CHARGE

SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE TO ASSESS THE
NATURE OF EVIDENCE USED FOR PROMOTION AND TENURE DECISIONS

  (Committee charged on October 22, 2004)

Committee Membership

The evaluation of teaching effectiveness has been addressed by major Senate legislation or reports on at least seven occasions during the past 25 years (May 1978, February 1982, April 1985, February 1989, September 1997, April 1998, and September 2003). The principal focus of these reports was the measurement of teaching effectiveness through the use of student survey instruments. Our current instrument, the Student Rating of Teaching Effectiveness (SRTE), was created by Senate legislation in 1985. The SRTE is one of three forms of documentation of teaching effectiveness required by the Administrative Guidelines for HR23. Peer reviews are also required, as are student evaluations in a second form such as a summary of written comments, summary of formal interviews with students, or a summary of exit surveys.

As one of the three principal criteria used in promotion and tenure decisions, teaching effectiveness is strongly supported in University programs designed to promote and recognize excellence in teaching. Examples include the creation of University-wide teaching awards (the Eisenhower and Atherton Awards and the Alumni Fellow Teaching Award) and expanded support for centers such as the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and services such as Teaching and Learning with Technology. Further support for the teaching mission of the University is also provided through relatively new college-based units such as Engineering’s Leonhard Center, Earth and Mineral Science’s Dutton Institute, and Commonwealth College’s Royer Center. However, despite these programs, it is still the case that faculty members sometimes feel they are not appropriately supported, and rewarded, for their efforts in the classroom and other service to the teaching mission of the University. 

Of course, to reward good teaching it is first necessary to be able to recognize good teaching through the use of reliable metrics of teaching performance. Compared to the evidence available for evaluating research performance (letters from anonymous reviewers, refereed articles and juried exhibits, competitively awarded grants and contracts, invitations to serve on panels and editorial boards, requests for expertise, other forms of recognition and awards from peers, etc.), the evidence for teaching effectiveness in a typical dossier or annual performance report is rather thin: there are currently fewer forms or sources of information for the teaching criterion, and the evidence typically does not directly address the standing of the candidate among peers (as does most of the evidence for research performance).

As reported to the Senate in September 1997, Michael Dooris conducted an analysis of SRTE results and reviewed the published literature on such instruments of evaluation. He concluded that the SRTE is reliable (gives repeatable results), but he was unable to conclude that the SRTE provides a valid metric of teaching effectiveness. In other words, the validity of the SRTE as a true measure of teaching effectiveness is still an open question, and many faculty members are skeptical that the SRTE really measures what it is intended to measure.

It is human nature, even logical, to weight decisions by the quantity and quality of information available. If the available evidence is uneven, those with the heavy responsibility for making decisions will tend to rely most heavily on the information that is considered most reliable, even while intending to treat all criteria as equally important. This raises a question that seems never to have been systematically addressed at Penn State: Do those who make decisions about promotion and tenure believe they are given adequate evidence in dossiers to make fair, rigorous, and balanced decisions on the basis of all three criteria?

I am appointing a Special Subcommittee of the Committee on Faculty Affairs to Assess the Role of Teaching Evidence in Promotion and Tenure Decisions. The committee will comprise members from Faculty Affairs and other standing committees and persons from other University units who bring special expertise and knowledge. The committee is charged with answering the question posed above, plus the following: If they do not, how can documentation be strengthened to further insure that all three criteria are justly weighted in decisions about promotion and tenure?

In effect, the subcommittee will assess the role of teaching evidence in P&T decisions by looking in a particular way at the role of evidence for all three criteria. To do this, it will be necessary to obtain statistically reliable information from those who have made decisions about promotion and tenure at Penn State, which means that the committee must survey administrative deans and faculty members who have served recently on college and University P&T committees. The questionnaire could be agreeably short, and one can imagine that the response rate would be high if respondents can readily grasp what the survey is about. Professional assistance in structuring the questions should be sought.

Any recommendations by the committee should be compellingly predicated on the findings of the survey. If the findings suggest a need for better documentation of teaching effectiveness, recommendations may include (but need not be limited to) proposals to strengthen peer reviews or the second form of student evaluation required by HR23 administrative guidelines, or proposals to augment required forms of documentation of teaching effectiveness in the guidelines. Of course, the findings may suggest otherwise, and recommendations need not be limited to this criterion in P&T decisions.

The Special Subcommittee to Assess the Role of Teaching Evidence in Promotion and Tenure Decisions is asked to present a preliminary report to me by April 1, 2005 and a final report to Committee on Faculty Affairs by December 1, 2005. The Committee on Faculty Affairs should be kept regularly apprised of the progress of the special subcommittee.