Procedures for Annual Merit Evaluation of Faculty
PPD-1303
1. Section Chairs shall conduct annual merit evaluations of their respective faculty consistent with the William & Mary Faculty Handbook. For faculty within Centers, Section Chairs have ultimate authority for evaluations, which should be developed collaboratively with Center Directors. This input should include a letter of input from the Center Director to the Section Chair and a meeting between both parties focused on discussing the faculty member’s performance towards Center objectives. Annual evaluations for faculty with administrative roles (for example Center Directors; see PPD-1310 for details) shall be primarily conducted by the Section Chair, with input from the faculty member’s administrative supervisor for the administration component of the evaluation. Annual evaluations of faculty shall be delivered to the Dean & Director by the Section Chair, according to the deadline and procedures outlined by the administration in a memo to the faculty. Section Chairs themselves shall be evaluated directly by the Dean & Director.
2. By the end of January each year, the Dean & Director will send a memo to all faculty outlining the procedure and timeline for the annual merit evaluations. Faculty members will be required to submit an up-to-date curriculum vitae (CV) following the approved template (as provided in the memo), the previous year’s planning statement, a brief narrative describing accomplishments and impacts of their work during the previous year, and a planning statement for the upcoming year. As part of the evaluation process, Section Chairs, Associate Deans, and Center Directors will be provided with activity data for all faculty for the previous year. Guidance regarding the format and requirements of the planning statement and narrative will also be provided in the memo. The planning statement shall include an allocation of effort that is consistent with the faculty member’s profile. Effort will be allocated (in percentages that total 100%) across the five evaluation areas outlined in PPD-1310: Research and Professional Service, Advisory Service to Virginia, Education, Governance, and Administration. The planning statement for the upcoming year shall also briefly describe anticipated activities and accomplishments in each of the five areas. Section Chairs will consult with the Associate Dean for Research & Advisory Service (ADRAS), the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (ADAA), and the faculty member’s supervisor (if different from Section Chair) regarding the effort allocations outlined in the planning statement to ensure they accurately reflect base expectations of the faculty member’s profile and are applied in a consistent manner for all faculty. Following this consultation, the Section Chair may suggest changes to the effort allocations initially submitted by the faculty member. The Section Chair will formally approve the planning statement for the upcoming year as part of the annual merit evaluation process. For consistency, the same five evaluation areas used for annual merit reviews will be used as criteria for promotion and tenure reviews (see PPD-1308).
3. It is important that the Section Chair (together with the faculty member’s supervisor, if different from the Section Chair) foster long-term faculty development for senior faculty and mentoring of junior faculty during the annual evaluation process to ensure alignment with the evaluation factors considered for promotion and tenure review (as outlined in PPD-1308). The annual evaluation is to be based on the goals, objectives, and allocation of effort in the previous year’s planning statement, and how accomplishments compare to other faculty across the institute. Situations may arise in the course of a year where the agreed upon effort, goals, and objectives may be modified to meet altered responsibilities or new opportunities. Any changes should result in a new planning statement developed with the Section Chair and in consultation with the ADRAS, ADAA, and Center Directors and/or Administrative Supervisors (if applicable). The new, approved planning statement should become part of the evaluation documentation along with the original planning statement.
4. Section Chairs shall evaluate both the quality and quantity of the faculty member’s activities in each of the five evaluation areas using the following guidelines.
Exceeds Expectations: This rating shall be awarded to a faculty member who is deemed truly outstanding in his or her effort and performance in a given evaluation area.
Meets Expectations High: This rating shall be awarded to a faculty member who exhibits above normal effort and performance, and on occasion exemplary performance in a given evaluation area.
Meets Expectations: This rating shall be awarded to a faculty member who exhibits normal effort and performance expected of faculty in a given evaluation area.
Meet Expectations Low: This rating shall be awarded to a faculty member whose effort and performance in a given evaluation area is generally below the performance expected of faculty.
Does Not Meet Expectations: This rating shall be awarded to a faculty member whose effort and performance in a given evaluation area is often below and occasionally substantially below the performance expected of faculty.
In each instance, both the quality and quantity of the faculty member’s activities in each of the five evaluation areas shall be evaluated relative to the allocation of effort reflected in a faculty member’s annual profile, and relative to the faculty across the institute. It is the responsibility of the Section Chairs to work together to discuss how criteria will be applied consistently across the institute in assessing annual performance, and explain these criteria to their section faculty.
Section Chairs, and the Dean & Director in the case of Section Chair evaluations, will receive input from the ADAA for Education evaluations, and the ADRAS for Advisory Service to Virginia evaluations. They will also receive input from the faculty members’ Administrative Supervisor for any administrative role outlined in the planning statement.
5. The Section Chair shall award one of the following evaluation outcomes with the associated scores to each area of evaluation for each faculty member: Does Not Meet Expectations (1.0); Meets Expectations Low (1.5); Meets Expectations (2.0); Meets Expectations High (2.5); Exceeds Expectations (3.0). A cumulative score shall be determined by summing the product of each area’s score (Research and Professional Service, Advisory Service to Virginia, Education, Governance, and Administration) score multiplied by the respective percent effort allocation in the faculty member’s previous year’s planning statement. The final sum, rounded to the nearest decimal, is the faculty member’s annual merit evaluation score.For example, if a faculty member’s planning statement allocated 60% to Research and Professional Service, 15% to Advisory Service to Virginia, 20% to Education, 5% to Governance, and 0% to Administration, and the Section Chair’s evaluation of the faculty member’s performance in the non-0% categories was Meets Expectations, Exceeds Expectations, Exceeds Expectations, and Meets Expectations, respectively, the annual merit evaluation score rounded to one decimal would be 2.4 (0.60x2 + 0.15x3 + 0.20x3 + 0.05x2 + 0.00x0 = 1.20 + 0.45 + 0.60 + 0.10 + 0.00 = 2.35).
6. The maximum cumulative score for an annual evaluation would be 3.0 for “Exceeds Expectations” in all categories. Receiving a “Meets Expectations” in all categories would result in a cumulative score of 2.0. Not meeting expectations in all categories would result in the minimum evaluation score of 1.0. Any evaluation score between 1.0 and 3.0 is possible. Barring extenuating circumstances, a post-tenure review will be triggered when a faculty member receives an unsatisfactory overall performance over three consecutive years (see PPD-1308). An unsatisfactory overall performance occurs when a faculty member has an annual merit evaluation score of 1.5 or less over three consecutive years. The Section Chair will be responsible for informing both the faculty member and the FS&TR committee when a post-tenure review has been triggered.
7. The Section Chair (together with the faculty member’s supervisor, if different from the Section Chair) and each faculty member may meet more than once during the evaluation process to discuss the faculty member’s activity, documents, planning statement, etc. When the Section Chair has completed their evaluations of all Section faculty, they will meet with each faculty member to explain the basis for the scores received in each evaluation area. At that meeting, the Section Chair shall provide each faculty member the distribution of scores for the entire Section. Each faculty member shall be afforded an opportunity of seeing their written evaluation at least two weeks prior to the delivery of the evaluation to the Dean & Director.
8. Each faculty member has the right to challenge their evaluation. The faculty member shall present it in writing to their Section Chair with sufficient time for the chair to respond and still meet the Dean and Director’s deadline for submission of the annual evaluation. If agreement cannot be reached between the faculty member and Section Chair, the faculty member’s challenge, the response of the Section Chair to the challenge, and the Section Chair’s evaluation shall be forwarded to the Dean & Director for resolution.
9. It is understood that from time to time an individual faculty member may have extenuating circumstances that affect their performance. The Section Chair and the Dean & Director will consider the implications of these circumstances regarding annual performance as appropriate.
Approved by VIMS/School of Marine Science Faculty – December 2006
Minor editorial changes - July 2011
Minor editorial changes – November 2016
Minor semantic changes – September 2023
Minor clarifying changes – December 2024
last page update: Jan 6, 2025 by LCS