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STANDARD 2: PLANNING AND EVALUATION
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| Introduction Planning Evaluation Faculty Reviews Teaching Evaluations |
IntroductionSince Yale University’s 1989 reaccreditation, significant changes have occurred in several areas of planning and evaluation. The Corporation has made changes in its own practices and procedures. The University has invested substantial time and resources in planning for facilities, has added systematic capital planning to an already well- established operational budget planning process, and has expanded assessment of outcomes for Yale undergraduates. Planning and evaluation continue to be pursued through a network of standing committees and periodically created ad hoc committees appointed by one or more of the University’s seven officers and deans of the individual schools. It is also regularly conducted and supported by various offices of the University, most notably including the Budget Committee and its subcommittees, Facilities Planning, and, more recently, the Office of New Haven Affairs. The work of these offices is reviewed at length in other chapters of this self-study. In this chapter, planning by the Officers and Corporation, by the major standing and ad hoc committees of the Faculty, by administrative services and by the Graduate School and Yale College are taken up. The chapter also reviews faculty evaluation and assessment of student outcomes as conducted and supported by the Office of Institution Research (OIR), by COFHE studies, and by established procedures in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Yale College.
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| Introduction Planning Evaluation Faculty Reviews Teaching Evaluations |
PlanningDescriptionThe Officers and the Corporation Of the many changes in planning for the University’s future that have taken place during the past ten years, perhaps the most significant to the larger enterprise have been those put into place by the President and Corporation following the 1993-1994 Ad hoc Committee on Trusteeship. (See Standard 3: Organization and Governance for more extended discussion of this.) Among the changes developed during those discussions are some that bear directly on the University’s planning efforts. The President now presents to the Corporation, usually in the fall of the year, his annual objectives for the University, developed in collaboration with the Officers. The Corporation decides which issues require its collective attention and sets a formal agenda for the coming year. Typically, the fall meeting also includes a substantial period devoted to issues of long- term planning and goal-setting. Among the topics considered in these sessions have been:
In addition to the larger structural changes to the Corporation agenda, there have been changes to the format of Corporation weekends (held seven times per year). These have been revised to include at least one session for the Corporation devoted to an in- depth review of the work of a School or academic unit. Among the subjects considered at these plenary sessions are: Development (September 1994); the Medical School and its relationship with Yale-New Haven Hospital (February 1996 and again in June 1998 and April 1999); Tobacco (also February 1996); the Arts Complex (also February 1996); Labor (May 1996); the Payne Whitney Gymnasium (June 1996); Technology Transfer (February 1997); Information Technology (April 1997); School of Management (June 1997 and again in November 1997); the Graduate School (April 1998 and again in December 1998 and June 1999); Investor Responsibility (April 1998); Intellectual Communities (December 1998); Campus Planning (February 1999); and New Haven (April 1994, June 1998 and April 1999). The University and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Within the University, the President and Provost hold a Deans’ lunch approximately once a month, in order to present to the deans of the Graduate School and professional schools University information relevant to all schools, to engage the deans in discussion on campus-wide issues and from time to time to discuss matters of policy with them. In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), on the administrative level, the major planning committees initiate, filter, and review the ongoing work of the University. The FAS Executive Committee is the committee officially charged with the formal administration of the FAS. It is composed of the president, the provost and the deans of Yale College and of the Graduate School. It acts as the final authority for most major FAS issues and allocations and is the group that reviews and modifies the recommendations of major committees and makes final recommendations to the Corporation for changes in such important matters as appointments procedures. The FAS Executive Committee and the relevant deputy provosts meet on a regular basis with the four faculty members who are serving a term as divisional directors (Humanities, Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, and the Biological Sciences) as the Expanded Executive Committee. This group considers overarching FAS business and cross-disciplinary issues and selects the departments that will receive the outside reviews that happen on a rotating basis. The FAS Steering Committee, composed of the provost, the deans of the College and the Graduate School, and the deputy and associate provosts, implements the policies of the Executive and Expanded Executive Committee, and carries out the goals of all FAS matters, especially the allocation and reallocation of faculty positions. This committee also is the first to discuss the reports from outside review committees and it annually solicits, receives and accepts or rejects recommendations from chairs for special merit salary increases. Finally, a group composed of the president, the provost, the two deans and the deputy provosts with FAS responsibilities acts as an important informal component of the administration of FAS. This committee meets every Thursday for lunch, following the FAS Steering Committee. Its most significant tasks are to discuss the status and problems of departments and programs, advise the president on the appointment of FAS chairs, and select the membership and chairs of many FAS committees, in particular the appointments committees. It deals with other major FAS issues as they arise. And it meets in several extended sessions at the end of each spring term to set the next year’s committees. The above structure delineates the administrative planning of the FAS. But much of the major planning for the FAS is actually accomplished in the University’s important standing committees and ad hoc committees. Standing committees such as the Term Advisory Committee on Library Policy, the Information Technology Services (ITS) Advisory Committee, the University Budget Committee and its subcommittees, the Committee on Cooperative Research, the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, the University Committee on Science Policies, the Advisory Committee on Foreign Language Instruction, the Subcommittee on Admissions and Financial Aid (a subcommittee of the Faculty Committee on Admissions). the Committee on Students and Employees on Disabilities and the Committee on Retirement perform short- as well as long-term planning for the University. Ad hoc committees—such as the 1992-1993 Governance Committee, which undertook a major review of the governance of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Hartigan Committee, which reviewed appointments procedures—respond to the faculty’s interest in reviews of particular areas. Many of the issues raised by these committees are ultimately reviewed and adjudicated not only by the appropriate administrative committees, but also by the Yale College faculty and Graduate faculties, with resulting legislative changes voted on by these bodies. Other ad hoc committees, such as the Arts Area and Science Hill Planning Committees, the Linsly-Chittenden Renovation Committee, or the Committees on the renovations of individual residential colleges, have been appointed to direct close community attention to the massive renovation and refurbishment of particular campus buildings and areas. Perhaps the area in which there has been the most change at Yale in the last five years, besides the physical renovation and restoration of the campus, has been in the reorganizing and updating of the University’s administrative and student services systems. The most accurate answer to how committees that have addressed these problems were formed would be “in response to identified need.” The committee appointment system, specifically in the offices of the provost, president, and, in this case, also the dean of Yale College, has been flexible and responsive enough to allow identification of critical areas and the appointment of committees to undertake to address these. Four standing and ad hoc committees active in the last years will give a clear idea of how the University has planned and responded to the need for change in various areas.
As the year 1999 begins, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is in the process of implementing a new administrative structure, created to better plan for and meet the needs of the School. The dean has appointed a deputy dean, who will help her in carrying out the educational mission of the school and in strengthening systems designed to assess the quality of its programs and the welfare of its students. Two associate deans and two assistant deans (rather than three associate deans, as in the past) will work closely with departments in the administration of graduate programs and in working for the academic and personal well-being of students. They will also handle admissions, financial aid, academic performance, and regulations and policies of the Graduate School. Two internal bodies assist in planning for the School. The first is The Graduate School Executive Committee, a committee composed of faculty members and graduate students, chaired by the dean, which advises the dean on broad matters of policy and procedure, and makes recommendations to the faculty of the School. The second is the Graduate Student Assembly, elected by students in individual departments and degree programs, which provides a forum for students to address issues across the Graduate School and University. Both these bodies help the dean and the Graduate School faculty in planning for the needs of the School and it students. In the past ten years—and especially in the past five years—the planning by the deans of the Graduate School and the Officers of the University has produced significant new programs designed to respond to important student needs:
The Yale College Dean’s Office The Yale College Dean’s Office (YCDO) comprehends both the academic and residential life of students in Yale College. Planning and evaluation here are accomplished by the dean in conjunction with the deputy dean, the associate and assistant deans, the directors of certain programs, and the deans of the residential colleges. The size and scope of the office mean that planning and evaluation are accomplished in many different areas of the office: in the council of the associate deans, who gather weekly; in standing bodies such as the council of deans of the residential colleges and the Yale College deans, which also convenes weekly; in meetings of the assistant deans and associate deans on specific issues, such as the content of pre-registration programs or the status of tutoring programs; and in ad hoc committees, such as the Committee on Career Services, which reviewed and restructured Career Services during 1998-1999; the Foreign Language Instruction Committee, which reviewed the teaching of foreign languages at Yale in 1996-1997 and proposed the creation of a new position where the logic and organization in the teaching of foreign languages could be centered. A number of the groups which accomplish planning for Yale College are detailed in Standard 6: Student Services. In academic life, however, two important standing committees appointed by the dean of Yale College are charged with planning and evaluation for academic programs and instruction: the Course of Study Committee and the Teaching and Learning Committee. Each is composed of faculty, administrators, and students nominated by the Yale College Council. The Course of Study Committee annually examines a rotating selection of academic majors and periodically studies such general curricular matters as senior and distributional requirements. All new courses and those with substantial changes are reviewed by this committee and submitted to the Yale College Faculty for approval. All academic programs are subject to regular review. When considering significant changes to the curriculum or renewing or extending existing programs, the Yale College Faculty customarily establishes ad hoc committees to review the change or the renewal after a period, typically, of three to five years. At intervals that they establish, departments offering a major program conduct their own self-studies of offerings and requirements. The Teaching and Learning Committee also focuses on specific topics. This year and in the past several years this committee has discussed and initiated proposals for teaching evaluation (discussed below) and freshman advising. For freshman advising, the committee in 1998-99 examined freshman advising and created a new, more intensive pilot program that is being tested in two residential colleges during 1999-2000. Appraisal and ProjectionThe many improvements in large scale planning in the University in the past ten years make this an area with which the University is at ease, if not at rest. The means by which the Officers present major initiatives to the Corporation, and the plenary sessions that now are a part of Corporation agendas, assure knowledgeable and sustained evaluation of the major issues facing the University and give the appropriate background for planning. The combination of standing and ad hoc committees seem to provide an appropriate balance: sufficient continuity and sufficient flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of the moment. Significant ad hoc committees in this time period have determined positive administrative changes for the systems of the University. Another area where there has clearly been major change is the Graduate School. The challenging climate in the job market in higher education, and the recognition that the Graduate School needed to provide more and better services to its students, has led the School to review its philosophy of education; encouraged it to look closely at its own offerings and programs; and has led to beneficial changes in the structure of the School, and in the services that the School provides. The role of graduate students in undergraduate teaching remains an issue of considerable importance both to the Graduate School and to Yale College. For many years graduate students have gained experience as teachers by participating in the Yale Teaching Fellow Program. Currently, most graduate students with teaching assignments serve as discussion leaders in lecture courses taught by full-time faculty or as laboratory assistants in science courses associated with lecture courses taught by full-time faculty. In addition, in foreign language departments and in the English and Mathematics departments, advanced graduate students are assigned individual sections of well-supervised, staff-taught introductory courses. In a very few instances, primarily through the Prize Teaching Fellow Program, graduate students are offered the opportunity to teach limited enrollment seminars in the subjects of their expertise. Graduate students in the latter two categories are appointed as part-time acting instructors. In 1997-98 courses with a graduate student as the primary classroom instructor accounted for about 7% of all undergraduate enrollments, a number that reflects heavy student interest foreign languages and introductory English. At its best, this program is beneficial to all those involved: to the graduate students, whose supervised apprentice teaching becomes an integral part of their professional training as well as a component of their financial support, and to the undergraduates, who value the opportunity for small section discussion and additional individual attention to their ideas and writing. For some time, however, some aspects of this practice have been criticized from several perspectives, particularly when the amount of graduate student teaching appears to exceed reasonable bounds. Although practice teaching accompanied by appropriate training and under the supervision of an experienced teacher is extremely beneficial (and enjoyable), extensive teaching clearly competes for the time graduate students need to research and write their dissertations. And historically some departments and individual faculty have been lax in providing the training and supervision necessary to ensure a good teaching experience for both the apprentice teacher and the undergraduate. Undergraduates clearly appreciate the participation of graduate students, but if more than a few of their courses are in the hands of graduate students, they would have less access to regular faculty. For these and other reasons, the amount and kind of teaching by graduate students has been under discussion and revision for most of the 1990's. The first and most comprehensive examination of this issue occurred in the spring of 1989, when a faculty-student committee appointed by the deans of Yale College and the Graduate School and chaired by Professor Jules Prown of the department of History of Art studied the issue and wrote a report supporting the program but recommending a number of reforms and improvements. Generally, the Prown Committee recommended reducing the time many graduate students had been spending in the classroom. One of the most important specific recommendations of that committee was that the University should identify the funds needed to offer a dissertation-year fellowship to as many students in the humanities and social sciences as possible, so that in their fourth, fifth, or sixth year, students could work exclusively on their dissertations without feeling the need to teach for financial support. The University put this program into place immediately, and a one-year University dissertation fellowship is now available to all graduate students in most departments in those divisions. This welcome financial support has had the predictable effect of reducing somewhat the number of graduate students available to the Teaching Fellow Program each year. More recently, additional committees have examined these issues. Their recommendations have given rise to several new programs that provide more formal training of graduate student teachers, both at the department and the Graduate School level, and to new regulations to ensure that the teaching experience does not become inappropriately burdensome for them. In addition, as the result of student-faculty recommendations, the Graduate School has instituted many practices and polices designed to guard against over-teaching by graduate students. Among these is an increase in financial aid, so that every Ph.D. student matriculating in 1999 receives at least a base level of stipend support ($11,000). In the humanities and social sciences the standard financial aid package now provides five years of support, without any teaching obligation in three of the five years. And in order to keep the teaching experience most worthwhile for graduate students and undergraduates alike, Graduate School policy now restricts size of sections led by graduate students to no more than twenty undergraduates. There remains, however, more work to be done in this area. Moreover, as the quality of the Teaching Fellow Program has improved, the number of graduate students available and eligible for teaching assignments has declined. Although no department would seek to admit more graduate students only to provide teaching support for the regular faculty, the relative scarcity of graduate students in a few departments with large teaching burdens has become a problem for the current curriculum. These complex issues need further discussion and creative solutions. Planning in this area is one of Yale's primary goals over the next year or two, so that the University can reap the full benefits of the improvements in the Teaching Fellow Program it has made over the last decade.
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| Introduction Planning Evaluation Faculty Reviews Teaching Evaluations |
EvaluationDescriptionStudent Outcomes: Office of Institutional Research and COFHE Assessment of student outcomes—both academic and nonacademic—occurs in a variety of ways. The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) is a common thread in most components of student assessment at Yale, providing research expertise, and serving as a clearinghouse for inter-related research efforts. It provides research support to faculty committees and to deans in Yale College and the Graduate School and professional schools. It monitors patterns of course enrollments, relates measures at time of admission to later student performance, and conducts surveys among students and faculty. Through these efforts, Yale is able to assess how students are being served and to monitor changes in instructional needs. OIR traditionally has focused on Yale College programs and provides research support to the Yale College Dean’s Office and to Yale College committees charged with evaluating particular student outcomes, programs or requirements. For example, in recent years the office has collected data and conducted evaluations of the Residential College Mathematics and Science Tutoring Program, Perspectives on Science, STARS (Science, Technology, and Research Scholars), and has developed and analyzed exit interviews of varsity athletes. OIR routinely monitors the basic facts related to student outcomes: attrition rates (by ethnic-gender subgroups), time to degree, post-graduate activities and employment. For the last 30 years, OIR has contacted recent graduates to inquire what they are doing with their degrees in terms of professional study, employment, and post-graduate education. These “senior studies” currently occur in alternate years. OIR also conducts a number of periodic surveys to monitor student perception of Yale programs and activities and satisfaction with them. Many of these surveys are done in conjunction with COFHE (Consortium on Financing Higher Education), which allows Yale to compare its survey results with norms at similar schools. An important feature of the COFHE survey program is its inclusion of alumni surveys ten years and beyond the undergraduate degree. In addition to alumni surveys, other special studies are conducted, often initiated by standing or ad hoc faculty committees or by deans or other academic staff. These studies help the University understand what is happening in a particular situation or about a particular topic. For example, Yale has been concerned about student performance in the sciences. Over several years, a set of inter-related analyses have looked at what happens to students who plan to major in the natural sciences. At what rate do they persist in study in the natural sciences? What areas seem most attractive to them? Does performance and outcome in early “building block” courses have an impact on later choice of major? In addition, Yale participated in a survey of prospective science students sponsored by the Sloan Foundation. This study covered many areas including how students became interested in the sciences, why they decided to stay or exit, and specifically dealt with issues concerning two groups historically underrepresented in the sciences: women and minorities. The results of this research have been fed back to chairs and directors of undergraduate studies in the sciences, to the Yale College Dean’s Office, the admissions staff, and a series of faculty committees examining various aspects of the issue. OIR provides a centralized resource for tracking and data related to students and student outcomes, but there are a number of other mechanisms for monitoring performance of Yale undergraduates. The primary evaluation of undergraduate achievement is conducted by faculty assessing the achievement of students in their courses. Directors of Undergraduate Studies in each department also regularly advise and evaluate the progress of students majoring in their departments and programs. In addition, alumni response is an important and integral force at Yale. The College has a remarkably close connection with its alumni. Yale College is consistently at the top of its peer group in dollars raised from alumni, which is at least a partial measure of their loyalty and their desire to give back—71 percent of the dollars raised in the “...and for Yale” Campaign came from individuals. A check is not the only thing we receive from alumni, however. Their high giving rate is matched by a high rate of participation in on-campus reunions and alumni programs which involve interaction among alumni, faculty, and students. Fully 30 percent of alumni participate in on-campus reunions and alumni programs that involve interaction among alumni, faculty, and students. Yale has also participated in a series of senior and alumni surveys conducted by COFHE (Consortium on Financing Higher Education). A recent ten-year follow-up survey of the Class of 1982 provided information about what alumni perceived to be important goals of their undergraduate education and whether they felt Yale helped them to develop in these areas. Alumni perception of development during college is not the same thing as measured change in performance, but the COFHE surveys do provide the institution with important information about the effect Yale may be having on students. The University plans to expand its participation in this area of COFHE studies and expects this to be an important source of ongoing, comparative data. Graduate School Outcomes Assessment Surveys The Graduate School performs exit surveys to determine the initial position accepted by each of its graduates. Except through individual departments, which kept their own data in different and generally unsystematic ways, the Graduate School in the past has done little in the way of outcomes assessment. Last year, however, at the request of the dean, a pilot project was undertaken to survey graduate students who had been out of school for three and four years. Data for the survey has been collected—with an excellent response rate of approximately 70 percent—and is now in the process of being studied and analyzed. The goal of the survey is to help the Graduate School address such questions as the appropriate size for its programs; the appropriateness of its education to the changing nature of fields; and the help of teaching experience to teaching in the initial years. Once the questionnaire is refined, the Graduate School plans to administer the questionnaire to students who have been awarded the Ph.D. one year before, and then to continue to survey them every five years following that. Issues such as whether or not they receive tenure, length of time before tenure is awarded, the changing nature of their academic teaching, their persistence in teaching and other questions can then be helpfully researched. In recent years, focused internal evaluations of particular student services have resulted in major changes. For example, as described above in the Planning section, in the mid-90’s The University-wide “Student Administrative Services Improvement Project” task force worked with external consultants to review organizational and technological support for admissions, financial aid, registration, and student financial services in all of Yale’s twelve schools. This led to a new organizational structure and the adoption of BANNER for central processing of billing and payments as well as a plan for extending this student administrative information system to admissions, financial aid, and registration across most schools over several years. In 1998-99, a committee of faculty, staff and undergraduates prepared for the impending retirement of a long-time director by reviewing the complex activities and structure of Undergraduate Career Services (UCS). The committee’s recommendations led to multiple changes: creation of the new office of International Education and Fellowship Programs (IEFP) to augment services previously provided by UCS, heightened emphasis by UCS on career development and employment, upgrading of technological support for both IEFP and UCS, and successful searches for new directors of each office. (See also Standard 6, Student Services.) Appraisal and ProjectionWhile the University does not have a formal set of activities labeled as “Outcomes Assessment,” it does have a number of interrelated activities that together allow it to evaluate whether goals for undergraduates are being achieved. At a simple level, the University regularly monitors the activity of its graduates immediately after they leave school. However, both the occasion of this NEASC self-study and the recent review of Undergraduate Career Services have pointed to the need for more systematic and detailed collection of activities in the early years after graduation beyond the current senior study. In addition to our own studies, response from COFHE surveys of students and alumni offers comparisons with our peer institutions. Through these, the University should continue to identify particular areas where special evaluation and planning efforts can make substantive differences.
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| Introduction Planning Evaluation Faculty Reviews Teaching Evaluations |
Evaluation: Ladder Faculty ReviewsDescriptionWithin the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), several established processes support regular evaluation of ladder faculty (i.e., assistant professors, associate professors, and professors). These review processes begin at the hiring stage for both non-tenured and tenured faculty and continue throughout ladder faculty careers. The processes for evaluating non-ladder faculty (lecturers, lectors, adjunct faculty) are somewhat less comprehensive, although renewals of multiple-year non-ladder appointments, especially for “senior” lectors who teach languages, are receiving increasing scrutiny. Department chairs are asked to meet annually with non-tenured faculty to assess informally their performance in research and teaching. Although this does not always occur with the desired consistency, all departments do conduct formal reviews on a periodic basis. In the penultimate year of the initial or any subsequent appointment at the assistant professor level, formal departmental review committees are charged with evaluation of each faculty member, and re-appointments are voted on by the department and forwarded to the Term Appointments Committee for approval. Promotion to non-tenured Associate Professor requires an even more formal review, and if the vote of the department is favorable, a recommendation for promotion is carried by the chair to the Term Appointments Committee, supported by letters from referees both internal and external to Yale. The transition from non-tenure to tenure, whether from non-tenured Associate to tenured Associate or from either non-tenure rank to Professor, is of a very different order. The department is expected to conduct a formal penultimate year review of non-tenured Associate Professors independent of securing prospects for a tenure position in the department. The outcome of this review is always a clear assessment of the quality and prospects of the candidate. If the candidate appears to be a potential candidate for a tenured position at Yale, the department may choose to seek authorization for a tenured position, for which the individual may become an internal candidate. If the reviewed faculty member is not deemed qualified for a tenure position, if the department elects not to seek a tenure position, or if authorization for a tenure position is not granted, the faculty member is informed that the remaining year on the faculty will be his or her last. If a tenure position is authorized, the faculty member may or may not be the successful candidate for that position following the full search process established for all tenure appointments. This includes a national search, requiring outside comparative evaluation of top candidates and a departmental vote. Following that vote, the chair brings a recommendation to appoint the candidate to one of the four divisional Tenure Appointments Committees, where the case is thoroughly weighed and discussed. The final steps in the process are formal approval by the Joint Boards of Permanent Officers of Yale College and the Graduate School, and by the Yale Corporation. The assessment of tenured faculty is normally focused in two areas. First, tenured associate professors must be reviewed for promotion within five years of their appointment to that tenured rank. This review is conducted initially within the department in much the same way as reviews for the promotion of non-tenured faculty members. If the department believes the candidate is ready for promotion to full professor, it seeks letters of evaluation from distinguished scholars in the field and after departmental vote carries the recommendation to the appropriate Tenure Appointments Committee. If the candidate does not appear to qualify for promotion—most often because he or she has not produced significant new scholarship since the appointment to associate professor—the department will not forward the recommendation. Until recently, FAS procedures dictated that the candidate would be promoted to professor automatically after seven years in the rank, on the grounds that continuation at that rank represented a non-constructive stigma. After the discussions that followed the report of the ad hoc Faculty Committee on Appointments Procedures in the FAS (in which it was argued that Yale should eliminate the rank of tenured associate), the FAS Executive Committee modified the rule, giving the Provost the option of proceeding with the promotion if the case seem warranted for institutional reasons, but retaining the possibility of indefinite continuation in the rank of associate professor without term. For full professors, the only systematic review occurs at the time annual salary increases are determined. Through a review process described in more detail in the Faculty section of the self-study (Standard 5), all faculty submit activity reports, which form the basis of salary increases. There are two phases of the salary review process, the initial phase in which special increases are recommended, and a second phase in which department chairs distribute from a fixed pool increases based on merit. The result of this is that over a short period of time faculty who are consistently productive will experience significantly higher raises than those who are consistently unproductive. Ad hoc evaluations of specific faculty members sometimes occurs separate from the annual salary review as the result of outside offers, which prompt a decision, based on the evaluation of the department chair, the two deans, and the provost, to award a special increase to reflect Yale's desire to retain that individual on the faculty. Faculty members in the sciences often are evaluated when space decisions are made, but for the most part space is awarded on the basis of need as determined by the activity of the research program and the amount of funding provided by outside sponsors. The University has a rigorous system of evaluation for non-tenured, FAS ladder faculty and for appointments to tenure. Assessment of tenured faculty performance varies among departments and, as at comparable universities, is a complex and controversial issue. The University has attempted to better address this issue the past few years, by asking faculty to list each year their intellectual, teaching and community contributions so that the range and variety of these do not get overlooked in salary reviews. More problematic is the assessment of non-ladder faculty (lecturers, lectors, adjunct and visiting instructors). Non-ladder evaluations have been inconsistently applied except for modest reviews when re-appointing multi-year faculty, primarily senior lectors in the languages. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences Steering Committee is working now to develop a more thorough process for appointing and evaluating non-ladder faculty in FAS. The departments themselves are also reviewed on a regular basis, both internally and externally. The internal reviews are described in the Faculty section of this document (Standard 5). External committees are periodically formed by the provost's and deans’ offices in consultation with unit heads and relevant divisional committees and typically include experts in relevant sub-disciplines. This process is quite thorough, often lasting several days and usually involving assessment of issues such as: faculty strength, available University and external resources, focus of scholarly pursuits within the unit, teaching efforts, and the role of the unit in the intellectual life of the University. External reviews typically result in a written document presented to the provost, with the results subsequently afforded to the department. This process serves not only to inform the administration about current strengths and weaknesses of its units but also can contribute importantly to long-range planning relevant to future allocation of resources and faculty slots in all academic areas. Appraisal and ProjectionThe changes recommended by the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty (CESOF) in 1996, resulting in alterations to the format of faculty activity reports, and a change in the timing for their submission, has provided the FAS Steering Committee with more and better information concerning the range and variety of faculty contributions during annual salary reviews. It is hoped that the more thorough process for appointing and evaluating non-ladder FAS faculty, now being studied by the Steering Committee, will result in as thorough and equable a process for non-ladder faculty.
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| Introduction Planning Evaluation Faculty Reviews Teaching Evaluations |
Faculty Evaluation: Teaching Evaluation FormsDescriptionThe Teaching and Learning Committee of Yale College, appointed by the dean of Yale College, considers general questions of standards and practices of teaching in Yale College. Course evaluation forms are expected to be used in appointment and promotion reviews. Each semester, in conjunction with the Dean’s Office, the committee distributes course evaluation forms and section evaluation forms. These forms are expected to be reviewed by the instructors and then forwarded to department chairs. Appraisal and ProjectionOver the years there has been ongoing discussion—in both the Teaching and Learning Committee and, in response to proposals by that body, in the meetings of the Yale College Faculty—concerning teacher evaluation by undergraduates. The current system, in which course improvement forms and teaching evaluation forms are sent to faculty, who are expected to have their students fill them out, and in which the faculty are relied on to submit the forms to their departments—has been seen as an adequate system by some students and faculty, and flawed by others. The difficulty has been to reach consensus on any different system. In the first place, there is philosophical disagreement about what fine teaching is, and how it is most useful for students to assess it for such different purposes as course selection by other students and performance review by department chairs. Some believe that assessing the teaching in a course before the final exam has even been administered, and before any time has passed to reflect on what has been gained, garners only superficial responses. These people suggest that only time provides students with the discriminating perspective to distinguish between good teaching and showmanship. Finding and implementing the very best format for course evaluation has been of ongoing concern to the Teaching and Learning Committee, and one the Committee has addressed through various experiments during the past few years. The first experiment with a Web-based evaluation system was not a success, since faculty received approximately one third the number of responses that they previously received on paper forms distributed in class. More recently, there have been experiments with a scantron form for evaluation, the results of which are just becoming available. It is clear that, while many find the current system helpful and adequate, and perhaps the best that compromise can produce, the ideal model for faculty evaluation by students has not yet been developed. Teaching and Learning is committed to continuing these discussions with students and faculty in the coming year.
LINKS TO STANDARDS: | S1 | S2 | S3 | S4 | S5 | S6 | S7 | S8 | S9 | S10 | S11 | |
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IntroductionPlanning Evaluation Faculty Reviews Teaching Evaluations |
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