. A second objective of this Faculty Evaluation and Development Program is to identify opportunities for improvement. The School has the responsibility to identify and help individual faculty members whose performance needs improvement. Third, part of faculty development involves each faculty member planning how he or she will contribute to the mission of the School. This planning should take place between the Area Director and faculty member at least once each year and more often if necessary. Fourth, information obtained from evaluation of faculty will provide a portion of the overall measure of the School's performance each year.

 

We are a research institution, thus we expect that the activities averaged over our faculty should result in a nearly equivalent amount spent on research and teaching.  While all faculty members should be involved in teaching, research, and service, the School will support and encourage individuals who, with the agreement of the Office of the Dean, choose to deviate from the typical teaching and research allocation.  We desire to help all faculty improve their performance in both teaching and research and to contribute to the mission of the School in a meaningful manner.  Furthermore, service that is properly focused on mission-critical activities should have profound and strategic impacts on the quality of the School.  As long as an individual makes a meaningful contribution to the school, he or she should be rewarded based on the process described in this document.  Monetary rewards should be linked to performance that is consistent with the School's mission and objectives.

 

This Faculty Evaluation and Development Program focuses on individual faculty members as the building blocks to School-wide composite evaluations that will provide on-going tracking to facilitate continuous improvement. School-wide composite evaluations will be provided in the areas of research and teaching.  

 

Significant reliance is placed on the self-evaluation of each faculty member and the inputs of Area Directors, the Research Evaluation and Development (RED) Committee and academic program directors. The Faculty Evaluation Plan represents a framework.  Each faculty member is in the best position to describe and evaluate his/her teaching performance and suggest developmental measures that would lead to an improved contribution. These plans and evaluations will be considered and appended, as appropriate, by Area Directors and the School’s Faculty Evaluation Team, composed of all the Area Directors and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.  Inputs to the process should occur from various sources, especially the academic program directors, and the Office of the Dean. The entire process should foster a more open dialogue and nurturing attitude among faculty. The first step in any improvement process is the ability to communicate honestly and directly assessments and developmental suggestions. The School succeeds or fails as a Team of Faculty, and it must function more as a team than as individual practitioners.

 

The Faculty Evaluation Plan has a future orientation, in terms of both development and resource planning. Development strategies will be specific to each faculty member. Using teaching as an example, each faculty member will be expected to assess his/her performance and define opportunities for development as a starting point. These ideas will be reviewed and discussed with Area Directors and the Office of the Dean. Teaching workshops, individual mentoring, changes in course assignments, opportunities for new course development, attending a teaching conference, etc. are examples of developmental steps that could be defined as a part of the process.

 

The resource planning dimension will involve each faculty member projecting his/her contribution over the succeeding year toward fulfilling the School's mission and objectives of teaching, research, and service. The latitude to modify the allocation of individual faculty efforts (e.g. from the traditional 40%-40%-20% model for teaching, research, and service) provides an  opportunity for the School to capitalize on the strengths and experience of individual faculty members provided, in total, the School's mission and objectives are achieved. The planning process begins by asking each faculty member how they think they could most effectively contribute to the School's mission and objectives. The final plan will be a collaborative effort, tailored to each faculty member, with the objective of improving the School, overall, by strengthening the contribution of each member of the School.

 

 

Research Elements: Our RED Committee, in most instances, provides the primary input on the quality of the research portfolio of individual faculty members post-tenure. It defines the information relevant to its evaluation process. Data collection is a time consuming task, and we do not wish to collect more than is required for the accurate and smooth functioning of the evaluation system. (Much of this information will be accessible in 2013 and beyond using the “PRO” system, and the RED Committee fully expects to use PRO to aid in their data collection.)  

 

In the detailed list below, the RED Team notes items that are required for reporting and collection and those that are optional. The required items will be incorporated into the School's on-going research data base. For most faculty members--those who easily qualify for at least a "Satisfactory" rating--it is not necessary to report optional data. Indeed, for most faculty members, the costs of reporting and collecting optional data may exceed the benefits. Active researchers, for example, receive no obvious benefit for reporting presentations at various meetings. If, however, a faculty member is struggling to achieve a "Satisfactory" rating, the optional data may be crucial in that deliberation. Of course, faculty members are free to report information that they feel appropriate and important. Indeed, the onus of providing evidence rests with the person being reviewed, not the reviewers.  The RED Committee does not solicit input from external scholars regarding individual faculty research, and will not search for optional information that is not provided by the individuals being reviewed.  

 

 

KEY: R = REQUIRED DATA O = OPTIONAL DATA  

 

BASIC RESEARCH:  New knowledge creation in refereed research outlets.

 

The defining features of this category are: (1) the refereeing test, which provides an outside market evaluation of the research material, and (2) the academic nature of the research. We recognize that work-in-process will, by definition, not have yet passed the refereeing hurdle. That does not negate the intent of the research as "basic" research. It has always been the case, of course, that to establish a meritorious basic research record, one's record must go beyond work-in-process research alone.

 

ITEMIZATION

R - publications in refereed journals, both academic and professional

R - research monographs

R - scholarly books, including chapters in scholarly books

 

R - published proceedings from scholarly meetings

O - papers presented at academic meetings

O - publicly available research working papers

O - papers presented at research seminars

O - citation counts from various indexes including social science citation index, mathematical science citation index, etc.

O - awards won by any articles (e.g. best paper award at a conference, etc.)

O - information regarding journal quality (acceptance rates, total subscriptions, etc.)

 

NON-REFEREED RESEARCH:   Application/interpretation of research in non-refereed outlets.

 

This research component encompasses materials that are not prepared for refereed research outlets, even though the materials may be described, in part, as academic in nature.  That is, there is no direct outside reviewing hurdle as in the Basic Research category.  We note that this category does not include activities better described as consulting. 

 

ITEMIZATION

R - trade journal publications

R - non-refereed professional journal publications

R - publications in in-house journals that are not refereed

O - book reviews

O - professional presentations

O - congressional testimony

O - papers presented at non-research seminars

 

INSTRUCTIONAL RESEARCH:   Research production aimed at classroom instruction.

 

This category comprises items that are teaching oriented.  Most of these items are not subject to the usual academic refereeing scrutiny.  That does not necessarily mean there is no refereeing, just that the refereeing is not of the sort and rigor associated with academic refereeing.  Furthermore, some items here are subject type refereeing process.  Some cases fit this latter description.  We take care to note that instructional research can be of very high quality:  cases again illustrate that possibility.  A case that gains widespread usage and national acclaim as a teaching device is an example of high quality instructional research, even though that research is, by definition, not basic in category.

 

ITEMIZATION

R - textbooks

R - publications in pedagogical journals, whether refereed or not

R - published, refereed cases

O - preparation of unpublished cases

O - preparation of instructional software

 

OTHER RELEVANT ITEMS:  Accomplishments that are germane to all categories.  

 

ITEMIZATION

R - external grant proposals

R - externally awarded research prizes and awards

R - journal editorships and editorial board memberships* 

*These activities are evaluated in our annual faculty performance evaluation process as “service.”  The RED team also factors this into their assessment of faculty research profiles. 

 

WHAT IS NOT RESEARCH:  Some items are not considered any kind of research. 

 

ITEMIZATION

-  letters to the editor

-  consulting activities

-  expert witness work

-  preparation of unpublished class notes and other classroom material

 

Given the difficulty of an exhaustive taxonomy of activities, judgment will always play a role in categorizing items.  Just as in promotion and tenure scrutiny, it will never be possible to reduce the research evaluation plan or practice to a formula.

 

Teaching Elements: For the teaching component of the Faculty Evaluation Plan, student Course & Instructor (“C&I”) evaluations of teaching for all courses taught in the prior calendar year will be an important part of this Portfolio.  It is required that all faculty members provide their students with the opportunity to complete these course evaluations for all courses. The School maintains a data base independently of C&I results for all faculty members.  The numeric scores as well as the comment sheets from courses are available to the Area Directors. These can be used by the ADs to provide insights into the teaching performances of each individual.  

 

The Office of the Dean will request additional information from each faculty member in the School's annual "Faculty Performance Data Sheet".  This allows faculty members to describe their efforts related to the School's academic programs to which they contributed.  The approach permits more qualitative information to be introduced regarding the nature of the individual’s teaching.  Faculty members can attach additional relevant class materials to this form for each Area Director and our Administrative Committee to evaluate as part of the instructor's Portfolio.  We are interested in such matters as the number of preps, the number of new preps, investments made in upgrading an existing course dissertations chaired, etc. 

 

Service Elements:  The faculty member should submit evidence of all service activity in the annual “Faculty Performance Data Sheet.”  

 

 

At the beginning of the Spring semester, the Office of the Dean request that each faculty member complete the annual "Faculty Performance Data Sheet".  Some of this data can be extracted from the university’s “PRO” system.  At the same time, information from the RED Team on faculty research will be provided to update the research foundations for the review.  Faculty should indicate (highlight) activity during the previous calendar year since the last evaluation.  This material is submitted to the Office of the Dean in early February.  The School’s goal is to complete the review and evaluation process by mid-March.

 

The Research Evaluation and Development (RED) Team  reviews each faculty member's research contribution on a rolling three year basis and updates this input with new data provided by the faculty member for the past calendar year.  The RED Committee will annually provide the faculty its criteria for evaluating faculty research.  This policy document is available to all in digital form on the School’s network drive.  The School's data base of published research, now maintained in the “PRO” system will be a primary source of some of the information for this review.  Faculty members will be asked each year to update their personal data base.  Additional information relevant to this evaluation is listed in the RED Committee policy statement and will be provided by the faculty on the School's annual "Faculty Performance Data Sheet".  The RED Committee will review all faculty members for in-depth review on a three year rotating basis (i.e. each year approximately one-third of the faculty will be scheduled for an in-depth review).   For the rest of the faculty, the RED Committee reviews the annual "Faculty Performance Data Sheet" each year to determine if an in-depth review should be expedited.  Normally, these brief reviews will not lead to a change in a faculty member's evaluation.

 

Each Area Director initially evaluates his/her faculty members on contributions in the preceding year.  Generally, faculty members and the Area Director will have agreed to the teaching programs to which the faculty member contributes and the percentage weight used for that contribution.  However, changes in a faculty member's teaching schedule can lead to a change in this weighting.  Area Directors evaluate the faculty member’s overall contribution to our program, with input from Academic Program Directors.  Consistent with University policy, Area Directors are "encouraged to develop a comprehensive, flexible approach to teaching evaluation that includes several types of evidence that can be collected, presented, and evaluated as a Portfolio."  Once Area Directors have made their initial evaluations of their area faculty members, a team, composed of all Area Directors and the Associate Dean, review the judgments made by individual Area Directors.  Adjustments can be made by this team to rectify possible inconsistency in ratings across Areas.  Once agreement is reached by this team, ratings are finalized.

  

Each faculty member is evaluated on three categories of productivity: research, teaching, and service.  The ratings are: outstanding, highly satisfactory, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory.  We permit gradients of these four ratings (e.g. “outstanding/highly satisfactory”).  In evaluating a faculty member’s contributions, factors such as performance in classroom teaching, advising activity, curriculum development, cooperation with the program’s overall teaching goals, and assisting other faculty in their teaching activity are considered.  Student evaluation of teaching is an important measure that is used; other measures of teaching substance will be considered, including peer reviews.  The Evaluation Team makes an overall evaluation of service.  Service is divided into compensated services (e.g. the service provided by paid administrators) and non-compensated service (e.g. unpaid administrators and committee work).  Service will be defined broadly and includes those items considered by the School’s Promotion and Tenure Committee.

 

Each  Area Director develops a written explanation of the evaluation for each of his faculty members.  A copy of a faculty member's complete file will be available to her in a timely fashion and evaluation will be retained by the School in the faculty member’s personnel file.  Normally, the Area Director will meet with each of their faculty members to discuss the evaluation and set expectations for the upcoming year.  The Dean or Associate Dean may also meet with each faculty member.

 

 

The purpose of the annual performance evaluation is the continuous improvement of the School. It is important that faculty have information from several sources to evaluate the School's overall performance.  Both the Research Evaluation Team and the Office of the Dean will prepare summary reports so faculty can judge the School's overall performance in both research and teaching. These reports are made to the faculty on an annual basis.

 

The evaluations are returned to the faculty members in mid Spring semester (mid to late March typically). This provides a window of time in which the individual faculty member can meet with the Area Director.  While these meetings are normally opportunities to discuss directions for improvements, they also provide opportunities for faculty members to question the evaluations made by the School. For example, a faculty member might argue that key information was  missing or that an error made in the assessment. Thus, this interaction gives the Area Director and the Office of the Dean room to review challenges. These annual evaluations provide direct input into the merit salary allocations made by the School later in the Spring.  Since there is no avenue for challenging the merit salary decisions of the School, it is important that sufficient time exist for the faculty member to consider the annual evaluation, which is a key determinant of merit salary.    

 

Beyond the link to merit salary decisions, the results of individual evaluations can substantially affect a faculty member’s professional standing within the School and his/her future opportunities to acquire resources, both internally and externally. Thus, faculty members are understandably interested in the evaluations, and their self-interest is useful in promoting discussion with faculty members on what is needed for improvement.

 

These evaluations are made available to all evaluators within the School, including our School Promotion and Tenure Committee (P&T).  Although P&T will independently evaluate the progress of our junior faculty up to the promotion and tenure decision, P&T avail themselves of all resources, inclusive of any assessments made in the annual performance evaluations.

 

If the Dean, after consultation with the School’s Administrative and Faculty Advisory Committees, concludes from the above process that a faculty member is unsatisfactory, then the Dean and the faculty member will develop a written plan of methods to improve the faculty member's performance.  The Dean may request University assistance for constructing such a plan and may request additional resources.  

 

Any plan to address performance improvement would conform to procedures for developing performance improvement plans for faculty members who have failed to meet performance expectations in one or more areas.  Such a plan would conform to the Faculty Evaluation Policy, section #6: which states “the administrator and the faculty member shall develop a written plan of methods to improve the faculty member’s performance.  The plan may include appropriate provisions for faculty development, such as campus opportunities for faculty continued renewal and development, reassignment of duties, or a change in teaching assignments.  The unit administrator may call upon the University administration for assistance in constructing such a plan, including provision for additional resources, where needed.  A faculty member may reject any plan recommended to aid performance levels, but the faculty member must understand that a sustained overall failure to meet academic responsibilities based on articulated performance criteria is a basis for dismissal.”

 

Procedures for addressing failure to meet academic responsibilities: 

Based upon the Dean’s review, the sustained failure to meet academic responsibilities may lead to a recommendation for dismissal in accordance with the University Policy on Faculty Evaluation.

 

Based upon the judgment that there has been a sustained overall failure to meet academic responsibilities, the Dean may recommend to the Provost that a tenured faculty member be dismissed.  In making this determination, the Dean shall consider the nature of the failure to meet academic responsibilities, the reason or reasons for this failure, the number of years that the faculty member has failed to meet academic responsibilities, the level of discernible improvement in the faculty member's performance after being notified of any failure in performance, and the extent to which the faculty member has complied with the terms of any plan developed to improve the faculty member's performance.  Based upon the Dean’s review, the sustained failure to meet academic responsibilities may lead to a recommendation for dismissal in accordance with the University Policy on Faculty Evaluation (https://documents.ku.edu/policies/provost/FacultyEvaluations.htm).

 

 

The evaluation process leads to a planning process. Human capital is the most valuable resource of the School and we tend to it carefully. In agreeing to a weighting scheme for the upcoming year, the faculty member and the School’s Administration are agreeing to a plan as to the best use of a faculty member’s contribution to the School’s mission and objectives. However, the weights should be a small part of an overall plan for the faculty member. For example, if a faculty member wants to place a greater weight on research, the School and the faculty member need to discuss the overall research plan, what kinds of effort is needed and reasonable support to achieve objectives sought. While research is a creative effort that is difficult to predict in advance, the faculty and the School should establish reasonable expectations and goals. For teaching, the faculty and the School should agree as to the quantity and direction of the faculty member’s teaching efforts (i.e. for what programs and courses is the faculty member most suited, what support is needed, etc). The evaluation process should provide information that can guide the process. In sum, we consider the annual evaluation a first step in a two-step process -- a second step is setting expectations and plans for the following year. Specific elements of any faculty development plans would be partly informed by the annual process.  

 

The School has in place ongoing development activities that can assist faculty members at various points in their careers. All new faculty members to the School are assigned a mentor within the School, generally a senior faculty member with research and/or teaching interests that are similar to the new faculty member. This mentoring relationship would remain in place throughout the period of time in which the new faculty member seeks promotion and tenure. A new faculty member meets with the mentors to answer questions related to teaching, research, and service. The mentor is responsible for guarding against a new faculty member being diverted from those activities critical to the School’s mission and the faculty member’s career. All faculty members are strongly encouraged to reach out to new faculty members to offer advice as needed.Thus, more than one individual can serve as a mentor, but at least one is always formally designated. 

 

The School makes considerable investment in new faculty development. The University has established a fairly extensive faculty orientation program and we seek to complement these efforts. In addition to the mentoring system, the ongoing development of new faculty is supported by the faculty evaluation and development program. An orientation session establishes ongoing communication between the new faculty member and all relevant administrative colleagues. The annual evaluation process explicitly focuses the efforts of the Area Directors, the Associate Dean, and the Dean on seasoned, faculty. New faculty members receive assessments of their progress toward promotion and tenure from our Promotion and Tenure Committee.   

 

For senior faculty members, we encourage sabbaticals as a means of enhancing their research and, in some cases, teaching. These requests are made to the University based on recommendations from our P&T Committee. Each Administrative Area provides monetary allocations to its faculty members to support professional development; this would include funds to use for traveling to conferences, acquiring needed data, etc. Directors of various programs make additional budget allocations to individual faculty members. Additional teaching opportunities are available through executive education programs and via our Study Abroad initiatives.  

 

Several School of Business Centers make funding allocations that make significant contributions to faculty development. The School currently has several centers that assist individual faculty members (or teams of faculty). For example, our Accounting & Information Systems Area has the Ernst & Young Center for Auditing Research and Advanced Technology (CARAT) that has worked with faculty members in conducting and disseminating state of the art research in auditing and advanced technology and to serve the auditing profession as a world leader in conducting such research. Our Institute for International Business provides research and travel grants to faculty members working on research with a global dimension. Continued faculty development requires that our faculty be a part of a broader international community in their intellectual fields.

 

The School continually analyzes opportunities to enhance faculty development via our centers, including in entrepreneurship and business ethics. In an age of innovation, the structure of our support for faculty must flexibly enough to permit our shifting resources to the more pressing issues that emerge in the business world.  Thus, our structure of support, via centers, will mirror these demands. In doing so, we believe we can provide expanded opportunities for our faculty to develop highly value-added capabilities. Major development plans require broader discussions among parties in the School, but the Office of the Dean would be primarily responsible for acting. A major goal of the process outlined in this document is to isolate the major decisions related to a faculty member's future development, determine necessary support, and plan how to obtain that support.

 

To better assure that the School’s policies are readily available to all faculty, we have established on our network drive an electronic policy folder that includes the School’s faculty evaluation and development documents, including promotion and tenure guidelines, academic procedures, and financial policies. The School’s digital policies are continually updated, and this folder enables all faculty members to locate the most recent School policies and guidelines.