Faculty Services

Evaluation of Teaching

On this and other pages of our Web site, we discuss various teaching and learning issues. Our purpose is to facilitate and contribute to an ongoing conversation about these matters. If you have comments, please share them with us.

The Research Academy does not evaluate the teaching of individual faculty members. Indeed, the Academy maintains a strict and enduring separation from all summative evaluations of individual faculty members. Furthermore, all consultations with faculty members are confidential; thus, the Academy does not release the names of faculty members who seek individual assistance except when they request such release, let alone provide any feedback on those faculty members to colleagues, department chairs, deans, promotion and tenure committees, or the central administration.

At the same time, because efforts to improve teaching must include better ways to evaluate teaching, the Research Academy plays a significant and ongoing role in attempts to improve the evaluation of teaching, including the Peer Review of Teaching Project, a national pilot project sponsored by the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE), the development of a comprehensive plan for the evaluation of teaching, and the design of Teaching Portfolios, including a new conception of such portfolios.