Administrative perceptions of existing evaluation systems

Summary This research study focused on a number of issues related to the status and effectiveness of post-tenure evaluation practices within the two-year college sector.The results indicate that post-tenure evaluation exists in about 70 percent of the responding institutions who belong to the North Central Association. The stated purpose for the evaluation is formative and specifies that the evaluation is used as a basis for individual faculty development and for improvement purposes. There was, however, a sense that more emphasis should be given to reward systems in terms of merit compensation and/or merit recognition.Administrators generally indicate that a plan for improvement and professional growth is established and supported by institutional resources in their evaluation systems. Yet, there was ambivalence relative to the overall effectiveness of the post-evaluation process. The reasons for such a response centered on the perception that evaluation paid only lip service to faculty development and was not effective in measuring either competence or incompetence. It appears that much work needs to be accomplished in this area in order to improve the outcomes of evaluation systems. There was also significant concern expressed by administrators regarding the inadequacy of the system to identify and weed out poor or incompetent faculty members. Such action appeared to be lacking in those institutions participating in this study.Some well-defined recommendations were put forth by these administrators to improve the evaluation systems. The most prevalent recommendations centered on tying the system to faculty development and to a formative purpose, providing incentives (merit) for excellent performers, and lessening the importance of student evaluations.This study points out some of the gaps as perceived by administrators that exist in post-tenure evaluation systems today. It also provides some recommendations for improvement of evaluation systems for those individuals who are in positions to impact such change positively within institutions.In general, these data underscore the importance for individual institutions to assess the effectiveness of their evaluation systems from both a faculty and administrative perspective. The time and effort expended on an ineffective evaluation system might better be channeled into improving the system or into developing other quality college initiatives. Evaluation of tenured faculty should only be undertaken if it can improve the quality of life within the institution.