NEA Policy Statements

As members of collective bodies and as part of their professional responsibilities, faculty members are often called upon to make formal recommendations on the status of their colleagues in respect to:

• Initial appointment to the faculty.
• Reappointment during the untenured or probationary period.
• Promotion in professorial and salary rank.
• The award of a tenured or permanent appointment at the institution.

Procedures involving the evaluation of faculty should be established and maintained through faculty governance processes, especially through collective bargaining.

Faculty bodies also establish and implement procedures for awarding sabbaticals, research support, and other awards and perquisites. Procedures for evaluating the teaching, research, writing, and service of faculty members should involve other faculty both inside and outside of the institution who have appropriate expertise in the discipline. Colleagues, administrators, students, and other appropriate groups constantly evaluate faculty members in numerous ways during their careers. Faculty evaluation systemsshould be designed to encourage faculty members to improve the quality of their teaching, research, and service by suggestions and recommendations based on qualified, expert advice from their peers.

Any system of post-tenure review that places the burden on tenured faculty members to demonstrate their worthiness should be treated as the first step in undermining their tenure. Post-tenure review systems should be developed by faculty and administrations to support and maintain high quality education. Such programs should be developmental in nature and be grounded in due process practices intended to support and develop faculty with identified deficiencies. Institutions should implement faculty development programs designed to assist faculty members to remedy bona fide deficiencies noted through the traditional peer evaluation process by providing ways and means to improve their methods and update their knowledge.

While recommendations on the status of colleagues are made by faculty bodies, it is the responsibility of the administration to ensure the adequacy of the consideration, the propriety and fairness of the procedures, and to make the ultimate decision emerging from the process. Appeals of decisions arising from these procedures are lodged, therefore, against the administration and not against the faculty body making the recommendation. At some institutions these latter procedures have been replaced in whole or part, and/or are subject to review, by a contractual grievance and arbitration system negotiated by elected representatives of the faculty.

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