Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty

Overview:

Tenured faculty are required to undergo periodic intensive review via the comprehensive periodic review of tenured faculty (CPR) process after every six years in tenured rank.

This article is intended to help department staff understand the COLA-specific requirements for this process, as well as provide links to policies and related information.

Relevant Definitions:

CPR: The “Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty”, a.k.a. Post-Tenure Review, process; occasionally used to refer to the final evaluative report(s) produced by the process.

BC/EC: Department's faculty governing body: either Budget Council (BC), Extended Budget Council (EBC), or Executive Committee (EC). [see also Governance [https://wikis.utexas.edu/display/larc/Departmental+Governance+Review]

Department: the person(s) responsible for tracking faculty reviews, administering the review process, and communicating with the Dean’s Office on behalf of an academic department during this process; typically 1 (or 2) senior staff of department, along with Chair.

COLA: the person(s) responsible for communicating on behalf of the Dean’s Office; for this process, this is currently Ann Kelble.

FY: Fiscal Year; Sept. 1 through Aug. 31.

EVPP: Provost Office; specifically/usually Faculty Affairs and/or Academic Personnel Services (APS)

FWP: Liberal Arts Tenured Faculty Workload Policy Review; revised version to go into effect beginning Sept. 1, 2022.

Process:

COLA Deadline: February 5 (FY of review)

Annual Check (For All Departments)

1. In March, Department reviews records to determine whether or not any of their tenured faculty are due for CPR in upcoming FY. Department emails this information to COLA (cc: cola_hr@austin.utexas.edu) (along with expected P&T reviews or third-year reviews). [see P&T; Mid-Prob].
   1. Note: Even if no faculty appear to be due for review, it is still important to confirm this in writing.
2. COLA checks Department list against college records; confirms or requests more info.
3. No later than March 31, when applicable: Department notifies faculty member(s) due for review in the next FY.

Review Process:

1. By May 31, prior to FY of review, Department provides faculty member copies of department-maintained materials that will be assessed as part of CPR. (see EVPP Guidelines, sec.14, Timetable). Presumably, the Chair and BC/EC will establish the CPR review committee and internal department timeline.
2. Oct. 1 (of review year): deadline for faculty member to submit their updated CV, Faculty Annual Report [for the previous FY], and any other materials they would like included as part of their evaluation.
   1. This is added to whatever the department gathered/shared in May for the review.
3. Hopefully by mid-November, COLA distributes to Department two reports for each faculty member undergoing review. Will distribute via shared UT Box folders established for each department, called "(DEPT) Faculty Reports and Reviews": 
   1. COLA-generated: Summary of CIS (6-Years) Report: a report of the course-instructor survey results from all of the faculty member’s teaching during the CPR review period.
   2. Provost Office-generated, “Committee Report, Masters and Doctoral”: a report of all of the thesis, Master’s report, and dissertation committees on which the faculty member has served.
4. Sometime from October through January, the BC/EC (or delegated committee) will conduct their evaluation and communicate their preliminary results to the faculty member being reviewed. [*Beginning in FY22-23: As part of this evaluation report, the BC/EC shall include a FWP mentoring or action plan, as required under the COLA Tenured Faculty Workload Policy. See FWP review.]
   1. Please carefully read the Guidelines sec. 5 for the correct procedural steps. I will list them here in brief--not to replace the guidelines, but to stress that there is a decent chance that your department is not following all the steps:
      1. Eval committee shares prelim report with reviewee.
      2. Reviewee can request meeting, submit additional materials, and/or write a response.
      3. Eval committee sends everything to Chair for review.
      4. Chair provides EvalComm with their comment(s); if they wish to give the reviewee a different overall rating than the EvalComm, Chair provides separate statement. [Chair can do other stuff too at this step, but…]
      5. By February 1, EvalComm provides reviewee with final evaluation report and final overall ratings category, attaching Chair statement (if applicable), and previous written response from reviewee (if applicable).
5. By February 5: Department uploads--to the CPR portal--1 PDF per faculty member being reviewed, containing the following documents:
   1. CPR evaluation report
   2. Chair evaluation, if applicable
   3. Faculty written response, if applicable
   4. FWP Mentoring or Action Plan [*beginning FY22]
   5. Faculty CV
   6. Summary of CIS report
   7. Graduate Committee report
6. February 28: COLA submits a report to EVPP of all college CPR results; if Dean wishes to follow-up re: any of the CPRs, will be in touch with department.
   1. Starting FY22, COLA will notify department of FWP action plan approvals or any related follow-up.

Related Policies:

HOP 2-2150: https://policies.utexas.edu/policies/comprehensive-periodic-evaluation-tenured-faculty

Provost Guidelines : https://utexas.app.box.com/v/2021-22CompPerodicReview