Faculty involved in the review process should receive training about sources of bias (including race and gender) in faculty evaluation and in course evaluations. This was part of the FEP proposals and was proposed as an additional revision at the meeting on April 20th.
The following language was proposed as an addition to the handbook by FEP (2008):
1.411 Preparation of FAC members
Through its policies and decisions, the FAC has a direct effect on both the short- and long-term makeup of the Guilford faculty. Thus, in addition to being conscientious, the members of the FAC should receive appropriate preparation and training each academic year, before conducting any faculty reviews.
- As part of the preparation, the FAC chairperson is responsible for ensuring that members of the FAC are aware of current scholarship on topics relevant to the faculty evaluation process. For example, FAC could explore current research on the psychology and sociology of group decision making; the interactions of biases (especially ones based on ethnicity or gender); and the interpretation of student and peer evaluations. The FAC’s applications of these findings to its own work can occur in any of several ways – including through discussion of sample case files, such as those used in the ADEPT program at Georgia Institute of Technology; through attendance at workshops or conferences on faculty evaluation; through presentations to the FAC by scholars in the field of faculty evaluation; and through discussions involving the full faculty.
- The members of the FAC should meet with the members of the Faculty Development Committee at the beginning of the fall semester, and the Dean, to discuss and reach a shared understanding of the evaluative criteria and of the review processes.