Criterion: a standard on which a judgment or decision may be based, synonym is "standard"

Standard: something set up as a rule for measuring that is established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example to be followed

Procedure: a particular course or mode of action

Clear Goals

Does the scholar state the basic purposes of his or her work clearly? Does the scholar define objectives that are realistic and achievable? Does the scholar identify important questions in the field?

Adequate Preparation

Does the scholar show an understanding of existing scholarship in the field? Does the scholar bring the necessary skills to his or her work? Does the scholar bring together the resources necessary to move the project forward?

Appropriate Methods

Does the scholar use methods appropriate to the goals? Does the scholar apply effectively the methods selected? Does the scholar modify procedures in response to changing circumstances?

Significant Results

Does the scholar achieve the goals? Does the scholar's work add consequentially to the field? Does the scholar's work open additional areas for further exploration?

Effective Presentation

Does the scholar use a suitable style and effective organization to present his or her work? Does the scholar use appropriate forums for communicating work to its intended audiences? Does the scholar present his or her message with clarity and integrity?

Reflective Critique

Does the scholar critically evaluate his or her own work? Does the scholar bring an appropriate breadth of evidence to his or her critique? Does the scholar use evaluation to improve the quality of future work?

* Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff (1997), p. 36

The following principles are recommended by the Task Force.

1. Annual performance appraisals for faculty will be established. These appraisals will serve to provide constructive feedback for performance maintenance and professional growth and may be utilized in decisions regarding awarding of tenure, promotion, graduate faculty status, salary adjustments, and internal hiring. These appraisals are not intended to be used as a basis for dismissing tenured faculty members.

2. At the department level, guidelines will establish levels of acceptable performance (that is, criterion-referenced standards) which will be made available to professors no later than the beginning of the evaluation period [see the six Scholarly Criteria recommended for SOE use in the previous section]. In addition, guidelines related to ipsative (self-referenced) and normative (group-referenced) evaluation procedures may be established by individual departments (see Principle 4).

3. The format and process for documenting performance will be explicit. Documentation will consist of both detailed and explanatory or integrative information. For example, a detailed listing may be presented in a form such as the current Faculty Report of Professional Activities. Explanatory or integrative information may be contained in paragraph descriptions in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service, or within a scholarship portfolio [see RPT Section IV. F. Documenting Scholarship via Portfolio] to the self reflection inherent in the improvement of professional practice.

4. Each faculty member will develop a Professional Scholarship Plan (PSP) which will include scholarship goals for the year and the means for achieving such goals. Consensus on these goals will be developed through collaboration with the department. Individual faculty PSPs will be used as a basis to develop departmental goals consistent with the missions of the department, the College of Education, and the University. Each PSP will include specific minimal criteria to evaluate the satisfactory accomplishment of goals and objectives. These criteria may also be used for such decisions as awarding of tenure, promotion, and salary adjustments.

Tenured faculty may choose to describe and define their scholarly activities during a two-year period in a way which varies from the traditional emphasis on all aspects of scholarship to focus on one specific element. For example, the two-year period could be used to enhance the teaching aspect of scholarship, to develop a major proposal for outside funding, to embark on a significant research program, or to engage in a significant service activity.

Faculty members may be provided support in areas of research, teaching, and service by faculty mentors, department chairs, and administrators in order to ensure adequate progress toward goals. Budgetary resources should be provided to cover startup costs for teaching and research and to support service at the professional level. Assignments and scheduling should take into account the time demands of supervision, advising, and course preparation and should aim to provide faculty with at least one full day each week to devote to research activities. Faculty should be provided support through mentoring, recognition, and protection of their time, and should be provided opportunities to observe colleagues teaching, to participate in teaching workshops, and to communicate and collaborate with colleagues regarding teaching.

For tenure-track faculty, service activities should be primarily discipline- or profession-related. Service at the department level should initially be focused on activities required of all department members, or on activities related to the profession, teaching, or research. Service at the College and/or University level also should be kept to a minimum initially and should involve primarily activities directly related to the profession, teaching, or research.

5. In sum, the use of these principles and guidelines will enhance the enculturation of new faculty into the College of Education through the active involvement of experienced faculty. We anticipate that when all faculty are apprised of expectations and actively engaged in the peer review process that increased collegiality and improved productivity will result.

* Role of the Professoriate Document (1997, January)

Departments will select individuals to serve on a two-year mentoring team for new faculty. A team may include faculty from other departments where appropriate. The selection process should involve application via scholarship portfolio and should result in important service recognition for the mentoring individuals. In addition, the induction/mentoring team should document their approaches and strategies, reflect upon their own impact, and subsequently provide suggestions for improvement for the future use of these strategies. Prior to assuming a role on an induction/mentoring team, faculty should receive training and materials related to their responsibility. Periodically, induction/mentoring teams should meet with the Dean or Associate Dean to share ideas and evaluate the process.

* Report of the Task Force on the Role of the Professoriate (January, 1997)

Peer collaboration can be carried out in many ways in addition to induction/mentoring and dialogue based on scholarship portfolios. The first two strategies listed below, which contain advantages and limitations, were explored by departments in the AAHE project (Hutchings, 1995).

1) Faculty Pairings for Mutual Assistance - This approach is an alternative to mentoring in that there are no implied status differences. Faculty pair up as true peers for mutual assistance and exchange of ideas. The focus could be upon their scholarship portfolios or faculty could undertake and share responses to various exercises in the AAHE project workbook (Hutchings, 1995).

2) Scholarship Circles and Other Group Collaborations - This cluster of approaches encompasses a variety of arrangements in which faculty focus on particular issues and practices over time. Typically four to ten faculty members work together for at least a semester to address questions and concerns about teaching, research, and/or service. At least three variations are possible: a) Scholarship Circles to Serve Individualized Objectives in which the goal of group collaboration may be to assist individual participants with their own personal objectives and agendas; b) Scholarship Circles Connected to Multi-Sectioned Courses or Research Agendas in which a group of colleagues who share a common concern or project work together to clarify and improve their approaches; or c) Scholarship Circles Built into Program Review in which faculty with responsibility for particular programs raise curricular, pedagogical, advising, and/or other questions.

The following principles for scholarship circles may enhance productivity:

- Be clear about the purpose of the group and what individuals hope to gain from the experience. This can be accomplished by laying out goals, ground rules, and expectations at the opening meeting.

- Focus on concrete examples and particulars such as sharing samples of student work, course syllabi, or specific service activities. General discussions about teaching, research, or service in general are less likely to contribute to critical insights.

- Find ways to document, preserve, and share the work of the scholarship circle. Future groups and other colleagues can benefit from shared insights.

3) Pilot Peer Collaboration Teams - This experimental approach would include three to five faculty members representing several departments who commit to a one- to three-year period to serve as collegial reviewers/coaches for each other. Teams work with the Dean or Associate Dean, submit names and rationale for composition of the team (e.g. currently working on a teaching, service, or research project together), and develop scholarship portfolios while piloting one of the Scholarship Circle menu options listed above. Both departments and the College of Education would benefit from supporting faculty engaged in the pilot peer collaboration team in that they would be expected to provide future leadership regarding use of scholarship portfolios and peer collaboration processes. This support could range from re-allocated time to remuneration to significant service recognition.

*ROP Document (1997)

An increasingly accepted method for documenting and improving teaching is combining peer collaboration with use of a portfolio. A portfolio is a creative act which is predicated on the following interrelated propositions, according to Edgerton, Hutchings, & Quinlan, (1991, p.4):

First, portfolios can capture the intellectual substance and "situated-ness" of teaching, service, and research in ways that other methods of evaluation cannot. Second, because of this capacity, portfolios encourage faculty to take important, new roles in the documentation, observation, and review of service, teaching, and research. Third, because they prompt faculty to take these new roles, portfolios are a particularly powerful tool for improvement. Fourth, as more faculty come to use them, portfolios can help forge a new campus culture of professionalism about research, teaching, and service.

Such a scholarship portfolio will permit individuals to represent selectively the important aspects of their scholarship (of teaching, discovery, integration, or application) in different settings. Such scholarship can be carried out in various settings of the contemporary university--within traditional "service" arenas (e.g., standing and ad hoc committees); within traditional "teaching" arenas (e.g., consultations, classrooms, clinical supervision); and within traditional "research" arenas (e.g., conferences, peer-reviewed journals).

A critical component of using scholarship portfolios is to promote dialogue about scholarship. Such dialogue may result from the process of constructing the portfolio as well as sharing it with colleagues through peer collaboration. Dialogue about scholarship efforts through both portfolio construction and peer collaboration is useful for the following reasons (adapted from the AAHE Project Workbook, January, 1995):

1. Learning to teach involves learning from experience; and learning from experience may be enhanced by insights provided by colleagues. Furthermore, various service activities and research agendas may be better understood and connected if colleagues regularly engage in discourse about them.

2. Faculty value the regard of their scholarly peers. Thus, teaching may have greater status as a worthy scholarly endeavor when it is reviewed by peers. In a similar fashion, inclusion of various service contributions would enable peers to more fully appreciate contributions to the department, College, and University.

3. Public concern for the cost and quality of higher education is leading to intrusive policies designed to make higher education more accountable. The best antidote to bureaucratic accountability is for higher education to strengthen its own mechanisms of professional accountability, for example, through peer collaboration and scholarship portfolios.

Portfolios in general, and teaching portfolios in particular, have become more widely used and accepted over the past several years. During that time the AAHE has studied campus use of teaching portfolios. The following suggestions about teaching portfolios (adapted from Hutchings, 1995, pp. 6-7) can be expanded to include scholarship portfolios and are worthy of consideration :

- Seek early agreement about the purpose of portfolios, how the information will be used, who owns it, and what is at stake.

- Be selective. Make the distinction between notebooks which amass every possible scrap of evidence and a portfolio which is a sampling of performance and accompanying evidence.

- Rather than a miscellaneous collection, think of the portfolio as a case, a thesis, an argument which contains carefully selected, relevant evidence and examples.

- Organize the portfolio around goals which can represent the individual (ipsative criteria) or department, College, and/or University goals (criterion-referenced).

- Use the portfolio to clarify goals, expectations, and roles. This could easily become part of constructing and documenting Professional Scholarship Plans (PSPs).

- Include various kinds of evidence (e.g. quantitative and qualitative) from various sources (e.g. former and current students, current and former colleagues, professional colleagues from other campuses).

- Where appropriate, provide reflective analysis and commentary on the evidence provided. Reflective analysis serves at least several purposes: 1) to provide opportunity for the faculty member to clarify his/her own thinking, 2) to reveal to the reviewer the thinking behind various kinds of evidence, and 3) to help readers know what to look for - to understand the significance of the evidence.

- Experiment with various structures and formats and develop an assessment plan to determine whether portfolios are achieving intended purposes and how they might be refined.

Use of Scholarship Portfolios represents a departure from traditional performance appraisals, tenure, promotion, and/or other procedures used to assess, inform, and acknowledge faculty contributions. As such, a Portfolio Development Center, perhaps in conjunction with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), in which faculty would receive technical assistance would be helpful. Such a center might hire an external consultant who would work with the CTL and SOE faculty to identify needs, establish procedures, and launch the initiative

* ROP Document (1997, January), p.11

 

The vehicle for the candidate to make a persuasive case for reappointment, promotion, and tenure is a portfolio prepared with the assistance of one's mentor and one's department chairperson. Among those reviewing a candidate's accomplishments at the school level and beyond are faculty colleagues who may not know well the candidate and her or his work, and who have different fields of expertise. The amount of evidence counts for little if it is not indicative of quality. Those materials that specifically bear on the candidate's qualifications, achievements, contributions, and prospects for the future should be included in the portfolio. Rhetoric and assertion will be ineffective without supporting documentation, and advocacy alone will be less convincing than the clear and succinct presentation of specific, relevant information.

An introductory narrative statement should be prepared in which the candidate presents an overview of how she or he is meeting the broad responsibilities of all faculty members and the specific criteria and standards relevant to three domains of scholarship. This global narrative statement should not be a summary of one's curriculum vita, but rather a reflective analysis of one's professional vision and accomplishments that provides a contextual framework for the balance of the materials in the portfolio. At a minimum, the candidate should use the introductory narrative statement to describe her or his professional philosophy, the interrelationships and relative priorities among teaching, research, and service in her or his professorial activities, and the goals and objectives that she or he would like to achieve as a faculty member.

Documentation should be included in the portfolio that shows the candidate has been made aware of what is expected of her or him. This might include a letter of initial appointment, official memoranda of understanding affecting the candidate's appointment, annual review reports that indicate what the department expected of her or him, and responses and reports from the candidate that document understanding of her or his role as a member of the faculty. Copies of annual evaluation letters to the candidate should be included to show the evolution of the candidate's professorial role and accomplishments in the three domains of scholarship. The section of the portfolio concerned with teaching should begin with a narrative statement that presents the candidate's teaching philosophy or belief system about teaching and provides an intellectual justification for her or his teaching activities and student evaluation practices. Personal reflection on course evaluation data might lead to goals concerning modifications of course organization or content, experimentation with new instructional methods, or the development of supplementary materials. The narrative might include suggestions to assure the accuracy, timeliness, and quality of one's academic advisement provided to students, or to enhance one's effectiveness in supervision of student-directed scholarship. One might state as a goal to develop a proposal to offer a new course or to undertake with one's colleagues to revise the program curriculum.

The section of the portfolio concerned with research should begin with a narrative statement that presents the candidate's research agenda and self-evaluation of potential and success as a researcher. One should provide comments that help evaluators who are not knowledgeable of the particulars of the candidate's profession to place the evidence in this section of the portfolio in proper context concerning the quality, impact, and prestige of one's research products....

The section of the portfolio concerned with service should begin with a narrative statement that presents the candidate's agenda for service to the institution, to practitioners and the community, and to the profession, and that reflects upon how her or his service activities have improved or have the potential to improve the candidate's ability to carry out her or his teaching and research responsibilities. The narrative should help evaluators to place the evidence in this section of the portfolio in proper context concerning service sponsorship, scope of service (e.g., local, regional, state, national, international), the value of the products that the service produced or gives promise of producing, the candidate's role in achieving these products, and how these service activities fit the programmatic needs of the school and the university.

* Antonak (1999, February, pp. 6-7)

Tenure Policy

It is the policy of Indiana State University that after the expiration of a probationary period of satisfactory service, the faculty member shall have academic tenure and his/her services shall be terminated only for adequate cause, except in the case of retirement for age or under extra-ordinary circumstances, such as financial exigencies, decrease in enrollments, or discontinuation of instructional programs. (See Dismissal Procedures, Section II, pp.2-11, 2-12, University Handbook.)

Appointments and Probationary Periods

During the probationary period, the appointee is given term appointments of not more than one (1) academic year.

1. On appointment to the rank of instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, or professor and after having completed seven (7) years of full-time service in accredited educational institutions, four (4) years of which must have been served at Indiana State University, the faculty member shall become eligible for continuous appointment. Appointment to tenure will be by action of the Indiana State University Board of Trustees upon the recommendation of the President. (This applied to individuals initially appointed after July 1, 1977.)

Service under a part-time or adjunct appointment shall not be counted as part of the required probationary period of service.

2. During the first year of the probationary period at Indiana State University faculty members shall be notified by written statement dated no later than March 1, from the President of the University, or the Vice President for Academic Affairs, of their reappointment or of their non-reappointment for the next academic year. The notification of reappointment or non-reappointment for a faculty member during the second year of probation at Indiana State University shall be dated not later than December 15. The notification of reappointment for a faculty member during the third or later year of probation at Indiana State University shall be dated not later than 12 months before the expiration of the appointment. (The notification shall be by first class mail.)

3. An interruption of the probationary period, reducing the academic year to less than a full-time service period, will result in a delay of tenure eligibility until the entire probationary period has been completed. However, the above interruption should not stop the evaluation process described in #2 above.

4. During the probationary period the faculty member shall have the academic freedom that all other members of the faculty hold.

5. During the probationary, faculty members will be notified of weaknesses or evidences of unsatisfactory service or of any condition that might serve as a basis for non-renewal of their appointment at all levels of evaluation.

6. Notice of experience credited based upon departmental faculty evaluations, together with the first possible date of tenure eligibility will be supplied by the Vice President for Academic Affairs to the new faculty member at the time of appointment. (Effective with 1973-74 appointments.)

7. Tenure is not given in administrative assignments.

8. Tenure is effective only with the beginning of the academic year (Fall Semester)

* University Handbook, (1991, March), p. 3-13

 

A department chairperson may nominate for promotion those members of his/her department who are deemed worthy.

An individual faculty member may nominate himself/herself for promotion.

Any member of the University Faculty, as defined in Article I, Section 2, of the University Faculty Constitution may, with consent of the colleague so nominated, nominate another faculty member for promotion.

A nomination for promotion shall consist of completion and filing of the nomination form by the nominator.

The nomination is filed when the completed form is in the possession of the nominee's department chairperson.

Each school and college will elect a promotions committee, the chairperson of which will be elected by the members of each committee.

1. By November 1^st the Faculty Affairs Committee will nominate and forward to the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate the names of persons to serve on the All-University Promotions Committee. The Executive Committee will then make additional nominations, if they so desire, and transmit the names of the nominees to the Senate, where the list may be supplemented by nomination from the floor. When the nomination procedure has been completed, the Senate will elect those who are to serve on the All-University Promotions Committee.

Should any member of the All-University Promotions Committee be unable to complete the term of election, the above procedure will be followed to elect a replacement for the time to be served.

2. To be eligible for nomination, one must be a full-time tenured member of the faculty. Those ineligible to serve include deans, members of the Faculty Affairs Committee, faculty members serving on departmental, school, or college promotions committees, and those applying for promotion.

3. The All-University Promotions Committee will be composed of 13 members, each serving a three-year term. Following the completion of a full three-year term, a faculty member will not again be eligible for nomination to the Committee until a full three (3) years have elapsed since the conclusion of the previous term. There must be one (1) faculty representative on the Committee from each of the following units: Business; Health; Physical Education and Recreation; Nursing; Technology; and Library. There must be two (2) faculty representatives from the College of Education and six (6) from the College of Arts and Sciences, but no more than one (1) from a single department. The term will be staggered to ensure that four (4) or five (5) new members will join the Committee each year.

Department chairpersons should be excluded from membership on school and college promotions committees and on the All-University Promotions Committee.

Since each school and college has some autonomy in promotions procedures, it is likely that a number of different routings of nominations will be developed. However, the following routing is suggested as a model. In all instances it is mandatory that the candidate be informed of recommendations, as specified below.

1. The department chairperson will transmit the completed nomination form to the department promotions committee. This committee will make a recommendation and return the form to the chairperson. The chairperson will make a recommendation and forward the form and recommendations to the dean of the school or college. At this time, the chairperson will inform the candidate of his/her and the committee's recommendations. (Such information transmittal to include a facsimile of page 6 of the nomination form, which will be given to the candidate.)

2. The dean will transmit the candidate's nomination form to the college's/school's promotions committee. The committee will make a recommendation and return the form to the dean for a recommendation. The dean of the school or college shall confer with the school or college Promotions Committee before forwarding the form with all recommendations to the Vice President for Academic Affairs. At this time the dean will inform the candidates of his/her and the committee's recommendations. (Such information transmittal to include a facsimile of page 7 of the nomination form, which will be given to the candidate.) The chairperson of the candidate's department will also be informed by the dean.

3. The Vice President for Academic Affairs will transmit the candidate's nomination form to the All-University Promotions Advisory Committee for a recommendation. This committee will return the form to the Vice President for recommendations. The Vice President for Academic Affairs shall confer with the All-University Promotions Committee before forwarding the nomination form and all recommendations to the President. At this time, the Vice President will inform the candidate of his/her and the committee's recommendations. (Such information transmittal to include a facsimile of page 8 of the nomination form, which will be given to the candidate.) The candidate's dean and the department chairperson will also be informed by the Vice President of this recommendation.

4. The President, after conferring informally with the All-University Promotions Advisory Committee, will submit to the Board of Trustees in time for consideration at their May meeting the names of those faculty members recommended for promotion.

At any time prior to submission of the nomination to the Board of Trustees, a nominee may withdraw from consideration. Otherwise, all nominations will be forwarded through the specified channels to the President, whether favorably or unfavorably recommended.

Exceptions to this procedure may occur only in accordance with Item V, pp. 3-16, 3-17, entitled "Time in Rank."

Department chairpersons will forward with the nominating forms a summary of the precise vote of the departmental committee on each nominee, as well as his/her own and the committee's summary of numerical standing within each rank. There will be no ties.

The promotions committee of each school and college will rank the nominees in order of preference, numerically within each rank. There will be no ties.

NOTE: All necessary promotion forms (nomination form, etc.) are available in the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs

* University Handbook (1991, March) pp. 3-14, 3-15