Annual Faculty Performance Evaluation System (FPES)

1. Evaluation Period: The evaluation period for the annual faculty evaluation is from July 1, 2022-June 30, 2023.

2. Who is to be evaluated? All full-time and part-time faculty members within your unit must receive an evaluation. This includes the full-time faculty (i.e., faculty holding tenured, probationary tenure-track, non-tenured renewable term, and full-time temporary appointments) and the part-time faculty (adjuncts). Note also that faculty who were on leave or sabbatical for part of the year must receive an evaluation. Faculty who were on leave or sabbatical for the entire academic year do not complete and evaluation.

3. Evaluation Platform: A Reminder: The Annual Faculty Evaluations are conducted in Faculty Success-Faculty Performance Evaluation System (FS-FPES). All faculty in all Schools and Colleges must use FS-FPES to complete the annual evaluation.

1. Evaluation Areas and Criteria: Faculty are evaluated using a variety of criteria in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service, as determined by the nature of the faculty appointment, FPES criteria adopted by the school/college, the school/college bylaws, the Faculty Handbook, and, where applicable, collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). These performance reviews are intended to promote faculty development; hence, faculty performance evaluations—especially for full-time faculty--should include discussion of any professional development activities.

• Full-Time Faculty: Tenure-line faculty are evaluated in teaching, scholarship (including research and creative works), and service. Other full-time faculty are on the Clinical Educator track, Research track, Career Status track (including Master Instructors in COAS and SOC), or Legal Writing Instructors in the School of Law. There are specific documents adopted by faculty in the School/College regarding each of these classifications, which describe the faculty responsibilities that are to be evaluated. Full-time temporary faculty, such as lecturers, are primarily evaluated on teaching.
• Part-Time Faculty: Most part-time (or adjunct) faculty members’ primary assignment is teaching (this includes clinical adjunct faculty), and therefore, they are to be evaluated only in that category.  However, part-time faculty with a primary assignment in research are evaluated in that category.

2. Collective Bargaining Agreements: Note that there are two bargaining units for faculty at Howard University that are a part of SEIU, Local 500 and are both covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).

• One bargaining unit is focused on adjunct or part-time faculty for the following Schools and Colleges: College of Arts and Sciences, College of Fine Arts, School of Business, School of Communications, School of Divinity, School of Education, College of Engineering and Architecture, School of Social Work, and the Graduate School.
• The other bargaining unit is referred to as the Non-Tenure Track (NTT) Faculty and that collective bargaining agreement only covers the following Schools and Colleges: College of Arts and Sciences, College of Fine Arts, College of Engineering and Architecture, School of Communications, School of Education, School of Social Work, and the Graduate School.  Faculty who are lecturers and Master Instructors (College of Arts and Sciences and School of Communications) are included in this bargaining unit.
• The recently negotiated CBAs do not alter or change the way the faculty evaluation process is currently conducted at Howard University. Therefore, department Chairs and Deans can conduct their reviews of these faculty using the same criteria and process as that used for other faculty.

Faculty Self-Evaluation: From May 15- June 4, 2023, the faculty members complete their Faculty Self-Evaluation.  The Faculty Self-Evaluation in Faculty Success, which includes the Workplan, updated CV (can be automatically generated in Faculty Success or upload a CV), Faculty Activity Report (automatically generated), and any other attachments (optional for faculty members) and a COVID-19 Professional Impact Statement (optional for faculty members) in FS-FPES. The submission deadline for faculty is June 4, 2023.  Note that automated generation of a CV in Faculty Success is contingent on faculty members entering their information into the activities section of Faculty Success.

Workplans: The 2022-23 Workplans submitted by each faculty member in September 2022 to the department Chair or Dean shall be uploaded in FS-FPES.  If a faculty member did not submit a workplan to the department chair or Dean, then the faculty member provides a brief explanation why there is no workplan under the heading “workplan” in Faculty Success.

Faculty Activity Report: Faculty should already be entering their activities in Faculty Success for the current evaluation period, July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023. The deadline to input all faculty activities for this evaluation period is June 4, 2023.  Note that for Faculty Success to automatically generate a Faculty Success Report and a CV, faculty members must enter their information in the activities section of Faculty Success. 

Student Evaluations for spring courses will be available in Watermark Faculty Success by Monday, May 15, 2023.  Make sure that faculty members are including their student evaluations as a part of the Faculty Self-Evaluation.  Note that Student Evaluations are automatically linked within the Faculty Activity Report.   There are two ways to get information about how to get student evaluations via https://ira.howard.edu/course-evaluations. Once you have obtained your student evaluations, these documents can be uploaded in the Faculty Self-Evaluation form in Faculty Success. 

COVID-19 Professional Impact Statements: We continue to permit faculty to submit COVID-19 Impact Statements as part of the annual evaluation process.  Faculty are given the option to include a COVID-19 Professional Impact Statement for this evaluation period. A faculty member can submit this statement along with the Faculty Activity Report in FS-FPES. This statement can describe the ways in which the faculty member experienced disruptions due to COVID-19 or other impacts from the pandemic that affected teaching, scholarship or research, and service commitments both internally and externally. This statement may not only include negative disruptions, but also benefits or beneficial outcomes that occurred during the pandemic. The question being addressed in this statement is how has your professional life changed because of COVID-19? The statement should be no longer than 2 pages and this statement will be used by department Chairs and Deans to contextualize the faculty member’s performance and contributions for the 2022-23 academic year. See the COVID-19 Professional Impact Statement for more guidance about this optional statement.

The Faculty Self-Evaluation will be forwarded automatically to the department Chair or to the Dean (in Schools without departments) in FS-FPES if the faculty member has not already clicked the submit button by the deadline.  Once the Faculty Self-Evaluation moves forward then there is no opportunity to retrieve and complete the online Self-Evaluation.  Complete your Faculty Self-Evaluation form and add any attachments by June 4, 2023.

Faculty Performance Evaluation by the Department Chair: In Schools/Colleges with departments, the department Chair completes an evaluation of the faculty member in FS-FPES and meets with the faculty member to discuss this evaluation on or before July 9, 2023.  If the faculty member refuses to participate in the evaluation by, for example, failing to submit materials about 2022-23 faculty activities, then the Chair should complete the evaluation anyway. Note that the Chair should follow up with any faculty member who does not submit materials to determine if there is a health or other issue related to COVID-19 that may be affecting their ability to respond. If so, this evaluation will need to be handled and resolved on a case-by-case basis. If not, then the faculty evaluation takes place with or without the cooperation of the faculty member.

Year-End Evaluation Meetings: Every faculty member is expected to have a year-end evaluation meeting with the Chair or Dean (in Schools without departments). The Chair/Dean shall schedule the meeting with each faculty member to review the evaluation. The meeting can be held in person, in Teams or Zoom. Again, the deadlines for Chairs and Deans to complete these meetings are, respectively, July 9, 2023 (with Department Chairs), and July 23, 2023 (with Deans in Schools without Departments).

1. Faculty Performance Evaluation by the Dean (in Schools without Departments): In Schools without departments, the Dean completes an evaluation of the faculty member in FS-FPES and meets with the faculty member to discuss this evaluation on or before July 23, 2023. If the faculty member refuses to participate in the evaluation by, for example, failing to submit materials about 2022-23 faculty activities, then the Dean should complete the evaluation anyway. Note that the Dean should follow up with any faculty member who does not submit materials to determine if there is a health or other issue related to COVID-19 that may be affecting their ability to respond. If so, this evaluation will need to be handled and resolved on a case-by-case basis. If not, then the faculty evaluation takes place with or without the cooperation of the faculty member.

2. Year-End Evaluation Meetings: Every faculty member is expected to have a year-end evaluation meeting with the Chair or Dean (in Schools without departments). The Chair/Dean shall schedule the meeting with each faculty member to review the evaluation. The meeting can be held in person, in Teams or Zoom. Again, the deadlines for Chairs and Deans to complete these meetings are, respectively, July 9, 2023 (with Department Chairs), and July 23, 2023 (with Deans in Schools without Departments).

Faculty Response: After the meeting, the faculty member will acknowledge in FS-FPES that the meeting was held. The faculty member’s electronic signature is an acknowledgement that the evaluation took place. If the faculty member disagrees in part or in whole with the evaluation, there is also space provided in this FS-FPES form for a written rebuttal. Faculty FS-FPES Faculty Responses due: July 17 in Schools/Colleges with departments; July 31 in Schools without departments. The Faculty Response automatically moves forward to the Department Chair after the deadline whether or not the faculty member has provided a response.

Department Chair’s and Dean’s Responses: In FS-FPES, Chairs and Deans (Schools without departments) review the Faculty Response, including, where applicable, the faculty member’s written rebuttal. Chairs and Deans (Schools without departments) may provide additional comments in this FS-FPES form. If a faculty member fails to e-sign the evaluation in FS-FPES, then the Chair/Dean (Schools without departments) will indicate on this form that the evaluation was shown to and discussed with the faculty member, but no signature was received from the faculty member.

• Department Chairs shall submit their response forms to the Dean through FS-FPES no later than July 24, 2023. The same deadline is used for all evaluations whether 9-month or 12-month faculty or whether full-time or part-time faculty.
• All Deans shall submit their response forms to the Office of the Provost through FS-FPES no later than August 4, 2023. Again, the same deadline is used for all evaluations whether 9-month or 12-month faculty or whether full-time or part-time faculty. This deadline applies to Deans in Schools and Colleges with and without Departments.
• If you have questions related to this memorandum or the evaluation process, then send an email to Faculty Success Helpdesk (facultysuccess@howard.edu).