Post-Tenure Review

The following report is from the 1999 APSA Conference for Political Science Chairs.

The 1999 Conference for Political Science Chairs focused on the objectives and procedures for evaluating faculty: in their role as teachers, specifically, and in all aspects of their work after tenure. The following report is an effort to share insights the sessions' participants.

The sessions' titles aptly portray their aim and substance. The first session entitled, "Evaluating Faculty Performance in Teaching: Methods and Consequences," was chaired by Michael Baer, Senior Vice President, Division of Programs and Analysis, American Council on Education. The second session entitled, "Post-Tenure Review: Policies, Procedures and Implications," was chaired by Ron Peters, Director, Carl Albert Center at the University of Oklahoma, and Chair of APSA's Departmental Services Committee.

Evaluating Teaching Performance

Michael Baer introduced the roundtable on evaluating teaching by pointing out that faculty are critical to, but not the only source of, what students learn. He stated that faculty are charged with creating learning as well as delivering learning and that the techniques used to assess teaching need to recognize this duality.

Bernard Mennis, Chair of the political science department at Temple University, said that his department's response to the external pressures from university administrators and state legislators for assessing teaching performance was to treat such performance seriously as professional work. In attempting to achieve this objective as the department chair, he recognized that faculty oppose such assessment insofar as they regard teaching as a private activity. The challenge was to involve faculty collegially in teaching as a public activity. He advised that teaching be regarded as highly as research thereby encouraging faculty to do both well. He also argued that faculty acceptance of teaching evaluation depends on it not being used directly for reward or punishment.

Bernard Mennis described how he encouraged members of the political science department to become involved in "teaching circles," a collaboration among willing faculty, whose design is based on resources developed by the American Association for Higher Education(AAHE) and is being expanded in the program for "The Scholarship of Teaching." A "teaching circle" involves three to four faculty who meet to discuss course objectives, syllabi and resources. The members visit each others classes at least twice, offer comments and critiques, and report to their other colleagues in the department. The teaching circles have proven attractive and useful to faculty. He reported that the program is so popular in his department that there is a waiting list to participate. The departmental experience with teaching circles has informed criteria for promotion and merit decisions.

Another teaching performance assessment tool used at Temple is the "Collaborative Teaching Portfolio." Bernard Mennis described how faculty who teach the (8-9) sections of the introductory American government course form a working group to evaluate course objectives and content as well as to review textbooks and syllabi and discuss what to cover. They approach teaching the course as an intellectual exercise. As a result of their discussions, these Temple faculty have developed a common syllabus and are continuing to talk and listen to one another about developing the course. A comparable process and outcome is occurring among faculty who teach the introductory courses in comparative politics, international relations and political theory at Temple.

The additional teaching resources available to Temple faculty are videotaping classes along with other aids offered by the university's Teaching Development Center and mentors (faculty who are retired or teach outside the department) for new faculty. Bernard Mennis concluded by advising chairs that peer review of teaching works provided that the department chair builds trust among faculty and speaks openly about changing the professional culture.

Kristi Andersen, Political Science Chair at Syracuse University, described her department's methods for assessing faculty and evaluating their teaching. Before doing so, she noted that quantitative student evaluations of teaching measure many things, yet give a unidimensional view of teaching and often constrain faculty. While the evidence as to whether there is a gender bias in student evaluations is mixed, students expectations about how men and women faculty should behave does influence their evaluations (Andersen and Miller,1997).

In summarizing her department's procedures for evaluating teaching, she pointed out that faculty members are assessed over a range of courses and there is no peer observation by faculty of each other's classes. The assessment, conducted by a three person committee of departmental members, uses these 7 ordinal measures to arrive at a single summary measure:

• Currency of syllabi materials
• Clarity of expectations for students
• Use of active learning techniques
• Contributions (through service on committees) to programmatic planning
• Course development: revision/improvement and reflections on course strategy and pedagogy
• Advising students (time devoted) (Information on items 4, 5 and 6 is provided by faculty updating their CVs)
• Student evaluations of teaching through departmentally specific questionnaires.

Kristi Andersen agreed with Bernard Mennis in that faculty need to move from viewing teaching only as a private activity toward viewing it as a more public, collegial activity.

Deborah Meizlish, a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, described a teaching evaluation method used at the University of Michigan called "Small Group Instructional Diagnosis(SGID)." She confirmed the importance of viewing teaching as a public activity by stating that teaching training as experienced now by many graduate students is more public, and that these future faculty can contribute to changing professional norms about teaching.

SGID exemplifies the principles that the evaluation of teaching should not be divorced from improving teaching and that good teaching can be taught and teaching can be improved. The stages of a SGID conducted by trained graduate students include:

• Discussion between the faculty/instructor and SGID observer about the instructor's objectives. The class attributes in order to identify any difficulties prior to a class observation.
• Observation of a portion of the class recorded by videotape or by written notes.
• Discussion with students in the class (the instructor leaves so the students can respond more freely). Students are broken into smaller groups to discuss both the instructor's specific strengths and methods of improving the class. While a consensus is sought on the attributes of the class and improving it, attention is paid to divisions of opinion that might exist among the students.
• Communication of the students' views to the instructor. The instructor must treat specific feedback from students seriously because failing to do so after the session would cause a problem in the class. Faculty who acknowledge and do something about problems receive higher student evaluations at the end of the semester.

Deborah Meizlish acknowledged that this is a labor intensive process, but one that has improved her teaching and that of other participants. The University of Michigan uses the SGID for new courses and new technologies and to compare students across different sections of a particular course. The panelists agreed that students give positive evaluations to faculty who provide clarity about expectations for student performance and structure in the course design.

A discussion with the audience followed these presentations. Department chairs agreed that the pressures to evaluate teaching will not disappear and that there are multiple forms of evaluation, across political science departments and even within a department. Peer review, however, is still a rarity and is threatening to many faculty. But, many younger faculty and graduate students are more receptive to collaborative efforts on teaching, recognizing that it can be helpful to them. Kristi Andersen noted that faculty would like to separate the formative evaluation that assists them in teaching from the evaluation of their performance. Michael Bear closed the session by noting that teaching technologies are changing rapidly and that methods of evaluating faculty are evolving and will have to change as well.

Post-Tenure Review: Policies, Procedures and Implications

Ron Peters introduced the panelists who described their institutional and departmental experience with post-tenure review. Panelist included: Virginia Sapiro, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, University of Maryland, Ruth Jones, Arizona State University, and Kidane Mengisteab, Old Dominion University.

Virginia Sapiro described how, as department chair, she applied the University's post tenure rules in order to constrain their intrusion. She observed that there is tremendous variation in review practices across departments at the University of Wisconsin. She stated that the rapid turnover of university administrators contributed to this pattern. Political science faculty at the University of Wisconsin preferred a process where the chair consulted with individual faculty rather than a collective departmental review. In her view, post-tenure review does not cover important professional development needs, but serves state legislature's goals to increase higher education productivity and make budget cuts. Viginia Sapiro said that any post-tenure review exercise should bear a relationship to the department's hiring practices and culture. While post-tenure review is supposed to deal with the issue of redistributing responsibilities in a department, faculty whose research careers have taken a downturn are not likely to be energetic and creative teachers; therefore, giving these faculty more teaching and administrative duties is not a solution.

Jonathan Wilkenfeld, a department chair, said that the University of Maryland's post-tenure review has no sanctions and no rewards for faculty; consequently, it is of limited use in influencing faculty. From his perspective, it is a mandate the university imposes on the department without providing for the consequences. Nonetheless, 6 post-tenure reviews are conducted annually in the department and 15 have been concluded since the introduction of the process at the university. A three-person departmental committee conducts the post-tenure review based on resumes, syllabi and personal statements on the accomplishments in the last 5 years of the faculty member under review. Jonathan Wilkenfeld reported that the majority of the post-tenure reviews are not problematic. Some necessitated an agreement between the chair of the review committee and the faculty member about what needs to be done to improve performance. Since this process is more superficial than the tenure process (e.g. there are no outside reviews), there is some justification for faculty to challenge it. In addition, the chair can do little with a negative report as the university may require 6 to 10 years to take action by which time the faculty member involved may be retired or close to retirement.

Ruth Jones, a liaison between the President's Office and the Provost's Office at Arizona State University, reviewed the university's three-year experience with post-tenure review. She noted that university administration and faculty took charge of the post-tenure review process in a way that was responsive to the university's regents without endorsing their interest in undermining tenure. While the regents produced guidelines and principles, campuses designed general procedures and departments specified their own processes for conducting post-tenure reviews. Ruth Jones reported that the political science department built in an annual performance review of faculty to attain an overall assessment. Faculty members who receive unsatisfactory ratings have 3 years to improve their performance. If there is no improvement after 3 years, the university can begin to assemble ground for dismissal. Departments are held accountable for their internal reviews by the Dean through a five year audit.

Ruth Jones reported that thus far only one ASU faculty member's performance has been found unsatisfactory. Many faculty who faced the post-tenure review process, however, opted for early retirement and many others for professional development. The Dean's audit required some departments to review their own processes. The overall outcome of post-tenure review has been flexibility in the allocation of faculty workload based on the performance review. Departments have made use of their alumni in external reviews in order to respond to the regents requests for community involvement.

Kidane Mengisteab, political science department chair at Old Dominion University, said that his department reviewed tenured faculty every five years using peer review of faculty portfolios. Faculty whose performance is deficient must sign a contract which commits them to change. Similar to ASU's experience, faculty who are in this position often choose retirement. Kidane Mengisteab reported that, while faculty who are not conducting research are often given more teaching assignments, it is the departmental program that suffers when they are poor teachers. He said that Old Dominion University does have sanctions if faculty performance does not improve and these include salary reduction, suspension (with or without pay) and even dismissal.

Several department chairs in the audience commented on the objectives of a post-tenure review requirement. Harvey Starr, University of South Carolina, said that it is not only designed to "get rid of" people who are not contributing, but to send a signal to new faculty that they must remain active. Elaine McCoy, Kent State University, said that it is the responsibility of senior faculty to maintain high standards of professional work and that the imposition of post-tenure reviews may indicate a default of professional responsibility. Many other chairs agreed that it is important for faculty to set professional standards and to be supportive and nurturing of their colleagues. Faculty have an interest in taking control of professional standards and accountability.

Ron Peters closed the session by asking what can be done to socialize faculty earlier in their careers so that the post-tenure threat need not be implemented. He cautioned that once post-tenure reviews are part of higher education culture, they will develop more teeth. The panelists and the audience agreed that faculty are the only profession without requirements for continual professional development and review, and that self-determination and self-control of professional work is far preferable to external controls.

References

Andersen, Kristi and Elizabeth D. Miller. 1997. "Gender and Student Evaluation of Teaching." PS: Political Science & Politics 30(2) pg 216-218.

Magner, Denise K. "Report Urges Post-Tenure Reviews for Professors and More Pay for Part-Timers" Chronicle of Higher Education (January 1, 1999): A12.

"Facing Change: Building the Faculty of the Future," American Association of State Colleges and Universities, 1999. www.aascu.org/fpr.

University of Michigan, Center for Research on Teaching and Learning
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/

American Association on Higher Education's Teaching Initiative Program
http://www.aahe.org/initiatives/ti.htm

Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) Faculty Fellowships
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/CASTL/highered/index.htm