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Formative Approaches to Annual Review Meetings 

The main Annual Review Page can be found here. 

Annual review for faculty provides an excellent opportunity for department heads/directors and peers to support the development of faculty careers. It is critical that these are conducted in a constructive, fair, and transparent manner.

Academic unit leaders are required by ABOR-PM-6-201, UHAP 3.201 and 4A.2 policies to complete faculty annual performance reviews on a regular timeline, completing all meetings between faculty members and administrative heads/directors at least once every 12 months. As currently stated in UHAP policy, the focus of the faculty annual performance review is (i) to involve faculty members in the design and evaluation of their own objectives and goals; (ii) to assess faculty activity through peer review; (iii) to understand faculty activity that contributes to the university; (iv) to document faculty activity; and (v) to recognize and maximize special talents of faculty.

Following are recommendations for formative approaches to annual review meetings that emphasize career development and planning.

Best Practices for Faculty Shared Governance Annual Reviews at the Unit Level

  • Peer review committees should be elected among faculty within the unit. There should be regular changes in the composition of the committee.
  • Not all faculty have the same breakdown of workload (% devoted to research, teaching, clinical, extension, or service). It is important to consider faculty workload distribution as part of annual review feedback.
  • Regular review and updates of the annual review criteria in areas of research, teaching, clinical, extension, and service are recommended. Criteria varies by track and by rank.

Suggestions for Peer Review Formative Comments

  • Identify outstanding achievements
  • Feasibility of proposed goals for upcoming year
  • Provide suggestions on professional resources, mentors, and development opportunities to facilitate achieving goals
  • Comment on timeline of goals that were not completed and recommendations to address goals that were not met
  • Workload distribution should be considered in review and comments included on annual review

Recommendations for Holistic Evaluation of Teaching 

Nationally, many institutions are re-examining how they evaluate teaching (National Academies of Sciences, 2020). There is often a disconnect between student learning and how well students believe they are learning in a class situation (for one example, see Deslauriers et al., 2019), and meta-analyses across a variety of disciplines demonstrate that student course-survey results correlate only weakly with student learning outcomes (Uttl et al., 2017). The growing prevalence of evidence-based teaching methods is prompting institutions to re-examine how student end-of-course surveys provide insight into the student experience in collaborative and student-centered classrooms, and to ask what other evidence should be used to document teaching effectiveness. Best-practice recommendations from research, advocated by researchers and professional societies (see American Sociological Association, 2019), include:

  • Avoid comparisons of student-survey responses between different instructors and difference classes;
  • De-emphasize student survey results in annual review and promotion/tenure decisions;
  • Departments should engage in conversations about what constitutes excellent teaching in their disciplines, and what evidence can be used to document teaching excellence.
  • For performance reviews, promotion and tenure reviews and hiring/rehiring decisions, use multiple sources of evidence (including peer observation by trained observers, review of course materials, instructor reflection, reports on student learning outcomes, etc.).

The University of Arizona end-of-course student surveys were called Teacher-Course Evaluations (TCEs) up through Fall 2019. At the end of fall semester 2019, a new set of questions, termed Student Course Surveys, was administered. The new questions were developed by a committee of U of A faculty members and refined through focus groups (with students and instructors) and pilot studies prior to full implementation.

Recommendations for Heads and Directors for Annual Review Meetings:

Slides that were presented at the November 2022 HeadsUp meeting on Annual Review can be found here. 

  1. Start with positive feedback and strengths. Make sure this is a two-way conversation.  Ask faculty to highlight 1-2 of their accomplishments during the past year.
  2. Ask questions for an honest conversation.
  3. Take an expansive view of what counts.
  4. Make and refine goals for the coming year and discuss long-term plans over a 3-year period for each section of their workload. This process can help faculty set and prioritize work goals for 2023.
  5. Discuss how short-term goals will lead to long-term outcomes. Taking a long-term vision helps to contextualize the current year’s activity. Quantifiable aspects of productivity fluctuate over time, which at times may leave faculty feeling unappreciated. Many faculty activities require several years to reach completion, and thus annual metrics may be misleading if they are not placed within a longer-term context.    

Heads and Directors – “Needs Improvement” or “Unsatisfactory” Annual Performance Review Ratings:

Per UHAP 3.2.01.4 and UAHP 4A.2, if the immediate administrative head determines that one or more areas of performance “do not meet expectations,” they will further distinguish by assigning a rating of “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory.” If a faculty member is to receive a rating of either “Needs Improvement” or “Unsatisfactory,” these steps should be followed:

  1. The immediate administrative head provides the faculty member with their preliminary decision in writing.
  2. In cases where the performance is “unsatisfactory” in any category, the immediate administrative head and faculty member must meet within 30 days of the written evaluation date.
    • The discussion at this meeting will include the evaluation of the immediate administrative head as well as that of the peer reviewers.
  3. As soon as possible after meeting with the immediate administrative head, the faculty member will receive a final written evaluation. The faculty member may provide comments, and must sign, or e-sign the document and return it to the immediate administrative head within 10 days of the meeting.
    • Recommendation for formal electronic signature: It is recommended that the immediate administrative head use Adobe Sign and attach the written evaluation in Faculty Annual Profile (formerly, “UA Vitae, Faculty 180.”)
      • Sign in here to Adobe Acrobat with your “@arizona.edu” email address, NetID and password.
      • After signing in, users can find instructions on using Adobe Acrobat Pro for e-signing. For additional help, including login issues, campus users can contact the UA Information Technology’s 24/7 Support Center.
    • The signed, final written evaluation is a part of the faculty member’s departmental personnel record.

See UHAP 3.2 and UAHP 4A.2 for additional information about appeals and required track-specific remediation planning.

Useful Reading on Best Practices for Faculty Performance Reviews:  

  1.  7 Ways Performance Reviews Are Misaligned With Learning Science |Inside Higher Ed
  2. Reassessing Faculty Assessment | Inside Higher Ed
  3. Promotion and Tenure Innovation and Entrepreneurship Coalition Recommendations | Carter et al. | Science