Engaging college and university
faculty in the performance review process is a unique challenge. But that
doesn’t mean you have to fail at it. A few best practices targeted at academia
can solve the problem and engage college faculty in the performance review
process.
First, it’s important to
understand why higher education faculty members are less likely than campus staff
employees to see the value of performance reviews.
· Faculty may have a professional bias against performance
reviews, feeling that the entire concept of job assessments and performance
reviews has no place in the world of academia.
· Faculty may believe that end-of-term satisfaction
surveys answered by students are a sufficient gauge of their performance.
· Attitudes and beliefs about tenure — and rules that
apply to tenured faculty — may prejudice faculty against performance
assessments.
· Finally, faculty — not unlike many staff employees — may feel the review process is too much of an interruption to their
school year and occurs at no good time.
As Jeffrey L. Buller writes in
his book Best
Practices in Faculty Evaluation,
“It’s not at all uncommon for faculty members to ask, ‘Why do we have to do
assessments? We already assess our students in class every time we determine
their grades.’ Or, ‘Why do we have to do program review? We already do
assessment.’”
Applying a handful of best
practices can go a long way toward getting faculty to appreciate the value of a
robust and productive performance review process.
Be specific with your language.
“Needs improvement” may be clearly understood by an administrative staffer who
has very specific, concrete job requirements. But that assessment is likely to
be far too vague to a faculty member who works in the more subjective, less well-defined
world of the lecture hall.
Customize goals and competencies. Make performance expectations for faculty members
align with the roles they perform as educators. Off-the-shelf goals and
competencies are unlikely to create engagement and, at worst, will cause faculty
to believe university leadership simply doesn’t understand them.
Get faculty feedback before finalizing goals
and competencies. Don’t assume that
the competencies and goals you’ve developed for faculty are as specific and
appropriately customized as necessary. Asking faculty for feedback during the
development process can improve assessments and heighten faculty engagement.
You can learn about these best practices in more
detail in our brief “Customizing Performance Reviews for Higher Education.”
Its legacy process—labor-intensive and spreadsheet-driven—was no longer keeping pace with the needs of its busy staff and employees. The paperwork alone was causing delays and frustration for everyone involved, said Vicki Stewart, the College’s Director of Human Resources. The time for change had come. 
