Thoughts on Faculty Self-Evaluation and Planning Forms

Feeling fossilized? Don't succumb! You are in charge of your courses, your scholarship, and your service involvement at King College.

Last week, in the space of four days, I read and responded to self-evlauation and planning forms from all full-time faculty in the school of Arts & Sciences—that’s 33 in all. Each one took me about 30 minutes to read and respond to. You do the math; that’s 16.5 hours—a lot of time.

Some of the forms are simply delightful to read. Our colleagues, the people we see every day, are doing and planning to do some amazing things. I wish I could share the great ones with you for several reasons. But, I can’t. Our community is too small. You would guess immediately whose was whose.

However, I would like to share my observations:

1. This form should be a persuasive argument for your re-employment to your supervisor and to all those up the line—School Dean, Dean of Faculty, Academic Vice-President, President.

2. The tone (attitude toward the audience) should be positive—honest and forthright. No whining!

3. Not every person can be stellar in every area; as Jesus said in his parable, take the lower seat and let the host ask you to move up to a more honorable position. Mark your check boxes as “Satisfactory” unless you are sure your effort is more than anyone else’s in a particular category.

4. Everyone should have plans for the up-coming academic year; it is really not acceptable to say you have no plans to improve or to change your courses, your service, your leadership.

5. It’s good to vary your style a bit from question to question—some paragraphs, some bulleted lists.

The self-evaluation form is a privilege. It’s our chance to talk about the vocation we love on our own terms. We should do our best so that we continue to enjoy the opportunity to tell our own stories in our own words. There are other sorts of evaluation that could be forced upon us.