4-37: Evaluation of Faculty

Policy Overview

Santa Fe Community College (SFCC or College) has established this policy to ensure a process for affirming the maintenance of satisfactory performance for faculty and for evaluating the instructional process.

Scope and Applicability

This policy covers the evaluation of and applies to all faculty.

Policy Statement

This policy is established to ensure that there is a tool to improve teacher performance and to serve as an indication of acceptable performance of duty.

Definitions

1. Adjunct Faculty Contracted to teach on a course by course basis.
2. College Service furthers SFCC’s mission and operations, and may include the following: a. Student-related activities such as advising student clubs, recruiting new students, advising outside of office hours, and sponsoring extracurricular field trips to enrich student learning. b. Community service including unpaid collaboration with non-SFCC entities or individuals producing demonstrable outcomes directly connected to SFCC’s mission. Examples could include participation in school partnerships, serving on boards and advisory groups, making community presentations, and participation in community service organizations. c. College-related activities such as fostering cultural diversity, interacting with representatives from other academic institutions, participating in administratively convened committees (e.g., curriculum, assessment), participating in faculty-convened committees (e.g., Faculty Senate), special project groups (e.g., program review), hiring panels, program-level curriculum development, writing and implementing grants, and helping coordinate off-campus programs. d. Active participation in professional organizations related to teaching field. e. Professional presentations and publications as appropriate.
3. Common Student Learning Outcomes CSLOs are learning outcomes statements that summarize what all SFCC students will be able to do upon graduation. These outcomes are common to all students and function as college-level learning outcomes. The CSLOs are as follows: a. Effective Communication: Students will communicate qualitative and quantitative ideas and information appropriately and effectively using a variety of methods. b. Active Learning and Thinking: Students will demonstrate a creative, engaged, and critical approach to their thinking and learning. c. Sustainable Living: Students will be able to articulate practical solutions to social, environmental, and economic issues. d. Cultural Perspectives: Students will be able to demonstrate an awareness of different cultural perspectives and respect for diversity.
4. Faculty Employees whose position is to instruct students.
5. Faculty Evaluation System A comprehensive set of tools and a process that are used to assess faculty member performance
6. Full-Time Faculty Contracted to provide teaching, available hours, service, and college service on either a nine-month or 12-month contract.
7. Part-Time Faculty Faculty who are contracted to teach a specific number of credit hours per semester rather than on a course by course basis. Part-time faculty will be required to provide availability hours to students and do college service.
8. Regular Faculty is an employee who has been hired to fill a full- or part-time position which includes benefits.
9. Unsatisfactory Performance Or major weakness in performance is defined as a departure from the acceptable standards of performance established by or for full-time professional employees on contract (i.e., faculty or administrative staff) in fulfilling their job duties or responsibilities as indicated in such documents as employment contracts, job descriptions, employee handbooks, or evaluations plans or the college's formal policies and procedures.

Policy Process

1. The Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs shall be responsible for developing and administering a program of annual faculty evaluation.
2. Should cumulative evaluations demonstrate that performance is unacceptable and not improving, then the evaluation documentation shall become a major consideration in employment decisions.
3. At a minimum, the system of evaluation shall assess full-time faculty performance in at least three major areas:
   1. Instructional activities (teaching and advising);
   2. Professional-growth activities (scholarly and/or creative activities related to a faculty member’s contractual responsibilities at the College); and
   3. Service activities (college and community service).
4. A detailed description of the evaluation program shall be published and made readily available to the faculty.
5. The detailed description of SFCC’s system of faculty evaluation, including all forms and deadlines, is attached to this regulation and is published in full in the Employee Handbook.
6. Unless identified major weaknesses are documented, a full-time faculty member is assumed to be maintaining a satisfactory level of performance consistent with the standard of excellence established by other faculty in the required areas of responsibility: instruction, service, and professional growth.
7. Every course, whether taught by regular, adjunct, or part-time faculty, is evaluated each semester.
8. Since The college presents itself as a “learning institution”—that is, we aver that, in return for tax support and for payment from individuals, it will help students learn—the major factor to be assessed in the evaluation of faculty is: Did the students learn (that is, did most of the students, most of the time, learn most of what SFCC promised they would learn)?
9. Consequently, any evaluation of teaching effectiveness must include as its major component a set of empirical measures of student outcomes that document that our students did indeed learn what SFCC promised they would learn.

Statement of Accountability and Responsibility

The President, through the Vice President for Strategy and Organizational Effectiveness with the Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, the Director of Human Resources and the Office of Human Resources, shall be responsible for enforcing human relations-related policies and procedures. The Office of Human Resources shall work with the different departments and offices to comply with this policy and develop procedures that will enforce this policy regarding awareness, prevention and remediation.

Approval

SFCC Governing Board approved: 9/18/2001
Revised and Governing Board approved: 1/15/2002
Revised and Governing Board approved: 9/19/2003