Annual Faculty Performance Evaluation System (FPES)

1. Evaluation Period: The evaluation period for the annual faculty evaluation begins July 1 and ends June 30 in each academic year.
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 an evaluation.
3. Evaluation Platform: The Annual Faculty Evaluations are conducted in the 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 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 are also evaluated but there are specific documents adopted by faculty in the School/College regarding each of these classifications, which describes 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 CBAs ending on December 31, 2024 did 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: The evaluation process begins with an online faculty self-evaluation form.  The Faculty Self-Evaluation in Faculty Success, which includes a Faculty 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).  Student evaluations are automatically inserted into the faculty self-evaluation form. The submission deadline is provided at least a month before the deadline to faculty.  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: An annual Workplan should be included with the Faculty Self-evaluation Workplan submitted by each faculty member in September 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 regularly enter their activities in Faculty Success for the designated evaluation period. There will be a deadline to input all faculty activities for each evaluation period.  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 prior to the deadline established for submission of the faculty self-evaluation.  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 to 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. 

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 the announced deadline.

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 by an announced deadline.  If the faculty member refuses to participate in the evaluation by, for example, failing to submit materials about 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 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 their evaluation. The meeting can be held in person, in Teams or Zoom. Again, the deadlines for Chairs and Deans to complete these meetings are announced during the spring term.

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 by the announced deadline. If the faculty member refuses to participate in the evaluation by, for example, failing to submit materials about 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 announced every year in late spring.

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.  The Faculty Response automatically moves forward to the Department Chair after the deadline to submit a meeting acknowledgement and/or rebuttal 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 the 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. The same deadline for this submission 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. 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 the Annual Faculty Evaluation Process, please send an email to Faculty Success Helpdesk (facultysuccess@howard.edu).