Chapter 9:

 The Faculty - Expectations, Evaluations, and Rewards

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INTRODUCTION

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Encouraging excellence in teaching is integral to the very foundation of the educational mission of this university. Our learning-centered academic environment at San Francisco State emphasizes the great value of teaching and professional development of faculty. It supports the development and implementation of policies to promote and enhance successful instructional and scholarly activities. Support of excellence in teaching and the use of effective methodologies and technologies also upholds and enhances the university's mission to create interactive and diverse educational opportunities for students. While sustaining and increasing advancements in available learning resources for faculty and students, the university encourages research and scholarship that complement classroom, laboratory, and creative learning activities and experiences for a highly diverse student body.

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Teaching excellence is perceived to be the centerpiece of a challenging engagement with learning that promotes innovative models of instruction, scholarship, research, and interaction with students. Therefore, in this chapter on "expectations, evaluations, and rewards," the formal, periodic evaluation of faculty is addressed in relationship to teaching, research, and service criteria. We are a learning-centered university—always have been and continue to be. Our expectations, evaluations, and rewards are all aimed at this mission. Hiring, retention, tenure, and promotion are therefore a part of the interweave of our mission and purpose as a learning-centered university.

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This chapter reiterates the central role of the faculty by examining the guidelines and measures provided to support and evaluate faculty at the university. It recounts some of the accomplishments at the campus in achieving the aims behind our current procedures, policies, and reward systems for encouraging and recognizing excellence in teaching performance and professional achievement. Historical information relevant to this chapter from the last WASC review is briefly discussed, and information is given about how some of the topics were addressed in our campus strategic plan. The chapter describes how the evaluation and support for faculty in fulfilling their responsibilities have been strengthened and it acknowledges additional areas for growth.

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In the report of the 1992 WASC visiting team, the following question was the central focus of the section on the role of the faculty: "What expectations are there for faculty contributions in research, teaching, and service; how are these contributions assessed, and how does the institution focus its faculty development efforts to support the role of the faculty?" The WASC team seemed most concerned about differences between the administration and the faculty on the relative weight of research and on the guidelines on how to evaluate service.

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The campus has addressed these issues in the years since the 1992 WASC report. During 1992-1998, campus planning groups and the Academic Senate's Faculty Affairs Committee were actively reviewing and proposing HRTP policy and procedures and related reward and evaluation systems for faculty such as Performance Salary Step Increase (PSSI), Service Salary Increase (SSI), and Faculty Merit Increase (FMI) policies; procedures for post-tenure review; improvements to teaching evaluation procedures; and re-examination of sabbatical leave and lecturer faculty employment and benefits policies.

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Strategic Plan Recommendations

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The 1998 university strategic plan made ten specific recommendations for activities that were designed to facilitate an academic department's capacity to provide support for and evaluation of faculty. Some of these recommendations were discussed in Chapters 7 and 8 in relation to such subjects as the creation of new faculty orientation activities; the establishment of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching to support curricular innovation and to provide forums for the evaluation and sharing of strategies and tools; new programs for recognition of faculty through awards and funding initiatives that reward scholarship and faculty innovations using instructional technology; a celebration of faculty service; and increased support from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs for grant applications and administration of faculty research activities.

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The strategic plan recommendations recognized the significant role of faculty as researchers, thinkers, mentors, resource guides, planners, and designers of learning opportunities that promote and sustain the learning-centered educational mission of the university. The recommendations emphasized ways to make active, effective teaching the most important criterion for faculty evaluation, advancement, and reward. The recommendations pointed to the need for creating a culture conducive to establishing and rewarding excellence through many initiatives, including those obtainable through training in new methodologies and technological tools and those sustainable through the strengthening of the hiring, retention, tenure, and promotion process.

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This chapter addresses a few of the significant, tangible avenues originating in or growing out of the recommendations for support and evaluation of faculty. The focus is upon recommendations that emphasize: (1) clearer communication about guidelines for personnel decisions; (2) the development of incentives and reward systems for faculty teaching performance; (3) consistent measurements of teaching evaluation; (4) advising and research activities for students; and (5) clear definitions and support for service by faculty members. The campus ethos as a learning-centered university influences the course of each faculty member's teaching career through systematic encouragement of growth in teaching, research, and service.

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Priorities that Strengthen Processes for
Evaluating and Rewarding Faculty: 1998-2000

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The university has strengthened its processes for evaluating and rewarding faculty in several ways, including: (1) providing guidelines regarding the preparation of a Working Personnel Action File (WPAF) for Retention, Tenure, and Promotion; (2) re-evaluating procedures for post-tenure review; (3) establishing reward systems for faculty performance; (4) standardizing teaching evaluations; (5) initiating several projects designed to enhance advising and student research; and (6) clarifying and expanding guidelines for evaluating and rewarding service activities.

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Each of the six priorities for 1998-2000 that are listed above has resulted in innovations and changes that have enhanced our campus' academic excellence, teaching and learning, and community orientation. The specific steps taken regarding these priorities are briefly described below.

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Preparation of a Working Personnel Action File (WPAF)
for Retention, Tenure, and Promotion

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The HRTP process is governed by a policy that remains unchanged from the last WASC review in 1992 [see Faculty Manual www.sfsu.edu/~acaffrs/facman/fac-man.htm]. However, since that review, the Office of Faculty Affairs created a document to assist in the process, Preparation of the Working Personnel Action File (WPAF) for Retention, Tenure, and Promotion [www.sfsu.edu/~acaffrs/wpaf.htm]. The working personnel action file "represents the candidate's case for retention, tenure, and/or promotion." This document is introduced to new faculty at a four-day orientation, and the dean of faculty affairs and professional development offers suggestions to them regarding strategies and procedures for initiating a WPAF, maintaining their professional profile, and organizing material for performance review. Several workshops are scheduled throughout the year to allow faculty to discuss the WPAF and get advice as to its construction.

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Academic Senate policies on promotion, retention, and tenure contain teaching, professional development and growth, and service as criteria. [See www.sfsu.edu/~senate/S88-120.htm and www.sfsu.edu/~ senate/S94-028.htm.] The department chairs are encouraged to routinely meet with faculty to discuss their curricular interests and activities and to address the department's expectations for teaching, professional development and growth, and service. The document from the Office of Faculty Affairs is an additional pragmatic tool designed to assist individual faculty in presenting evidence of their teaching performance, professional growth and achievement, and contributions to the campus and community.

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Post-Tenure Review

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Efforts to tie the post-tenure review process to faculty development have moved forward as well. Although the policy for post-tenure review has not changed [see www.sfsu.edu/~senate/F84-122.htm], the institutional procedural guidelines and forms have. The guidelines provide for a wide variation of supporting documentation and/or tools of evaluation; but in every case, a post-tenure review includes a summary report of the peer review committee that is reviewed and approved by the dean of each college. The deans are encouraged to devise new tools for support and evaluation of the professional development of tenured faculty, who participate directly in a post-tenure review process at the department review level by providing student evaluations and often some form of self-evaluation, including documentation of publications, service activities, and other professional development. For example, the dean of the College of Humanities currently distributes a form containing four questions to all faculty who are involved in post-tenure review. The form contains an introductory note indicating that the questionnaire is designed "to make this process a useful dialogue about both your activities and your resource needs for teaching, advising, research, creative activities, and service." The dean follows up the questionnaire with interviews of the faculty currently participating in post-tenure reviews. The questions are as follows:

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1. Imagine yourself meeting some of your students five years after they have taken one of the courses that you are currently teaching or that you often teach. What would you like these students to remember about this course? What changes would you most hope to see in these students that had been brought about by your teaching? Are there special ways by which you try to ensure that students remember what you consider important?

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2. Majors in the humanities do well in the workplace and the community, as studies demonstrate. In your own classes, what skills, knowledge, attitudes, and training carry over into the workplace, community, and personal lives of your students?

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3. What do you consider your major activities over the past few years in teaching, advising, research, creative activities, and service?

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4. What are your goals in any or all of these areas for the coming one to three years? What resources would be helpful in meeting your goals?

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Rewards for Faculty Performance

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Rewards for good faculty performance range from the satisfaction of a job well done and positive feedback provided by students to monetary rewards through the various pay increase initiatives.

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The system of monetary rewards instituted first as Performance Salary Step Increases [PSSIs: www.sfsu. edu/~senate/S97-194.htm], and later replaced by a new program described below as Faculty Merit Increases [FMIs: www.sfsu.edu/~senate/F99-208.htm], has provided another type of challenge to the process of evaluating faculty—one that has some history of creating controversy and discontent among faculty of the CSU system. During 1998-2000, the new program for Faculty Merit Increases was addressed as part of the collective bargaining process. Following the precepts of the 1994 CSU Board of Trustees "Statement of Classification and Compensation Philosophy, Goals, and Strategy," the 1998-99 goal of pay for performance was designed to include a more widespread distribution of merit increases, with the goal being that as many as 60% to 70% of faculty would receive merit pay awards.

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The result for faculty in 1999-2000 was a widened distribution of merit increases. The increases led to a new median SFSU salary for all tenured/tenure-track faculty of $72,000. Over 80 percent of the tenured/tenure-track faculty received at least a 6 percent increase; 48 percent of lecturers recommended for merit also received awards.

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Teaching Evaluations

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All levels of HRTP evaluation recognize teaching effectiveness as the centerpiece of academic performance. Prior to 1998, each department had its own teaching evaluation form. Some members of the campus community felt it was essential to evaluate all faculty using a single student evaluation form, while others were equally adamant that teaching evaluations be tailored to the subject matter being taught. The campus achieved a compromise by agreeing to have standardized evaluations by college and by permitting departments or faculty to add additional items to these standardized forms. By 1999, each college had its own standard evaluation form for all faculty teaching in that college.

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Every college Teaching Effectiveness Evaluation Form (TEEF) contains a set of questions that evaluates interrelationships of faculty with students. The TEEFs of the colleges, for example, provide feedback mechanisms for student assessments of the learning-centered approaches of the instructor regarding promotion of active learning, the creation of user-friendly educational opportunities, and the encouragement of greater student and faculty interaction. These attributes of teaching effectiveness and excellence are measured in the student's responses to statements such as those listed below:

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• "The instructor helped to create a class environment that promoted learning." (Business)
• "The instructor showed respect for students with differing points of view." (Education)
• "The instructor treated students with respect." (Humanities)
• "The instructor provided feedback on my progress in a regular and timely manner." (Science and Engineering)
• "The instructor responded to student questions or comments in appropriate, helpful ways." (Humanities)
• "The instructor was willing to discuss diverse viewpoints/ideas." (Health and Human Services)
• "The instructor has motivated me to think critically about course topics and materials." (Ethnic Studies)

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A formal analysis of the teaching evaluation instruments from each of the eight colleges in June 2000 showed that all eight colleges asked a question related to the organization and preparation of the instructor. Seven of the eight colleges asked questions related to: (1) clear objectives, requirements, and expectations; (2) helpful, timely feedback; (3) clear communication; and (4) respect for students and student diversity. Six colleges asked questions related to the effective use of assignments to enhance learning and to encourage or stimulate critical thinking. The results of this analysis have been used to develop a core set of common questions for use across all colleges in their assessments of teaching effectiveness. A Fall 2000 Academic Senate resolution established a process by which these proposed core questions will be studied for possible approval and implementation campus-wide.

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Advising and Student Research

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The campus adopted a mandatory advising policy and provided resources to support advising activities (see Chapter 5 for additional information). These funds were used to produce advising materials, to enhance communication with students, and to provide advising assistance. Additional enhancements to advising resources include new orientations, career days, peer advising programs, and web site and electronic advising resources. Faculty and students also participate in various activities which foster student research, such as the CSU research competition, presentations of student research at special conferences held on campus, and mentoring relationships which result in student presentations at professional conferences.

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Evaluating and Rewarding Service Activities

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Faculty from forty departments and all eight academic colleges on campus have received Community Service Learning Faculty Curriculum Development Awards since 1997. These were funded by the Community Service Learning (CSL) Program created in 1996. In Spring 1998, CSL held a faculty/community partner event; and in Fall 1998, CSL sponsored lunchtime faculty forums on community service learning and honored faculty award recipients at a reception. CSL produced a "Model for Assessing Impact of Faculty Involvement in Community Service Learning" that could be very helpful in evaluating and rewarding service activities. The model fills a gap in guidelines for service evaluation. Traditionally, faculty review processes separate activities into the areas of teaching, professional growth, and service. Activities in com-munity service learning frequently cross the boundaries of these traditional areas. A faculty member's participation in community service learning might impact students to select an academic or professional career choice or to join a community service organization such as AmeriCorps or VISTA. The faculty member's own work might be impacted by community-based research that results in presentations, grant proposals, publications, technical reports, or electronic publications. The faculty member's participation could have significant impact on the institution as well, by contributing to the campus culture of service through the faculty member's increased ability to collaborate across disciplines or create alternative learning opportunities for students of diverse backgrounds and cultures. [See "Model for Assessing Impact of Faculty Involvement in Community Service Learning" for more details; http://thecity.sfsu.edu/~ocsl/ assessingcsl.htm.]

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Recommendations for the Future

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A number of the above activities are relatively new to our campus; however, anecdotal evidence indicates that faculty have benefited from clearer information about the HRTP process and support for research, and that they are pleased to have some preliminary ideas about how to strengthen evaluation of and rewards for service activities. The merit pay system is still relatively new; and departments, the Academic Senate, and the administration are carefully reviewing the results and process. Even so, we have made great strides in some directions, such as in strengthening advising and student research, though the steps toward creating systems of incentive and reward for faculty involved in these activities need to be enhanced. There should be a continued emphasis on broader definitions of all criteria used to evaluate faculty; i.e., professional development, teaching, and service. Our campus has placed an emphasis on evaluations and individual faculty member's contributions based on mutually-developed criteria established by departments for and with that faculty member. This approach can be strengthened through increased department support. Departments should maintain a written copy of the objectives as part of each person's personnel action file. This document could, as appropriate, be revised and updated to include new objectives initiated by the individual or by the department, provided that the new objectives are mutually accepted. An excellent example of this type of agreement is that which exists in programs with interdisciplinary curricula and community service learning ties of great significance; e.g., Jewish Studies.

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To accomplish the objectives of our learning-centered educational mission, it is necessary that, at every level, evaluators of faculty teaching performance, professional development, and community and campus service activities respectfully acknowledge and use the mutually-developed individual objectives. To implement these procedures requires written policies developed through collaboration among the following parties: department chairs, faculty, college deans, provost, and president; departmental hiring, retention, tenure, and promotion committees; the Faculty Affairs Committee and the full Academic Senate; and the University Promotion Committee.

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AREAS NEEDING ATTENTION

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Mentoring new faculty. A concerted effort needs to be launched to encourage more departments to establish a mentoring program for new and recently hired faculty. This effort needs to be supported by providing training in how to provide effective support for peers, how to develop an interactive process to assist the new faculty in the acquisition of skills necessary to teach in the San Francisco State environment, and how to guide the new faculty member through the RTP process for those faculty wishing to become mentors. While there are some departments that have instituted a new faculty mentoring program, these are the exceptions, not the rule.

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Post-tenure review follow-up. While changes in the post-tenure review process have occurred, there is no consistent, systematic approach among colleges to address the results of a post-tenure review. Faculty who have undergone post-tenure review, and whose performance was determined to be outstanding, need to have public recognition of this outcome. Conversely, there needs to be a more systematic approach to support faculty who have undergone a post-tenure review in which changes and/or improvements were recommended. Ideally, the faculty member under review would develop his/her own professional development plan, negotiate the plan with the review committee, and specify what resources are necessary for its implementation and completion. The support would be provided where possible and the plan implemented and consistently evaluated as to its effectiveness.

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Assessing teaching effectiveness. In the process of developing a core set of university-wide items for assessing teaching effectiveness, a statement or definition of teaching effectiveness that articulates the connection between teaching effectiveness and student learning must be developed. It is critical that faculty reflections on their own teaching performance be an integral part of the definition and assessment process. Within such a framework, it will be possible to evaluate the appropriateness of teaching effectiveness measures in relation to student learning outcomes.

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Concluding Remarks on the Faculty of the Future

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The community-oriented, internationalized, and diverse educational setting and multicultural campus community at San Francisco State University requires faculty who thrive on challenge and are skilled at drawing forth the best knowledge and scholarship from students. Building on the excellent endeavors of the university’s present faculty, the faculty of the future will play a central role in formulating and affirming the vitality and creativity of the educational experience available on the campus. These faculty will:

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• View excellence in teaching as encompassing advising, mentoring, and professional off-campus activities, as well as outstanding performance in the classroom.

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• Demonstrate academic rigor, unimpeachable scholarship, and a fair and calm approach to different opinions which results in an ability to teach timely, important subjects by bringing material under searching intellectual scrutiny.

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• Display intellectual agility and respond thoroughly and knowledgeably to questions that arise in class discussions, thereby making difficult material accessible without sacrificing depth or complexity.

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• Have a record of publications and a scholarly network that extends internationally and make significant contributions to their disciplines by conducting and publishing research and making presentations at professional meetings and conferences.

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• Seek funding for projects that will serve to enhance their scholarship, contribute to the information base of the discipline, and support students in their learning.

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• Contribute to the effectiveness of the department by participating in development efforts, mentoring new faculty, and engaging in the preparation of support material to assist students in their work.

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Fortunately, many of SFSU's present faculty possess these qualities. With these faculty, and with the new faculty being hired, the university is positioned to educate a highly diverse student population having different learning styles and different needs. Thus is the university able to succeed in implementing its mission "to create and maintain an environment for learning that promotes respect for and appreciation of scholarship, freedom, human diversity, and the cultural mosaic of the City of San Francisco and the Bay Area; to promote excellence in instruction and intellectual accomplishment; and, to provide broadly accessible higher education for residents of the region, and the state, as well as the nation and the world."

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