by Eric Hoffman, CCFT Grievance Officer
An evaluation study group of faculty and deans has been meeting this semester to recommend changes to the faculty evaluation system. We have looked at the what, when, and how of the process.
The “what” is the set of criteria listed in our contract (Article 17) that forms the basis of your evaluation. While we have reworded and reorganized the criteria, we are not recommending substantial changes to them. The “when”—how often you will be evaluated—will also be similar to the current model. Faculty will have several thorough evaluations before achieving tenure or reemployment preference. After that, evaluations will occur every three years as required by the California Ed. Code.
The “how”, the way your evaluation is conducted, is where you may see the biggest changes. The study group has looked at ways to focus evaluation on improving teaching and identifying faculty who need mentoring or other assistance. The committee will recommend the self-evaluation become central to the process. New forms are being drafted that will ask you to rate your job performance on many of the specific criteria, discuss your past and present goals, and describe the work you are doing for your department and the college as a whole (this last section will be optional for adjuncts). Your dean or other supervisor will take your self-evaluation, along with information from new peer observation and student evaluation forms, and fill out a parallel form that responds to it. The final evaluation will also have much clearer recommendations if the dean rates aspects of your work as unsatisfactory. This clarity is most important to adjuncts, whose continuing assignments depend on satisfactory evaluations.
All of this will be in the form of recommendations to the negotiating teams. Nothing will change until negotiations are complete. We will distribute the drafts of the new forms before we negotiate so we can get your feedback. Look for them soon!