For the faculty evaluation process to be truly meaningful for faculty, it is important that there be actionable, meaningful feedback. The purpose of the annual Summary Evaluation Form is to provide faculty with the actionable, formative feedback necessary for faculty growth in addition to the summative ratings and comments. Reviewers should rate every criterion and provide well supported comments, even for faculty who receive a positive review. Clear suggestions for specific actionable improvements should be provided where necessary. Faculty who receive Approaching ACC exemplary teaching and faculty expectations or Does not meet ACC faculty expectations for any criteria must be provided with specific recommendations for improvement. It is recommended that evaluator comments/rubrics be returned with the Summary Evaluation Form, but Department Chairs may choose to summarize the content of those on the Summary Evaluation Form itself, as long as this is consistent within the department. It is also important that faculty who receive lower ratings be provided with clear, constructive feedback on changes they should make to improve their rating in the future. Further discussion of the ratings can be found at Faculty Evaluation Ratings. If a faculty member requests the original evaluator’s comments, the comments should be made available, although the name of the evaluator may be redacted if that is departmental policy.

Each individual criterion is rated and those ratings will be averaged together to determine the Overall Rating for each faculty member. These ratings will be combined together using a weighted average (see Weighting of Summary Evaluation Form Criteria and Computing the Overall Rating for details of this computation) with standards for the weightings defined at a college-wide level. When computing the overall rating, if the total score falls within one of the in-between “Zones” in the score range (see Computing the Overall Rating), the Overall Rating could reasonably be either the rating above that range or the rating below that range, depending on the individual circumstances. The Department Chair will use professional judgment to determine which of those ratings apply, based upon guidance in the section on Computing the Overall Rating and departmental guidance developed through shared governance. A clear explanation of this choice must be included in the Summary Statement section of this form.

Ratings for individual criteria should be determined based on departmental or college rubrics and weighted according to departmental weightings that follow ACC requirements and departmental policies. All of this information should be clearly posted on the section of the College website devoted to this information so that faculty are aware of how their ratings will be determined in advance. If different rubrics are used for different types of courses or course delivery methods, these should all be posted as well. Basically, any rubric used in the faculty evaluation process should be posted so that faculty can view them in advance of the evaluation process. Any individual evaluation rubrics or notes should be retained by the Department along with other evaluation materials where possible.