Google sites for full-time faculty

YOUR GOOGLE SITE

Academic Affairs has created a private google site for each full-time faculty member. You can navigate to it through your RISD google email toolbar by clicking on this icon

Select SITES. If a list does not automatically populate, type your last name into the search box.

Within a month of the end of any term we upload your student evaluations to a page on your google site so that you can review them from wherever you have email access. Your Department Head and Dean have been given access so that they may review your student evaluations. If you are being reviewed by the CFA, the Committee will also be granted access. If you are required to submit a dossier, your site will include a dossier link which lists content that you and we will upload to the site.

DOSSIER FOR PROMOTION AND?OR CRITICAL REVIEW

The dossier for promotion and/or critical review is your means of presenting yourself and your work to the Committee on Faculty Appointments, who will evaluate the recommendation of your Department Head and Dean and give their own recommendations to the Provost and the President, respectively. Since these people may or may not know you and your work, it is important that you make the dossier a complete and professional presentation covering your teaching, professional work, and college/community service. It will be checked for completeness when it arrives in Academic Affairs, and you will be asked to supply any missing material at that point. This may cause delays in the review of your material by the CFA.

The elements of your dossier are uploaded to your google site. The Collective Bargaining Agreement specifies a list of materials which must be included in your dossier. Material required by contract is as follows:

+a letter from the faculty member applying for reappointment or promotion

This letter to the CFA should cover your teaching, your professional work, and your college/community service. This is an opportunity to address issues or concerns which have been raised in your annual evaluations or in your student evaluations, to relate your teaching and professional work, to discuss how you see your role in the department and the school as a whole, and in general to introduce yourself to the Committee, explain your teaching philosophy or your work, and give a context for the material in your dossier.

+a current curriculum vita

Make sure your C.V. is updated with all recent shows and publications, lectures and guest critic assignments, for instance. This material should be presented in a traditional C.V. format in one document, not scattered through the dossier.

+all annual reports (Appendix B) and evaluations (Appendix C) since the last reappointment review

Academic Affairs archives these on your google site (see sidebar) on an ongoing basis). Even in years when you are not being reviewed by the CFA, you will be evaluated by your department head and dean. It is important to the process that you get your Appendix B, the Faculty Annual Report, to the department head in time, that you allow for the scheduling of class visits by department head and dean, and that you and the department head and the dean meet to discuss their completed evaluations by the contract deadlines. If there is a problem scheduling these meetings or visits or the evaluations, please discuss this with the department head and dean promptly, or get in touch with Academic Affairs to resolve this so that your evaluation record is complete.

+syllabi from each course listed on the annual evaluations

+examples of student work

Student work is an important way in which the CFA can evaluate your teaching. It is a good idea to collect student work regularly so you have an assortment of work available when it is time to prepare a dossier. Student work can be especially effective and informative if it is presented with information about the assignment and the syllabus for the course.

+examples of professional work

Your research, creative work or scholarship is a required part of your evaluation and should be included. Contextual information about the work – has the paper been published or presented? was the series of paintings shown? was the design commissioned and produced? was it done as part of a collaborative effort? – is very important to the CFA as it considers the dossier.

+and any other material which the faculty member believes will demonstrate his or her performance according to the criteria listed in Appendix A.

Faculty members often include letters of support from colleagues but these are not required. During the Critical Review process, two letters of support from professionals outside RISD are required and must be sent directly to the Secretary to the CFA.

After the dossier is completed and submitted, the following contractual steps occur.

The Department Head shall review the dossier, prepare a written evaluation conforming to the evaluation forms and procedures contained in Appendix C, and prepare a written recommendation for or against reappointment or promotion. The Department Head shall meet with the faculty member to review the completed evaluation form (Appendix C) and written recommendation, and add them to the dossier before it is forwarded to the Dean.

The Dean shall then review the dossier, prepare a written evaluation conforming to the evaluation forms and procedures contained in Appendix C, and prepare a written recommendation for or against reappointment or promotion. The Dean shall meet with the faculty member to review the completed evaluation form (Appendix C) and written recommendation, and add it to the dossier before it is forwarded to the Committee on Faculty Appointments. The Office of Academic Affairs shall provide all student evaluations for courses taught since the last reappointment review.

SUPPORT & ASSISTANCE

Academic Affairs offers a Dossier and Evaluation Workshop led by the Provost, Dean of Faculty and Secretary to the CFA each Fall. All faculty, particularly those going through evaluation or reappointment processes for the first time, preparing for promotion or critical review are urged to attend. Your Department Head and Dean are available to talk to you about the processes.

Margaret Lewis, Secretary to the Committee on Faculty Appointments, is also available to answer questions about the process or to offer technical assistance with your google site: 20 Washington Place, room 445; mlewis@risd.edu.