Guidance for Unit Evaluation of Chair (pdf)

Each spring semester, unit faculty are given the opportunity to evaluate their department chairs. This process normally takes place between late February and late March with evaluation reports due in early April. The Dean uses these reports to conduct annual evaluations of department chairs.

Each department may propose a method for evaluating its department chair, subject to approval by the Dean. The method should be on file in the Dean’s Office prior to the end of the fall semester. The chair is responsible for ensuring that the department has an approved method for evaluation and that an appropriate faculty member or body of faculty is impaneled to conduct the evaluation.

In certain cases, exceptions to this policy may be made at the discretion of the Dean.

Guiding Principles
Guiding principles for unit evaluation of the department chair are (1) confidentiality, (2) access, and (3) representation:

(1) Confidentiality: The method of evaluation should ensure confidentiality of the individual responses from each faculty member in the unit. Individual responses should be aggregated or summarized in the evaluation report.

(2) Access: Each tenured/tenure-track faculty member in the unit should have access to the evaluation process. The unit may include others in the evaluation process (e.g., research faculty, clinical faculty, instructors), but it should be clear in the aggregated or summarized responses which ones are from tenured/tenure-track faculty and which are from other groups.

(3) Representation: The unit faculty should determine the faculty member or body of faculty who will be responsible for receiving/handling the individual responses, aggregating or summarizing the responses, and preparing the final evaluation report to the Dean. The final evaluation report may be shared with the department chair prior to forwarding to the Dean.  The final evaluation report should be submitted to the Dean by the published deadline.

Models
The unit faculty of each department may determine a method that is effective for them, pending approval of the Dean. Methods may vary from department to department given the differences in size and organization among departments. To initiate and gather feedback from the unit faculty, faculty might be asked, for instance, to respond to a list of prompts or questions covering the range of activities conducted by the chair, or faculty might be asked simply to discuss the chair’s administrative performance. The unit faculty’s responses might go to the departmental tenure and promotion committee, a departmental committee of full professors, the elected departmental faculty advisory committee, a departmental committee of tenured faculty, or an ad hoc committee selected for this purpose by the unitfaculty. In very small departments, a single faculty member may be selected by the unit faculty to fulfill this charge.

The primary focus of the evaluation process is the administrative performance of the chair. Departments may choose to evaluate the chair across a range of activities to include research, teaching, and service, but must address administrative performance directly and substantively. Departments should keep in mind that the chair’s Annual Activities Report, in departmental format, is submitted to the Dean to document the chair’s performance in research, teaching, and service. Please see attached “Performance Expectations for Departmental Chairs” for guidance in evaluating the chair’s administrative performance. 

Once the method of evaluation has been established, the normal expectation is that the method will remain in place for the duration of the chair’s full term. Although minor adjustments and improvements may be made occasionally, the evaluation process is most useful to the chair and to the unit faculty when the process is consistent from year to year.
 
Questions about this process may be directed to the appropriate Senior Associate Dean.

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