Philosophy
Occasional review and reflection is healthy for everyone. On a rotating basis, once every seven years, the engineering college requires each of its senior faculty to formally review his or her recent activities and reflect on plans for the coming years. Faculty benefit by taking time out from hectic schedules to reflect on where they are, where they would like to go, and to consider changes they might wish to make. The college benefits from having a senior faculty that pays systematic attention to strategic long-term issues, and periodically identifies and takes steps to stay intellectually fresh and active. The college administrators (dean and department heads) benefit from a shared understanding of the plans and accomplishments of the senior faculty, and the opportunity to foster excellence within the college through continued faculty development.

Principles

• All faculty holding a tenured appointment in the engineering college will participate in the process, including administrators.
• In contrast to the current system of annual reports, which is mainly concerned with cataloging the past year's accomplishments, the periodic peer review process is intended to be formative, in the sense of encouraging career development.
• Participating faculty members are encouraged to reflect systematically on what they have accomplished, how their goals have evolved, what they would like the goals to be during the coming seven year period, how they plan to pursue those goals, and how the University might assist them in reaching these goals.
• The process is internal to the college. No outside letters or other advice will be sought unless the faculty member decides that such advice might be useful.

Mechanism For Process

• Faculty participate in the process on the seventh anniversaries of the year they received tenure. If there are significant time constraints, the timing can be adjusted by one year at the request of the faculty member.
• Participating faculty will prepare a Personal Plan which consists of three parts: a "review," a "commentary," and a "prospectus." The review will consist of at most two pages that summarize what they consider to be their most significant accomplishments in recent years. The commentary will be at most two pages that discuss how they feel about their past activities, summarizing thoughts on what has been working, what is not working as well as they might like, and whether the activities of the past offer an appropriate blueprint for the future. The prospectus will consist of at most three pages and outlines what they would like to accomplish during the coming seven year period with somewhat greater focus on the early years. It should address educational, scholarly and professional plans. It should motivate the choices being made, discuss issues of financial support, and identify any assistance that will be required from the University and from other organizations. A current vitae should be attached.
• Participating faculty should submit their Personal Plans to their Department Head(s) by February 8. The Department Head should review the Personal Plan and discuss it with the faculty member before forwarding it to the members of the Tenured Faculty Planning Review Committee by February 22. The Head may choose to write a cover memo if appropriate. If such a cover memo is prepared, the faculty member will receive a copy.
• The Tenured Faculty Planning Review Committee will consist of the Dean, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Department Heads, Director of ICES and the CIT Faculty Chair and Chair-Elect. The committee will normally meet in March on mid-semester break. The role of the committee is to review and comment upon the information submitted by each faculty member, and to assist where possible in facilitating the plans and career development of the senior faculty.
• Based on the deliberations of the Committee, a written commentary for the faculty member will be prepared. The Dean and Department Head(s) will meet with the faculty member before the end of the Spring semester to discuss the Plan and to work to identify any ways in which the Department and the College can facilitate the faculty member's plans for the future.

Outcomes from Process
Consistent with the philosophy and principles outlined earlier, the most important outcome from the planning review process is expected to be the value to individual faculty members derived from preparing the Personal Plan.

Feedback in the form of commentary, advice and assistance from the Senior Faculty Planning Review Committee is another principal outcome from this process. This feedback is directed toward career development. Advice may be given with regard to faculty goals, including the means to achieve these ends. While it is not intended that the planning review process result directly in commitments and resources needed to achieve certain goals, the process is intended to facilitate discussions from which a workable strategy may be developed.

Another important outcome of the planning review process is to inform the dean and department heads about the substantive accomplishments, productivity, and plans of the senior faculty. This allows greater recognition of individual faculty members, and is important to the overall strategic planning activities within the College. While the planning review process also provides measures of past faculty performance as a basis for planning, it is the forward-looking career development activities rather than retrospective evaluations that are intended to be served by the outcomes of this process.

(12/20/99)


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