Faculty Merit Review: Supporting the Consistency of Merit Ratings

• In Event: 30.054 - Determining Faculty Success

Abstract

Merit review of tenure-track faculty is a challenging process demanded by boards of regents and trustees in response to public pressure on higher education institutions. The merit review is conducted internally by deans and department chairs and/or committees of peers. The work reviewed is not generally visible to the evaluators until they engage in the evaluation process. This has led to inconsistencies in the ratings assigned and frustration for evaluators and evaluated. The proposed paper presents a data-driven faculty merit review process that has resulted in greater consensus on individual evaluations among the review committee members and with the dean. Critical to the process is making more visible both faculty work and the variations and discrepancies in assigned merit ratings.

Authors

• Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo, Stanford University

• Dorothy Faye Garrison-Wade, University of Colorado - Denver

• Honorine D. Nocon, University of Colorado Denver