For many of us it’s almost time to submit faculty evaluation documents. If this is your first time doing an annual evaluation you might not know what to include or how to describe your work.
Faculty Review Process
The timeline for submitting self-evaluation narratives and documentation varies by institution. In my previous institution these were due in the fall, and always included a committee review.
Now, in my current position, most years my evaluations are submitted and discussed with my department chair. Only my 3rd year and tenure (and promotion) reviews are evaluated by the department committee.
Over the years I’ve met with early career faculty to support them in their evaluation process. Below I’ll share 3 keys for a manageable evaluation process.
1. Focus on Relevant Information in your Evaluation Documents
The people reviewing your documents have many other tasks on their plates. You want to make review of your documentation as easy as possible for them. So, everything in your report and documentation should be relevant to the evaluation standards.
For example, the annual appraisal and development form I must complete by the end of January states:
I’ve drafted up my report. In my draft I have sections specific to each of the areas identified. I have a heading for courses taught with a list under that heading, and another heading for instructional material developed with a list under that heading.
For assessment of student learning outcomes, I have a couple of paragraphs explaining how I assess student achievement of the learning outcomes for the course. For workshops attended, I have listed workshops and books read.
My report does not include extraneous information that is not relevant to the content expected. Sticking with the specific categories suggested and using headings that match with the expected content assists your readers in finding the information they need to determine if you’ve meet the expectations.
2. Clarity the Significance of Your Work
When you are writing up your self-evaluation documents, it’s important to remember that the people reading your documents and making decisions about your reappointment, promotion, or tenure may not know you. They do not understand the time and energy involved in your specific activities. It is important to ensure you’re fully providing information about the significance and impact of your work – and about the effort required to achieve it.
If we go back to the previous teaching related example, I know from our department policy that teaching a new course is weighted more heavily (and garners extra points) than teaching a course you’ve already taught. So, in the list of courses taught, I include the significance by listing that it is the first time I’ve taught the course.
Another example of how to clarify significance in your faculty evaluation documents is to provide information about the impact of your scholarship. For example, in your list of publications you can provide the number of times the article has been downloaded or cited. For presentations you can provide the number in attendance and/or the number of follow-up contacts related to the presentation.
If the reviewers are outside of your immediate field, which is quite common during an evaluation process, you will should also provide the general readership and/or prestige of the journal or conference to lend support to the relative significance and impact of your work.
Don’t only consider the journal’s impact factor when describing the significance or impact of your work. You can also discuss the qualitative impact as well.
3. Essential Documents for the Faculty Evaluation Process
Writing your evaluation report can be a time consuming process. It is much easier if you’ve got a system in place for keeping track of the work you’ve done. You’ll need to provide or at least have available supporting documentation for any claims you make in your self-evaluation documents.
You may also be asked for information about your recent activities when the chair or dean’s office wants to send out a newsletter or tout the achievements of faculty. So, it’s a good idea to be in the habit of keeping track of your important work.
You’ll need 3 primary types of records:
- The Achievement document
- The Everything I’ve Ever Done document
- The evidence for #1 and #2.
Let’s take each in turn.
The Achievement Document (aka the CV)
This is the document where you list all of your publications, presentations, significant service work, and teaching responsibilities. You’ve probably got this figured out since most academic jobs require one when you apply for a position. Put all of your accomplishments on this document.
You’ll also need this when applying for grants, and sometimes your department or college will ask for an updated CV on a moment’s notice.
Usually a CV is also submitted with your performance review documents.
The Everything I’ve Ever Done Document
This document will include all of your accomplishments, in progress activities, and notable things you’ve done. It should include information about your teaching, service, and scholarship. If you’re in an outreach type of position it will also include extension service. It will also include professional development you’ve undertaken and grants you wrote but weren’t awarded.
Often in your evaluation process you’ll need to provide a summary and/or self-evaluation. This “everything I’ve ever done” document can help you remember things that don’t belong on the CV, but that did take your time and had impact.
This list can also assist you in remembering your growth over time. Faculty evaluation processes are often designed to show your growth and development; so, you’ll want to be sure you’re tracking progress on initiatives as well as your professional growth and development.
Evidence to Support your CV & the Everything Document
Finally, you’ll need to have evidence to support the things you’ve included on your CV and in your everything list. You’ll also need an effective way to organize this information so that it is useful to you and easily accessible when you need to pull something from it.
As someone who has been through annual reviews and was responsible for the annual reviews of others I can say – if you don’t have evidence it didn’t happen.
4. Collect Supporting Documentation for Faculty Evaluation as You Go
Obviously, you’re going to need to keep these things in a way that makes sense for you, but they also need to be searchable and sharable because you’ll need to reference specific parts and you may even need to cut and paste from the documents in the future.
Keeping your CV up to date
I recommend putting an appointment on your calendar at least once per semester to update your CV. I have this as a monthly recurring to-do.
Keeping one copy of your CV as the current copy. I save my current one as KHale_CV_Current. Then I always know which is the most up to date.
I also save a PDF version whenever I need to send it to someone else and at year end. So, I have versions I sent with job or grant applications (e.g., KHale_OSU_Nov_2022) and one saved at the end of each year (e.g., KHale_CV_2021, KHale_CV_2020, etc.).
Update your Everything List Regularly
Because the information you record on this everything list is not usually a major achievement, you’re likely to forget some details if you don’t update it on a regular basis. I recommend a weekly update of the everything list so you’re ready for the faculty evaluation when it’s time.
For your everything list you may be the type of person that just wants to open a google doc (or MS word file). Other people may want to keep this information in their task management system (like Clickup) or in a second-brain type system like Notion or Obsidian. You might also keep it in a spreadsheet with a different tab for different years or tabs for different types of work.
I’ve kept mine in different ways over the years. There is not a one-right answer. There is an answer that can work for you right now.
Categories for your Everything List
Some people like to have their everything list as a running commentary. Others might want to create categories of information and then fill in relevant information under the relevant category.
If you use categories, I recommend that you categorize either based on the relevant sections of evaluation reports, or in a way that makes logical sense to you so you can always find what you need.
In a session I attended recently, a senior faculty member recommended the following categories for the “everything” list. You may see some that are relevant for you.
- Manuscripts reviewed
- Proposals reviewed
- Manuscripts Submitted
- Manuscripts Published
- Professional Meetings Attended
- Presentations which I co-authored
- Presentations I gave
- Grants Submitted
- Grants Awarded
- Honors and Awards
- Classes taught
- Undergraduate Researchers
- Graduate Students I Advise
- Graduate Student Committees
- Visitors to my Lab
- Student Awards
- Students Graduating
- Departmental Service
- College Service
- University Service
- Professional Service
To learn more about some categories, you might want to take a look at a blog post. The post is aimed at landing the type of academic job you want, but it may have some additional relevant information for you to consider.
This nifty image that Dr. Susan Wardell created may help you begin brainstorming the types of work you may want to track.
I have my everything list in broad categories of Teaching, Service, and Scholarship with some sub headings. I keep this in a google doc (get a blank copy of my document) and use the “heading” feature to label each section. This allows me to use the outline view to find sections quickly (as shown below). I also make regular use of the search feature.
Gathering Supporting Documentation
This stage is where some people get fancy with their Notion or other systems and link up specific documents together in the system to track evidence to specific items. A simpler approach is to keep a folder (digital) for each major area of your work and file important documents away in the folder. You may need to make copies – or use the “add a link to file” function available in some cloud drives.
The important consideration is that you have evidence to back up any claims you make in your CV or in any evaluation reports.
These systems may change over time. Don’t think you need to pick one system and stick with it forever. Pick something to try out for now. You can tweak along the way.
Celebrate your Accomplishments
While going through this list you’ve likely remembered some important things you’ve accomplished that you need to include on your faculty evaluation.
Don’t forget to celebrate those accomplishments. Some things are worthy of major celebrations…other things may just need you to acknowledge them to yourself and maybe get a high five.