Faculty Evaluation Process
Evaluation of faculty by students, colleagues, and ourselves is central to ensuring the excellence of our faculty, and to the processes of advancement and tenure at the college. This page provides an overview of the process, an explanation of how, and the tools to participate. For full details of the schedule, elements, actions, and criteria see the content of Section II. H. in the Faculty Handbook. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. For advice on writing letters for yourself and others, please visit this page and this recorded session.
All faculty are evaluated by the Committee on Advancement and Tenure (CAT) on a regular schedule. The schedule can be found in the Faculty Handbook in Section II. H.1. The committee relies on three types of data for every review: evaluations by students, evaluations by Reed faculty and staff, and a self-evaluation. At the tenure review, the committee also considers evaluations of the Classroom Observation Committee and external experts.
Evaluation by students
All teaching faculty are evaluated by the students in their classes each semester. Typically, this happens at the end of the semester and is facilitated by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. (View the Dean’s invitation to students.) Students are invited to fill out three electronic forms: the first collects feedback for the instructor exclusively; the second collects quantitative data that are shared with the instructor and CAT; the third collects feedback that is directed to only CAT. Further details on these logistics.
In addition, students may submit letters of evaluation at any time to CAT via the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. To do so, please submit a signed copy of your letter to Lin Reedijk (reedijkl@reed.edu) via File Robot or in hardcopy.
Evaluation by faculty and staff
When a faculty member is up for their regularly scheduled review, faculty and staff are invited to submit letters assessing effectiveness in the key areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. We strongly encouraged you to participate in the evaluation of your colleagues. Informed evaluation is essential to the success of our process; please review the explanation of the criteria laid out in the Faculty Handbook. For advice on writing letters, please visit this page and this recorded session.
(Note that a faculty member may, upon request and at certain prescribed stages of the academic personnel review process, be provided access to such evaluation letters in redacted form. Further details of these unusual circumstances and the process.)
You may write your evaluation as a letter to CAT or use this form. In either case, please submit a signed copy to Lin Reedijk (reedijkl@reed.edu) in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty via File Robot or in hardcopy.
Faculty self-evaluation
The faculty self-evaluation is a key piece of the regular review by CAT. The place to start in preparing to write your self-evaluation is the explanation of this evaluation in the Faculty Handbook. We also recommend that you discuss and even share examples of the self-evaluation with colleagues. New faculty are given a comprehensive explanation of the self-evaluation process in the New Faculty Seminar. In addition, the Associate Dean of the Faculty is available to assist with this process.
Please download this (Word | PDF) form. In addition to detailed instructions about each part of the evaluation, the form provides space for you to register essential information. Once you have completed the form, you may submit it to Interfolio as instructed in the email from the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.
Observation and evaluation by the Classroom Observation Committee
In the year before a faculty member's fourth and tenure review, one member of the Classroom Observation Committee and one faculty member of your choosing provide the Committee on Advancement and Tenure with evaluations of pre-tenure tenure-track faculty members based on a prescribed process of classroom observation.