Recently, there has been a growing emphasis on excellence in teaching and research in academia. Evaluative activities used in decisions related to retention, tenure, promotion, and merit salary increases can be positively linked to renewing faculty excellence in teaching. The development or revision of a faculty recognition document should allow…

The spring of 1995 brought the onus of assessment to the Department of Communication Arts at Ohio Northern University (ONU). Often seen as a painful process, departmental assessments can become productive endeavors. Although, as a private institution, ONU is not subject to the dictates for assessment from the State Board of Education, assessment…

In response to the problem of developing a comprehensive system of evaluation to improve and reward instructional effectiveness that is acceptable to both the academic and administrative arms of an institution, this paper presents a series of recommendations comprising a possible approach to the problem. After providing a rationale for a…

Methods were examined by which the results of student evaluations of instruction may be presented as one indicator of teaching effectiveness for faculty personnel committees in order to best answer the question of teaching competence. Specifically, the study examined two measures of central tendency, the median and the mean, to determine which…

The effects of feedback letters sent to students thanking them for their course ratings were examined in two experiments. In the first study, students who initially rated the course highly were not affected by the feedback letters. However, after being exposed to poor instructional materials (an inadequately prepared study guide), students who…

Peer observation is discussed as an aid in instructional development, rather than a method for teacher evaluation. A team effort, consisting of from three to four peers who observe each other from four to seven times during the span of one term offers the greatest likelihood that instruction will be improved. Whether these groups are elective or…

The importance and issues of peer evaluation of teaching are discussed. It is suggested that a more tangible relationship between professional advancement and teaching effectiveness is necessary to motivate faculty to improve instruction, and that evaluation can provide essential information to a teacher to help improve teaching quality. Problems…

Faculty development is distinguished in this speech from the business model of human resource development on numerous issues including the fact that human resource development in business and industry values productivity, and higher education is not committed to making money. Faculty development is more concerned with the growth of individuals…

In today's rapidly changing world faculty members and administrators in higher education must give conscious, deliberate attention to the concept of faculty development. Because there was no reliable data base about faculty development, a research project was undertaken to provide information about how faculty members perceive their own growth and…

Describes the Salary Model, a menu-driven software package that allows administrators to compare quickly and easily the activities of one faculty member to those of other faculty member. (MM)

Reviews the Salary Model program, a menu-driven software package that allows administrators to compare activities of one faculty member to those of other faculty members. Concludes that the program can be an effective tool in the evaluation process. (MM)

The purpose of this project was to enhance a psychology degree program's assessment by the addition of a qualitative measure. Focus groups--simultaneous interviews of small groups of individuals--were conducted over a two year period. The 41 participants were all senior psychology majors enrolled at a mid-size public, liberal arts institution.…

For a communication studies administrator, the scholar envisioned in Ernest Boyer's "Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate" is an instructive guide to faculty and administrators pondering the balance or relationship between teaching and research. It is an immodest claim that each discipline teaches well but broadly…

The goal of the study described here is to develop a research agenda for more in-depth analyses of the relation certain teaching characteristics may have to student outcomes. Rating and ranking scales were designed and administered to examine perceptions about teaching characteristics held by administrators, academic department chairpeople…

A project to develop criteria for evaluating the quality of faculty outreach activities in continuing education and public service is described. The project, which was conducted at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was also designed to achieve the utilization of these criteria by faculty members engaged in outreach and by staff who…