Analysis of Concerns Among NTT (NTL) Faculty Regarding Annual Review and Promotion Processes
Presented on Behalf of Penn State Behrend Faculty Affairs Committee
(Content from Presentation Slides by Luciana Aronne)
Charge 6
Conduct an analysis of major concerns among the NTT faculty on the topics of teaching/research/service expectation in review and promotion processes. Produce a white paper outlining the major concerns and recommendations.
How Analysis Was Conducted
- Two town hall meetings were scheduled on November 29th and November 30th attended by only teaching faculty to discuss the annual review and promotion processes.
- Faculty voiced their concerns about both processes and suggested recommendations to make the processes better and more equitable.
- Some NTL faculty requested one on one meetings to give feedback, concerns, and suggestions anonymously.
Promotion Process Issues
- 4% promotion raise vs 8% elsewhere.
- Service and outreach are treated inconsistently.
- 30% research isn’t an expectation of teaching NTL peers elsewhere.
- No clear set of expectations that must be met.
- Some departments require portfolios, and some do not.
- Policies among schools are not consistent and the criteria of BCF-10 is not always being applied consistently.
- Student ratings of faculty are widely known to be flawed tools by which to assess the quality of an educator. Yet they are still a big part of the process of considering faculty promotions.
- Faculty who have served on both school and college promotion committees showed frustration that their recommendations do not have equal weight as administrative decisions.
Issues with BCF-10
- Changes made to BCF-10 in June 2020 without faculty consultation or faculty being informed of changes made to the document.
- One change made was Administrative Guidelines 4 which states, “If a candidate is declined for promotion during the review process, the Chancellor should inform the candidate and provide feedback to the candidate regarding reasons for the decline. The candidate may withdraw their dossier from consideration after the second negative decision if they so desire.”
The meaning of this statement is unclear and, in the past, has not been applied consistently. - AC 23 is referenced but only applies to tenure track and tenured faculty. NTLs are only mentioned in AC 21.
Annual Evaluation Concerns
- No rubric is provided for annual review transparency.
- Good annual performance evaluations should generally indicate that an individual is a good candidate for promotion, but instead, it is explicitly stated that the two are completely unrelated.
- There should be an informal process of rebuttal for annual evaluations.
- No mentorship program for teaching has been developed, though it has been asked for repeatedly by faculty.