Approved by the city's board of education in July 1982, Houston's Quality Assurance Program is intended to help assure continual professional growth for teachers. By establishing a system of faculty performance assessment, the program seeks to identify teachers' strengths and weaknesses, improve communication, and develop priorities for…

Education, training, and employment are addressed in 33 papers from a 1984 conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia. Papers are grouped in the main categories of professional education and the influence of industry, course development for vocationalism, teachers and teaching, learners and learning, higher…

Faculty members in schools, colleges, and departments of education can and should be actively involved in research, teaching, and service. Research and service functions are as integral to the mission of the school of education as teaching, and should be scheduled with as much care and planning. In one school of education, a 5-year plan to…

The forms of evaluation of graduate-level education programs are discussed, and a process model of program evaluation which incorporates much student-generated information is presented. Graduate program reviews are generally designed either to provide information to departmental and institutional administrators regarding a program's strengths and…

Six evaluation methods are discussed: student ratings, colleague evaluations, definitions of good teaching, teacher-designed examinations, evaluation of research and scholarship, and the politics of evaluation. (Author/MLW)

A procedure for developing a comprehensive faculty evaluation program is described with examples of various components. Procedures for implementing such a program are discussed. Determining and weighting faculty roles, defining roles and gaining information, and arriving at a matrix are described. (Author/MLW)

The University of Queensland's use of organizational theory to incorporate student evaluations of instruction into annual faculty evaluations and tenure and promotion decisions as a means of planned institutional change is discussed. (MSE)

Faculty members who write computer software for teaching often find that their chances of getting credit for it during promotion-and-tenure reviews are slim. Software development needs to be considered scholarship just like research. (MLW)

Five methods of faculty evaluation used at the University of Illinois are described: student evaluations--including questionnaires; written comments, and group interviews; self-evaluation; and evaluation by colleagues. (GDC)

Problems facing older faculty and staff members who want to continue working are discussed, along with innovative ways to help them achieve a financially secure retirement. A retirement planning program and seminar plans to help faculty and staff avoid making poor retirement decisions are proposed. (MLW)

A University of Washington study that found professors who are easy graders receive better evaluations than those who are tougher, and another study showing faculty enthusiasm alone raises student evaluations, have shaken a long-standing consensus among researchers that student evaluations are a good measure of a teacher's skills. Most…

One University of Georgia business administration department has experimented with having faculty interview a fellow faculty member's students for insights into enhancing the learning environment inside and outside the peer faculty's classroom. A description of the program looks at how the interviews were conducted, the value of the interactions…

Discusses three interrelated policy initiatives at Georgia State University concerning faculty workload, the system for post-tenure evaluation, and salary equity. Each policy has ramifications for the others, and experience has shown benefit in an integrated, collegial approach to these issues. Also examines problems and benefits in developing and…

While the tenure system remains in place in most colleges, and may be reviving in some cases, many institutions are rethinking policies and procedures, including more stringent requirements, a cap on tenured faculty, and more rigorous evaluation. Facing a faculty shortage, many institutions are reluctant to change too much. (MSE)

Asserts that an irony of academe is that professional judgments about teachers are made without direct knowledge of their teaching. Describes a four-part peer evaluation process used in a university sociology department. Discusses evaluation purposes, procedures, benefits, and dangers of the process. (CFR)