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May, 2002, Volume 12, Issue 5 - Informal Faculty Evaluations, Why Not? |
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By Charles Donaldson
Santa Monica College's faculty evaluation process should be more than an affirmation that persons can do the job we believed they could do when they were hired.
The evaluation process should help faculty do their new SMC jobs well. It should identify weaknesses that can be corrected before they become problems. Habitual late arrival at a first class, slow return of marked papers, hit-or-miss record keeping all could afflict a gifted professor beginning to teach here.
Formal evaluation is part of the tenure granting-firing process. It is scary. Any negative comments or suggestions for needed improvement seem job threatening. The process can be fraught with fear on both sides. The evaluator who dares criticize can become someone's enemy for life at SMC. Or the criticized professor may find the judgment costs him or her the job.
The formal evaluation process is necessary, but it needs to be buttressed by a program of scheduled informal evaluations. The informal evaluator would come to the classroom looking for ways to help the new SMC professor do the best job. The informal evaluator's findings and suggestions can be argued, rejected, modified, or adopted. The informal evaluator wants to assure the success of the good professor who was hired with great care. That has to be the end result of this part of the evaluation.
A pair of informal evaluations would help the newcomer undergo a formal evaluation with confidence and understanding.
Why two informal sessions? Problems identified in the first evaluation can be examined again before the new hire faces the scrutiny of the formal evaluation process.
Mentoring new faculty has been tried. To be successful it seemed to require meshing personalities. And not much of that occurred.
An informal evaluator would be assigned by the department chair, and the informal evaluation sessions would be scheduled before each formal evaluation. The job the informal evaluator would be to provide experienced, professional guidance aimed at ensuring the newcomer's success. The informal evaluator would be both a coach and a resource, not a chum.
The college district probably would have to provide training to the informal evaluators, and that could be done through credit classes. The classes could aid faculty in advancing up the salary scale at the same time they could generate state apportionment income.
Negotiations would determine whether evaluation service would be part of a faculty member's contractual obligation or whether such work would earn extra pay.
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