Criteria of Evaluation
For Reappointments, Promotions, and Tenure
The criteria listed below are used by the Committee on
Teaching Staff and Tenure in making recommendations with regard to
reappointments, promotions, and tenure.
The evaluation of faculty members is based on four areas
of performance: teaching ability, scholarship, research, and general
value to the College. Among these criteria, excellence in teaching
is the preeminent value; scholarship, research, and general value to
the College are each essential qualifications of merit.
1. Excellence in teaching is essential. To meet this criterion, faculty
members should be
a. in command of their fields,
b. capable of transmitting knowledge imaginatively, and
c. skilled in challenging students of various abilities
and backgrounds to their best
efforts.
In assessing teaching ability,
the Committee recognizes no single method of teaching
as superior to another, given that these may vary with the subject and
the level at which one is teaching, but believes that each faculty member should
have the skill to use effectively several different approaches to teaching.
Whatever the approach, effective teaching should foster
a. critical processes of thought,
b. clarity of expression,
c. comprehension of the subject, and
d. enthusiasm for its pursuit.
Essential in faculty members at
all levels of teaching, from introductory courses (including
First Year Seminar) to Independent Study, are
a. quality of mind,
b. breadth of learning, and
c. originality and interest.
An essential component of excellent
teaching is effective advising. Faculty members
are expected to provide students with academic and general advising by
a. being well informed regarding
the College's academic policies and regulations,
b. assisting students in adjusting to college-level work
in First-Year Seminar and other
first-year classes,
c. guiding students in appropriate choices of courses
to meet the graduation requirements
and in appropriate choices of majors and courses therein,
d. directing students effectively in their completion
of Junior and Senior Independent
Study, and
e. assisting students in their vocational and career
decisions.
Wooster seeks to realize a high
standard of student achievement in a fundamentally
humane way. Faculty members are expected to support and encourage
the quest for knowledge, understanding, and self discovery by
a. being accessible to students,
b. recognizing their dignity and integrity,
c. being aware of student concerns, and
d. adhering to professional standards.
2. Scholarship is also essential. How this criterion is
met may vary from one faculty member to another,
but it must include efforts to remain abreast of new developments
in one's own discipline and may include efforts to expand one's intellectual
interests beyond that discipline.
Particularly in making recommendations
for reappointments with tenure, the College must
estimate the likelihood of continued intellectual growth and thus welcomes
opportunities to judge an individual's quality of mind and commitment
to sustained learning. These opportunities may include, for example,
a. public lectures,
b. seminar presentations,
c. review articles,
d. participation in professional meetings, and
e. exhibitions, recitals, or other public performances.
3. Research is an essential component of a faculty member's
professional development. Research is here defined
as efforts to extend the bounds of knowledge
and to share the results both with the professional community at large
as well as with colleagues at Wooster in ways and forms appropriate to
a given discipline. Independent Study depends
on faculty members who have an appreciation of
the requirements of research, and in some departments its vitality
depends directly on the quality of the research of the faculty. It is essential
that candidates for reappointment, promotion, or tenure be capable of
systematic exploration and discovery. In order to make a judgement in
this matter, the Committee must have opportunities
to evaluate specific examples of this capability.
These may include, for example,
a. papers,
b. articles,
c. monographs,
d. creative writing and composition, and
e. exhibitions, recitals, or other public performances.
In addition, evaluations of the
quality of such work by peers external to the College
may be helpful to the Committee in its assessment.
4. General value to the College is essential and complex
in a residential institution.
a. Participation in the intellectual
and cultural life of the campus, effectiveness and
cooperation in departmental and interdepartmental programs, and professionalism
in dealings with colleagues and students are essential. The Committee
also is prepared to recognize contributions to the quality of student
life, to faculty committees, to the realization of the College's ideal
of linking the arts and
science with service, and to the enhancement of the institution
beyond the campus.
b. Wooster takes pride in the versatility
of its faculty. The Committee recognizes
the values of a faculty which, by its inclusion of individuals of different
cultural backgrounds, of minority status, or of special aptitudes and skills,
will provide educational resources not otherwise available in a department
or program and which may be judged to be desirable in a student
body of both sexes, various races, nationalities and religions, and a range
of academic interests and talents.
Final recommendations for reappointment, promotion, and
tenure are based on an evaluation of teaching ability, scholarship, research,
and general value to the College and are neither made nor refused on
the basis of age, sex, color, race, creed, religion, national origin,
disability, veteran status, sexual orientation or political affiliation.
In the President's recommendations to the Executive Committee of the
Board of Trustees, these same criteria are employed. The Board of Trustees,
of course, retains the final authority in making all reappointments,
promotions, and tenure decisions.
05/2005
|
